Skip to main content

Hey, there's science in this - Eva Amsen ****

In this slim collection of what were originally blog posts, Eva Amsen takes us around the scientific world looking for interesting stories where science crops up in unexpected places. It combines entertainment and information effectively, and because each article is short, it is satisfyingly moreish. I read the book in three short sittings - and each time I ended up reading more sections than I intended, as it's very tempting to read just one more.

To give an example of some randomly enjoyable entries, we get 'Rubber ducks and Lego' about the way that containers of floating goods (accidentally) dropped in the sea have helped with studies of ocean currents, 'Manhattanhenge' on cityscapes that line up with the low Sun (like Stonehenge, though less purposefully) and 'Songs about Science', exploring how science turns up in songs, whether it's as a subject of an original or a comedy song changing the words of a classic, a trend started with Lehrer's periodic table song. I do think in that example that Amsen is a bit hard on the word-changers as being often lame - some are far more interesting that original songs that happen to mention science - such as the excellent Bohemian Gravity, which doesn't even get a mention.

It can occasionally feel more like a conversation with Siri than a book, as each article has a subtitle in the format 'Hey, there's science...', such as 'Hey, there's science in this Chicago World's Fair artist's future' or 'Hey, there's science under this parking garage'. Amsen tells us that the post were written between 2006 and 2023, and some of the articles feel a little lacking in writing style - perhaps the earlier ones. There were also a few small details of content that might be disputed. For example, Stranger Things is described as science fiction, where I would say it's fantasy and we are told that Robert Bunsen invented the Bunsen burner, where it generally thought now most of the credit should go to Peter Desaga.

Though I wish it was about twice the length - the actual content only runs to 93 pages - overall, I found this collection both fun and surprising in its variety and informative content.

Paperback:   
Kindle 
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Free Agents - Kevin Mitchell ****

Free will is one of those subjects that you have to be brave to take on: Kevin Mitchell makes an impressive job of defending a concept that some feel is incompatible with science. We start by taking a look at the common reasoning against free will - that because everything that happens is deterministically based on the interactions of particles (fields if you prefer), then there is no actual ability to 'choose' - everything simply follows on from its previous state in a mechanical fashion. Admittedly when we then add in quantum physics, there is an element of randomness introduced, but that does not appear to provide any room for agents to select what will happen next. So far, so common a view. But Mitchell argues that this is too limited an approach. While there are indubitably structural limitations on our ability to act with agency, whether down to nature or nurture, he still suggests that we (and other organisms) have the opportunity to make choices, in part due to being ca...

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 ...

The New Lunar Society - David Mindell *****

David Mindell's take on learning lessons for the present from the eighteenth century Lunar Society could easily have been a dull academic tome, but instead it was a delight to read. Mindell splits the book into a series of short essay-like chapters which includes details of the characters involved in and impact of the Lunar Society, which effectively kick-started the Industrial Revolution, interwoven with an analysis of the decline of industry in modern twentieth and twenty-first century America, plus the potential for taking a Lunar Society approach to revitalise industry for the future. We see how a group of men (they were all men back then) based in the English Midlands (though with a strong Scottish contingent) brought together science, engineering and artisan skills in a way that made the Industrial Revolution and its (eventual) impact on improving the lot of the masses possible. Interlaced with this, Mindell shows us how 'industrial' has become something of a dirty wo...