COSMIC HERETICS: TITLE-PAGE

COSMIC HERETICS:

by Alfred de Grazia

A Personal History of Attempts
to Establish and Resist Theories of Quantavolution
and Catastrophe in the Natural and Human Sciences,
1963 to 1983.

by
Alfred de Grazia

Metron Publications
Princeton, N. J.

Notes on first printed version of this book

ISBN: 0-940268-08-6

Copyright (c) 1984 by Alfred de Grazia

All rights reserved Printed in the U. S. A. Limited first edition of 300 copies.

Address:

Metron Publications,
P. O. Box 1213,
Princeton, N. J.,
08542, U. S. A.

Cosmic Heretics was processed by the Princeton University Computing Center, using the processing language called Script.

Photocomposition, printing, and binding were accomplished by the Princeton University Printing Services.

The text is set in 10 and 9 point Times Roman.

The Author thanks Rick Bender, Steve Pearson, and Skip Plank for managing ably and considerately the production of this and other works of the Quantavolution Series, and also thanks Marion Carty for her contributions to the designs and formatting of the books.

On the cover, Isodensitometer tracing of comet Morehouse 1908 III, in J. Rahe et al., Atlas of Cometary Forms (Washington: NASA, 1962), 63-4.

This book
is dedicated
to whoever figures in it,
whether or not
by name.

The most elementary books of science betrayed the inadequacy of old implements of thought. Chapter after chapter closed with phrases such as one never met in older literature:

"The cause of this phenomenon is not understood;"

"science no longer ventures to explain causes;"

"the first step towards a causal explanation still remains to be taken;"

"opinions are very much divided;"

"in spite of the contradictions involved;"

"science gets on only by adopting different theories, sometimes contradictory."

Evidently the new American would need to think in contradictions, and instead of Kant's famous four antinomies, the new universe would know no law that could not be proved by its anti-law. To educate -- one's self to begin with -- had been the effort of one's life for sixty years; and the difficulties of education had gone on doubling with the coal-output, until the prospect of waiting another ten years, in order to face a seventh doubling of complexities, allured one's imagination but slightly.

From :

The Education of Henry Adams : An Autobiography.

Privately published in 1906, in 100 copies, and sent to interested persons for comment. General publication ensued in 1918. In 1975 republished by Berg: Dunwoody, Georgia.

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