Skip to main content

Measures of Genius - Alan Durden ***

There are broadly three ways to write a popular science book. The author can focus on one particular area of science, on the life and work of a key scientist, or use some linking mechanism to pull together a range of topics. This last approach can be very successful, and is tempting to authors and loved by publishers, which implies that they sell well - but it is the most difficult approach to take.

To compare the good and bad sides of such 'linked topic' books, it's only necessary to take a look at titles covering the periodic table. The less successful ones just work through the elements, or a subset of them, in some kind of pattern based on the table itself. But that results in a very mechanical approach, little more than textbook lite. The alternative, typified by The Disappearing Spoon, is to use the broad theme of the chemical elements, but to let the narrative structure carry the reader through, resulting in a far more successful presentation.

Measures of Genius is a linked topic book, pulling together short scientific biographies of historical figures with scientific units named after them. Following an introductory chapter on the nature and development of measurement, we get 14 chapters each on a scientist (in the case of Fahrenheit and Celsius, two for the price of one) who inspired a unit, from very familiar names like Isaac Newton and James Watt to those whose units are better known than the individuals, typified by Ohm, Ampere and Coulomb. However, Alan Durden does not limit himself to the specific scientist's work, where necessary pulling in other names. So, for instance, in Ampere's chapter, Young, Huygens, Arago, Fresnel and Oersted all pop up.

Although the book has a linking theme, it's an arbitrary one, as the selection of scientists to provide unit names has sometimes been decidedly odd. My biggest concern was why we should care about this group of individuals. Durden provides us with plenty of facts about their lives and work, but doesn't build much of a narrative. When covering the well-known figures, the content was solid without adding a lot to the many other scientific biographies on these subjects, staying safely at the uncontroversial end of the spectrum. So, for instance, Newton's sexuality was skirted around, and though his interests in alchemy and biblical research were mentioned, there was little opportunity to understand why they were so important to him. Similarly, Tesla's chapter gives no feel for the fascinating conflict between his genius at electrical engineering and his sometimes shaky grasp of physics, leading to his dismissal of relativity and misapprehension about the nature of electromagnetic radiation.

It was great, however, to find out more about the lesser-known figures. These were inevitably more interesting because there has been so little written about them, though in most case it seems that one of the reasons that they don't feature more widely is that they were rather dull people. There are plenty of facts here, and I think the book would be extremely useful as a way to get some background on the contributions these individuals made to science and technology, but I would have liked a little more flair along the way.


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

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Target Earth – Govert Schilling *****

I was biased in favour of this great little book even before I started to read it, simply because it’s so short. I’m sure that a lot of people who buy popular science books just want an overview and taster of a subject that’s brand new to them – and that’s likely to work best if the author keeps it short and to the point. Of course, you may want to dig deeper in areas that really interest you, but that’s what Google is for. That basic principle aside, I’m still in awe at how much substance Govert Schilling has managed to cram into this tiny book. It’s essentially about all the things (natural things, I mean, not UFOs or space junk) that can end up on Earth after coming down from outer space. That ranges from the microscopically small particles of cosmic dust that accumulate in our gutters, all the way up to the ten kilometre wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Between these extremes are two topics that we’ve reviewed entire books about recently: meteorites ( The Meteorite Hunt...

The Language of Mathematics - Raúl Rojas ***

One of the biggest developments in the history of maths was moving from describing relationships and functions with words to using symbols. This interesting little book traces the origins of a whole range of symbols from those familiar to all, to the more obscure squiggles used in logic and elsewhere. On the whole Raúl Rojas does a good job of filling in some historical detail, if in what is generally a fairly dry fashion. We get to trace what was often a bumpy path as different symbols were employed (particularly, for example, for division and multiplication, where several still remain in use), but usually, gradually, standards were adopted. This feels better as a reference, to dip into if you want to find out about a specific symbol, rather than an interesting end to end read. Rojas tells us the sections are designed to be read in any order, which means that there is some overlap of text - it feels more like a collection of short essays or blog posts that he couldn't be bothered ...

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...