Science and Public Knowledge

Before the reader is the first Russian edition of the works of J. Robert Oppenheimer. This collection includes six popular science lectures that the researcher delivered as part of the BBC Lord John Reith Lecture Series, the first director-general of the BBC. This book is a philosophical exploration of how the rapid development of physics in the early 20th century—particularly quantum mechanics—changed our fundamental understanding of nature and human existence. Oppenheimer argues that the "new physics" (the theory of relativity and quantum theory) shattered the Newtonian worldview—the idea that the universe is a predictable machine governed by deterministic laws. As science has revealed the paradoxical and probabilistic nature of the world, we must embrace a new "general understanding." He believes that the humility required to study the subatomic world should serve as a model for how people interact in a complex, fragmented global society.