Unweaving The Rainbow
Author(s): Richard Dawkins

Biologist, humanist, and bestselling author Richard Dawkins deeply examines the inherent beauty within modern scientific discoveries.
If any recent writing about science is poetic, it is this (The Wall Street Journal).
Did Newton “unweave the rainbow” by reducing it to its prismatic colors, as Keats contended? Did he, in other words, diminish beauty? Far from it, says acclaimed scientist Richard Dawkins; Newton’s unweaving is the key to much of modern astronomy and to the breathtaking poetry of modern cosmology. Mysteries don’t lose their poetry because they are solved: the solution often is more beautiful than the puzzle, uncovering deeper mysteries.
With the wit, insight, and spellbinding prose that have made him a bestselling author, Dawkins takes up the most important and compelling topics in modern science, from astronomy and genetics to language and virtual reality, combining them in a landmark statement of the human appetite for wonder. Unweaving the Rainbow is a brilliant assessment of what science is (and isn’t), a tribute to science not because it is useful but because it is uplifting.

Review(s):
“A spellbinding storyteller.” The New York Times

“Brilliance and wit.” The New Yorker

“An extended rebuttal – not so much by argument as by radiant example – of perennial anti-science convictions. Few among us are better qualified for the job. If any recent writing about science is poetic, it is this.” The Wall Street Journal

“Like an extended stay on a brain health-farm . . .You come out feeling lean, tuned and enormously more intelligent.” The Times of London

New York Times Notable

ISBN:9780618056736

A polemic against anti-science movements of all kinds, this book shows how an understanding of science enhances our wonder of the world. Taking up important topics in modern science, from astronomy and genetics to language and virtual reality, it argues that mysteries do not lose their poetry because they are solved.

Format: Paperback
Published: in UK in 2006
Publisher: Penguin Books
Pages: 336
Language: English
ISBN 13: 9780141026183
ISBN 10: 0141026189