Seven Pillars of Science: The Incredible Lightness of Ice, and Other Scientific Surprises

by John Gribbin

John Gribbin, author of Six Impossible Things , shortlisted for the Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize, presents a tour of seven fundamental scientific truths that underpin our very existence.

These 'pillars of science' also defy common sense. For example, solid things are mostly empty space, so how do they hold together? There appears to be no special 'life force', so how do we distinguish living things from inanimate objects? And why does ice float on water, when most solids don't? You might think that question hardly needs asking, and yet if ice didn't float, life on Earth would never have happened.

The answers to all of these questions were sensational in their day, and some still are. Throughout history, science has been able to think the unthinkable - and Gribbin brilliantly shows the surprising secrets on which our understanding of life is based.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Physics

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 24, 2020

About the author

John R. Gribbin is a British science writer, an astrophysicist, and a visiting fellow in astronomy at the University of Sussex. His writings include quantum physics, human evolution, climate change, global warming, the origins of the universe, and biographies of famous scientists. He also writes science fiction.

Reviews

[Brian Clegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was highly sceptical of the very short hardback science book form when Carlo Rovelli started the trend with his woffly Seven Brief Lessons, however, I've been proved wrong - the last couple of years we have seen a string of books that pack bags of science in a digestible form into a small space. John Gribbin has already proved himself a master of this approach with his Six Impossible Things, and he's done it again with Seven Pillars.

The title echoes that of T. E. Lawrence's feels-even-longer-than-it-is Seven Pillars of Wisdom, but Gribbin's book is that volume's antithesis - light, to the point and hugely informative. Strictly speaking, perhaps this book should have been titled Seven Pillars of Life, as its linking thread is seven scientific occurrences needed for life to exist. As Gribbin makes it clear, these were all ideas that when first put forward were considered unlikely contenders, but now have mostly become mainstream.

The seven ideas span the nature of atoms, what stars are and how they work, the chemical nature of life, the existence of organic molecules in abundance in the galaxy, the resonant surprise that leads to the relatively abundant formation of carbon, the genetic code and the nature of hydrogen bonding. Each of these contributes to the existence of life, and each provides a fascinating story in the history of science. Some of these stories are more widely known than others, but even where they are familiar, Gribbin brings in small and delightful insights that are less familiar to the reader of popular science. It's also the case that Gribbin provides particularly clear insights into what can be relatively technical topics, for example in describing Fred Hoyle's contribution to our understanding of the way that stars created the elements (and rightly pointing out how much Hoyle should have had a Nobel Prize for his efforts).

Gribbin bookends the story with thoughts on how relatively unique the intelligent life on Earth might be in the galaxy. In his opening prologue he introduces Giordano Bruno and his idea of multiple worlds inhabited by intelligent life, teasing us with the prospect that there may be many such planets out there... only to rein this concept in at the end of the book, in the face of the narrow squeaks life on Earth has gone through to end up with intelligent lifeforms, making it seem more of an unlikely occurrence.

That approach is fun, but does give me my only slight moan about the book, which is that Bruno is given too much credit. Gribbin does not fall into the trap of some science writers of setting Bruno up as a saint, martyred for his scientific genius. However, he does tell us that Bruno was the first to identify the stars as other suns with their own inhabited systems - but Bruno seems to have taken this from Nicholas of Cusa, who lived over 100 years earlier. Similarly, though Gribbin recognises that the main heresy charges Bruno faced were purely theological, he tells us that 'speculating about the plurality of worlds' was one of the charges, where the actual point at issue was 'a plurality of worlds and their eternity', the second part being the important bit as it challenged the idea of the creation.

This is a very minor issue though, and has no impact on the effectiveness of the book as whole. It packs in the science, tells an intriguing story and is beautifully packaged. (In fact, for the price differential, it's well worth going for the hardback as this is a lovely book to hold and read.) Deserves to do very well indeed.

[هاميس محمود · Rating 4 out of 5]

قال كارل ساغان: "الفهم مفرح."
بدأ الطريق بسؤال أو بمعلومة ما عرفتها ، ليفتح الباب أمام أسئلة وأسئلة أخرى. وأنا في حاجة إلى المزيد من الفهم والتشوق للمعرفة. وكلما عرفت أدرك إني لا أعرف شيئًا كما قال سقراط. وكلما فهمت ، برتقي.

