One True Platonic Heaven: Scientific Fiction of the Limits of Knowledge [Hardcover]

Of course, the timing of this novel (and it is a novel) is the early twentieth century - the prologue begins with snapshots of various points prior to World War II, key moments in the development of mathematics and scientific epistemology. The core of the book takes place just after the war, in Princeton, as the earliest computing machines (ENIAC, anyone?) have been developed by the military, and are now being further developed for both civilian and military applications.

The cast of characters Casti draws is impressive - the core group includes Einstein, Godel, von Neumann, Oppenheimer, and Strauss; other 'also starring' roles go to T.S. Eliot (Oppenheimer was a poet on the side, and the idea of the limits of knowledge is a multi-disciplinary task), Goldstein, Weyl, Pauli, Bohm and others. Casti draws these people together in informal and formal settings, preferring the former to the later - walking to campus and having discussions, gatherings at tea-time, etc. Casti injects the human element into the mix (we are told of Godel's eccentricity such that he starved himself to death no fewer than three times, for example) - his descriptions help the narrative flow of the novel, but can be distracting for those who wish to get directly to the heart of the arguments.

The book is rather thin - 160 pages of text, small-format pages at that - and while the subject matter is rather high end intellectual thinking, in fact the substance of the book probably only consists of about a third of those pages; the rest is psychological tid-bits about the characters (enlightening from an historical standpoint, and pointing the way in some respects as to why people thought the ways they did) or narrative linkages, so it can be read fairly quickly (unlike a mathematics textbook, which would more likely take a longer time). There are no equations here - Casti is assuming some knowledge of mathematics in general theory; Casti also assumes a grounding in physics and in philosophy. Without some background in at least one of these disciplines, the reader is likely to be lost at several points.

It is fascinating to realise that the limitations on knowledge discussed in this hypothetical construct by such exalted twentieth-century thinkers contain elements still on the table for discussion today. This is where another meaning of the 'one true Platonic heaven' comes into play - it is a theoretical construct, akin to the Forms, without direct substance, yet reflected in important ways in 'the real world'.

A bit more philosophy might not go astray here - elements such as Husserl, Whitehead, Ayer and others who have examined the crisis of science and scientific knowledge might have been drawn into the conversation (it would have required a bit more fictional stretching, but cold have proved worthwhile). However, it is remains a fascinating and fairly accessible means for exploring some of the key underlying ideas in modern scientific, mathematical, and epistemological thinking.

Some of the best conversations are between Godel and Einstein as they stroll along the streets of Princeton. The gnomish and reclusive Godel was one of the few people who could surprise Einstein, and one time Godel (who was most famous as a logician) said he'd just happened to be playing around with Einstein's relativistic field equations and had found a solution that had escaped Einstein that suggested that time didn't exist, or at least there was no meaning to our ideas of temporal succession. In this solution, closed, relativistic, timelike lines existed in space, and one could go forward in time as well as backward. Einstein is stunned and impressed by this little bombshell that Godel had dropped on him--yet another example of Godel's amazing genius, and why he was known as the "Grand Exalted Ruler" of the "One True, Platonic Heaven"--the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. And that's not to mention the fact that Godel's famous incompleteness proof threw into doubt the great Hilbert's entire program of completeness in mathematics which had been widely supported. This is just one of the many fascinating discussions which Casti skillfully uses to explore and explain very clearly and concisely not only some esoteric science but also such questions as the ethics of science, aesthetics in science, Einstein's controversial and infamous stand on quantum indeterminacy, and the scientist's place in society.

Casti also manages to inject some drama into the story with the controversy surrounding von Neumann's proposal for building the first big electronic computer at the Institute--a proposal which many of the Institute's professors opposed because it was against the Institute's stated mission of doing only pure and not applied research. Through some clever politicking and persuasion, Oppenheimer manages to get the project approved, although it was the only such engineering project ever undertaken at the Institute, and nothing else like it was ever done again. Another side story involves Godel's elevation to full professor which had been delayed because of some of his personal quirks and otherworldly nature--the job of full professor also involving not just thinking about your subject all day long but also requiring spending considerable time in various administrative duties which the other professors thought Godel unsuited for. But Oppenheimer points out that how can any of them be full professors if Godel, possibly the greatest of them all, is not? Again, through his usual skillful persuasion, Oppenheimer manages to get it approved. All in all this is a fine little book (it's only 150 pages long) blending both science and fiction in a very readable and entertaining way.