Lake Views: This World and the Universe » (New Edition)

Steven Weinberg is Josey Regental Professor of Science and a member of the physics and astronomy departments at the University of Texas, Austin, and is the author of many books. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979 and the National Medal of Science in 1991.

Just as Henry David Thoreau “traveled a great deal in Concord,” Nobel Prize–winning physicist Steven Weinberg sees much of the world from the window of his study overlooking Lake Austin. In Lake Views Weinberg, considered by many to be the preeminent theoretical physicist alive today, continues the wide-ranging reflections that have also earned him a reputation as, in the words of New York Times reporter James Glanz, “a powerful writer of prose that can illuminate—and sting.”

This collection presents Weinberg’s views on topics ranging from problems of cosmology to assorted world issues—military, political, and religious. Even as he moves beyond the bounds of science, each essay reflects his experience as a theoretical physicist. And as in the celebrated Facing Up, the essays express a viewpoint that is rationalist, reductionist, realist, and secular. A new introduction precedes each essay, explaining how it came to be written and bringing it up to date where necessary.

As an essayist, Weinberg insists on seeing things as they are, without despair and with good humor. Sure to provoke his readers—postmodern cultural critics, enthusiasts for manned space flight or missile defense, economic conservatives, sociologists of science, anti-Zionists, and religious zealots—this book nonetheless offers the pleasure of a sustained encounter with one of the most interesting scientific minds of our time.

Publishers Weekly

Weinberg, a co-recipient of the 1979 Nobel Prize for physics, is well known for his articulate essays on many subjects. In this collection, he aims his laser gaze primarily on three areas: science, Israel and religion. Weinberg has been on the realist side of the science wars (asserting that science explains, rather than merely describes, the world), and he revisits that battlefield here. He also ventures into science and politics, expressing skepticism about the need for a missile defense system. Elsewhere he argues against manned exploration of space, saying that probes and robots will always be faster, better, cheaper and certainly safer. Weinberg, long known for his support of Israel, comes out with guns blazing against British academics who organized a short-term boycott of Israeli academic institutions. In the last essay, “Without God,” Weinberg expresses his atheism without the shrillness of a Dawkins or a Hitchens. These essays started out as dinner speeches, book reviews (some from the New York Review of Books) and other occasional pieces that feel slight (such as a pep talk to postdocs). Nevertheless, Weinberg fans will find nuggets of insight and wisdom. (Jan.)

1 Waiting for a Final Theory 1

2 Can Science Explain Everything? Anything? 6

3 Peace at Last in the Science Wars 24

4 The Future of Science, and the Universe 28

5 Dark Energy 47

6 How Great Equations Survive 52

7 On Missile Defense 59

8 The Growing Nuclear Danger 80

9 Is the Universe a Computer? 96

10 Foreword to A Century of Nature 113

11 Ambling toward Apocalypse 116

12 What Price Glory? 123

13 Four Golden Lessons 146

14 The Wrong Stuff 150

15 A Turning Point? 168

16 About Oppenheimer 172

17 Einstein's Search for Unification 178

18 Einstein's Mistakes 186

19 Living in the Multiverse 196

20 Against the Boycott 205

21 A Deadly Certitude 210

22 To the Postdocs 218

23 Science or Spacemen 222

24 Israel and the Liberals 226

25 Without God 229

Sources 247

Index 251