-من أين أتى الذهب إلى بنستخدمه حاليًا في صنع خواتم أو سلاسل؟
-لماذا يطفو الثلج فوق المياه؟ فهذا أمر غريب.
-ما هي (الفرضية الذرية) التي قال عنها ريتشارد فاينمان، إنها جملة صغيرة تحتوي على أكبر قدر من المعلومات؟

(سبعة أعمدة للعلم) من أحدث الكتب العلمية البسيطة في طرحها وغنية بالمعلومات لـ جون جريبين الصادرة عن هنداوي. عدد صفحاته قصيرة لكنه دسم.

"فعند استرجاع الماضي ، من السهل أن ترى كيف صارت الأفكار ، التي كانت يومًا ما موضع استنكار وسخط ، حقائق مقبولة."
فمن خلال هذا المعنى ، عرض الكاتب مجموعة من المعلومات التي كانت غير مقبولة من قبل وأصبحت بعد ذلك من أهم أعمدة للعلم أو ستصبح ، كلها مرتبطة بموضوع واحد وهو الكون ووجودنا.

يتناول كل عمود بالتفصيل من حيث معناه وتاريخه ومن أول ما اكتشفه والتطورات بعد ذلك عبر القرون ، يشرح بأسلوب بسيط ، مميز وجميل.

كتاب من ١٠٨ صفحة ولكن ملئ بكم من المعلومات الضخمة. لا تكفي قراءة واحدة بالنسبة لي ، سأحتاج إلى إعادة قرائته يمكن أكثر من مرة. كل عمود الواحد محتاج يقرأه ويعيده.

أشعر بنوع من الشغف والتتوق مع هذا النوع من الكتب العلمية ، الجميلة. في كل مرة بستفيد وأعرف معلومة لم أكن أعرفها وهذا ممتع.🤍🌸

يختم جون جريبين كتابه بسؤال هل نحن لوحدنا في هذا الكون؟ وكانت إجابته مثيرة في طريقة عرضها.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love science books, I always have done. I'm especially drawn to the ones that seem informative but also seem like they won't bore me.

This book is exactly that. It's informative, it's interesting and its a great read. Overall, this book took me just over an hour to read because I was glued to it. The writing and content is easy to read and understand. I feel like I've learnt something, and my head isn't hurting because I couldn't understand the language.

This is a brilliant read for fans of science.

[Bihter İyidir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Biraz fazla sığ ve bütünlükten uzak buldum.

[Debjeet Das · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is short and crisp. All the 7 pillar mentioned are ocean in itself and helps in navigating beauty of science.

1 -Pillar 1 - dedicated to significant features of atomic particles
2 Pillar 2- Suns composition , it's elements and how energy is generated in stars.

3 Pillar 3- How living things came - one beautiful description about experiment of Italian physicist Luigi Galvani mentioned.
Various story about how how chemists over a period combined different basic elements to form more complicated compound.
various mention of urea formation and science of fermentation by Buchner for which he won nobel prize

4 Pillar 4- Milky Way is a warehouse of raw ingredient of life.
Here Stanley Miller experiment showed how early atmosphere of our planet was developed.

Mentions of comet bought both water and life- atleast precursor of life down to earth.

5 Pillar 5-Carbon coincidence- How organic compounds are pivotal in shaping life on earth.

6 Pillar 6- How DNA, RNA, Protein & Nucleic acid are founding block for creation of human species.
Mentions about Erwin Schrodingers ' what is life' hypothesis.
Also mentions Discovery of DNA by Watson and crick
Significant features of RNA in transmitting information .

7 Pillar 7- significance of hydrogen bond - how it is so crucial letting ice floats in water; it allows large bodies of water even when temperature drops below freezing.
It is responsible for molecule of life.

