Product Description

From our first realization that Earth was not the centre of the cosmos and that human beings are just one species of animal among many, to the Big Bang theory and the sub-microscopic study of the molecules that make us human, the incredible discoveries and inventions of scientists over the past 450 years have changed the way we see the universe - and ourselves. In this book, John Gribbin tells the story of the people who made science and the turbulent times they lived in. As well as famous figures such as Copernicus, Darwin and Einstein, there are also the obscure, the eccentric, even the mad. This diverse cast includes, among others, Andreas Vesalius, landmark 16th-century anatomist and secret grave-robber; the flamboyant Galileo, accused of heresy for his ideas; the obsessive, competitive Newton, who wrote his rivals out of the history books; Gregor Mendel, the Moravian monk who founded modern genetics; and Louis Agassiz, so determined to prove the existence of ice ages that he marched his colleagues up a mountain to show them the evidence. Although we tend to think of science in terms of unique geniuses, here John Gribbin shows that more often it involves ordinary people building step by step on the progress of previous generations - not out of lust for glory, but to satisfy their own intense curiosity about how the world works.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #578151 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 672 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The last five centuries worth of scientific discovery is a vast area to try and encompass in a single book. John Gribbin's Science: A History 1543-2001 is appropriately big (over 600 pages) and manages remarkably well to cover this vast range of topics which amount to the whole of modern science since the Renaissance. The index ranges from absolute zero a "minimum possible temperature (-273 degrees celcius, now written as 0 K) at which no more work can be done because no heat can be extracted from a system" to Zoonomia, a long two volume work on medicine, biology and evolution, written by Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of the more famous pioneer of evolutionary theory Charles Darwin.

John Gribbin is a well-known, award winning, British science writer who somehow manages to produce several books a year. He starts this encyclopaedic tome with Copernicus (1473-1543) and his revolutionary concept of the sun being the centre of the Universe instead of the Earth--an heretical idea which apparently was largely ignored by Rome for the rest of the 16th century but was roundly condemned by the European protestant movement. Fifteen chapters later, having journeyed through the history of the development of ideas in astronomy, physics, chemistry, maths, biology and several other "-ologies", Gribbin returns to his favourite topic astronomy and its sister subjects involved in the exploration of outer space, especially over the last century. For a single volume work, Science: A History 1543-2001 is a remarkable achievement which synthesises so much in an eminently readable and affordable fashion for the general reader. --Douglas Palmer

Review
'A spectacularly fine and successful work of its kind. It is based on vast learning. It communicates scientific problems and investigations with command, clarity, expertise, and unflagging energy. I found it a deeply absorbing read. Certain narrative passages are quite brilliant. Gribbin knows how to make science come alive, without hype or melodrama. This is partly because he is a past-master of the thumbnail-sketch biography. So many scientists here come alive! I know no other up-to-date single-volume history of science of this kind. I feel sure it will have a wide and enthusiastic general-reader audience' - Roy Porter

The Guardian
Charged with the excitement of discovery...If you are looking for a book that captures the personal drama and achievement of science, then look no further.

Customer Reviews

Everything you always wanted to know about science
John Gribbin's new book has everything you always wanted to know about science -- or at least, the history of science. His biographical approach reveals just what makes scientists tick, and how the work of each generation builds on its predecessors. The historical survey is packed with anecdotes and asides, making this as intriguing as Longitude but in places much more entertaining. Every writer produces one great book by which he is remembered,. I had thought Schroddinger's Cat would be Gribbins, but this is even better.

An Excellent Place To Start Discovering Science
Despite considering myself to be rather well informed on science, upon reading this book I realised that I knew very little about even the most basic things such as why the sky is blue or just who made what discovery and when. This is a great place to start if you want to start answering those questions. The story of how science, a term only really relevant to 1500's onwards when people really did begin to study and experiment rather than just suggesting and hypothesising, has developed.

In the early chapters we are given a generous summary of the lives and scientific work of such historical figures as Copernicus and Galileo. However as the book enters the 19th and 20th centuries and the pace of scientific discovery speeds up it becomes a little too crowded to be so detailed, a fact that the author himself acknowledges. As such some scientists have only their work discussed and sometimes only briefly, with no background on their lives being provided. This is a slight frustration but is understandable and the book does not claim to provide a detailed biography of all its characters.

I found some of the sections more interesting than others, but obviously a history of science needs to cover a variety of scientific disciplines. Fans of astronomy or physics may need to labour through the parts on chemistry or genetics. But in general it moves from topic to topic quick enough to keep the reader interested and not get bogged down in a particular section of the scientific story.

What is also apparent from the book is that great discoveries, for example the theory of evolution by means of natural selection by Darwin, and the development of calculus by Newton were also developed almost independently by others. The suggestion here is that the increasing flow of scientific knowledge from generation to generation that really gained momentum from 1543 onwards, meant that such breakthroughs became inevitable. Only rarely does a particular individual... a genius... make a genuine breakthrough that pushes science forward by generations.

Already after reading this book I am eager to read more on the topics and historical figures it covered. It has certainly been a stepping stone for further research into the world of science and of equal importance an enjoyable and interesting read. I would certainly recommend it to the general reader, especially those people who like me are seeking to reintroduce themselves to the world of science many years after last fiddling with a Bunsen Burner and dissecting worms at school!

Excellent, a definitive history of scientific developments
This book is not for people with a passing interest in science but one for all those that are passionate about it. The average person has retained only the most basic, and in most cases apocryphal stories of scientific discoveries and breakthroughs from their schooldays. Archimedes and his overflowing bath, Newton and his apple and Galileo and his telescope. This book however is very detailed and wonderfully researched. All the major scientific milestones are covered in great depth. You learn more about both the giants of science but also of those that history has not honoured perhaps as it ought to, Robert Hooke is the best example. It is a marvellous tome principally because the author is genuinely enthusiastic about not only science but writing about it. Anyone claiming to have a serious interest in science needs this book. Highly recommended.