Tag Archives: Overview

The Universe Inside You – Brian Clegg *****

Posted on by
2

If you like QI you will love this book. Like the TV show, it takes a basic theme and then delights in finding all the strange and wonderful reality that can be discovered from that concept. Here the starting point is your body as a vehicle for exploring science. Some of what you will read is literally about the body, whether it’s the voyage of red blood cells or the paradox of your hair being dead but still part of you. But at other times it will link your body to the bigger world of science – so, for instance, we follow a photon of light from a star in the constellation Orion to your eye, finding out about cosmology and quantum theory along the way.

The main chapter headings start us off from a human hair, a cell of your body, your eyes, your stomach, the dizziness you might feel after going on a theme park ride, sexual attraction and your brain. But each of these sections of the book contains so much more. On the theme park ride, for example, we find out more about the senses, seeing why there are many more than five (how do you know you are upside down if you have your eyes closed? Which of the traditional five detects heat on your skin?) – but also manage to find ourselves in the remarkable world of Einstein’s relativity. Without over-simplifying, this all comes across at a level that would work for secondary school students as well as the general adult reader.

The book will inevitably be compared with Brian Clegg’s very successful Inflight Science – I understand the attraction of that one – it’s wonderful to have with you on a plane journey, or just to explore the science around a flight, not just flying itself. But for me, this one has the edge, because we’ve all got a body that is kind of important to us – and being a bigger book, there is much more room for extending into science and getting better insights. Like Inflight Science there are experiments scattered through the book – I very much liked the linked website which includes a number of experiments you can try online, whether watching a video, trying an optical illusion or interacting with an artificial analyst.

No book is perfect. Although the illustrations are mostly clearer than in Inflight Science one or two still suffer from the murkiness that comes from being reproduced in-page. Although I said Clegg doesn’t over-simplify, at times I really wanted more. There is a good further reading section (enhanced in the website by being able to click through to the books), but on or two of the topics I felt that they had been crammed in because they ought to be there, but that the coverage was more summary than I would have liked. These were relatively few though – mostly they were pitched at the right level.

This is an Alice in Wonderland trip through science. The book starts and ends with looking at yourself in the mirror (typically, Clegg can’t resist exploring why the mirror reverses left and right but not top and bottom). But where Alice encounters absurdity, on our trip through the looking glass, we discover and enjoy the wonders of science. Brilliant stuff.

Updated 14/1/13 – Now in mass market paperback

Paperback: 

Trade Paperback:  

also on Kindle:  

You can see more about the book at its website: www.universeinsideyou.com

Review by Jo Reed

Please note, this title is written by the editor of the Popular Science website. Our review is still an honest opinion – and we could hardly omit the book – but do want to make the connection clear.

The Science of Middle Earth – Henry Gee ****

Posted on by
Reply

When I saw this book (subtitled “Explaining The Science Behind The Greatest Fantasy Epic Ever Told!” in the original US edition), I thought it was time to put my foot down. Okay, Douglas Adams’ delirious fantasy, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was largely a science fiction parody, so Science of Hitchhiker’s made sense. Even Science of Discworld works, thanks to the conceit of treating it as the view of fantasy characters of Discworld observing our science. But Science of Middle Earth? Isn’t it all swords and sorcery? What’s more, Tolkien was famously a romantic who longed for a non-existent bucolic rural past, typified by the hobbits’ Shire (while conveniently forgetting the rampant disease, infant mortality and frequent malnutrition, that were just some of the joys of the real rural past). Didn’t Tolkien attack the whole idea of science and technology as the black vision of the likes of his number II baddy, Saruman?

Henry Gee, a senior editor of the definitive science journal Nature in his day job, makes a striking case for taking a different viewpoint. He reminds us firstly that Tolkien’s own speciality, the study of words and language, a subject that is at the heart of The Lord of the Rings and his other heavy duty fiction, is a science. He also makes it clear that Tolkien wasn’t anti-science per se (apparently Isaac Asimov was a favourite of his). What he was against was the wrong attitude to science – letting it control us, rather than the other way around. In fact, Gee argues persuasively that, for instance, the Elves in LoTR don’t use magic (they say this themselves), but technology that is so in tune with nature that it’s hard to distinguish from it.

