The Art of Science: A Natural History of Ideas

by Richard Hamblyn

What these extracts are, first and foremost, are stories of discovery...

Science. Does the word fill you with excitement, or dread, or something in between?

Science - and the art of science writing - can, and should, be something to get excited about. The extracts featured in this anthology span centuries and continents, but are unified by their authors' desire to understand, explain and enrich the world.

The Art of Science is not a book about great scientific theories, complicated questions or grand old men and women in their laboratories; instead, it's about the places we draw our inspiration from; about daily routines and sudden flashes of insight; about dedication, and - sometimes - desperation; and the small moments, questions, quests, clashes, doubts and delights that ultimately make us human.

From Galileo to Lewis Carroll, from Humphrey Davy to Charles Darwin, from Marie Curie to Stephen Jay Gould, from rust to snowflakes, from the first use of the word 'scientist' to the first computer, from why the sea is salty to Newtonian physics 'for the ladies', The Art of Science is a book about people, which is to say, it's a book about passion, politics and poetry. Above all, though, it's a book about the good that science, and scientific thinking, can - and does - do.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, History

485 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2011

About the author

Richard Hamblyn studied at the universities of Essex and Cambridge, where he wrote a doctoral dissertation on 18th-century topographical writing. His first book, The Invention of Clouds (2001) told the story of Luke Howard, the amateur meteorologist who named the clouds in 1802; his other publications include The Cloud Book (2008) and Extraordinary Clouds (2009), both published in association with the (UK) Met Office; Data Soliloquies (2009), co-written with the digital artist Martin John Callanan; and Terra: Tales of the Earth, a collection of stories about major natural disasters. His anthology, The Art of Science: A Natural History of Ideas, was published by Picador in October 2011. It is a wide-ranging collection of readable science writing from the Babylonians to the Higgs boson.

Reviews

[Nikki Mackenzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a lot scientific information . more of a philosophical approach to science. It seemed to be just a book of extracts from other works of science and mathematics. wouldn't recommend if you are looking for a book on scientific information as it is more of a chronological history of science.

[Stephanie Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard work and sometimes heavy going, but very interesting

[S · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was not an easy book to finish.. The text was rich..sometimes too rich. I had to read over certain essays a few times to get my head around the concepts. Richard has done a great job compiling discoveries in a chronological order: excerpts from original texts (written by the discoverers and inventors) constitutes the bulk of all essays. Since some these texts were originally written in an another language and another era, reading the translation became cumbersome. Nevertheless, it was interesting to see how the era of science developed and progressed and I must admit that at times, reading each text felt like peeking into the soul of great men.

[Valerie Suwanseree · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book because it's not just one guy going "Blah blah blah" about science; it's a brilliantly selected and cleverly annotated collection of writings from throughout history about diverse scientific topics by the people who actually participated in science. Through this collection I made the acquaintance of many fascinating real life characters, many of whom I had never heard about before.

[Nasrin · Rating 3 out of 5]

বড় হয়েছি বিজ্ঞানীদের জীবনী পড়ে। একারনে অনেক কিছুই আগেই পড়েছি। তবে, বিখ্যাত এসব বিজ্ঞানীদের নিজেদের ভাষায় লেখা "ল্যাব জার্নাল" কিংবা চিঠি পড়ার অভিজ্ঞতা আগে ছিলো না। বলা বাহুল্য, কিছু নতুন নাম আর ঘটনাও জানা হয়েছে।

[Tom Gee · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was delightful to see how simple, natural curiosity about how commonplace things work is the basis for so many forms of scientific inquiry.