The Penultimate Curiosity

Roger Wagner has been described by Charles Moore as the "best religious painter in Britain today". He gained first class honours in English Literature at Oxford, and then studied for three years at the Royal Academy before returning to live in Oxford and paint full time. Both The Ashmolean Museum at Oxford and The Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge have his work in their permanent collections. He has produced several books of illustrated poems and translations of the Psalms. Since 2010 he has taught at the Ruskin School of Art. A book about his work Forms of Transcendence The Art of Roger Wagner by Chris Miller was published in 2009. His 2012 Gresham College lecture was published on the web http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMb8rIQbTGc. His new stained glass window was installed in St Mary's Iffley in 2012. He was commissioned to paint the first portrait of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury, which in 2014 was hung in Auckland Castle.Andrew Briggs was elected in 2002 as the first holder of the newly created Chair in Nanomaterials at the University of Oxford. After studying physics at Oxford he gained a PhD at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, where the inscription from the Psalms was placed over the entrance of the new laboratory at his initiative. He then studied for a degree in Theology at Cambridge, winning the Chase Prize for Greek, before returning to Oxford in 1980 to pursue an academic career in science. In what is now the Department of Materials he has been successively Royal Society Research Fellow, University Lecturer, Reader, and Professor. His scientific research focuses on materials and techniques for quantum technologies, in which non-classical superposition and entanglement are harnessed for future applications such as computers and information processors. Simultaneously his experiments also probe foundational questions such as the nature of reality in the context of quantum theory.

This book offers a fascinating perspective on the perennial human quest for understanding and meaning. Its two distinguished authors - with contrasting backgrounds - have meshed their expertise together to create a thought-provoking and original synthesis.

• PART I: In the Beginning I 1: The First Men 2: Tentasali 3: Watauinawa 4: The Garden of Eden Moment 5: Primate Parallels 6: Horizons of Curiosity 7: Ultimate Curiosity PART II: God Driven Science 8: The Lions of Miletus 9: The Move to Athens 10: Through the Academy Door PART III: Encounters in Alexandria 11: Two Students 12: The Divided City 13: Industrious Jack 14: The Creation of the World PART IV: The Long Argument 15: The Dream of Aristotle 16: Al Ghazali's Pilgrimmage 17: A Tale of Two Cities 18: Imposed Silence 19: Experimental Science 20: The Universal Law PART V: The Open Book of Heaven 21: Against Aristotle 22: Free Philosophising 23: The Freedom of Intellect 24: Simplicius Reborn 25: The Creation PART VI: Priests of Nature 26: A New Era 27: A Lutheran Astrologer 28: The Experimental Philosophy 29: The Oxonian Sparkles PART VII: The Ocean of Truth 30: Le Grand Newton 31: The Beautiful System 32: Mathematical Theologies 33: The Coast of Infinity PART VIII: Voyages of Discovery 34: Two Journeys 35: The Mystery of Mysteries 36: The Creed of Science PART IX: In the Beginning II 37: The Literary Inquest 38: Breaking the Seals 39: The Intellectual Picklock 40: In a Strange Land 41: By the waters of Babylon 42: Adan and Adapa 43: Ariadne's Thread PART X: Through the Laboratory Door 44: Science in a Time of Cholera 45: A Visit to the Museum 46: Experiments of Thought 47: The Unity of Nature 48: The Works of the Lord PART XI: Epilogue