All in all this makes for a fascinating and very unusual entry in the “Science of…” league. Firstly it’s a very literary and precise book for such a subject. There’s as much about language as there is about “normal” science, and Gee’s approach has a scholarly care that may seem a little dry to the followers of more straight forward popular science, but that works surprisingly well. After the aspects of language, a lot of space is given to the biology of Middle Earth – where did orcs come from? What is the biology of ents? – all fascinating stuff.

There is one iffy bit of science. Gee suggests that the palantiri, the long distance seeing stones that feature in the book, could be linked by quantum entanglement, allowing instant communication. The trouble is, while quantum entanglement does provide an instant link across any distance, it can only provide the result of a random outcome – it can’t instantly communicate any information [1]. (It’s just as well: if it could, it would be possible to send a message through time and disrupt causality.) It’s fine to come up with real world scientific solutions to oddities of fiction, but they ought to make sense with science as we know it.

Just occasionally, for instance when Gee was struggling to explain how the One Ring could make people invisible I wanted to shout “What’s the point? It’s just a story!” But that’s not the main reaction to this book. Any Tolkien fan will find fascinating insights into the man and a side of his interests that is wildly underrepresented in what has been written about him. And as an exercise in “Science of…” attached to a work of fiction it’s one of the best around [2].

[1] In the ebook edition this problem is highlighted and explored, but only in a note at the back of the book, which still leaves the error in the main text.

[2] The Science of Middle Earth is even better in the ebook edition [3] (would Tolkien have approved?), which has been updated from the original, though most of the updates seem to be in the end notes. So, for instance, where in the main text Gee refers to the difficulties of juggling various e-devices that don’t communicate (like PDAs – remember PDAs?), he updates this in the notes.

[3] If possible, go for the ebook edition.

Paperback:  

Kindle (updated edition):  

Review by Brian Clegg

A Little History of Science – William Bynum ***

Posted on by
Reply

Doing all of science in one book is not an easy task, nor is it obvious how to go about it. William Bynum has chosen to provide us with a breezy high speed canter through the history of science, with the keyword being ‘history’. There is a lot of about the people involved and the context, always good from a popular science viewpoint.

Bynum manages to do this in an approachable way – almost too approachable sometimes as the style veers between writing for adults and for children. The bumf says ‘this is a volume for young and old to treasure together,’ but it really is neither fish nor fowl. The approach generally speaking is one that works best for adults, but then you get a sentence like ‘Galen was very clever and was not afraid to say so,’ that sounds ever so Janet and John.

Perhaps my biggest problem with the book is that while the history side of it was usually fine, the science was not always so. Some of it was just little factual errors – stating that the human appendix has no function – actually it has recently been discovered to have one – or referring to ‘degrees Kelvin’ like ‘degrees Celsius’ where the unit on the Kelvin scale is just kelvins (no degrees). But the problems were more painful when it came to modern physics – it did rather look like the author really didn’t know what he was writing about.

He tells us, for instance, that cyclotrons and synchrotrons were used by Chadwick in ‘smashing high-speed neutrons into heavy atoms’ – but these devices can only accelerate charged particles, and Chadwick used slow neutrons from decaying radioactive substances. He also says that the twins paradox ‘is just a thought experiment and could only happen in science fiction’. Well, no, it’s not, and on a small scale with atomic clocks it has been performed many times. He also seems confused about gravity, commenting that in space ‘there is no gravity. Astronauts and their spacecraft are essentially in free fall.’ The last bit is true, but not because there is no gravity – there’s plenty of gravity at the kind of level that, say the ISS orbits. But that free fall means it isn’t felt.

The absolute worst example is a paragraph that I find almost entirely without meaning. I would be grateful if anyone could explain this one to me:

As Einstein’s E=mc2 tells us, at ever higher speeds – almost the speed of light – in the accelerators the mass is mostly converted into energy. The physicists found that these very fast particles do some fascinating things. The electron emerges unchanged from the accelerator. It is part of a family of force-particles – the leptons.

