About the book

There is a story that early in the last century the Emperor of All the Russians ordered the word ‘progress’ to be suppressed. Today, in our day and age, with its stormy, rapid development of science and technology, there are many philosophers, economists, and historians who would like to do the same. Prof. Max Born.F.R.S., said in his Physics and Politics that things today differed more from his childhood than those halcyon days did from the time of Julius Caesar 2000 years before. For his coevals in the Soviet Union the changes have been even greater. They have lived through three revolutions, torn the old system apart, built a new one, and have seen the rise of a world socialist system. Is that not progress?! But in skirmishing with the pessimists who deny progress it is necessary to know what progress is. What, for example, is scientific and technical progress? And what are its links with social and economic progress? 

In this book Leo Bobrov, scientist cum publicist, discusses these questions and argues that we have full grounds for optimism not only when contemplating the future but also in building it.

After graduating in chemistry from Moscow University in 1959, Leo Bobrov did research for several years in the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the USSR Academy of Sciences. There he developed a taste for popularizing science which led him into journalism with the Novosti News Agency. In addition to Grounds for Optimism, Mr. Bobrov has published several books on the methods and ideas of modem chemistry and physics, and is currently working on one about statistics.

Contents

Up the Down Staircase?

Forward, O Time!

The Metronome of History

Social Arithmetic and the Algebra of Political Economy

Our Present Age. The Thousand and First Revolution?

The Measure of All Things

The ‘Perpetuum Mobile’ of Progress

On the Threshold of a New Civilisation?

‘The Last, Really Revolutionary Revolution’

Mighty and—Powerless

Science in the Republic of Labour

The Grounds for Optimism: Reason vs Chaos