Quarks to Cosmos

Author Kootsey first introduces a novel tree-like science organization including ecologies plus human groups like family, education, the arts, governments, businesses, and religions.  He shows that the structure is a hierarchy of complexity with quarks at the bottom and objects at each successive higher layer constructed by coupling items from the layer below, culminating in the cosmos at the top. This hierarchy organizes all existing and possible objects in the universe like a catalog. It is not the structure of the universe.  Kootsey compares research methods over the range of levels of this tree, finding both differences and similarities. Surprisingly, a single principle applies at every level, thus being the basis of the entire tree! Kootsey describes two critical changes in the practice of Western science in the last century that kept it from stagnating. Finally, Kootsey dedicates several chapters to human relationships as they generate creativity, morals and ethics, and religions, ending with a reminder that all sciences exist for the benefit of humans.

The Author

J. Mailen Kootsey

J. Mailen Kootsey is a multidisciplinary scientist and a pioneer in applying physical principles, mathematics, and computing to biology and medical physiology. He researched heart muscle electrical activity, taught in multiple disciplines, and served as a university administrator. Kootsey’s education included a Ph.D. in physics from Brown University and four years of postdoctoral study in physiology at Loma Linda University School of Medicine and Duke University Medical School, supported by awards from the Bank of America Giannini Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. He learned computer skills beginning with a primitive vacuum-tube computer in 1957 and later taught computer subjects at the university level. Kootsey has published many scientific and technical journal articles and chapters in scientific monographs and made numerous presentations at scientific conferences in the US and other countries and presentations for general audiences. In addition, he has consulted for corporations and agencies in the US, Canada, and Switzerland and received two patents. Kootsey, with his colleagues, was awarded more than $10 million in research grants from the US National Institutes of Health and private foundations, including funds enabling him to establish a National Research Resource in biomedical computer simulation at Duke University.