Serendipity - Telmo Pievani (trans. Michael Gerard Kenyon) ***

There is no doubt that serendipity is a delightful word - and equally no doubt that its meaning of making accidental positive discoveries is an apt one for science. It's quite fun to hear about unexpected finds, whether it's the famous ones like penicillin or perhaps less well known discoveries from PTFE to saccharin (neither of which are considered here).

It is, however, a rather delicate concept - not suited to a heavy duty approach, which is arguably what Telmo Pievani gives it in this slim (but surprisingly long feeling) book. A non-fiction writer is always faced with the temptation to give far more detail on a topic that interests them than necessarily engages their readers. Here, Pievani goes to town on the origins of the word 'serendipity'. It is, indeed vaguely interesting that it came from an old tale about the 'Three Princes of Serendip', but the level of detail we're given on the ancient Persian set of stories this originates from verges on the excruciating - about 20 pages dedicated to little more than etymology, and getting on for 50 pages of meandering before we touch much science.

We do get some scientific discoveries to justify the subtitle of 'the unexpected in science' - but even here it's arguable whether some of the discoveries, such as pulsars really could be considered serendipity. It's true that they were not looking for pulsars (how could they, when no one knew they existed), but they were looking - Bell's discovery was not an accident in the conventional sense of the word. When we do hit on true serendipity, the storytelling is sparse, often getting through it in a page or so before getting back to meandering.

I'm sure this book will appeal to some readers, but I found it verging on the pompous and rarely interesting.

Hardback:

Kindle:
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

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 ...

The Autobiography – Charles Darwin ****

I have to confess to putting off reading this book until the last moment, as I expected it to be a typical piece of Victorian sentimental unreadable stodge. I was wrong. Darwin’s little book (only 150 small pages with appendices) was originally written for his own children, and displays a very personal style of writing – though, as son Francis comments, his style was always more populist than was common then: “In writing he sometimes showed the same strong tendency to strong expressions that he did in conversation. Thus in the Origin, p440, there is a description of a larvel [sic] cirripede ‘with six pairs of beautifully constructed natatory legs, a pair of magnificent compound eyes and extremely complex antennae’. We used to laugh at him for this sentence, which we compared to an advertisement.” The main book is delightful because it demonstrates Darwin’s self-depreciating modesty, and the fascinating path he took from enthusiastic shooter of game, to amateur geologist (still his...

Zero Degrees of Empathy [The Science of Evil] – Simon Baron-Cohen ***

I’ve been a real fan of previous books by Simon Baron-Cohen like The Essential Difference , so opening this was one was a pleasant prospect. What I found was a book that wasn’t bad … but that could have been a lot better. I got the impression of a book that had been rushed out without a lot of work going into it. The thesis at the heart of the book – that one of the important ‘circuits’ of the brain is the one dealing with empathy, and that individuals sit on an empathy spectrum, with some residing at zero degrees of empathy – is an interesting one. Baron-Cohen introduces us to three key personality types he defines as ‘zero-negative’ including psychopaths, plus types that are ‘zero-positive’ like those with Asperger’s. In a way both of these definitions are odd, in that his zero-negatives can actually have a lot of the kind of empathy that involves being able to read another person’s emotional state, and his zero-negatives can have a lot of the kind of empathy i...

Search This Blog