The Cambridge Dictionary of Scientists

by David Millar, Ian Millar, John Millar

This volume is an invaluable one-stop reference book for anyone wanting a brief and accurate account of the life and work of those who created science from its beginnings to the present day. The alphabetically organized, illustrated biographical dictionary has been thoroughly revised and updated, covering over 1,500 key scientists (157 more than in the previous edition) from 40 countries. Physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, meteorology and technology are all represented and special attention is paid to pioneer women whose achievements and example opened the way to scientific careers for others. This new edition includes recent Nobel laureates, as well as winners of the Fields Medal, the mathematician's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Illustrated with around 150 portraits, diagrams, maps and tables, and with special panel features, this book is an accessible guide to the world's prominent scientific personalities. David Millar has carried out research into the flow of polar ice sheets at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, and in Antarctica. He has also written on a range of science and technology topics, and edited a study of the politics of the Antarctic. His professional career has been spent in the oil industry, principally in the marketing of geoscience software. He lives in France. John Millar graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, and has a doctorate from Imperial College, London. He worked for BP developing new geophysical methods for use in oil exploration and production. In 1994 he co-founded GroundFlow Ltd., which has developed electrokinetic surveying and logging as a new technique for imaging and mapping fluids in subsurface porous rocks.

Genres: Reference, Science

444 pages, Paperback

First published June 28, 1996

About the author

It would be nice to be able to say that David Millar has lived an exciting life, that he worked a season on a whaler in the arctic, searched for lost cities in Arabia, and made and lost a fortune as a gold trader in Singapore, but sadly only one of those things is true—although to be fair it did result in his first book Beyond Dubai: Seeking Lost Cities in the Emirates. Otherwise he’s just a guy who studied glaciers and climate change and is still surprised how quickly we’ve managed to mess up the planet. His novel The Ministry for Ignoring Climate Change is a satire about a government department which doesn’t really believe in climate change yet ends up thinking it can control the weather. Serious yet optimistic and above all very entertaining.