The One True Platonic Heaven: A Scientific Fiction on the Limits of Knowledge.

JOHN L. CASTI 

In the spirit of his book The Cambridge Quartet, in which Casti gave voice to such scientists as Alan Turing and Edwin Schrodinger in a mock discussion about artificial intelligence, the author here assembles a new cast of notable scientists and thinkers. They ponder whether some questions about the world are logically beyond the power of science to resolve. In this scientific fiction, as he calls it, Casti imagines Kurt Godel, J. Robert Oppenheimer, John yon Neumann, Lewis L. Strauss, and Albert Einstein. They meet at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., in spring of 1946. T.S. Eliot, Wolfgang Pauli, David Bohm, and a few others drop by to render an opinion here and there. Casti takes some license in putting words into these mouths, but he provides insight into these people's thoughts and opinions on topics ranging from quantum logic to the structure of economic systems. The exercise provides a candid look at the logical barriers that great scientists have overcome in their pursuits. Joseph Henry, 2003, 160 p., b&w photos, hardcover, $22.95.