Product Description

The official accompaniment to a major new BBC TV series, Atom
tells an amazing true story riddled with jealousy, rivalry, missed
opportunities and moments of genius.

John Dalton gave us the first picture of the atom in the early 1800s.
Almost 100 years later came one of the most important experiments in
scientific history, by the young misfit New Zealander, Ernest Rutherford.
He showed the atom consisted mostly of space, and in doing so turned 200
years of classical physics on its head.

It was a brilliant Dane, Neils Bohr, who made the next great leap - into
the incredible world of quantum theory. Yet he and a handful of other
revolutionary young scientists weren't prepared for the shocks Nature had
up her sleeve. Mind-bending discoveries about the atom were destined to
upset everything we thought we knew about reality. Even today as we peer
deeper and deeper into the atom, it throws back as many questions as it
does answers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23160 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Synopsis
No one ever expected the atom to be as bizarre, as capricious, and as weird as it turned out to be. Its tale is one riddled with jealousy, rivalry, missed opportunities and moments of genius.Piers Bizony tells the story of the young misfit New Zealander, Ernest Rutherford, who showed that the atom consisted mainly of empty space, a discovery that turned 200 years of classical physics on its head, and the brilliant Dane, Niels Bohr, who made the next great leap into the incredible world of quantum theory.Yet he and a handful of other Young Turks in this revolutionary new science weren't prepared for the shocks that Nature had up her sleeve. At the dawn of the Atomic Age, a dangerous new force was unleashed with terrifying speed...

About the Author
Piers Bizony is a science journalist and space historian who
writes for magazines such as Focus and Wired as well as the Independent.
His last book was The Man Who Ran the Moon (Icon, 2006).

Customer Reviews

Wonderful book
For a layperson like myself who has no knowledge of the subject of Atomic physics (or any other science subject) and yet was gripped by the BBC series 'Atom', this book was the perfect partner to the series. Piers Bizony has made this mind-boggling subject understandable (almost) and very, very enjoyable.A wonderful book which I read at one sitting and I'm now eager for more.

Excellent stuff!!
It can be difficult for a layman to find material on Atomic physics which is entertaining, stimulating and which also has enough depth to enable you to walk away and say 'Oh - now I understand!'. Al-Khalili's book is deep enough to enable you to understand the gradual build-up of theory and how everything fit into everything that went before it. The biographies of the lead scientists enable the reader to see how a theory was part of a place and time and how new propositions were made on the basis of the thinking at the time. More importantly there is that sense of wonder, good humour and genuine reflective insight that make the best science books highly accessible but also highly informative. Certainly an excellent choice for the layman (me) and I would expect for those students who feel their lecturers suppose everyone to have walked in the door with ten years previous research experience!

Disappointing
No justice with the subject.We find more of short biographies of various scientists than the subject itself.A book far below expectation.