The two most striking things about this book are its convenient size and the fact that it’s great fun to read. The fact that it can be slipped in a jacket pocket made it ideal when being a dad’s taxi and having to have a quick coffee waiting to do a pick up – The Little Book of etc. just slipped into my jacket pocket and was there to fill in a few minutes. It’s particularly effective for this sort of use (or as a loo book) because it consists of 100 little items that can be dipped into at will. Unlike many such books, though, it feels fine to read on through, as well as in short bursts.

Sometimes when I have a book to read for review, I come back to it thinking ‘Here we go again,’ but the ‘fun to read’ part of this book was in evidence that I was, instead, thinking ‘Excellent, let’s see what else is in there.’ As a foil to his excellent Little Book of Scientific etc, Surendra Verma covers a wide range of topics on the fringes of science. To be more precise, he goes from good science that would be practically impossible to do anything with (such as quantum teleportation and time travel), through speculative science (like tachyons and mirror matter), unlikely but genuinely interesting near-science (like Bauval’s Orion/pyramids theory) to total loony tunes pseudo science (homeopathy to quantum healing).

These different ventures into the hinterland between science and fiction throw up some fascinating little stories. As a hoax, for instance, I was aware of Piltdown Man (who gets an entry), but not of the fake biography of a M. Litre after which the volumetric unit was named. It really is very entertaining.

I do have a couple of reservations. One is in tone. Verma can be very dismissive, which is fine in the extreme of the spectrum, but less so elsewhere. When talking about near-death experiences, he comments that after the ‘dying process’: ‘What happens then? Obviously nothing, as death is the final frontier and we have simply ceased to exist.’ It’s true that a lot of scientists are atheists, but that doesn’t make it scientific to dismiss something like this as ‘obviously…’ At least one put-down rather backfires. Verma comments that people who believe that they have been abducted by aliens: ‘tend to believe not only in alien abduction, but also things like UFOs and ESP.’ This is intended to show how gullible they are. Yet surely they would be highly illogical if they believed in abduction, but didn’t believe in UFOs?

There are also a few errors in the science. Pretty well every book has the odd mistake (mine certainly do) – but in a book that is implicitly criticizing people for irrational beliefs, it’s important to get your facts right. As an example, when talking about time travel, the book says that a spaceship travelling near the speed of light on a return trip to [Proxima] Centauri, ‘on return to Earth the crew would find that many decades had gone by.’ Given the journey would take around 9 years according to Newtonian physics, it is not going to take longer when taking relativity into account.

However, these slips don’t detract from the fact that this is a highly enjoyable and informative little book, exploring some of the more unlikely terrain between science and fruit loopery.

Paperback:  

Review by Brian Clegg

This is an absolutely delightful little book. (I say “little” largely because that’s what the title says. It’s as wide as any normal paperback, and not overly slim at 222 pages. It’s just a little vertically challenged. The idea is simple, but effective. It contains 175 theories or key principles in science. Each gets one (or occasionally two) pages, stating what it is and giving some background.

Put as bluntly as that, it doesn’t sound very exciting – but Surendra Verma makes each little section a vignette that brightly illuminates both the idea itself and the people who were responsible for it. We get little glimpses into people’s lives – it’s an entertaining scientific peepshow that works wonderfully well.

At first sight, some of the entries are a bit scary. Unlike Stephen Hawking, Verma takes no notice of the infamous advice that every equation halves the numbers of readers. The introduction to each section, which says what the principle is before going on to put it in context and explain it, quite often does contain an equation or two. But this really shouldn’t put anyone off – there’s no need to understand what’s going on, and for those who want a little more depth it’s very useful.

The different topics come in chronological order. Many are familiar, but every now and then there’s a total left fielder that takes the reader by surprise. Although the book doesn’t read through with any continuity, it’s not just a dip-in book (though it works nicely this way), it’s easy to keep reading just one more… and just one more… and suddenly a half hour has passed by.

