S$26.45 with 43 percent savings
List Price: S$46.20

The List Price is the suggested retail price of a product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier or seller. Amazon will only display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the prevailing market price of a product.
Learn more
In stock
US imports may differ from local products. Additional terms apply. Learn More.

Amazon International Store

  • International products have separate terms, are sold from abroad and may differ from local products, including fit, age ratings, and language of product, labeling or instructions.
  • Manufacturer warranty may not apply.
  • Learn more about Amazon International Store.
S$S$26.45 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
S$S$26.45
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Postage cost, delivery date and order total (including tax) shown at checkout
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers and we don’t sell your information to others. Find out more
Ships from
Amazon US
Sold by
Amazon US
Ships from
Amazon US
Sold by
Amazon US

The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World Paperback – Illustrated, 29 May 2012

by David Deutsch (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 764 ratings
See all formats and editions
promo code: NNZAQPGCKMIM Shop items  Buy 3, save 10% Shop items  
Get S$5 Off with Mastercard W/WE Cards. Enter code MCAMZ5 at checkout. Discount Provided by Amazon. 2 applicable promotion(s)
  • Get S$5 Off with Mastercard W/WE Cards. Enter code MCAMZ5 at checkout. Discount Provided by Amazon. Terms
  • Buy 2, save 5% promo code: YBUUEHWGUXJM Shop items
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"S$26.45","priceAmount":26.45,"currencySymbol":"S$","integerValue":"26","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"45","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"rrQRplBu4zogCy52zukK%2B0R8rxfMpHJy53JDkQRFxEdj4aZtIi7oVHHbuGrN9XuFosASlkIhHw6jjFiyutnFOF4oM0WBXJV3D%2BitrroBFc9DlIrXrNAYXN7PLox2jW3KW8PunUCZX%2FcwBZuzPm8HO9m0%2Ffs5p65vOP3bhP5ILeFOl2%2FlSNZ7L6Mn%2FlAhgn6F","locale":"en-SG","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

The New York Times bestseller: A provocative, imaginative exploration of the nature and progress of knowledge

“Dazzling.” – Steven Pinker, The Guardian

In this groundbreaking book, award-winning physicist David De

Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. ISBN-10
    9780143121350
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0143121350
  3. Edition
    Illustrated
  4. Publication date
    29 May 2012
  5. Language
    English
  6. Print length
    496 pages
  7. See all details
Next page

Frequently bought together

The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
S$26.45
Get it May 23 - 24
In stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon US.
+
The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--And Its Implications
S$30.47
Get it Jun 7 - 22
Usually dispatched within 6 to 7 days
Ships from and sold by TheProductsHub.
Total Price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
One of these items is shipped sooner than the other.
Show details Hide details
Choose items to buy together.

Product description

Review

"Brilliant and exhilarating . . . Deutsch is so smart, and so strange, and so creative, and so inexhaustibly curious, and so vividly intellectually alive, that it is a distinct privilege to spend time in his head." --The New York Times Book Review

"[Deutsch] makes the case for infinite progress and such passion, imagination, and quirky brilliance that I couldn't help enjoying his argument. . . . [He] mounts a compelling challenge to scientific reductionism." --The Wall Street Journal

"A deep theory of why humanity is destined to make progress may be found in David Deutsch's dazzling The Beginning of Infinity. Deutsch presents science as a force for betterment, since it impels us to explain the world while forcing us to acknowledge our fallibility." - Steven Pinker, The Guardian

"Provocative and persuasive . . . Address[es] subjects from artificial intelligence to the evolution of culture and creativity." --The Economist

"[Deutsch's books] are among the most ambitious works of nonfiction I have read, in that their aim is no less than an explanation of all reality. . . . They are treatises that weave together not just physics and astronomy but biology, mathematics, computer science, political science, psychology, philosophy, aesthetics, and--most important for Deutsch--epistemology, among other fields, in fashioning a profound new view of the world and the universe." --The New Yorker's Book Bench

"Deutsch has an important message . . . that our destiny is to be explainers of the world around us, and explaining is the key to our mastery. . . . He writes clearly and thinks wisely. His book could help the world toward better ways of dealing with its problems." --Freeman Dyson, The New York Review of Books

About the Author

Born in Haifa, Israel, David Deutsch was educated at Cambridge and Oxford Universities. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a professor of physics at the University of Oxford, where he is a member of the Centre for Quantum Computation. His papers on quantum computation laid the foundations for that field, and he is an authority on the theory of parallel universes. His honors include the Institute of Physics' Paul Dirac Prize and Medal. The author of The Fabric of Reality, he lives in England.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0143121359
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 496 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780143121350
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0143121350
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Customer reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 764 ratings

