A captivating book that reveals the interconnectedness of science’s most profound advances.
Two renowned scientists survey the incredible discoveries that have redefined our understanding of the laws of nature and our place within the cosmos.
From the Higgs boson to dark energy, the history of scientific exploration is rife with mind-bending breakthroughs—and illuminating failures—that have revealed the complexity and beauty of our surroundings. In this insightful and accessible book, Quigg, a scientist emeritus at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and Cahn, a scientist emeritus at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, celebrate the people behind these discoveries, following their paths around the globe to explore the extraordinary experiments that probe the fundamental properties of the universe. Readers will find many of these characters familiar—Rutherford, Fermi, Curie, Perlmutter—but the authors also highlight a range of fascinating characters who may not be household names but whose contributions are invaluable to fields including particle physics, cosmology, and astronomy. In each chapter, the authors excel at making connections among scientific advances that have occurred across history. The breakthroughs that define the laws of physics aren’t discrete, the authors argue, but a series of accumulated truths that build in a continual refining of knowledge. “Particle physics is a planetary undertaking….Professional and personal lives are enriched by teachers and students, colleagues and friends, from many countries and cultures,” they write. “Together, we elevate experimental test over attachment to received truths. We welcome uncertainty not as motivation to be cynical, but as incentive to open our minds and investigate. As individuals and as teams, we compete and collaborate.” Moreover, this woven patchwork of revelation is more than just science; it’s also storytelling. The vast collective of minds that collaborate in this building, across space and time, is an astonishing feat itself—one driven by the most essential curiosity: that of our existence.
A captivating book that reveals the interconnectedness of science’s most profound advances.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781639364817
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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