Product Description

No-one has given the extraordinary Thomas Young the all-round examination he so richly deserves until now. Celebrated biographer Andrew Robinson tells the rich and engrossing story of a modest hero who solved mystery after mystery in the face of ridicule and rejection, and cared less about what others thought of him than for the joys of an unbridled pursuit of knowledge.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #209044 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
'Meticulously researched, superbly written, richly illustrated and imbued with an enthusiasm for its subject that does not flag even when analysing some of Young's most abstruse studies. This book should be cherished by all who value originality, breadth of knowledge and intellectual passion.' --The New Scientist.

'Thomas Young has long awaited a first-class biography, and Andrew Robinson has provided one. It is the best biography I have read for many years.' --Sir Patrick Moore, Astronomer and Presenter of The Sky at Night..

'Robinson's success in condensing his almost limitless scholarship for a general reader is commendable.' --FT Magazine.

About the Author
Andrew Robinson is a King's Scholar of Eton College and holds degrees from Oxford University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. He is the author of more than fifteen books, including The Story of Measurement (2007), and four biographies: Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity; The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael Ventris; Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye; and Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man (written with Krishna Dutta). From 1994-2006, he was literary editor of The Times Higher Education Supplement. He is now a visiting fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, and a full-time writer.

Customer Reviews

Biography of a polymath
I found this book really interesting. It is a biography of Thomas Young, famous for both his modulus of elasticity, and for the double slit experiment which established the wave behaviour of light.

Young was a both a polymath and an autodidact, and his achievements are much wider than just the two items named after him. He was the first person to correctly explain how the eye worked, and he was instrumental in the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone.

Andrew Robinson's book deals not only with Young's triumphs, but also with the frustrations of being a polymath on the edge of a time when specialisation was on its way in. Previously, scientists were gentlemen of means who had the time and the money to dabble in any number of fields that interested them.

After Young, scientific research became a field for paid professionals with narrow specialities. Polymaths tended to be good at a large number of things, but not the absolute best in any of them. Of course, their ability to bring together disparate fields also enabled them to found new branches of science and the arts, but such achievements were usually not recognised until after their lifetime.

Robinson has produced a very readable book about someone whose achievements have been overshadowed by those who came later.

Recommended.

An entertaining and informative read
This book as you might guess from my title was very entertaining and informative. However, I found it to be less a biography of Young, and more a list and discussion of his achievements. This is not necessarily a bad thing as the sheer range of Young's achievements and the depth of his knowledge is incredible and humbling.

Overall, this is a short biography which packs in a lot of information, but I would like to have learned a little more about the man himself.