Equally uncritical, are those who enthusiastically embrace any suggestion that science might be limited because they suspect the motives and fear the dangers of unbridled investigation of the unknown. To some, any suggestion that there might be limits to the scope of human understanding of the Universe or to scientific progress is a dangerous meme that undermines confidence in the scientific enterprise. The idea of the impossible rings alarm bells in the minds of many. In the pages that follow we shall look at some of the ways in which the impossible in art, literature, politics, theology, and logic has stimulated the human mind to take unexpected steps: revealing how the concept of the impossible sheds new light on the nature and content of the actual. But 'impossibility' is not only about science. Only those cultures for whom there existed a belief that there was a distinction between the possible and the impossible provided natural breeding grounds for scientific progress. The incontrovertible evidence that Nature is governed by reliable 'laws' allows us to separate the possible from the impossible. Yet, paradoxically, science is only possible because some things are impossible. Scientists like to show that things widely held to be impossible are in fact entirely possible philosophers, by contrast, are more inclined to demonstrate that things widely regarded as perfectly feasible are in fact impossible. PHILIP GUEDALLA Both scientists and philosophers are much concerned with impossibilities. Preface The Preface is the most important part of the book. BARROW Astronomy Centre University of Sussex
Impossibility The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits The meaning of the world is the separation of wish and fact.
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