Occasionally the need to fit into a small space does compromise the value of the information. Take Galois’ Theory. It is described as “The study of solutions of some equations and how different solutions are related to each other”, which is so vague it could just as easily be a definition of algebra. We’re told it’s a brilliant and complex theory, and that it can be used to solve classical mathematical problems like “Which regular polygons can be constructed by ruler and compass?” (now there’s a problem we all meet every day), but unfortunately because Galois himself has such a dramatic story, the rest of the page is taken up with his (short) life, and we never really find out what his theory is, or what it can do that makes it worth including in the list. This is a rarity, though – most of the entries are concise, useful and easy to follow. (A couple don’t quite hit the mark. When describing Young’s work on light, Verma says that according to quantum theory, light is “transported in photons that are guided along their paths by waves”, which sounds more like the outdated pilot wave theory than modern quantum theory. But again, such moments are in the minority.)

I really do recommend buying this book and launching yourself into a sea of scientific wonder. Sometimes you will discover discredited ideas, like Lamarck’s theories of heredity, or Ptolemy’s earth-centred universe. At other times, you might find memories from school stimulated, as you revisit Boyle’s law or Newton’s laws of motion. Or you could come across something fresh and delightful (only you can say which these will be, but there are going to be some). This is a book that would be great for anyone studying science at school, to give some enjoyable background to what can be a boring procession of facts and figures, but equally it will provide amusement and entertainment for anyone with an interest in science. You won’t always agree with the choice of content – but that’s always part of the delight of such lists. Enjoy.

Paperback:  

Kindle:  

Review by Brian Clegg

At 7.14am on 30 June 1908 something devastating happened in Siberia. An unexplained fireball exploded in the sky, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of land. Trees were flattened or burned. The pressure wave was felt around the world. Yet there’s very little trace of what did this. Australian journalist Surendra Verma is right in describing this as a fascinating journey into science – and science fiction. Explanations for Tunguska have ranged from straightforward asteroid and comet impact, through to a nuclear weapon, an exploding UFO or a communication laser from a distant star. It has even been the subject of an episode of the fictional series, the X-Files.

To begin with it seems as if Verma is the ideal person to report on this event. His relaxed, enjoyable style takes us into the history of the early Soviet work on Tunguska and the gradual division of explanations. He seems as much at home with micro black holes as historical characters – it’s good stuff. And it is a fascinating mystery, of that there is no doubt.

But. After the first couple of chapters the book’s structure seems to fall apart. We move from theory to theory hearing arguments and counter arguments until it all gets a bit confusing. Occasionally, and unexpectedly, Verma’s style veers into childish punning – for instance, when describing the theory that dinosaurs died out because overpopulation caused stress, leading to thin (hence vulnerable) eggshells, he comments “Those who propose this theory are certainly walking on eggshells.” Hmm. Dinosaurs? Yes, on the rather thin pretext that the extinction of the dinosaurs might have had a similar cause, he spends 38 pages on dinosaurs. It’s also the case that a couple of times the argument put forward seems to counter the idea.

In the end, apart from the bitty lack of flow, the main disappointment is this book doesn’t deliver on the promise. Its subtitle is “solving one of the great mysteries of the 20th century” – but it doesn’t. Verma’s final conclusion is “the jury is still out”. And that’s a shame. We’re presented with all the evidence, but no real opinion (though admittedly there is a prime suspect). Even a touch of Occam’s Razor would be nice. It’s a fascinating story, and elements of it are well told, but the book needs to give us more than it does.

Comment by the Author, added 5 December 2005

I enjoyed the review, but would like to point out that (a) my book is a popular science book and as such it’s strictly scientific; (b) the book changes its ‘tone’ after chapter 2 because that’s the only way to discuss scientific theories; (c) in spite of the immense popularity of the event, unfortunately, there are no other interesting stories to tell (even in Russian literature); there is no other information out there unless I turned the narrative into a ‘conspiracy theory’ or UFO story; (d) the scientific community (as well as the Tunguska community, the large number of people around the world who are interested in the event) is very much divided on the final answer, and that’s why the book ends with the words ‘The jury is still out’; however, if your reviewer has read carefully, the chapter leads to the common scientific view (asteroid or comet); (e) we must note that many scientists are opposed to the asteroid and comet theories; (f) the dinosaurs’ death is inextricably linked to Tunguska and this chapter adds value to the book (readers can always ignore it); and (g) the paperback edition of the book will be out in March 2006 in the UK (May 2006 in the US); it’s titled ‘The Mystery of the Tunguska Fireball’ and includes some new material.

Surendra Verma, Melbourne, Australia

Hardback:  

Review by Brian Clegg