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THE TIME BOOK OF SCIENCE by Jonathan Norton Leonard Kirkus Star

THE TIME BOOK OF SCIENCE

By

Publisher: Random House

The science editor of Time has compiled the most pertinent and provocative places to come from the magazine during the momentous decade of his tenure. If science has handed down revealed truth. Time has made it intelligible. The clarity and readability of the present collection on even the abstruaest subtleties of nuclear physics and communication theory set a stylistic standard. Atomic science, the principal single topic, is approached engineering-wise- in the awesome news sense of Fermi's first release of energy on a Chicago squash court; theoretically- in the peristaltic march from the Michelson-Morley other experiment to the disclosures of Einstein; to say nothing of radiation research, biological terrors, and the industrial destiny of man. The new Hoyle- Lyttleton cosmology is contrasted with the traditional universe of Gamow; and in prose as highly polished as the 200 inch telescope at Palomar, the problems posed by this wonder tool are unraveled. The articles, ranging from monographs to memos, sweep over the motors and men of supersonic speed and ultrasonic sound, the electronic turtles of Walter Grey and the space stations of Von Braun, the evolutionary prognostications of Julian Huxley and experimental devices for causing temporary nervous breakdowns. The selections are by no means complete, also suffer from occasional duplication and an overuse of the eccentric and anecdotal. But there are all the carmarks of a Scientific American Reader success.