The Value of Science Essential Writings of Henri Poincare [Paperback]

More than any other writer of the twentieth century, Henri Poincaré brought the elegant, but often complicated, ideas about science and mathematics to the general reader. A genius who throughout his life solved complex mathematical calculations in his head, and a writer gifted with an inimitable style, Poincaré rose to the challenge of interpreting the philosophy of science to scientists and nonscientists alike. His lucid and welcoming prose made him the Carl Sagan of his time. This volume collects his three most important books:Science and Hypothesis(1903);The Value of Science(1905); andScience and Method(1908).Henri Poincaré was born in Nancy, France, in 1854. He joined the University of Paris in 1881 and lectured and wrote extensively on mathematics, experimental physics, and astronomy. His books have been translated into dozens of languages. In 1908, he was elected to membership in the Academie Française, the highest honor that can be accorded a French writer. He died in 1912.

Stephen Jay Gould is the Alexander Agassiz professor of zoology and professor of geology at Harvard and the Vincent Astor visiting professor of biology at New York University. Recent books includeFull House,Dinosaur in a Haystack, andQuestioning the Millennium. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and New York City.CHAPTER I
On the Nature of Mathematical Reasoning

I The very possibility of mathematical science seems an insoluble contradiction. If this science is only deductive in appearance, from whence is derived that perfect rigour which is challenged by none? If, on the contrary, all the propositions which it enunciates may be derived in order by the rules of formal logic, how is it that mathematics is not reduced to a gigantic tautology? The syllogism can teach us nothing essentially new, and if everything must spring from the principle of identity, then everything should be capable of being reduced lÃ-