Philosopher and science historian Robert P. Crease tells the stories behind ten of the greatest equations in human history. Was Nobel laureate Richard Feynman really joking when he called Maxwell's electromagnetic equations the most significant event of the nineteenth century? How did Newton's law of gravitation influence young revolutionaries? Why has Euler's formula been called "God's equation," and why did a mysterious ecoterrorist make it his calling card? What role do betrayal, insanity, and suicide play in the second law of thermodynamics? The Great Equations tells the stories of how these equations were discovered, revealing the personal struggles of their ingenious originators. From "1 + 1 = 2" to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, Crease locates these equations in the panoramic sweep of Western history, showing how they are as integral to their time and place of creation as are great works of art.

Robert P. Crease 纽约州立大学石溪分校哲学系教授、系主任，美国物理学会会士，英国物理学会会士。《物理世界》杂志Critical Point专栏作家。著有The Prism And The Pendulum:The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments in Science、Making Physics: A Biography of Brookhaven National Laboratory等。曾在《大西洋月刊》、《纽约时报》、《科学》、《科学美国人》等杂志上发表过多篇文章和评论。