It opens in the Christian medieval world at a time when science was trapped in a thicket of
theology metaphysics and mysticism Enter William of Occam Born in 1285 he was given to the
Franciscans as a child and sent to Oxford to study theology where his lectures and debates
became notorious due to his insistence that science and religion were incompatible his
disproving of all the standard proofs of God and his determination to discard all but the
simplest explanations of any phenomenon: Occam's razor This book brings alive this fascinating
but virtually unknown figure together with the tumultuous world in which he found himself
Meticulously researched it also includes accounts of Occam's clash with the Pope and flight
from Avignon translated for the first time from the Latin text of contemporary Vatican
documents However this isn't just a book about Occam for Life is Simple's thesis is that all
modern science indeed much of what we call modernity is derived from Occam's razor's
preference for simplicity From Occam the book follows the razor's path as it was wielded by
all of the giants of modern science from Copernicus to Kepler Galileo Newton Mendel Darwin
Einstein (who wrote that 'the grand aim of all science [is] to cover the greatest number of
empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest possible number of hypotheses or
axioms') or James Watson who co-discovered of the double helix ('we were convinced that the
truth once found would be simple as well as pretty') In the course of the journey the author
takes us on he makes a compelling case for his claim that simplicity is the only principle
that distinguishes science from magic philosophy mysticism theology or pseudoscience Given
a choice science always opts for the simplest solution that works Yet although nearly all
modern scientists accept the principle few are aware they do so Life is Simple is not only a
history of science and an exploration of the most exciting areas of modern science but it is
also a history of the ideas that revolutionised the modern world Additionally it provides a
fresh perspective on what science is really about a story as relevant today as in the medieval
world
