100 Scientists Who Shaped World History [Paperback]

John Tiner (Author), John Hudson Tiner (Author)

Book Description

Series: 100 Series | Publication Date: February 1, 2000

Readers will be fascinated to learn about a wide range of scientists who have attained recognition or have demonstrated unique abilities in a variety of scientifc fields including, astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, physics, anthropology, oceanography, botany, and medicine. Chronolgically presented, this book begins with Pythagoras (c. 580 BC to c 500 BC) and ends with Stephen Hawking (b. 1942). As with all of the scientists featured in 100 Scientists Who Shaped World History, both men sought answers to the physical world around them. Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher and mathematician, coined the world philosphy, believed that mathematics and nature were harmonious and is best known for the Pythagorean theorem. Hawking, an English physicist, combined the theory of relativity with quantum mechanics to describe the properties of black holes.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Hudson Tiner, formerly a science teacher and cartographer (mapmaker), is a freelance writer from Missouri. He is best known for his popular works on science and religion, though he has written in many genres. John and his wife, Jeanene, have two children and three grandchildren.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Bluewood Books; 1st edition (February 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0912517395
• ISBN-13: 978-0912517391
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #482,334 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Hudson Tiner is the author of textbooks, science curriculum material, character-building biographies, and books on a variety of other subjects. His books entertain while they increase a person's knowledge of the essentials of the subject. He has a master's degree from Duke University. He brings a wide range of exciting facts together to write more than 1,000 published manuscripts, including 80 books, for all age groups.

He is well known for his books for teens and young people including the "Exploring the World of" series for Master book and the Sowers Series for Mott Media. He says, "Young readers of today deserve to experience the thrill and wonder of learning about science. They delight in learning new facts, especially if the facts are presented in an exciting way."

John Hudson Tiner's popular biographies tell the lives of people who left the world in a better condition than they found it. He says, "After the research is finished, a wonderful moment occurs when the story takes over and the characters come alive. I am no longer a writer, but a time traveler who stands unobserved in the shadows and reports the events as they occur."

His material has been translated into a variety of languages including Spanish, Russian, and German.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended for school & community libraries., September 5, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 100 Scientists Who Shaped World History (Paperback)

100 Scientists Who Shaped World History showcases great men and women of science who significantly contributed to our understanding of the physical world around us. These biographies are designed so that the scientific ideas presented in them are totally accessible for the non-specialist general reader with an interest in science and science history. All fields of science and scientific inquiry are represented. Highly recommended for school and community library collections, 100 Scientists Who Shaped World History is enhanced with more than 100 illustrates, locator maps, a fun trivia quiz, timeline, index, and suggested projects.

42 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Politically Correct Reality Distortions, March 17, 2004

By 

Donald B. Siano (Westfield, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 100 Scientists Who Shaped World History (Paperback)

This is a book that is fatally marred by the author's need to be politically correct for its intended audience--public school libraries. Rather than making an honest effort at discovering a representative list of the 100 scientists who have made the genuinely great strides toward our understanding of our world, he has produced a bogus list that the fearful ladies of the pedagogical world will thrust on our gullible youth, the better to keep them from having the dangerous thought that white European males have dominated the sciences.

How else to explain the presence of George Washington Carver, whose claim to fame was that he was "born a slave" in 1866. Really. The Emancipation Proclamation was effective in 1863, the 13th amendment passed in 1865, and the Civil War ended in 1866. Is this a stretcher? And was he really an accomplished scientist? Ha! PC follies for the gullible.

And in the list we find Sigmund Freud, of all people! Freud was not even a scientist. He never produced any data that could be statistically analyzed, graphed, or replicated. Only introspective self-delusions were his stock in trade. His theories on human psychology are entirely discredited today--who among us believes that a boy's love for his mother is sexual, and that little girls are messed up because they mourn for what is missing between their legs? Why him, but not Nostradamus or Madam Blavatsky, or the inventor of homeopathy, whoever he is?

To include Margaret Mead here is absurd in light of her shoddy work in Samoa, devastatingly discredited by Derek Freeman. Her "work," mostly printed up in Redbook, a popular magazine for ladies, has sunk into a well deserved oblivion.

The list includes eleven women, who range from comparatively minor figures to relative nonentities, and are clearly out of their league. Science has been an overwhelmingly white male enterprise, and it is dishonest to pretend otherwise.

And not to include Robert Koch, Willard Gibbs, E. O. Wilson, R. A. Fisher, or even Chandrasekar, and others, who generated whole new scientific fields, is a disgrace.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine introductory anthology, October 10, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: 100 Scientists Who Shaped World History (Paperback)

Perhaps it does not contain all the names it should. And perhaps it does include a few women for whom could be substituted male scientists who had achieved more, but in general this is a fine introductory anthology to the work of distinguished scientists.
A caveat however is in the fact that much scientific work is team work, especially today. If Watson is on the list why isn't Crick?
Three great minds not on the list are John von Neumann, Norbert Weiner, and Kurt Godel.
There too is no real representation of scientists working in the past forty years, arguably the most revolutionary period in the ' life- sciences' Mankind has ever known.
Still it tells the story of a fair share of Mankind's greatest scientists to this point.