A Bee in a Cathedral: And 99 Other Scientific Analogies [Hardcover]

Joel Levy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 16, 2011 | ISBN-10: 1554079594 | ISBN-13: 978-1554079599 | Edition: First Edition

100 scientific truths and principles clearly explained using the power of analogy.

The well-known "a bee in a cathedral" analogy describes the size of an atom and its nucleus in understandable terms. The analogy goes that if an atom were expanded to the size of a cathedral, the nucleus would be only about the size of a bee.

A Bee in a Cathedral uses analogies to demonstrate 100 basic scientific truths and principles in new and exciting ways, describing the unbelievably massive, the inconceivably tiny and the unfathomably complex in everyday terms. Readers will be drawn to the book by its combination of intuitive reasoning and a highly visual presentation style.

Each analogy is explained in direct terms and clearly illustrated. A range of facts and figures -- presented in uniquely accessible "infographics" -- complements the analogies. The book covers a wide array of scientific topics: physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, earth sciences, anatomy and technology. The analogies include:

• If an atomic nucleus expanded to the size of a marble, it would weigh about 100 million tons, or roughly the equivalent of 16 Great Pyramids of Egypt.
• It would take a human heart less than 18 days to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
• The volcanic blast of Mount St. Helens released thermal energy 1,600 times the size of Hiroshima. Krakatoa's 1883 eruption was roughly 13,000 times as powerful as that same bomb.

Informative and engaging, A Bee in a Cathedral gives readers a deeper appreciation of the forces and facts that govern the universe and everything in it.

Editorial Reviews

Review

What a delightful book! I had a hard time putting it down.... Rich with authentic comparisons, pictures, graphs, and facts, it is a valuable compendium for teachers. I really liked the format of two pages per analogy. It made for a quick read of each topic and made it easy to go on to another. Written at a level that most people would understand, the analogies will help readers comprehend scientific topics that may be difficult for them to understand. This is a must-have book. [I] highly recommend it to anyone who wants to have a deeper understanding of science or convey a more interesting view to students. I think it should be in every science classroom. (Ralph Peterson NSTA - National Science Teachers Association 2011)

Educators, science communicators, and researchers have long used the x is like y construction with familiar objects and actions to make scientific ideas clear to their audiences. Writer and journalist Levy presents 100 such easy-to-understand comparisons that illuminate facts and principles from physical sciences, biology, human anatomy and physiology, and technology.... Two-page spreads effectively organize the short text and accompanying colorful graphics. One hundred analogies and metaphors make science more visual. Learn how chemical reactions are like school dances and how long it would take to type the human genome.

About the Author

Joel Levy is a writer and journalist specializing in history and science. He is the author of more than a dozen books, and has also written features and articles for newspapers and magazines.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Firefly Books; First Edition edition (June 16, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1554079594
• ISBN-13: 978-1554079599
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 9.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #251,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #89 in Books > Science & Math > Essays & Commentary

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Wanted to like it January 16, 2012

By wiredweird HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book's great review in Science magazine stirred my interest, so I went ahead and got it. I rationalized that it would be a gift for soemone I had in mind, but it was OK if I read it first. That I did, and quite enjoyed its mind-bending analogies between the spectacular and the mundane. It explores quantum entanglement, the energy released by hurricanes, the length of a strand of living DNA, and many other wonders of the natural and man-made worlds. Along the way, sidebars and insets add background information and factoids, like the temperature of the Boomerang Nebula (the coldest spot in space) or the time it takes for the atoms in a human body to be replaced by natural growth and turnover.

