Baggott provides a wild but expert and comprehensive ride; readers will agree that while we have learned a great deal about...
An imaginative book that seeks the answer to the question, what is matter?
The answer is definitely not simple, but veteran British science writer Baggott (Origins: The Scientific Story of Creation, 2015, etc.) has done his homework, and science-minded readers will enjoy the result. He begins with the revolutionary philosophers of ancient Greece, who thought deeply and concluded that matter consists of tiny atoms that move about in a void and combine to produce everything we see and experience. For more than two millennia, the concept of the atom remained an object of metaphysical speculation. Then, a few hundred years ago, the first scientists began to tease out more useful facts on the subject. By 1800, chemists understood that matter could be divided until it couldn’t; these were elements (iron, oxygen, carbon). After 1800, realizing that elements combined in simple whole numbers—two hydrogen and one oxygen become one water molecule—scientists theorized that elements consisted of invisibly small atoms. Skeptics disagreed, and it was not until 1905 that Einstein suggested the experiment that proved atoms exist. Then further complications arose. It turns out that matter is another form of energy (Einstein again); atoms are not indivisible but made up of particles, many of which contain little matter. Thus, three quarks making up a proton provide 1 percent of its mass, while the rest is energy. Recent advances suggest that matter is simply an alteration in a quantum field that gives rise to inertia. “In this alternative interpretation,” writes Baggott, “mass is not an intrinsic primary property of material substance; it is, rather, a behavior. It is something that objects do rather than something they have.” Readers not paying close attention will scratch their heads.
Baggott provides a wild but expert and comprehensive ride; readers will agree that while we have learned a great deal about matter, we still don’t understand it.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-19-875971-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Loads of good explaining, with reminders, time and again, of how much remains unknown, neatly putting the death of science...
Bryson (I'm a Stranger Here Myself, 1999, etc.), a man who knows how to track down an explanation and make it confess, asks the hard questions of science—e.g., how did things get to be the way they are?—and, when possible, provides answers.
As he once went about making English intelligible, Bryson now attempts the same with the great moments of science, both the ideas themselves and their genesis, to resounding success. Piqued by his own ignorance on these matters, he’s egged on even more so by the people who’ve figured out—or think they’ve figured out—such things as what is in the center of the Earth. So he goes exploring, in the library and in company with scientists at work today, to get a grip on a range of topics from subatomic particles to cosmology. The aim is to deliver reports on these subjects in terms anyone can understand, and for the most part, it works. The most difficult is the nonintuitive material—time as part of space, say, or proteins inventing themselves spontaneously, without direction—and the quantum leaps unusual minds have made: as J.B.S. Haldane once put it, “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose; it is queerer than we can suppose.” Mostly, though, Bryson renders clear the evolution of continental drift, atomic structure, singularity, the extinction of the dinosaur, and a mighty host of other subjects in self-contained chapters that can be taken at a bite, rather than read wholesale. He delivers the human-interest angle on the scientists, and he keeps the reader laughing and willing to forge ahead, even over their heads: the human body, for instance, harboring enough energy “to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point.”
Loads of good explaining, with reminders, time and again, of how much remains unknown, neatly putting the death of science into perspective.Pub Date: May 6, 2003
ISBN: 0-7679-0817-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
BOOK TO SCREEN
A media-savvy scientist cleans out his desk.
Tyson (Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, 2017, etc.) receives a great deal of mail, and this slim volume collects his responses and other scraps of writing.
The prolific science commentator and bestselling author, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, delivers few surprises and much admirable commentary. Readers may suspect that most of these letters date from the author’s earlier years when, a newly minted celebrity, he still thrilled that many of his audience were pouring out their hearts. Consequently, unlike more hardened colleagues, he sought to address their concerns. As years passed, suspecting that many had no interest in tapping his expertise or entering into an intelligent give and take, he undoubtedly made greater use of the waste basket. Tyson eschews pure fan letters, but many of these selections are full of compliments as a prelude to asking advice, pointing out mistakes, proclaiming opposing beliefs, or denouncing him. Readers will also encounter some earnest op-ed pieces and his eyewitness account of 9/11. “I consider myself emotionally strong,” he writes. “What I bore witness to, however, was especially upsetting, with indelible images of horror that will not soon leave my mind.” To crackpots, he gently repeats facts that almost everyone except crackpots accept. Those who have seen ghosts, dead relatives, and Bigfoot learn that eyewitness accounts are often unreliable. Tyson points out that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so confirmation that a light in the sky represents an alien spacecraft requires more than a photograph. Again and again he defends “science,” and his criteria—observation, repeatable experiments, honest discourse, peer review—are not controversial but will remain easy for zealots to dismiss. Among the instances of “hate mail” and “science deniers,” the author also discusses philosophy, parenting, and schooling.
A media-savvy scientist cleans out his desk.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-324-00331-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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