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
764 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Top reviews from Singapore

There are 0 reviews and 1 rating from Singapore

Top reviews from other countries

André Guimarães Aragon
5.0 out of 5 stars The only bad part of it, is the fact that it ends.
Reviewed in Brazil on 22 February 2023
Verified Purchase
This book changed my way of seeing the world, politics, science and most importantly, of seeing what I will understand as containing some truth. From beginning to end, this book contains explanations and points of view different from everything I've ever read, and still, the views where much more enlightening than many others. The book is indeed a little bit denser than the average books, but if you take your time to understand the hard parts (or just skip to try to understand them when you are emerged in your thoughts), you will for sure be able to get a lot out of this book. I was honestly sad when it was over, for I've learned so much from this book, that I started looking for the bibliography in order to get the source of the knowledge found in that book. Read this book, you won't regret it.
3 people found this helpful
 Report
tushar
5.0 out of 5 stars Best non fiction book
Reviewed in India on 6 March 2024
Verified Purchase
One of the best non fiction books I have come across
Report
Waleed Ahmed
5.0 out of 5 stars Great quality of paper, very nice to read
Reviewed in Germany on 17 February 2022
Verified Purchase
Great book. Great quality of the paper. Perfect to take notes on while reading.
Customer image
Waleed Ahmed
5.0 out of 5 stars Great quality of paper, very nice to read
Reviewed in Germany on 17 February 2022
Great book. Great quality of the paper. Perfect to take notes on while reading.
Images in this review
Customer image Customer image
Customer imageCustomer image
One person found this helpful
 Report
TheMogget
5.0 out of 5 stars A genuinely new and valuable contribution to the Philosphy of Science.
Reviewed in the United States on 24 March 2020
Verified Purchase
+Covers genuine new ground in the Philosophy of Science
+New ideas 'reach' and 'hard to vary' are explained clearly and completely
+Existing ideas are explained clearly but superficially, with skill of a professor.
+'Infinity' theme is inspiring, if you are inspired by such things.
+Fungible Multiverse chapter should be required reading in Physics.

- Writing is very dry, like a wikipedia article.
- Author's tone, when he has any at all, is very much like Data from Star Trek, which is interesting but hard on the reader.
- Spends too much time reveling in long-standing and better-explained-elsewhere ideas like Evolution and DNA encoding and Psychology (none of which are his expertise, and it shows.

The philosophy of science is to understand what makes a good hypothesis. What kind of questions are good questions to ask? What does answering them even tell us? What is a scientific question, and what is an unscientific one?

In this book, David tells us why asking good questions and seeking good explanations are not just central to science, but to the enlightenment way of thinking in general. His central contribution, his new ideas, is that good explanations have 'reach' and are 'hard to vary'. I think these two features of explanatory power are more precise and complete than prior ones such as 'falsifiability' or parsimony. This little bit, although it could have been conveyed on its own in a little pamphlet, is so valuable that this book is a must-read for the Science of Philosophy and a 5-star book just for having it.

The other great moment in this book is the chapter on a fungible multiverse. That, too, could have made a great little book on its own.

From there, David goes on to discuss the implications of good explanations, and how the 'good explanations' metaphor can describe other forms of information, such as DNA in people. He also puts forth the idea that rules of explanation, on their own, do not arrive us at progress. He talks about how a consistent earnest drive to prove oneself wrong and come up with an even better explanation is what leads us on. We should assume that progress may be infinite, and that our present explanations are therefore infinitely wrong. We should always look for improvement in every explanation, although that will become harder and harder to do. The best explanations will have been improved so much that they have near infinite reach. That is the goal.

As a writer, I find David to be too clinical, humorless, and dry. It is like listening to Data from Star Trek teach you science. If you listen to the audio book read by someone who sounds like Data from Star Trek, that sensation is very strong. At the same time, we can trust Data to always tell us the best answer he knows, and be upfront about what can be known and what cannot be known and what we know now. David does this too. I learned a lot from this book, but it was hard reading. His writing is very clear and does not use excessively difficult words, but he does seem to wander far and wide and sounds too much like wikipedia. I also didn't quite catch on the spirit of his 'infinity' theme that was supposed to be inspiring. It's fun, but I am not sure I am inspired by it. I never appreciate when expert authors start trying to teach you subjects they aren't expert on, especially when they aren't really necessary to the core idea. David wanders off his own turf a lot.
11 people found this helpful
 Report
Austzulu
5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing book.
Reviewed in Australia on 1 February 2024
Verified Purchase
Easy read. Great source of many dinner conversations.
Report