30-Second Elements – Ed. Eric Scerri ****

Remarkably soon after reviewing Eric Scerri’s A Tale of Seven Elements he’s back with 30-Second Elements. I need to admit up front that I have made a small contribution to thisbook – but it’s no more than 10% and only in writing a few of the articles, nothing to do with the overall volume. The way the book works is as a series of 50 articles, each on an element and each a two-page spread, with pithy text on the left and an illustration on the right. It is given a bit more weight with a longer introduction and a profile of a key figure in each of seven main sections.

If I am honest, I have been scathing about these ’30-Second’ books in the past, because I have found it hard to understand why anyone would buy one. They generally aren’t readable through like a real book, but aren’t detailed enough to be a reference. However, they have sold plenty of copies, and this particular one is something of an exception to my uncertainty because the subject of the elements lends itself to this ‘bitty’ approach – they are, after all, bitty things.

The text is broken into a series of parts – the main text, long enough to be readable, the ‘3 second state’ which gives some basic facts like the chemical symbol, the ‘3 minute reaction’ (which strangely is shorter than the main ’30 second’ piece), giving a little side bar of tangential information and the dates of a few key figures. Although I did write a few of the entries, I hadn’t read most of them and found myself surprisingly drawn into the elegant little factoids and stories, learning, for instance, that we store about 3 years’ worth of magnesium in our bodies, and that fluorine finds its way into the wet-weather clothing Gore-Tex via Teflon. Not to mention a handy discussion of the difference between silicon and silicone – useful if you want the right materials in the right place.

So while I still prefer a popular science book that is an end-to-end read, I have to admit this example of the 30 second series, with the ‘rough hewn cardboard’ feeling cover that is part of the series look and feel, has rather won me over. But then, if anyone knows his periodic table, it’s Eric Scerri.

Hardback:

Kindle:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

The Antigravity Enigma - Andrew May ****

Antigravity - the ability to overcome the pull of gravity - has been a fantasy for thousands of years and subject to more scientific (if impractical) fictional representation since H. G. Wells came up with cavorite in The First Men in the Moon . But is it plausible scientifically? Andrew May does a good job of pulling together three ways of looking at our love affair with antigravity (and the related concept of cancelling inertia) - in science fiction, in physics and in pseudoscience and crankery. As May points out, science fiction is an important starting point as the concept was deployed there well before we had a good enough understanding of gravity to make any sensible scientific stabs at the idea (even though, for instance, Michael Faraday did unsuccessfully experiment with a possible interaction between gravity and electromagnetism). We then get onto the science itself, noting the potential impact on any ideas of antigravity that come from the move from a Newtonian view of a...

The World as We Know It - Peter Dear ***

History professor Peter Dear gives us a detailed and reasoned coverage of the development of science as a concept from its origins as natural philosophy, covering the years from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. inclusive If that sounds a little dry, frankly, it is. But if you don't mind a very academic approach, it is certainly interesting. Obviously a major theme running through is the move from largely gentleman natural philosophers (with both implications of that word 'gentleman') to professional academic scientists. What started with clubs for relatively well off men with an interest, when universities did not stray far beyond what was included in mathematics (astronomy, for instance), would become a very different beast. The main scientific subjects that Dear covers are physics and biology - we get, for instance, a lot on the gradual move away from a purely mechanical views of physics - the reason Newton's 'action at a distance' gravity caused such ...

It's On You - Nick Chater and George Loewenstein *****

Going on the cover you might think this was a political polemic - and admittedly there's an element of that - but the reason it's so good is quite different. It shows how behavioural economics and social psychology have led us astray by putting the focus way too much on individuals. A particular target is the concept of nudges which (as described in Brainjacking ) have been hugely over-rated. But overall the key problem ties to another psychological concept: framing. Huge kudos to both Nick Chater and George Loewenstein - a behavioural scientist and an economics and psychology professor - for having the guts to take on the flaws in their own earlier work and that of colleagues, because they make clear just how limited and potentially dangerous is the belief that individuals changing their behaviour can solve large-scale problems. The main thesis of the book is that there are two ways to approach the major problems we face - an 'i-frame' where we focus on the individual ...

Search This Blog