The Frontiers of Knowledge: What We Now Know about Science, History and the Mind
A.C. GRAYLING
(VIKING, 432 PP, £20)
Tablet bookshop price £18 • tel 020 7799 4064
When Socrates was told he was the wisest guy around, he proved the point by saying “I only know that I know nothing”. A.C. Grayling calls this position “the paradox of knowledge”: “the more we know, the more we realise the extent of our ignorance”. Certainly, no honest reader will come away from Grayling’s latest book convinced of anything but his own nescience. The Frontiers of Knowledge is a daring – and triumphant – attempt to get you up to speed on the state of play in science, history and what goes on inside your bonce.
Grayling is a dull stylist, but with an eye-popping factoid in every sentence the book is a dizzying read. His pages on Quantum Theory, on String Theory and on the so-called “Standard Model” of particle physics are standard models themselves – all popular science should be so clear. At the same time, Grayling points out that clarity comes at the expense of simplification. Yes, it’s a good idea to picture an atom as a miniature solar system – but only as long as you grasp that far from getting you closer to reality, metaphors work to wall you off from it.
