Hans Grassmann Das Denken und seine Zukunft (The Future of Human Thinking) Hoffmann und Campe, March 2001. 240pp. ISBN 3-455-09333-7 Are we at threat from the world of computers? The question is often asked but not so often satisfactorily addressed, so that the layman as well as the specialist should give a whole-hearted welcome to this book by one of Germany's leading physicists. It is based on the 1999 Bolzano conference (an annual event at which top scientists gather) and the author takes some contributions from that meeting as a starting point before moving to his main argument. This is that our modern computer gurus point us in a dark direction when they claim that computers would be more efficient thinkers than humans, when experts in gene technology declare that in a scientific sense man is no more than a large worm, and when economists consider humans as mere factors of goods production governed only by monetary laws. This, he maintains, is the clearest sign that we live in a society with no possibility of revolutionary thinking or of going beyond day-to-day struggles, for the sciences, especially physics, can only thrive in societies where the individual has a certain amount of freedom. Martin Luther broke the shackles of the Middle Ages, but the battle is not yet won. He concludes, indeed, that men and women in the twenty-first century still have only a quite limited understanding of what is going on. To extend beyond ourselves in our striving to create order is not only to dare to ask new questions but also to follow an old yearning - to pursue beauty, be it in music, art, poetry or philosophy. We need the chance to do this both in science and in the arts. Wonderfully written, with a lovely dry sense of humour, this book follows in the footsteps of other popular, non-fiction science books of recent years, such as those by Goleman or Hawking. It will appeal to readers not even interested in physics but rather in the more fundamental questions that unceasingly concern mankind.