Early on, though, a few things started to nag. Page 21, for example discusses realtivity. A sidebar mentions the cumulative effects of acceleration at 1g - increasing your speed at that rate, you'd reach the speed of light in just under a year. The thing is, though, you wouldn't. Relativistic effects would kick in long before that, preventing any material body from reaching that speed. Page 43 refers to "1 kilowatt per hour" - a unit of measurement nearly meaningless in that context, since kilowatts already have a "per hour" term silently built in. P.93 asserts that "Even the biggest molecules are microscopic on a human scale." A DNA molecule, although it might have a macroscopic length of several centimeters, remains invisible because of it atomic-scale width. But diamond is covalently bound carbon, so a single diamond crystal of visible size really is one molecule. Likewise, molecules of phenolic plastics (like "bakelite"), which polymerize promiscuously, can grow to visible size. A bakelite dinner plate, for example, might be one huge, branched, winding molecule. P....103 equates temperatures of 113C to 171F and 121C to 186F - obvious bloopers, since 100C (212F) is the boiling point of water.

The list doesn't end there, but I hope you get the idea. A book like this has value only to the extent that it gets the facts straight. This one fails just often enough to leave me uneasy about the rest. If I saw that many outright errors (and lots more points that require careful interpretation), how many did I miss? I really wanted to like this book and did like big parts of it. Now, though, I hesitate to give it to a child who might not be able to read it as critically as it needs to be read.

-- wiredweird Read more ›

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A busy book, and with errors! December 6, 2011

By Ms. Mica

Format:Hardcover

I'm sort of disappointed at the busy layout of the book, but it's a delightful concept overall. I'm Very disappointed at the error in 'Ham sandwiches and stoichiometry,' where there are too many electrons in the CO2 molecule - 20 electrons in the outer rings of the CO2 molecule but only 16 electrons in the outer rings of the non-bonded C and 2O's. Errors like this are such a problem for people who are trying to learn something. Also, on the pagers about the apple as big as the earth, the basketball-coin analogy doesn't seem to add anything. On the same pages, a 200 micron Paramecium IS visible with the naked eye - that's 0.2 mm - about the width of the millimeter line on a ruler, so that's another bad bit of science, even without the accompanying math: enlarging a ~6 mm water drop to 6 meters would enlarge the Paramecium from 200 microns to 20 cm, by my calculations. Where is this guy coming from?!

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A mindboggling fun read! August 21, 2011

By K. Gill

Format:Hardcover

If you've ever struggled to understand exactly how small an atom is, or how large the universe is, or how long the human genome is, this is the book for you. Science is full of numbers that are inconceivably tiny, or astrologically immense, and most of these numbers are beyond what the average human mind can readily comprehend. Analogies allow us to scale these numbers down (or up) to something meaningful, and give us a way of understanding the relative lengths, sizes, capacities, and distances of the natural world.

As a lay person with a casual interest in science, I found this book to be full of clever explanations for sometimes complex topics. As a tutor, I was delighted to discover new ways of presenting challenging concepts to students. There are often multiple analogies for the same idea, so if one example doesn't "click", another one probably will. This would be an excellent gift for any science teacher.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A little disappointed. December 19, 2011

By Chris Reich

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was hoping for a book filled pages like the first few...simple analogies that I can use to convey science ideas in my business speeches. The book is pretty to look at but some of the analogies are a bit vague and some of the material is presented in a very confusing way.

I loved the billiard table in the dark. It analogizes that if a ball moves in a particular direction, we could figure out that something struck that ball and from what direction it was struck. But the rocket and the elevator is a mess---a subject I well understand yet I could barely make sense of the words.

I was amused for about an hour. Now, it might be picked up up occasionally or a "fun fact". My main criteria for a 5 star book is this: Would I buy a few as gifts? In this case, no.

Look for Physics for Future Presidents. (5 stars!)

Chris Reich

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting idea for a book. February 1, 2013

By kc

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Love some of the sections, others I'm less interested in. I guess that's what happens with books with a lot of different topics!

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!! December 4, 2011

By Brousgeo

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am a Biology teacher and I love this book. Students love to hear analogies and this book is full of them. Very useful to use during lessons to keep students interested. Perfect gift for Science teachers.