[Ed Stoddard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a few things from this slender book, but I am not a trained scientist, so I usually do pick up some new things from science books. Just a couple of quibbles. One is that Gribben is no David Quammen - he does not do a great job of boiling difficult scientific concepts into layman's terminology. (Or maybe I am admittedly not the brightest bulb when it comes to science).
Take, for example, this corker: "The propylene oxide seen in clouds like Sagittarius B2 will have their chirality determined by the action of light*..." At the bottom of the page next to the the asterisk is this sentence: "For the technically minded, circularly polarised light."
You see what I mean.
Gribbin's editor also needs to do some fact checking. Take for example this assertion:
"... if all the DNA in all the cells in your body were stretched out ... and laid end to end, it would stretch along about 16 billion kilometres - more than a thousand times the distance of the Earth from the Sun."
That struck me as being wrong immediately and so I have checked and double checked and triple checked. The distance between our planet and its start is just shy of 150 million kms. If you multiply that by 100, you get 15 billion. It is more than 100 times the distance, not more than 1,000 times.
I don't do complicated physics, but I can do basic maths ...

[Richard F · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone wanting to understand the mysterious links between physics, chemistry, biology, the solar system and life itself, this is a book for you.

Presented as 7 short chapters (or 9 if you count the prologue and epilogue, which in a book this short are definitely candidates), John Gribbin guides us concisely from the unintuitive structure of an atom to how the building blocks for life are created throughout the universe and the biological engine of DNA.

Gribbin not only maintains a fascinating thread of how these are all connected, but also reveals how each of these Pillars are so finely balanced that it seems incredible that we are even here to see them.

This is primed to prompt further discussion on the Anthropic Principle as well as arguments from creationists who would say that there are simply too many coincidences to ignore, but Gribbin steers well clear of these and simply presents the facts.

I found the language very accessible, and I probably found the historical descriptions of the first few 'pillars' most interesting as they revealed the pace, ingenuity and sheer curiosity prevalent in science in the 19th and 20th centuries, and I am keen to explore this further.

I think you need a general breadth of appreciation of science - for me there is a definite hierarchy of interest with physics at the top, so some of the book did drag a little, but there was no doubting their place in the book overall.

In short, a wonderful book for showing high-school or university students how these fundamental things are connected to the big picture, and just as interesting to the grown-ups like me who are still trying to 'get it'. By the end I was actually wanting a bit more.

[Gipsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kısa ama yoğun bir kitap. Yazar, Anaksagoras’tan Galileo’ya, Comte’tan modern astrobiyolojiye uzanan bir çizgide, evreni anlamaya çalışmanın ne kadar değişen ve zaman zaman riskli bir uğraş olduğunu gösteriyor. Güneş’in doğasını sorgulamaktan, yıldızların kimyasal yapısını çözmeye, yaşamın yapıtaşlarının uzayda var olabileceğine kadar pek çok “dayanağı” sade ama düşündürücü bir dille aktarıyor.

Özellikle şu vurgu çok çarpıcı: Bizimle ilgili her şeyin aslında yüzde 2 gibi küçük bir kısmı maddeden oluşuyor olması ve yaşam için gerekli parçaların galaksimizde hazır bulunması. Kitap, evrene bakış açımızı sarsan bilimsel keşifleri bir araya getirerek insana hem hayranlık hem de merak bırakıyor.

Kısa olmasına rağmen dikkat isteyen bir metin; her bölüm ayrı bir şaşırma anı yaşatabilir. Bilimin sürprizlerini sevenlere tavsiye ederim.

[François · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a delight! A concise book that explains in a (mostly) comprehensible way how the beta sciences and scientists (try to) understand the world around us. If physics and chemistry were taught in this way in high school, it would be so much more relevant and fun for most. Big surplus: the book is very recent (2020) so you get up to speed on several scientific breakthroughs in just a couple of hours.

[Ahmed Ezzeldien · Rating 4 out of 5]

كم اشتقت لقراءة كتب الفيزياء!.. لكن برغم حماسي في البداية إلا أني بعد منتصف الفصل الأول وجدت أن الكثير من المعلومات التي تتوالى قد قرأتها أو شاهدتها من قبل، لكنها في الكتاب مقسمة إلى سبعة فصول تمثل أعمدة رئيسية للعلم حاليًا، ولا أريد أن أظلم الكتاب لهذا السبب، فالكتاب مفيد فعلاً وسلس في الأسلوب والسرد، وسيشجعني لقراءة المزيد لنفس الكاتب.

