Customer Reviews

Asimov's Chronology of Science & Discovery: Updated and Illustrated

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I was a complete Asimovphile and I had read his books on science(my favorite subject)and science fiction that I could come across. The book Asimov's Chronology of Science & Discovery is probably the best book of science he's ever written. This book takes the reader on the journey in history from our human ancestors up to modern times. It has all the dates,events,and the people involed in scientific discoveries and technology. Not only does it include abstract discoveries but neat facts such as when the slide rule was invented, how negative numbers where conceived, who invented LSD, and how computers came from bulky to small. To me, Asimov knew every event with the year and the person involved. Aside of what happened in the past,he kept up with the present as well.I like his work since I know that he made complex topics understandable for the general reader. Because of him, I became a genius of science! I read every single book written by him before I started to go into other works by different authors. Aside from that, He updated his work also. To sum it all up, Asimov's Chronology of Science & Discovery is the crowning achievment of science,discovery,history, and the author who can present to the general reader.

Isaac Asimov was one of the great popularizers for science. This Chronology of the history of science just understates that we lost one of the great writers of any era when he passed away in 1992.

This book is great. It outlines all the major and most of the minor scientific discoveries. The scientific advances that worked to give us the current world we live in. With things like nuclear weapons, global warming, etc. It is super important that politicians policy makers understand science. It is sad that most of them don't think they need to know about it.

This book helps people to understand the important role that science plays in our world.

Asimov was a amazing treasure trove of knowledge in his own right, and was equally skilled in writing both Scientific non-Fiction and fiction. This book is no exception, and it is a shame that it has become difficult to find this amazing piece of work.

Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery is a fascinating compendium of ALL human discovery since the beginning of human society. While this may sound like a standard reference book, it is far more than that. Asimov organizes the entire book by year with a very comprehensive index. He managed to bring humor and candor, brevity and comprehensiveness, to the history of all human ingenuity in a way that causes the reader to suddenly discover that he/she has been reading for far longer than they had initially planned.

Asimov keeps the writing accessible, and had a remarkable ability to distill even the most complex of ideas and concepts into everyday language....AND still keep it interesting to read. You can open this book to any page and just start reading.

Interlaced with the wonderful descriptions of each of the small steps in human creativity and knowledge, are wonderful footnotes and minor tangents that paint a vivid picture of the world at any given point in history. You end up visualizing each of these discoveries in the context of the world at that point in history, which adds both weight and meaning to their piece of the greater puzzle of science and discovery.

In the end this book is neither a reference book nor a history book. In truth it is a little of both, but compiled and written by a remarkable author who understood how to keep a readers interest and draw parallels to everyday experience.

This is a much read for any true fans of history or science.

I got this book many years ago as a gift, and I read it straight through like a novel. If you know a few scientific facts, this book puts everything you know in perspective with other scientific discoveries. Further, it ties science to the technology it produced, which illuminates and clarifies many social phenomena. It is a shame that this book is out of print, because it is sorely needed. Everyone should read it cover to cover, as I did, to provide context to scientific knowledge.

Really great book if your in to science and history. It gives a short and to the point description of every invention. From the beginning of life on earth (stuff we can't know for sure) and more recent scientifically proven stuff. A must have for any fans of science or anybody that's curious and doesn't have a scientific mind.

Naturally this book is getting out of date, but it is available used for less than the cost of shipping. For me, the best part is the time-line in the front of the book. It starts with the invention of fire and works it way to the late 1980s. The rest of the text is also in chronological order with short, often way too short, descriptions of the various events. I have to think that Asimov wrote some of this just from memory because the book lacks references.

I love all works by Asimov, and meeting him in person one time was a high of a lifetime for me!!

This book is one which is informative beyond imagination, powerful towards one's understanding of the world and science at large, and so fun to read.

I miss having Asimov among us since his passing, but his genius will live on always, and this book is certainly no exception.

Although Dr. Asimov is a leading authority in the popularization of science and the author of many quality books in the area, this one falls somewhat apart. The reason in this case is quite simple, he tries to do too much. The scientific and technical highlights of a particular year are given in his own excellent style but in most cases, he follows it with a segment called "In Addition" that many times is a lesson in historical trivia. The majority of readers using this as a scientific reference could care less that the first Boston marathon was run in 1897 or that the Jehovah's Witnesses religious sect was started in 1931. Also, there are factual errors. For example on page 627 he has the astronauts of Apollo 14 collecting "... the first samples of material collected by humans being on another world." Of course this feat was first accomplished by the astronauts of Apollo 11.
As a historical record of science, this book was good, and would have been much better if that was the only thing it was.

Published in School Science and Mathematics, reprinted with permission.