Customer Reviews

The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th-Century Science

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I am teaching a history of science survey at the University of Minnesota and picked up this book thinking I could use it to assign some famous original papers to my students with readable and reliable introductions. Boy, was I wrong. Spot-checking the book in my area of expertise, Einstein (which, I may add, is supposedly also one of the author's areas of expertise), I quickly turned up a few howlers so bad as to make this book completely unfit for classroom use. In section 4, on special relatiivty, Lightman calls the Michelson-Morley experiment "one of the most important scientific experiments of all time" and claims that Michelson "was awarded the Nobel prize for his "failure" [to detect the earth's motion through the ether]" (p. 62). In a famous article first published in 1969 and still readily available, Harvard historian Gerald Holton disposed of this myth of the Michelson-Morley experiment ("Einstein, Michelson, and the "Crucial" Experiment." Isis 60 (1969): 133-197. Reprinted in Gerald Holton, Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein. Rev. Ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988, pp. 279-370). Lightman appears to be blissfully ignorant of the literature on the history of relativity. Section 1 on Planck is even worse. On p. 3 of his book, he writes, eloquently but even eloquently stated falsehoods are false: "The seemingly smooth flow of light pouring through a window is, in reality, a pitter-patter of individual quanta, each far too tiny and weak to discern with the eye. Thus began quantum physics." In a controversial book first published in 1978, Thomas S. Kuhn argued that Planck did not quantize much of anything and that quantum physics only started with Einstein in 1905 (Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894-1912. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). This book has been hotly debated since among historians of physics, but I do not know of a single serious historian of physics who has Planck introduce light quanta in 1900! Whatever Planck did in 1900, this he did not. Light quanta were introduced by Einstein in 1905 and met with strong resistance for almost 20 years from the rest of the physics community. When Planck recruited Einstein for a post in Berlin in 1913, he, Planck himself, actually noted in his official proposal that Einstein had sometimes gone overboard in his speculations, the light-quantum hypothesis being his prime example (see, e.g., Albrecht Fölsing, Albert Einstein, New York: Viking, 1997, p. 328). As I hope the reader will recognize, these are blunders, not minor mistakes. They go to the heart of the episodes Lightman discusses. And they could easily have been avoided had Lightman taken the trouble of familiarizing himself with some of the most obvious literature in history of physics. If he makes such a hash of the physics stuff he supposedly knows well, one wonders what howlers may be lurking in his introductions to papers outside his (and my) area of expertise. Hence my recommendation: devoutly to be avoided.

I'm surprised that a book like this wasn't published sooner; this book does an excellent job of collecting some of the landmark papers of 20th-century science. It's a shame that, in aiming this book towards a non-scientific audience, Lightman and/or the publishers felt the need to abridge the longer articles; at least it is clear where such abridgments have been made, and citations to the original publications are made.

I have to agree with Mr. Janssen below that there are some significant issues with the background material that Lightman provides. For example, in discussing the Meitner/Frisch paper on nuclear fission, he talks about "isomers" instead of "isotopes." Similarly, in the chapter on neurotransmitters, he refers to individual nerve cells simply as "nerves," saying "nerves do not touch." As one more example, in the chapter on background radiation, Lightman describes "that surreal meeting" that took place in 1965, apparently referring back to an earlier event in that chapter; nothing in the chapter, however, indicates why it could be called "surreal."

[On the other hand, in Lightman's defense, he does *not* claim that Planck proposed quanta of light; he simply uses light as an intuitive example of the quanta of energy Planck did propose.]

I can't enthusiastically recommend this book, but it's probably worth borrowing from the library.

If you want an introduction to the major scientific discoveries of this century, this is a good place to start. Of course there are going to be those (as mentioned in other reviews) who dispute some of the claims of the discoverers featured here. That in itself is nothing new since science is nothing if not self-correcting and redefining.

The format is simple - an introduction that includes a short biography and an attempt to set the discovery in its cultural context. Following that is a description of the discovery and the thought process behind its discovery. Accompanying each article is the relevant paper by the actual scientist. One of the best aspects of the book was the explanation of that paper - whethter the approach was theoretical or experimental, how deeply past references were cited, etc. This is a good, solid read - nothing spectacular but a good overview.

Faithfully relying on the original papers and the earliest documentation of scientific discovery, Alan Lightman provides a sensational book about the breakthroughs in science that shaped the 20th century. Lightman carefully avoids the "revisionist histories and editorials" about these discoveries and, instead, takes you to the original work that was done in a broad variety of fields including - but not limited to - quantum physics, hormones and antibiotics. Part history book, part textbook and part passionate insight, Lightman's treatment of 25 great articles of science is simply outstanding. Whether you hold advanced degrees in technical matters or you merely wish you had studied a little harder, this book will bring a fresh appreciation of scientific discovery.

This book should allow the non scientist to actually understand how science works. "The Discoveries" has well written description of some of the major accopmlishments of 20th century science along with decsriptions of the scientists involved. After each description is a reprinting of some or all of the scientific papers to allow the reader to understand the thought process. I suggest the reader skip the first paper on Heisenberg (this paper is the most difficult to understand).

