History, History & Philosophy, History & Surveys, Science & Mathematics 

Worldviews -- Truth -- Empirical facts and philosophical/conceptual facts -- Confirming and disconfirming evidence and reasoning -- The Quine-Duhem thesis and implications for scientific method -- A philosophical interlude : problems and puzzles of induction -- Falsifiability -- Instrumentalism and realism -- The structure of the universe on the Aristotelian worldview -- The preface to Ptolemy's Almagest : the earth as spherical, stationary, and at the center of the universe -- Astronomical data : the empirical facts -- Astronomical data : the philosophical/conceptual facts -- The Ptolemaic system -- The Copernican system -- The Tychonic system -- Kepler's system -- Galileo and the evidence from the telescope -- A summary of problems facing the Aristotelian worldview -- Philosophical and conceptual connections in the development of the new science -- Overview of the new science and the Newtonian worldview -- The development of the Newtonian worldview, 1700 to 1900 -- The special theory of relativity -- The general theory of relativity -- A brief introduction to quantum theory -- Some quantum facts -- Overview of the mathematics of quantum theory -- A philosophical issue : the interpretation of quantum theory -- EPR, Bell's Theorem, Aspect's experiments, and the locality assumption -- Worldviews : concluding thoughts. 

xii, 326 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm 

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