The sublime evokes our awe, our terror, and our wonder. Applied first in ancient Greece to the heights of literary expression, in the 18th-century the sublime was extended to nature and to the sciences, enterprises that viewed the natural world as a manifestation of God's goodness, power, and wisdom.In The Scientific Sublime, Alan Gross reveals the modern-day sublime in popular science. He shows how the great popular scientists of our time--Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Brian Greene, Lisa Randall, Rachel Carson, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, and E. O. Wilson--evoke the sublime in response to fundamental questions: How did the universe begin? How did life? How did language? These authors maintain a tradition initiated by Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith, towering 18th-century figures who adapted the literary sublime first to nature, then to science--though with one crucial difference: religion has been replaced wholly by science.In a final chapter, Gross explores science's attack on religion, an assault that attempts to sweep permanently under the rug two questions science cannot answer: What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of the good life?

Chapter 1: Isn't Science Sublime?Part I: The PhysicistsChapter 2: Richard Feynman: The Consensual SublimeChapter 3: Steven Weinberg: The Conjectural SublimeChapter 4. Lisa Randall: The Technological SublimeChapter 5. Brian Greene: The Speculative SublimeChapter 6. Stephen Hawking: The Scientific Sublime EmbodiedPart II: The BiologistsChapter 7. Rachel Carson: The Ethical SublimeChapter 8. Stephen Jay Gould's Books: The Balanced SublimeChapter 9. Stephen Jay Gould's Essays: Experiencing the SublimeChapter 10. Steven Pinker: The Polymath SublimeChapter 11. Richard Dawkins: The Mathematical SublimeChapter 12. E. O. Wilson: The Biophilic SublimePart IIIChapter 13. Move Over, God