Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: A Century of Nature: Twenty-One Discoveries That Changed Science and the World by Laura Garwin, Tim Lincoln, Steven Weinberg ISBN: 0-226-28415-8 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: December, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A lovely book
Comment: Over the past century "Nature" has been the most prestigious scientific journal in the world, along with its less cosmopolitan rival, "Science." Laura Garwin has selected 21 papers published between 1920 and 2000 to illustrate both the quality of the journal and the development of science in the twentieth century. Each paper is prefaced by a short essay written by an expert in the field, outlining the background and impact of the paper. Some of these introductions cover all of the information necessary to allow someone with even a minimal high school science background to read the following paper with full understanding; others make slightly higher demands. Most of the papers are quite short. As a current reader of Nature, I can testify that Garwin et al. chose papers that are far easier to read than the average.
Is this a complete history of science in the 20th century? No, it is very selective, and reflects the fact that much of the best work in theorectical physics prior to World War II appeared in German, while more recent theoretical particle physicists have favored "Physical Review" over "Nature". You can, however, find the discovery of the neutron here, and the discovery of nuclear fission that paved the way for the atom bomb just a few years later. Plate tectonics and sea-floor spreading, pulsars and planets, DNA and T cells, buckyballs and Dolly, the cloned sheep- all are included.
This book has the richness of actual science, with narrative skills of good science popularization. I am afraid I must disagree with the earlier reviewer's ciriticism. While Steven Weinberg's Foreward is a bit patronizing, the other introductions are all helpful. While some of the papers demand attention, they are all so short that they don't demand your attention for very long. Highly recommended.
Rating: 2
Summary: Overly ambitious
Comment: I had hoped this chonicle of twenty-one discoveries would be pentetrable by the intelligent, but not specialized reader.
I was disappointed.
The introductions to the articles reprinted from Nature are sometimes more dense then the articles themselves - and occasionally nothing more than songs of praise for Nature having printed the article.
Many of the Nature articles are simply beyond the comprehension of the reader who is untrained in the subject.
Probably a fine book for those with deep scientific credentialing, but not necessarily so for the intelligent layperson.
Jerry
 |
Title: The Fabric of the Cosmos : Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by BRIAN GREENE ISBN: 0375412883 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 10 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
 |
Title: Information : The New Language of Science by Hans Christian Von Baeyer, Hans Christian Von Baeyer ISBN: 0674013875 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: 16 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
 |
Title: The Discovery of Global Warming : by Spencer R. Weart ISBN: 0674011570 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: The Craft of Scientific Presentations: Critical Steps to Succeed and Critical Errors to Avoid by Michael Alley ISBN: 0387955550 Publisher: Springer Verlag Pub. Date: 13 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
 |
Title: Life on a Young Planet : The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth by Andrew H. Knoll ISBN: 0691009783 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 17 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
