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Stjärnvägar: En bok om kosmos
Swedish
- GenresNonfictionSpaceScience
237 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1991
About the author
Peter Nilson
39 books13 followers(17 October 1937 – 8 March 1998) was a Swedish astronomer and novelist. Active at Uppsala University, he compiled a catalogue of galaxies. He was appreciated for a number of essay books (primarily about science) and for a number of science fiction novels like Rymdväktaren, or "The Space Guardian" and Nyaga.
He was born in a Smålandian village and under the early teens a farmer, but science, with its celebrities such as Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein made such an impression on him, as to motivate him to accomplish college studies by letter correspondence. In the early 1960s he began his studies in Uppsala University, initially in mathematics, and thereafter theoretical physics, aesthetics, history of ideas and astronomy.
He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1993.
He was born in a Smålandian village and under the early teens a farmer, but science, with its celebrities such as Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein made such an impression on him, as to motivate him to accomplish college studies by letter correspondence. In the early 1960s he began his studies in Uppsala University, initially in mathematics, and thereafter theoretical physics, aesthetics, history of ideas and astronomy.
He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1993.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 8, 2010
Wah!!! You know it's a good book when you get to the end and you start laughing-- not at something funny, but at the disappointment which you knew was coming, because the book was obviously promising a revelation beyond the ability of a human to give, and yet you were so sucked in that you couldn't help hoping that the revelation would come! I think the final chapter also succeeds very well in conflating Narrator with Author-- despite the author's warnings that the final section would be fictional, I lost that distinction as I was drawn into the final portion, and the laughter at the end is at least in part due to the breaking of that spell, as the experience abruptly and prematurely ends and we are suddenly dumped into a very "real" postscript thanking those who contributed to this book, and listing the previous places these chapters had been published.
The final portion of the book is traditional sci-fi-- as in fictional and speculative-- but also serves as an appropriate final chapter of this book (for my original review and the description of the rest of the book, see below). Continues the theme of putting the human perspective into a cosmic perspective, but here by postulating a post-human distant future, where the universe has chilled to a point where it can't sustain biological life, but where all we know of the history of universe only proves to be the prelude to something else. But I have to complain that Nilson seems preoccupied with "reality" as being a Platonic realm of pure mathematics-- I may not be qualified to comment on this, not being a mathematician myself, but from the sorts of philosophy I am familiar with (incl. phenomenology, which starts with a treatise on arithmetic and the nature of numbers-- but I'll admit, I haven't read enough of this stuff to judge...), I wonder if it is more "true" to see math as a particularly refined mode of engagement with the world-- well, I still haven't finished with Heidegger and others, but I suppose one could also just say that what you consider the "foundation" depends on the problem you pose. And the experience of discovery and the weeding out of imperfect theorems is so foundational (there's that word again) to the "act" of science (=the physical sciences) that I don't think you (meaning someone engaged in that project) can avoid understanding that act as the uncovering of "reality"-- but should that be reified as another "world" behind our own? That doesn't feel quite right to me, but again, I'm not a scientist myself. At any rate, a very mind-bending book, maybe very typical of SF literature, but of the best of that literature.
Original review follows:
I bought this in a volume of three of Nilson's books (also incl. Solvindar and Rymdljus) nearly a decade ago after having it recommended as Swedish science fiction-- so far this first book is not science fiction, but rather a very poetic essay on the universe, our place in it, and Mankind's attempts to understand that universe, much in line with what I would expect from Carl Sagan or perhaps the more poetic of the New Atheists (except that Nilson does not seem to have a religion-bashing agenda-- he is perfectly happy to celebrate all attempts to understand our place in the cosmos, throughout history). In any case, I find it compelling, beautiful, and the voice of the narrator is humble at the same time that he leads us through the grand mysteries of space and time. I can think of at least one friend who would really enjoy this book-- alas, I don't think there are any translations available. The Swedish here is pretty straightforward, so I'm actually thinking of turning this into a translation project-- there is a lot of Swedish sci-fi that is inaccessible to non-Scandinavian speakers, and that being a special interest of mine, well, I may have found my non-Medieval niche in Scandinavian Studies.
Since I came to this book expecting sci-fi, I think it is interesting to approach it as such-- scientific exploration of our world as narrative, science "fiction", or rather science-narrative, in which the plot consists of the progressive unraveling and knitting together of life, the universe and everything. Very much the sort of personal reflection I would expect from any of the other physicists and astronomers who write science fiction, though I'm not convinced that many of them would be capable of bringing all these various threads together so beautifully. Nilson is very broadly read, and I'm enjoying going along on this intellectual journey with his narrator!
The final portion of the book is traditional sci-fi-- as in fictional and speculative-- but also serves as an appropriate final chapter of this book (for my original review and the description of the rest of the book, see below). Continues the theme of putting the human perspective into a cosmic perspective, but here by postulating a post-human distant future, where the universe has chilled to a point where it can't sustain biological life, but where all we know of the history of universe only proves to be the prelude to something else. But I have to complain that Nilson seems preoccupied with "reality" as being a Platonic realm of pure mathematics-- I may not be qualified to comment on this, not being a mathematician myself, but from the sorts of philosophy I am familiar with (incl. phenomenology, which starts with a treatise on arithmetic and the nature of numbers-- but I'll admit, I haven't read enough of this stuff to judge...), I wonder if it is more "true" to see math as a particularly refined mode of engagement with the world-- well, I still haven't finished with Heidegger and others, but I suppose one could also just say that what you consider the "foundation" depends on the problem you pose. And the experience of discovery and the weeding out of imperfect theorems is so foundational (there's that word again) to the "act" of science (=the physical sciences) that I don't think you (meaning someone engaged in that project) can avoid understanding that act as the uncovering of "reality"-- but should that be reified as another "world" behind our own? That doesn't feel quite right to me, but again, I'm not a scientist myself. At any rate, a very mind-bending book, maybe very typical of SF literature, but of the best of that literature.
Original review follows:
I bought this in a volume of three of Nilson's books (also incl. Solvindar and Rymdljus) nearly a decade ago after having it recommended as Swedish science fiction-- so far this first book is not science fiction, but rather a very poetic essay on the universe, our place in it, and Mankind's attempts to understand that universe, much in line with what I would expect from Carl Sagan or perhaps the more poetic of the New Atheists (except that Nilson does not seem to have a religion-bashing agenda-- he is perfectly happy to celebrate all attempts to understand our place in the cosmos, throughout history). In any case, I find it compelling, beautiful, and the voice of the narrator is humble at the same time that he leads us through the grand mysteries of space and time. I can think of at least one friend who would really enjoy this book-- alas, I don't think there are any translations available. The Swedish here is pretty straightforward, so I'm actually thinking of turning this into a translation project-- there is a lot of Swedish sci-fi that is inaccessible to non-Scandinavian speakers, and that being a special interest of mine, well, I may have found my non-Medieval niche in Scandinavian Studies.
Since I came to this book expecting sci-fi, I think it is interesting to approach it as such-- scientific exploration of our world as narrative, science "fiction", or rather science-narrative, in which the plot consists of the progressive unraveling and knitting together of life, the universe and everything. Very much the sort of personal reflection I would expect from any of the other physicists and astronomers who write science fiction, though I'm not convinced that many of them would be capable of bringing all these various threads together so beautifully. Nilson is very broadly read, and I'm enjoying going along on this intellectual journey with his narrator!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 17, 2022
Love this book to reread
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews