A história de 2500 anos de descobertas realizadas pelos mais famosos cientistas, desde os tempos antigos até à era moderna.
Desde tempos imemoriais, as mentes mais brilhantes têm tentado compreender o universo através da observação dos objetos que se encontram muito além do nosso alcance e da nossa capacidade de visão, ou seja, do átomo mais ínfimo à estrela mais longínqua.
Este é um guia essencial para conhecermos as realizações conseguidas ao longo de 2500 anos no campo da ciência. Referindo, por ordem cronológica, as principais descobertas dos mais prolíficos pensadores dos diferentes ramos da ciência, como Aristóteles, Galileu, Fibonacci, Darwin, da Vinci, Curie, Edison e Hawking, este livro destaca igualmente a vida e a obra dos cientistas mais influentes.
Ficamos a saber que Ptolomeu alterou os resultados das suas observações para que fossem compatíveis com as suas teorias, que Freud consumia cocaína para expandir o seu próprio pensamento, que Tim Berners-Lee, criador da World Wide Web, foi impedido de usar os computadores da sua universidade depois de ter sido acusado de pirataria informática, que Pasteur se preocupava de tal forma com os germes ao ponto de examinar os copos, pratos e talheres com uma lupa antes de cada refeição.
Este livro mostra que a curiosidade humana não tem limites e apresenta os visionários que ousaram questionar as verdades estabelecidas e cujas teorias mudaram a forma como hoje vivemos e observamos o mundo.
Entre outras figuras da ciência, este livro inclui: Ariabata, que delineou a trigonometria em textos poéticos. Abraão Zacuto que, no século XV, previu um eclipse da Lua que salvou a vida de Cristóvão Colombo. Werner Heisenberg, o eminente físico teórico, Prémio Nobel da Física, que esteve prestes a não obter o doutoramento por não saber explicar o funcionamento de uma simples bateria. Alexander Fleming, que descobriu a penicilina por acaso.
Florence Bascom, uma geóloga do século XIX, chegou a leccionar por trás dum biombo, para que os alunos não se apercebessem que estavam a ser ensinados por uma mulher! (E, quanto a mim, é bem provável que tenha também engrossado a voz e envergado trajos de homem!)
Sigmund Freud, o grande mestre da psicanálise, consumia cocaína para expandir a mente (ou seria para melhor suportar os incontáveis neuróticos que o procuravam?! 😉) ao ponto de atingir o estatuto de viciado!
Na descoberta da poliomielite foi utilizado um vírus morto. Morto?! Não estaria apenas moribundo?! Porque raio iria o sistema imunológico defender-se dum vírus já morto?! Não! Estava realmente morto! Por incrível que pareça, um vírus inerte também desencadeia uma resposta defensiva no nosso, ultra prudente, sistema imunológico! Não fosse ele, algum dia, ressuscitar e causar danos irreversíveis 😂!
O célebre Pasteur, era de tal forma obcecado por germes, que examinava à lupa 🔍 copos, pratos e talheres antes de cada refeição!
Lavoisier, viu a sua brilhante carreira de cientista interrompida pela malfadada guilhotina!............
Enfim!... São múltiplas as curiosidades com que este livrinho nos presenteia. São pequenas doses de ciência e cientistas que nos deixam a aguar por mais, levando-nos a matutar, questionar, investigar e... em última análise ... a improvisar!... 😉👍
Before I start this reading this book, I saw some people complaining that it's too superficial. Fact one: Yes, it's true. Fact two: This is also obvious. The proposal of the book is to give you a very short overview about the science history, and it's exactly what it delivers. If you want something deeper, you need to look for another book.
I liked it because gave me the chance to knew about some names that I never had the chance to hear about, mainly the oriental names, which aren't very popular on the occident. Worth the read.
Really interesting. Delves into all branches of science from astronomy to physics to medicine. Back in the dark ages they would burn a guy at the stake for going against the church, these days science and religion can and do co exist.
Kitap adıyla hem hal olmuş..bir nefeste büyük bilim insanlarının anlatıldığı bir eser..bir çırpıda bitirmek yerine, ihtiyaç halinde içindeki bilgilere ulaşılacak ansiklopedik kitap gibi geldi bana..
A simple book gives an overview of many scientists and explains their achievements within a page. The book is divided into categories such as Astronomy, Physics, Biology, Environment, etc, and goes from the earliest changemaker in this field to the latest. It is very easy to see how each of the scientists stood on top of the research done by the previous one, sometimes in a different field. The personal characteristics and the challenges faced by these scientists in their respective eras were entertaining to read.
In terms of personal characteristics, Roentgen, after discovering X-rays, had refused to benefit financially from his discovery believing that it should be freely available to all.
I wanted to note down Rudolf Virchow's view, wherein he believes: "Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale".
Although somehwat interesting, this was too basic for me and didn't really offer me any new fascinating facts. Would've probably loved this when I was twelve though.
قرأت هذا الكتاب مترجم ولم ادري هل المشكلة في اسلوب الكاتبتين نفسه ام في الترجمة. حيث بدت الكلمات جامدة بلا طعم ولا تناسق . يحتوي الكتاب عدة فصول وهي: علم الفلك،الفيزياء،الرياضيات،الكيمياء،الاحياء،الطب،الجيولوجيا. وقد تم ذكر انجاز كل عالم بإيجاز فعلًا مع ذكر مقتطفات من السير الذاتية لبعض العلماء . والمميز انه تم ذكر بعض المعلومات الجديدة والتي لم اسمع بها من قبل عدا ذلك الافضل لك ان تقرأ على الانترنت ان كنت ترغب بالتوسع والتفصيل
For a person life long in humanities whose science knowledge is a patchy mixture of whatever makes the news and leftover highschool facts it's always a good idea to brush up on the basics, and in that regard, this book definitely did its job for me. I don't have wide enough knowledge to judge how accurate or inclusive it is, but I can say it's very accessible and readable, when not particularly amusing. The chunks about each scientist is indeed bite-sized, with a good portion of autobiography and achievements, but the book lacked that little bit extra in order to call it very enjoyable.
Over half of the population in the world are females. I'm sure many of them are scientists. So, WHAT IS YOUR EXCUSE FOR PUTTING SIX WOMEN IN THIS AND OVER 100 MEN? No, didn't think you had one. I read this whole book and at the start I liked it. Then I realised, oh wait- THERE ARE NO LADIES IN THIS. IF YOU WANTED TO BE HONEST YOU COULD HAVE SAID THE GREAT MEN Scientists and then this stupid book never would have been published.
Women scientists get enough recognition in the world today, less than 30% of the world's scientists are women because they weren't even given a chance before. Additionally, if you look closer in history you also see that many many many times men stole the credit for the discoveries that women made. Couldn't they take it to court? Oops oh no women weren't allowed to charge court cases :/
Okay so I did a count to prove it: Men: 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 II so that's 117 Women: 卌 I and that, my friends, is six. I can't believe no one else has commented on how unacceptable this is.
I'd give this three and a half stars if it were possible. I really liked the idea of going through different scientists in small sections and the way the book was organised into different sections for things like Biology and Chemistry.
I would have fewer scientists to have been mentioned, so that the authors could have gone into more detail with the same number of pages, but I do understand that it goes against the concept of the book. Sometimes, the work of some scientists weren't as fully detailed as some of the newer scientists, which I didn't think was fair.