A carefully annotated scientific detective story that suffers from an overabundance of detail but benefits from 24 pages of...
Excavating the history of the “one-in-a-billion buzz saw shark.”
Ewing (The Great Alaska Nature Factbook: A Guide to the State’s Remarkable Animals, Plants, and Natural Features, 2011 etc.) begins her complex, excessively detailed tale with the invitation by an artist friend, Ray Troll, to attend an exhibit titled “The Whorl Tooth Sharks of Idaho,” which featured his work. The author was captivated by a life-size reconstruction on exhibit at the museum featuring a “bizarre extinct shark, Helicoprion,” a prehistoric creature that hunted the oceans some 270 to 280 million years ago. Ewing describes the fossil as a “big brown slab of rock” that was “about the size of a bicycle wheel” and bore the imprint of a logarithmic spiral. In 1993, while conducting research, Troll, a “paleo-fish enthusiast,” had visited the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and became intrigued by the Helicoprion fossil he found in the basement; he began sketching his vision of how the now-extinct shark might have looked when it was alive. Another fossil was discovered in 2010 in the basement of the Idaho Museum of Natural History by an Idaho State student who was cataloging Ice Age mammals. Ewing relates that find to an earlier discovery of the Helicoprion in the 1880s, which occurred in Russia and was described in an 1899 monograph. The author labels this the dawn of the discipline of paleoecology, when researchers established “the geological ground rule that unique fossil sets in rock layers succeed one another.” The fossil set off a debate among scientists about what the fossil represented, “a spiral of teeth” or “a fin spine.” By 1905, there were 44 scholarly papers from the United States, Russia, Europe, and Japan that contributed to the debate; in 1912, it was ultimately resolved in favor of the teeth hypothesis.
A carefully annotated scientific detective story that suffers from an overabundance of detail but benefits from 24 pages of lively photos.Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68177-343-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A magnificent account of a central reality of our times, incorporating deep scientific expertise, broad political and social knowledge, and ethical insight, and Idled with beautifully written biographical sketches of the men and women who created nuclear physics. Rhodes describes in detail the great scientific achievements that led up to the invention of the atomic bomb. Everything of importance is examined, from the discovery of the atomic nucleus and of nuclear fission to the emergence of quantum physics, the invention of the mass-spectroscope and of the cyclotron, the creation of such man-made elements as plutonium and tritium, and implementation of the nuclear chain reaction in uranium. Even more important, Rhodes shows how these achievements were thrust into the arms of the state, which culminated in the unfolding of the nuclear arms race. Often brilliantly, he records the rise of fascism and of anti-Semitism, and the intensification of nationalist ambitions. He traces the outbreak of WW II, which provoked a hysterical rivalry among nations to devise the bomb. This book contains a grim description of Japanese resistance, and of the horrible psychological numbing that caused an unparalleled tolerance for human suffering and destruction. Rhodes depicts the Faustian scale of the Manhattan Project. His account of the dropping of the bomb itself, and of the awful firebombing that prepared its way, is unforgettable. Although Rhodes' gallery of names and events is sometimes dizzying, his scientific discussions often daunting, he has written a book of great drama and sweep. A superb accomplishment.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0684813785
Page Count: 932
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1986
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