I am baffled. Overall, then I am not sure what the audience for this book is, nor am I happy that they will get any sensible understanding of modern physics.

Hardback:  

Kindle:  

Review by Brian Clegg

Deceived Wisdom – David Bradley ****

Posted on by
1

One of the joys of reading popular science books is discovering little factoids that amaze you and that you can’t resist telling other people. But David Bradley’s Deceived Wisdom goes one step better. Here the factoids are ones that many people believe, but science shows to be false. Apart from the risk of coming across as a smartarse, what’s not to love?

This slim volume (I read the whole thing in one go on a 1.5 hour train journey) has a good mix of classic old wives tales and more modern surprises. It’s delightful to discover that so many of those things you were told off for as a child (‘Don’t wear your coat inside, you won’t feel the benefit!’ for instance) are simply not true. I similarly rather enjoyed the evidence that women are no better at multitasking then men, and that cats aren’t cleverer than dogs. (Bradley attempts balance, but he clearly demonstrates it’s the other way round.) If nothing else, every member of the government should be sent a copy of this book to persuade them they don’t need to put notices in petrol stations telling us not to use our phones. There is no risk of setting the petrol on fire.

It’s almost inevitable with a collection like this that there are some quibbles. Sometimes the wording could be a little clearer. I was confused, for instance, if letting red wine breathe (by decanting it) was a good idea or not. The structure of the entries is to have the myth up front and then disprove it. But when dispensing with ‘No two snowflakes are alike’, Bradley concludes ‘get a lot closer and it becomes clear that no two snow crystals could be exactly the same.’ He seems to have proved his myth. Actually it’s more complicated. At the level the statement was originally made, visually, it is a myth. A lot of snow crystals are simple hexagons. Not identical at the molecular level, but that was never intended.

Another example I could quibble with is that Bradley claims as a myth ‘The full moon looks bigger when it’s closer to the horizon.’ This is patently true. What he means is that it is no different optically, but ‘looks’ refers to what a human being perceives – and there it is true. The underlying reason is that we don’t see like a camera, but rather the brain detects shapes, shading etc. and constructs the image we ‘see’ – this isn’t really discussed. But these really are quibbles and don’t take away from the fun of reading this excellent collection of science surprises.

If you liken popular science books to food, Deceived Wisdom is simply not meaty enough to make it a three course meal. It is, however, a top notch box of chocolates – and who doesn’t like that? Recommended.

Hardback:  

If you have a Kindle, download the free extended sampler:  

Review by Brian Clegg

This is Improbable – Marc Abrahams ****

Posted on by
Reply

The Ig Nobel Prize has become something of an institution in the science world. Year after year, respected scientists turn up to have their leg pulled about the topic of an academic paper they have had published (or occasionally a patent application). The man behind the Ig Nobels, Marc Abrahams, writes a column on ‘improbable research’ and this book is a collection of these articles, though often enhanced for the book form.

The tag line of the Ig Nobels is that it is for research that makes you laugh… then makes you think. This is true, although you often think ‘I don’t know how they ever managed to get funding for that research,’ or ‘How could they have the front to present that as science?’ A classic example of the latter is a piece where the incidence of wearing high heeled shoes is correlated with the rise of schizophrenia. It’s hard to start on what’s wrong with this paper – particularly the Science 101 error of confusing correlation with causality. It really is excruciating.

Others are just hilarious in the phrasing. My overall favourite was one on the mechanical properties of cheese. I nearly fell off the chair when reading that research ‘reported a change in the stress-strain behaviour of Gouda cheese when plates were lubricated with oil as opposed to when they were covered with emery paper.’ Boggle.

My only concern is that these things work better on an occasional exposure rather than a whole bookful at once. I found myself in overload reading the thing end to end – it meant that I found some topics a bit dull. I think this would be a book that is better dipped into (kept in the obvious location, I guess) than devoured in one sitting.

Inevitably Improbable makes for a good gift book – excellent for anyone of a scientific bent – or just to keep yourself amused in spare moments. I am assured that Abrahams didn’t make any of these papers up – but you will find it hard to believe.

