7.13.17 The Science of Discworld (Terry Pratchett Bibliography)
Description
This article is from the Terry Pratchett Bibliography FAQ, by p.pinto ppint@lspace.org with numerous contributions by others.
7.13.17 The Science of Discworld (Terry Pratchett Bibliography)
%A Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen & Terry
%T The Science of Discworld
%I Ebury Press
%D 3/6/99 h/cvr [cover art by paul kidby]
ISBN 0-09-186515-8
[p/b guesstimates:
%I Vermillion
%D 3/6/00 p/b [same cvr art]
ISBN 0-09-......-.
but n.b. these are guesstimates]
this includes a new discworld story by terry, illustrative of
some of the main points made by ian stewart & jack cohen; the
individual chapters have titles, but none is given in the book
for the story as a whole. the story occupies approximately one
third of the book, its chapters alternating with those of the
exposition.
blurb:
In the fantasy universe of the phenomenally best-selling
Discworld series, everything runs on magic and common sense.
The world is flat and million-to-one chances happen nine
times out of ten. Our world seems different - it runs on
rules, often rather strange ones. Science is our way of
finding out what those rules are. The appeal of Discworld
is that it mostly makes sense, in a way that particle
physics doesn't.
_The Science of Discworld_ uses the magic of Discworld
to illuminate the scientific rules that govern _our_
world. When a wizardly experiment goes adrift, the wiz-
ards of Unseen University find themselves with a pocket
universe on their hands: Roundworld, where neither magic
nor common sense seems to stand a chance against logic.
Roundworld is, of course, our own universe. With us in-
side it (eventually). Guided (if that's the word) by
the wizards, we follow the story from the primal sing-
ularity of the Big Bang to the Internet and beyond. We
discover how puny and insignificant lives are against a
cosmic backdrop of creation and disaster. Yet, paradox-
ically, we see how the richness of a universe based on
rules has led to a complex world and at least one spec-
ies that tried to get a grip on what was going on...
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