Science and the City - Laurie Winkless ****

A welcome trend over the past few years is the increased number of popular science books involving materials science, in part inspired (I suspect) by the success of Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik.

Laurie Winkless, a physicist and writer who has had a place at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and has worked at the National Physical Laboratory, has written her first book, looking at the science of how cities function. The book has as its foundation (pun intended) the creation of a skyscraper. This skyscraper acts as a guide throughout the book to illustrate the science of materials, the accomplishments and methods of engineering involved in building superstructures, a reference for the history of construction and its technological achievements and a starting point for explanations of the science at work in the world’s cities.

The book goes into depth into various areas of the commonplace around us: how cities provide and distribute energy, water, public transport, food production, logistics and how they deal with the enormous amounts of waste produced by their citizens. Winkless does an excellent job at revealing the fascinating science behind what most of us take for granted as we make our daily commutes. I found the intricacies and complex designs underlying a regular day in a metropolis endlessly fascinating.

While describing how cities have functioned and how they function now, the author also looks at the future, based on proposed projects that various cities around the world are planning and based on research into potential solutions for providing for the increased urban populations of the future. Winkless readily admits that many of the plans are very speculative and her candour is welcome and represents science done properly; that is that she is frank about the possibilities and the limitations of science that has not been verified by experiment.

One small complaint is that some of the coverage of scientific principles, such as the explanation of the electromagnetic spectrum, is slightly confusing and would benefit from diagrams or illustrations, but I’m being picky with this criticism.

If you are interested in learning more about how science affects our everyday lives, how it can be that fresh produce is available in food stores around the world throughout the year, why there is a rush of wind when the tube arrives (and why it is necessary), how it is possible to build buildings over half a kilometer tall and many other things, then this is an excellent book to read, particularly on your daily commute.

Hardback:

Kindle:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Ian Bald

Comments

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 ...

Pagans (SF) - James Alistair Henry *****

There's a fascinating sub-genre of science fiction known as alternate history. The idea is that at some point in the past, history diverged from reality, resulting in a different present. Perhaps the most acclaimed of these books is Kingsley Amis's The Alteration , set in a modern England where there had not been a reformation - but James Alistair Henry arguably does even better by giving us a present where Britain is a third world country, still divided between Celts in the west and Saxons in the East. Neither the Normans nor Christianity have any significant impact. In itself this is a clever idea, but what makes it absolutely excellent is mixing in a police procedural murder mystery, where the investigation is being undertaken by a Celtic DI, Drustan, who has to work in London alongside Aedith, a Saxon reeve of equivalent rank, who also happens to be daughter of the Earl of Mercia. While you could argue about a few historical aspects, it's effectively done and has a plot...

Amazing Worlds of Science Fiction and Science Fact: Keith Cooper ****

There's something appealing (for a reader like me) about a book that brings together science fiction and science fact. I had assumed that the 'Amazing Worlds' part of the title suggested a general overview of the interaction between the two, but Keith Cooper is being literal. This is an examination of exoplanets (planets that orbit a different star to the Sun) as pictured in science fiction and in our best current science, bearing in mind this is a field that is still in the early phases of development. It becomes obvious early on that Cooper, who is a science journalist in his day job, knows his stuff on the fiction side as well as the current science. Of course he brings in the well-known TV and movie tropes (we get a huge amount on Star Trek ), not to mention the likes of Dune, but his coverage of written science fiction goes into much wider picture. He also has consulted some well-known contemporary SF writers such as Alastair Reynolds and Paul McAuley, not just scient...

Search This Blog