This book, a collection of fifteen essays, takes its title from a remark, "numbers decide", of Max Planck, one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century. Among competing physical theories that theory proves indeed victorious whose predictions agree best with the numerical values of experiments. Planck's phrase would have become even more memorable had he added that outside physical or experimental science numbers decide very little. In fact in the vast field of humanities they decide nothing substantial, a point well to ponder in this age of science. This view sets the tone of the fifteen essays that cover topics widely differing, yet equally relevant to some burning questions of modern culture. Among these are the perplexities posed by speculations about extraterrestrials, by cloning, by education, by the rude awakening of an increasingly de-Christianized West to the reality of a crusading Muslim world, and by anxious thoughts as to what the next thousand years may have in store for mankind.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 978-1-892548-29-0 •  viii + 267 pages  •  softcover