Paperback:  

Kindle:  

Review by Brian Clegg

The Islands of Benoit Mandelbrot – Nina Samuel (Ed.) **

Posted on by
2

Benoit Mandelbrot was the poster-boy of chaos and fractals, in a sense literally as the graphic version of his Mandelbrot set occupied many an arty poster in its time. There’s no doubt Mandelbrot himself did lots of marvellous work from his analysis of cotton production to his ‘how far is at around the coastline of the UK’ and, yes, his remarkable set. But the trouble with the arty associations of that image means he tends to get dragged into a lot of stuff that is peripheral and verges on pseudo-science.

The antennae were raised by the subtitle of this book: ‘Fractals, chaos and the materiality of thinking.’ Is ‘materiality’ even a word?

It also doesn’t help that this book is a collection of articles. There is no narrative thrust – it’s not going anywhere. Allegedly the book shows how ‘images actually further knowledge.’ There is an element of truth in that idea, though it sounds rather like wishful thinking on the part of arty people who want to be scientific. But the approach taken – to use images found in the late Dr Mandelbrot’s office smacks of opportunism with no great interest in imparting wisdom.

One or two of the pieces are worth dipping into , particularly the one on ‘Nature in Mandelbrot’s Geometry’, but many of them are not worth wasting time on. Overall this is certainly not popular science. In fact it’s hard to see what it is, except self-indulgant.

Paperback:  

Review by Peter Spitz

Will We Ever Speak Dolphin – Mick O’Hare (Ed.) ****

Posted on by
1

Welcome to the latest in New Scientist‘s hugely popular quirky science answers series. As with its predecessors, we have here what ought to be a disaster, as it’s a book made up of a series of columns from newspapers. With a few exceptions, these are, frankly uninspiring books that are very cheap to produce, and it shows. But because the questions are so fascinating, the books culled from the New Scientist‘s Last Word column continue to be a delight.

I think the reason they are so successful is because they tap into the reason human beings are driven to do science. Curiosity. That nagging urge to get an answer to the question ‘Why?’ that drives every conversation with a five year old. As Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory demonstrates, to maintain such a level of questioning into adulthood would be irritating indeed – but it is the residue of that childhood curiosity that thankfully makes us interested in all things scientific.

Without that drive the questions would have become dull after a book or two, but in practice they still keep coming up with crackers, from silly but burning questions like ‘Why do we have earwax?’ to seriously interesting subjects like whether we will ever be able to truly communicate with dolphins and, perhaps most important of all, whether they ever would have got the gold out of the coach in The Italian Job.

The only criticism I have is the means of getting answers. The answers also come from readers writing in. I can see this minimises effort for the editor, and is entertaining for those who write in, but it does mean that some of the answers are a bit questionable. The very first answer, about squeaky cheese gives a suggestion for why we don’t like the sound of fingernails on a blackboard that does not fit with the research I’ve seen. And there is another example where two separate questions appear to have contradictory answers, both of which are accepted by the editor without question. One says ‘Air at a given temperature can only hold a certain amount of water vapour: the colder it is, the less it can hold.’ Fifty pages later we read ‘The belief that warm air can hold more water was disproved in 1802…’ Confusing. Maybe there could be a bit more fact checking.

Despite this slight moan, this remains a solid gold series that will entertain science enthusiasts (who haven’t already read them in the back of New Scientist) everywhere.

Paperback:  

Kindle:  

Review by Brian Clegg

The Science Magpie – Simon Flynn ****

Posted on by
1

I have a list of popular science book ideas that I occasionally revisit – things I quite fancy writing in the future. Now I have to cross one of them off the list, because Simon Flynn has written it for me. My list describes it as a popular science version of Schott’s Miscellany, but Flynn has called it by the (to me, rather clumsy) title The Science Magpie.

At least, that’s what I assume it is, because I have to confess, I’ve never read Schott’s Miscellany, so I don’t know what it contains – I merely assume it’s this kind of kaleidoscopic mix of all manner of facts, from the quite interesting to the downright weird. It’s the sort of book you can imagine Stephen Fry curling up with of an evening before hosting QI.