[Ronny Blankenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant!

A rundown of all the scientific main components/pillars necessary to explain life in the universe, in easy-to-read prose that is very understandable and digestable for the layman. The concepts are also laid out as kind of a scientific story, which for me increased excitement.

I warmly recommend it to you.

[Monika Skarzauskaite · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that yet again showcased the gaps of my education in physics, chemistry and biology. Some bits were easier to grasp (related to how the discoveries were made), others I found difficult to think through.

[Benjamin Roobol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trevlig förenklad populärvetenskaplig genomgång av några viktiga framsteg i vår förståelse av världen. Kapitlet om hur livet uppstod är spännande men lite kortfattat. Varje kapitel följer från det förra på ett bra sätt.

[Sambasivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erudite author has simplified some really basic principles. And explained the history of the evolution of thought for seven scientific ideas. Must read

[Derek Henderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A breathless account with the occasional unsatisfying explanation.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous.

Well written, easy to read, great (sensible) structure.

[Hani · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Mostly) Easy to read. Fascinating insights into the things we take for granted. And the ways of the ever self-questioning scientific mind.

[Barış Kaplan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evrenin ilk saniyesinden günümüze kadar uzanan zaman zarfında yaşananların, mantıklı açıklamaları ve 7 temel taşı ile harmanlanması... Kesinlikle okunmalı...

[Elia Garas · Rating 5 out of 5]

"لا ينبغي أن يدور العلم حول الإيمان بمعتقد ما، بل يجب أن يدور حول التشكيك في المعتقدات الراسخة في الذهن. وهذا لا يضمن دائمًا حياة هادئة."

[Nana Nik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much chemistry for me - just pov

[Yama Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too short for these topics.

[Jeff Apcar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of fascinating facts, and sometimes details I just couldn't consume as they were beyond my comprehension. But overall an excellent read. The last sentence of the book really stuck with me

[ياسر · Rating 3 out of 5]

«الأرض كروية وتتحرَّك عبر الفضاء. كان هذا الاستنتاج إدراكًا مثيرًا تمَّ التوصُّل إليه قبل فترة زمنية لا تتعدَّى بضع مئات من السنين. وهي فكرة تتناقض تمامًا مع المنطق، لدرجة أن بعض الأشخاص ما زالوا لا يستطيعون قَبولها. قد لا تكون واحدًا من هؤلاء، ولكن هل صدَّقت هذه القصة لمجرَّد أن هذا هو ما قيل لك في صغرك، ولأن «الجميع يعرفون» أنه حقيقي، أم سبق لك أن استوقفك التفكير في مدى اعتبار هذه الفكرة مجنونة، من واقع خبرتك اليومية، وأخذ الأدلة بعين الاعتبار؟»


في هذا الكتاب الممتع جدًا، يشرح جريبين سبعة أعمدة يقوم عليها العلم الحديث: الذرات، والقوى الحيوية (غير الموجودة) والمجرات والDNA، والنجوم، والكربون، والروابط الهيدروجينية.

[Aneth Davidd · Rating 4 out of 5]

A condensed way to understand the different science disciplines and how they relate to each other.

I thought that it may be difficult for a non-scientist to follow

[Sanjuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second of Gribbin's books I've read (Einstein's Masterwork). It's an informative, short, and (mostly) readable book about important aspects of all that makes up life. In particular, I learned a lot about the sun, its make-up, how it creates elements, and how those elements made their way to earth. In the prologue Gribbin explains that the creation of life was quite easy, and maybe even inevitable, which leads one to the possibility of life elsewhere. However, in the epilogue Gribbin shows how many things in the universe conspire to erase life, and how perfectly set up our solar system is to sustain it, and how we exist despite far too many odds, meaning it's likely that, despite the inevitability of life, we're probably alone in the universe.

I did think that the book was much more dull than the other book I read by Gribbon. I was fine with the history of the ideas, but the book often makes use of scientific jargon that often left me bored, scanning pages and waiting for the clearer aspects of the explanations.

Overall, I thought it was a decent enough read, but I was glad it was mercifully short.