Science and the Modern World: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Science and the Modern World, credited to Alfred North Whitehead, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Science and the Modern World by Alfred North Whitehead. Read in English by Peter Tucker. It is fortunate that in the twentieth century, science and philosophy are beginning to be united in the same person as they were in the seventeenth century before their fatal divorce occurred. Prof. Whitehead's latest book cries out to be read and re-read and meditated upon (and to that end if possible possessed) by every man of science who is not content to live merely in his own special‘; groove of routine ’ and is concerned in the trend and tendency of science as a whole; and by every philosopher who desires, as he must, to keep himself in contact with the thoughts of science. It is a work not only of the first importance but also of great beauty. Apart from the vivid writing, the reader's delight arises from two sources: in the first place, from the rapid characterisation of the various epochs into which Prof. Whitehead divides the history of modern scientific thought; and secondly, from his method of pointing out in each epoch just how the central thought of the epoch bears, in the way of contribution or of defect, upon the central thought of the present as the author conceives it. The poet prefiguring him wrote: ‘ and as he works, the industrious bee computes his time as well as we.’ One result of this procedure is that while the bulk of each historical chapter is simple and luminous reading, each chapter contains a few pages which demand the closest attention, but work with cumulative preparation towards the dramatic outcome. - Summary by S Alexander

Recording facts

• Recording title: Science and the Modern World
• Author credits: Alfred North Whitehead
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 14
• Listed recording duration: 7:36:00

Catalogue topics

• philosophy
• history
• culture
• science

Track guide

1. 00 - Preface — 4:54
2. 01 - The Origins of Modern Science — 41:55
3. 02 - Mathematics as an Element in the History of Thought — 40:22
4. 03 - The Century of Genius — 38:39
5. 04 - The Eighteenth Century — 40:27
6. 05 - The Romantic Reaction — 44:10
7. 06 - The Nineteenth Century — 39:18
8. 07 - Relativity — 33:41
9. 08 - The Quantum Theory — 18:14
10. 09 - Science and Philosophy — 40:19
11. 10 - Abstraction — 36:59
12. 11 - God — 15:01
13. 12 - Religion and Science — 26:15
14. 13 - Requisites for Social Progress — 35:46

Listen to this recording

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.