思维简史 – The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos by Leonard Mlodinow

被霍金誉为“会讲故事的物理学家”伦纳德•蒙洛迪诺，从“求知欲”的独特视角，《思维简史》为我们展示了一部跨越数百万年的人类进化史。

从古埃及文明到美索不达米亚的奇妙算法，从毕达哥拉斯、亚里士多德到伽利略、牛顿、爱因斯坦，从推理文化的诞生到物理学、化学、生物、现代量子物理等学科的形成，《思维简史》历数了科学发展进程中的关键节点，揭示了这一切背后的发展动力，那就是人类的求知欲和好奇心。为什么？怎么样？正是人类敢于不断提出问题，才让我们一步步从穴居到驾驶汽车，从大草原到摩天大楼。《思维简史》不仅是一部群星闪耀的科技发展史，更是一部精彩绝伦的思想进化大片。

那么，未来人类思想又将如何发展？蒙洛迪诺给出了自己的答案。

A few million years ago, our ancestors came down from the trees and began to stand upright, freeing our hands to create tools and our minds to grapple with the world around us.
 
Leonard Mlodinow takes us on a passionate and inspiring tour through the exciting history of human progress and the key events in the development of science. In the process, he presents a fascinating new look at the unique characteristics of our species and our society that helped propel us from stone tools to written language and through the birth of chemistry, biology, and modern physics to today’s technological world.
 
Along the way he explores the cultural conditions that influenced scientific thought through the ages and the colorful personalities of some of the great philosophers, scientists, and thinkers: Galileo, who preferred painting and poetry to medicine and dropped out of university; Isaac Newton, who stuck needlelike bodkins into his eyes to better understand changes in light and color; and Antoine Lavoisier, who drank nothing but milk for two weeks to examine its effects on his body. Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and many lesser-known but equally brilliant minds also populate these pages, each of their stories showing how much of human achievement can be attributed to the stubborn pursuit of simple questions (why? how?), bravely asked.
 
The Upright Thinkers is a book for science lovers and for anyone interested in creative thinking and in our ongoing quest to understand our world. At once deeply informed, accessible, and infused with the author’s trademark wit, this insightful work is a stunning tribute to humanity’s intellectual curiosity.

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