Inevitably in such an inspired hotch-potch there will always be some entries that inspire more than most. I loved, for instance, real molecules with silly names, the 1858 Cambridge University exam questions and the curly snail periodic table. Other parts are more ‘Hmm’ moments, like a whole page of digits of pi, while still others simply get a little dull. Often this is a transcription of a historical document – I have fallen for this one myself. They fascinate if you are researching the particular topic, but to the general reader they can fall a little flat.

The nice thing though is that, even if there’s a topic that doesn’t really grab you, you know that in the next page or two there will be something completely different. There is no order to all this, it is just stuff accumulated at random, like one of those wonderful old fashioned museums where you get a Victorian vacuum cleaner alongside an Egyptian mummy. Delicious.

If anyone ought to know what grabs the science reading public’s attention it’s Flynn, who used to be MD of Icon Books and is now training as a science teacher. I know this is going to be a book that will find its way into many science loving people’s present piles.

Hardback:  

Kindle:  

Review by Brian Clegg

Ignorance: How it drives science – Stuart Firestein *****

Posted on by
1

This is a delightful little book that really gets you thinking. I stress the ‘little’ part not as a negative, but as a good thing. There is nothing worse than fat, bloated popular science books where the author feels they have to get 120,000 words to be taken seriously. This is the sort of book that can be read in a couple of hours – but you will get so much more out of it than one of those tedious doorstops.

The premise underlying the book is in once sense extremely simple, yet is fundamental to an understanding of what science is and what scientists do. And it is an understanding that is totally at odds with the typical way science is portrayed both in university lectures and popular science books. As Stuart Firestein points out, what is important is not the facts, but rather the area of ignorance. The interesting part and the fundamental heart of science is not about what we know, but about what we don’t know and where we want to look next.

Take this lovely quote: ‘Working scientists don’t get bogged down in the factual swamp because they don’t care all that much for facts. It’s not that they discount or ignore them, but rather that they don’t see them as an end in themselves. They don’t stop at the facts; they begin there, right beyond the facts, where the facts run out.’

When I give my talk based on my book Before the Big Bang, I end by talking about dark matter and dark energy, and how our lack of any real idea of what these are means we know very little about the majority of what makes up the universe. And, I stress, this isn’t a bad thing – this is what makes science interesting. Stuart Firestein takes this viewpoint and puts it at the heart of science.

If I have any moan, the introductory section is just a touch repetitive on the central role of ignorance in science, but I think it’s such an important aspect that so few people recognise that it’s well worth hammering home. I also, despite the case histories he gives, find it difficult to follow his explanation for the process of selecting the right bits of ignorance to work on. But overall this is a great book and recommended reading for both scientists and anyone with an interest in science.

Hardback:  

Kindle:  

Review by Brian Clegg

Elephants on Acid – Alex Boese *****

Posted on by
Reply

I went about this what was officially the wrong way round, reading the sequel to Elephants on Acid (if you are wondering, Electrified Sheep) first – but for me it worked well because I preferred the original.

Both books have the same basic premise – a collection of tales of the weirdest and most bizarre experiments that real scientists have undertaken – but Elephants has the advantage of both coming first, and hence probably getting the cream of the crop, and also lacks the format issue I had with the sequel, because it doesn’t have the lengthy, slightly irritating dramatised intros to the stories. On the whole the entries are shorter too – this does make the book a little bitty but with this kind of concept it actually works better.

Some of the experiments described are mildly horrifying (if you get upset by vivisection, look away in the section describing a kitten having its head cut off and its spinal cord replaced with a metal amalgam, or attempts to keep two heads alive on the same dog. Others are just bonkers, like the title one involving giving an elephant a huge overdose of LSD (it died). Or most fascinating for me the  psychological ventures including the inevitable Milgram shocking experiment.

You might not gain a lot of valuable science from this book, but I can guarantee you will be thoroughly entertained.

Paperback:  

Also on Kindle:  

Review by Brian Clegg