The End of Discovery (Oxford University Press), by Russell Stannard

In past centuries some scientists mistakenly thought that everything important was already known. In The End of Discovery, physicist Russell Stannard persuasively argues that the cosmos contains more than we will ever know, so much that we are already approaching the barrier of human comprehension. The brain’s inherent limitations are basic to his thesis; he shows that forming a mental image of many concepts in physics is impossible. Much advanced science is based on mathematical equations, but what if those elegant symmetries have little relation to the enormous diversity of the universe? Finally, he reminds some scientist-pundits that the role of their discipline is “exploring the nature of the world it confronts.” Why there is something to explore in the first place “is simply beyond its remit.” (David Luhrssen)