In Beyond Reason the computer scientist Alexander Dewclney presents some major truths in mathematics and physics by the device of focusing each chapter on what mathematicians call an "impossibility theorem": a statement that some desired task simply cannot be done. To give some examples: he discusses the laws of energy conservation and of entropy increase in terms of the impossibility of perpetual motion; relativity in terms of the impossibility of exceeding the speed of light; and real-number theory in terms of the impossibility of "squaring the circle"-creating a square with the same area as a circle. Four of his chapters are physics topics, four are mathematical.
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