Is science beautiful? Yes, argues acclaimed philosopher andhistorian of science Robert P. Crease in this engaging explorationof history’s most beautiful experiments. The result is anengrossing journey through nearly 2,500 years of scientificinnovation. Along the way, we encounter glimpses into thepersonalities and creative thinking of some of the field’s mostinteresting figures. We see the first measurement of the earth’s circumference,accomplished in the third century B.C. by Eratosthenes usingsticks, shadows, and simple geometry. We visit Foucault’smesmerizing pendulum, a cannonball suspended from the dome of thePanthéon in Paris that allows us to see the rotation of the earthon its axis. We meet Galileo—the only scientist with twoexperiments in the top ten—brilliantly drawing on his musicaltraining to measure the speed of falling bodies. And we travel tothe quantum world, in the most beautiful experiment of all. We also learn why these ten experiments exert such a powerful holdon our imagin
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In this anthology of reminiscences by prominent scientists,the roll includes Richard Dawkins, Murray Gell-Mann, Joseph Ledouxand Ray Kurzweil, along with 23 others. The mandate of the book'seditor, literary agent Brockman (The Third Culture), to each ofthese authors was to write an essay explaining how he or she cameto be a scientist. Some take him at his word and write meanderingstories of childhood. David Buss found his calling—the study ofhuman mating behavior—while working at a truck stop after droppingout of school. Paul Davies says he was born to be a theoreticalphysicist. Daniel Dennett, on the other hand, seems to have triedevery other profession before landing, as if by accident, inscience. A few writers let their essays get hijacked by the sciencethey have devoted their lives to. And in the midst of this, like akeystone in an arch, is an essay by Steven Pinker explaining whythe entire exercise is a bunch of hooey: scientifically speaking,he says, people have no objective idea what influen
Bestselling nature writer David Quammen introduces CharlesDarwin's incredible tale of excursion that led to his revolutionarytheory of evolution--Voyage of the Beagle.
Spanning disciplines from biology to cosmology, chemistry topsychology to physics, Michael Brooks thrillingly captures theexcitement of scientific discovery.Science’s best-kept secret isthis: even today, thereare experimental results that the mostbrilliant scientists cannot explain. In the past, similar“anomalies” have revolutionized our world. If history is anyprecedent, we should look to today’s inexplicable results toforecast the future of science. Michael Brooks heads to thescientific frontier to confront thirteen modern-day anomalies andwhat they might reveal about tomorrow’s breakthroughs.
