Skip to main content

Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing – Richard Dawkins (ed.) ****

While it’s possible to quibble about the ‘modern’ in the title (it seems to mean twentieth century, with a bit of truly modern thrown in), this an excellent opportunity to dip a toe into the writings of a wide range of science writers, which is truly welcome.
All too often a collection like this has a few stars and the rest are also-rans, but here there is a truly stellar set of names. There are great names of science itself – Einstein, Feynman, Crick and Watson, Gamow, Turing and Hawking to skim but a few – and some of the best popularizers too. Richard Dawkins himself doesn’t have a contribution, arguably a mistake, as whatever you think of his ideas on science and religion, he is a good science writer. However, we don’t entirely miss out on the Dawkins wit and wisdom, as he contributes pithy prefaces to each extract – and extracts from books they are mostly, rather than short pieces in their own right.
It is very difficult to pick out favourites from such a rich collection. It isn’t always the obvious. I liked the rather humble and insight giving views of Freeman Dyson’s memory of a particular part of his early career. Ian Stewart’s exploration of infinity was elegant and enjoyable. And I was delighted to find a short piece by Fred Hoyle that explored a biological theme, rather than his usual cosmology. I could go on almost indefinitely.
Of course, as is always the case with lists and favourites, I can’t agree with all the choices. I wasn’t particularly thrilled or informed by Richard Gregory’s piece on why mirrors seem to reverse left and right but not top and bottom – an effect that can be much better and less pompously explored – and I have to admit reluctantly that Einstein’s piece is more there to get Einstein in than because it’s particularly interesting.
I’m not sure this a book many people would read cover to cover, but it’s great to dip into, to find science writing that intrigues you, and to follow up that author or book to get into some fascinating reading.

Paperback:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you   
Review by Brian Clegg
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ignorance: How it drives science – Stuart Firestein *****

This is a delightful little book that really gets you thinking. I stress the ‘little’ part not as a negative, but as a good thing. There is nothing worse than fat, bloated popular science books where the author feels they have to get 120,000 words to be taken seriously. This is the sort of book that can be read in a couple of hours – but you will get so much more out of it than one of those tedious doorstops. The premise underlying the book is in once sense extremely simple, yet is fundamental to an understanding of what science is and what scientists do. And it is an understanding that is totally at odds with the typical way science is portrayed both in university lectures and popular science books. As Stuart Firestein points out, what is important is not the facts, but rather the area of ignorance. The interesting part and the fundamental heart of science is not about what we know, but about what we don’t know and where we want to look next. Take this lovely quote: ‘Working ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Who Invented the Computer? – Ian Watson

Ian Watson is the author of  The Universal Machine  and featured in a recent  Four Way Interview . Saturday June 23 2012 was the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, the troubled genius who invented the modern computer. Why though do so few people recognize his name and his great achievements? In 1936 English mathematician Alan Turing, published a paper,  On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem . This became the foundation of computing. In it Turing presented a theoretical machine that could solve any problem that could be described by instructions encoded on a paper tape. A Turing Machine could calculate square roots, whilst another might solve Sudoku puzzles. Turing demonstrated you could construct a single  Universal Machine  that could simulate any Turing Machine. One machine solving any problem for which a program could be written – sound familiar? He’d invented the computer. Then,  computers  were peop...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Star Book – Peter Grego ****

This attractive landscape format book combines an excellent introduction to the stars and basic astronomy with a set of star maps, plus in depth looks at some of the stars featured, with a  bonus section on the solar system. Amazon says it’s a hardback, but in fact it’s a paperback with a rather ingenious cover – you can’t tell from the photo, but the words ‘The Star Book’ are punched through as a series of holes that show the white paper of the next page beneath. Like many astronomy/space books, the cover lacks shelf appeal because it is mostly black, but at least there is some original thought here. Unlike many books in this format which tend to concentrate on the pictures, there is a good deal of excellent text by Peter Grego, so there was no feeling that you were only getting the star maps and star ‘biographies’, something these days much more suited to an iPad or smartphone app. Instead, the opening 30 or so pages give a very good introduction that would be valuable to ...
Post a Comment
Read more