Bedeviled: A Shadow History of Demons in Science

by Jimena Canales

Overview

How scientists through the ages have conducted thought experiments using imaginary entities—demons—to test the laws of nature and push the frontiers of what is possible

Science may be known for banishing the demons of superstition from the modern world. Yet just as the demon-haunted world was being exorcized by the enlightening power of reason, a new kind of demon mischievously materialized in the scientific imagination itself. Scientists began to employ hypothetical beings to perform certain roles in thought experiments—experiments that can only be done in the imagination—and these impish assistants helped scientists achieve major breakthroughs that pushed forward the frontiers of science and technology.

Spanning four centuries of discovery—from René Descartes, whose demon could hijack sensorial reality, to James Clerk Maxwell, whose molecular-sized demon deftly broke the second law of thermodynamics, to Darwin, Einstein, Feynman, and beyond—Jimena Canales tells a shadow history of science and the demons that bedevil it. She reveals how the greatest scientific thinkers used demons to explore problems, test the limits of what is possible, and better understand nature. Their imaginary familiars helped unlock the secrets of entropy, heredity, relativity, quantum mechanics, and other scientific wonders—and continue to inspire breakthroughs in the realms of computer science, artificial intelligence, and economics today.

The world may no longer be haunted as it once was, but the demons of the scientific imagination are alive and well, continuing to play a vital role in scientists' efforts to explore the unknown and make the impossible real.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691175324
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	11/10/2020
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	1,124,689
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Jimena Canales is a writer and faculty member of the Graduate College at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She was the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the History of Science at the University of Illinois and associate professor at Harvard University. She is the author of The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time (Princeton) and A Tenth of a Second. She lives in Boston. Twitter @_Jimena_Canales

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction 1

1 Descartes's Evil Genius 15

2 Laplace's Intelligence 29

3 Maxwell's Demon 49

4 Brownian Motion Demons 79

5 Einstein's Ghosts 93

6 Quantum Demons 112

7 Cybernetic Metastable Demons 157

8 Computer Daemons 185

9 Biology's Demons 246

10 Demons in the Global Economy 277

Conclusion: The Audacity of Our Imagination 298

Postscript: Philosophical Considerations 313

Notes 325

Bibliography 361

Index 383

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Jimena Canales comes at science from a strange and original angle—and it pays off brilliantly. Listen to the demons!"—James Gleick, author of Time Travel: A History

"Jimena Canales is one of the finest contemporary writers on science, at once a dedicated scholar and a captivating entertainer. In Bedeviled, she has hit on a wonderfully curious subject, and has written a fascinating book. Who knew how many scientists had their own little devils whispering into their ears?"—John Banville, author of Mrs. Osmond

"Hovering between the human and the divine, the thought experiment and whimsy, the demons of science do an impressive amount of conceptual work, as Jimena Canales shows in her wide-ranging, readable book. By hunting down the demons of physics, biology, economics, and other sciences, Canales writes a new history of modern science from a fresh and imaginative viewpoint."—Lorraine Daston, director emerita, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin

"In this terrific book, Jimena Canales shows how demons expose the fault lines of our scientific understanding. Maxwell's demon, Descartes's demon, Searle's demon—for centuries these preternatural thought-guides have stood for the articulated contradictions that provoke radical innovation. In flowing and engaging prose, Canales tackles arenas ranging from thermodynamics and relativity to biology, AI, and economics, bringing us a thoroughly original history of scientific demonology in which science, paradox, and the imagination cross."—Peter Galison, Harvard University

"In this hauntology of modern science, Jimena Canales performs a gentle exorcism: the corpus of technoscientific hyperrationalism is laid before the reader, and with a sure hand Canales brings forth its 'demons' one by one—Descartes's, Laplace's, Maxwell's. These and more flutter up from the history of science, which is here retold as an eternal return of the (barely) repressed. What reason will not allow, it again and again enlists to work in the shadowlands that edge the world as we know it."—D. Graham Burnett, Princeton University

"Brilliantly conceived and written. Canales offers an entirely new perspective on well-known episodes in science, and on subjects as diverse as thermodynamics, evolution, neuroscience, and quantum mechanics. Readers will never look at demons the same way again."—Robert P. Crease, author of The Workshop and the World: What Ten Thinkers Can Teach Us about Science and Authority

"Thought provoking and entertaining. Canales casts the history of science in a new light, one in which an underworld of imaginary creatures features prominently. This wonderful book illustrates the fundamental role of imagination in science."—Oren Harman, author of Evolutions: Fifteen Myths That Explain Our World

"A rich and wide-ranging book on the intriguing topic of demons as they have figured in scientific imagination."—James Robert Brown, author of Platonism, Naturalism, and Mathematical Knowledge

Editorial Reviews

"A brilliant, challenging overview of the myth-driven scientific endeavors that transform human understandings of the world."

Foreword Reviews

"Bedeviled admirably insists on recording the plain history of science. It just so happens that the history of that most rational of human endeavors reads at times like a Gothic tale, one replete with evil geniuses, time travelers and uncanny intelligences lurking in reality’s obscure corners."—-Jess Keiser, Washington Post

"Thought-provoking and highly readable . . . A welcome contribution to the philosophy of scientific discovery that deserves further scholarly attention."—-Jan G. Michel, Science

From the Publisher