Popular science that is entertaining but not dumbed-down.
A fresh, above-average entry in the science-is-fun genre.
From the beginning, Flicker, lecturer in physics and astronomy at Cardiff University, equates science with magic. Throughout history, a person able to produce blazing light from a crystal was considered a wizard. Today, a light-emitting diode in a flashlight can do that. Familiarity may spoil matters in a lengthy science course, but Flicker is anything but boring. Throughout the book, Flicker mixes basic science with oddball phenomena. He explains that cosmologists study the universe, while particle physicists study the infinitesimal quantum world. In between lies the middle realm, which many popular writers ignore. This is Flicker’s specialty: condensed matter physics, the study of solids, liquids, gases, and plasma. It’s a fascinating arena. Of course, solids are solids, and liquids flow, but many solids—e.g., lead, cheese—can flow, and scientists still debate whether glass is a liquid or solid. Boats float on a liquid, but they float on air if it’s dense enough. Plasma is matter whose atoms have lost or gained electrons and become charged. “Plasma is the predominant state of condensed matter throughout the universe; stars are great balls of the stuff,” writes the author. Condensed matter physicists love phase transitions: solid to liquid, liquid to gas, gas to plasma. Almost all liquids shrink when they freeze, but water expands; that ice floats is a lifesaver. If oceans froze from the bottom up, Earth would be a permanent ball of ice. It takes a lot of energy to boil water, but “it takes about ten times more energy to turn 100°C liquid water into steam as it does to heat the water from room temperature to 100°C." A vital source of energy, steam still drives 85% of the power generated on Earth. The author consistently provides clear explanations of complex phenomena, including thermodynamics and entanglement. Readers unfamiliar with college physics will share Flicker’s wonder, if not full understanding.
Popular science that is entertaining but not dumbed-down.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9781982170608
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Solid data and reasoned conjecture strike a harmonious balance in a new SETI.
A jocular title does not even hint at the real wonders of this cook’s tour of alien life.
Astrophysicist Frank, author of Light of the Stars and The Constant Fire, has been obsessed with the idea of extraterrestrial life since childhood. After years of dreaming about exploring the cosmos for signs of intelligent life, he and other scientists are on the threshold of a new era of unprecedented discovery in the field of astrobiology. He details not only recent revelations in the detection of exoplanets, but also the search for technosignatures, indicators of technologically advanced species on worlds light years distant. These are not merely elements of science fiction. They are realities now within human reach thanks to the continuing development of ultra-powerful telescopes and to the sea change in a scientific culture that once scoffed at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Frank’s enthusiasm is contagious, occasionally over-exuberant, and there is plenty of hard science in this survey, which the author presents with economy and accessibility. The book brims with fascinating facts and speculations, from the particulars of astrobiology to Dyson spheres. Frank’s cosmic tour makes stops at such milestones as the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation, showing how these 1950s advances continue to inform our thinking about the possibility of technological civilizations. The author also recounts the origins and current manifestations of the UFO craze and how the advancement of actual science has been impeded by 70 years of pop culture images that haunt our collective expectations. Frank advises we look for alien life where it most likely exists: deep space. He also stresses the key point that we have only begun to peer into the universe with instruments capable of breakthrough discoveries, a useful riposte to critics of the effort. Throughout, Frank champions the importance of demanding standards of evidence: “They are, literally, why science works.”
Solid data and reasoned conjecture strike a harmonious balance in a new SETI.Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780063279735
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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