This is indeed an interesting book and I enjoyed reading it. Like any other top list, this one as well can be criticized for inclusion of one scientific breakthrough and exclusion of another. However, this book should be praised for asking us, or even inspiring us, to think about the real people behind some of the most important scientific discoveries of all time, and to read their own words, their doubts or even speculations. Personally, as a cancer biologist, I rarely read scientific papers written before 1980. This book does an excellent job in reminding us that final results are not always the only thing that matters. It also does an excellent job in helping us understand that, using the author's words, "the first reports of great discoveries of science are works of art. Like poetry, these papers have their internal rhythms, their images, their beautiful crystallizations, their sometimes fleeting truths." They allow us to "...gaze into the mind of a great scientist in a way that no summaries or commentaries can ever provide."

This is a remarkable book that takes a lucid and detailed romp through the most important discoveries in physics and biology in the 20th century. The topics include atomic and nuclear structure, quantum mechanics, relativity, the structure of the universe, hormones, nerve signaling, DNA structure, protein structure, gene-splicing and more. Each discovery (mostly Nobel prize winning discoveries) is preceded by an essay that is highly entertaining and enlightening, focusing on the personal characteristics of the brilliant scientists who made the discoveries and on the background to the discoveries. I am a trained physicist and also a practicing cell biologist so the discoveries were familiar to me. Even so, I had not read the original papers so it was a true pleasure to have them all together in this book. For the more general reader who may be aware of the general ideas presented here, Lightman does an excellent job of leading the reader through the papers. Many of the papers are quite readable while others are mathematically advanced or use a lot of biology jargon. Even so, it is easy to get the essential points of the papers and it is fascinating to read them. These discoveries have changed our world and this book will take you on a journey that is well worth the effort.

Despite the book contains the original papers for the most important discoveries in the 20th-Century science, they are not the best contents in the book.

I have enjoyed far more than the words of Einstein or Pauling, the descriptions of the context in which those scientists lived, their biographies, their methods and the preceding findings and how all these led to their great discovery.

Very nicely written. Truly scientific and true literature.

Lightman is a physicist, first and foremost. This is evident in his handling and interpretation of the physical sciences in this collection, as compared with the biological sciences. While some of the papers, such as McClintock's maize experiments, are somewhat convoluted, even for biologists, others, such as those dealing with protein structure or gene insertion may have benefited by being written by a biologist. The background to each paper may occasionally be inaccurate (see Janssen review), but provides those ignorant of what these scientists actually discovered, and how they discovered them, with a frame of reference.

So, for those interested in the generalities of scientific history and discovery, this book provides a fascinating read. Those who are already well-versed in specific scientific disciplines may want to read only the actual manuscripts. But even here, there is much to be learned - I would bet that most current biologists have never read Watson & Crick's paper or Franklin's paper on the discovery of the structure of DNA. From this standpoint, the book serves as a tidy collection of seminal papers on scientific discovery in the 20th century. Yes, many are missing. There is nothing past Berg's manipulation of genes with plasmids.

A textbook? No. A good read for the scientifically curious? Absolutely. Biased? Maybe - the physical papers get a better "treatment" than the biological ones.

Lightman is one of those increasing number of people who have confounded C. P. Snow's description of two cultures, one scientific, one literary which know nothing of each other and never really meet. Lightman was a physicist who worked among the highest circles of the profession, and is now recognized also as an accomplished novelist. He has written essays of the highest quality on a variety of scientific subjects.
Here he presents the original papers of what he regards to be the twenty- five major scientific discoveries of the twentieth century. He also tells the story of each discovery, and gives an overall analysis of what he considers scientific creativity to consist in.
Among those whose work he considers are Max Planck, Otto Loewy, Einstein, Heisenberg, Rutherford, Linus Pawling, Henrietta Leavit, Edwin Hubble, Alexander Fleming, Hans Krebs, Otto Hahn- Lise Meitner, Barbara McClintock, Rosalind Franklin-Watson- Crick, Max Perutz, Penzias- Wilson.
Lightman says some of the discoveries were made by accident( penicillin Fleming- Wilson, the background big- bang radiation by Penzias- Wilson) some through a 'principles first ' conceptual method ( Relativity) some through what he calls timely clues , McClintock's work which led to the discovery of how gene mutations move from chromosome to chromosome) some through analogy , some through persistent hard - work over many years as Perutz's work over twenty- two years in revealing the structure of the Hemoglobin molecule.
Lightman does not claim that his list is not to a degree subjective. But what he claims is that each of those presented made a conceptual revolution which effected many areas of life.
There has been criticism of some of the details of Lightman's presentation, but I am not really qualified to enter the debate.
As a general reader I find Lightman an especially clear and effective writer on scientific matters. Lightman claims that what unites the scientists is the desire to know and understand reality, and any reader with a similar passion should enjoy this book.