The result of an unusual collaboration between a physicist with a strong interest in the histories of art and science, and a philosopher with a broad knowledge of science as a human activity, The Art of Science gives readers an appreciation of the activities of science: the hands-on work of experimentation, the struggle to convince people of the validity of novel findings, and the excitement of "eureka" moments. In so doing, the book shows how scientific knowledge is made, and occasionally unmade.

The Art of Science steers a course between two important and contradictory...