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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Only Presents Half the Story of Electricity!!, May 24, 2005
+++++
In this book author and former professor David Bodanis presents "the shocking true story of electricity." Actually this book is more about electrical devices through history and the scientists who created them. The electrical devices investigated are as follows: telegraph, telephone, light bulb, electric motor, radio, radar, and computer. Even human biological devices are looked into-specifically the nervous system and brain. Bodanis says this more eloquently:
"The world is made of electric charges and our technologies operate through electric charges, and even our brains are powered by electric charges."
The author does present some of the science behind electricity. (Electricity is a general term used for all phenomena caused by electric charge.) But he seems to concentrate only on DC or Direct Current (a term he never uses). (Direct Current is electric charge always flowing in the same direction.) Nothing (not one word!!) is said about the more important AC or Alternating Current and its colorful scientific history. This I feel was a major, major oversight. (Alternating Current is a flow of electric charge that periodically reverses its direction.)
Chapter 1 to chapter 6 of this 12-chapter book presents the scientific history of direct current. I feel Bodanis does a decent job here with his explanations and portraits of major scientists. In fact, I feel that his writing style is very engaging throughout the book.
The next two chapters discuss radar. Unfortunately, the author goes into way too much detail about the war effort and strays significantly off topic. I feel all this information was not needed.
Chapter 9 and chapter 10 discuss the idea of a "thinking machine" (what we now call the computer) and the man behind this revolutionary idea. As well, this man's legacy is explained. This information is well presented.
The last two chapters look into human biology. Here we learn that "our entire body operates by electricity." I found this information very interesting but felt that most of it was not relevant to the theme of the book.
There are two more brief sections at the end of this book. They are entitled as follows:
(1) "What happened next." This section profiles what happened to the major people mentioned in this book. Some of these people include Samuel Morse, Alexander G. Bell, Edison, Faraday, Hertz, and Turing. I found this section interesting.
(2) "Mr. Amp, Mr. Volt, and Mr. Watt." These units (amp, volt and watt) describe, according to Bodanis, "what's happening inside all...electric devices." What happened to Mr. Ohm? An ohm is a measure of electrical resistance. I thought not mentioning this unit was a major oversight.
Finally, there are no illustrations in this book. I felt simple diagrams would have reduced the book's wordiness. As well, pictures of some of the major people mentioned would have been nice.
In conclusion, this is a well-written book about electricity that has some major oversights and that, in some cases, presents irrelevant information.
(first published 2005; introduction; 6 parts or 12 chapters; 2 concluding sections; main narrative 235 pages; notes; further reading; acknowledgements; index)
+++++
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49 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very well written, but with serious omissions, July 28, 2005
This book is written clearly and is an excellent read, as far as the writing style goes. It's a great shame that the book has serious omissions which make it unsuitable for the telling the "shocking true story of electricity."
As other reviewers have pointed out, there is no mention of the great Nikola Tesla, who far outshined engineers and physicists of his time. Nikola Tesla was responsible for the electricity industry, not Thomas Edison. Tesla was also responsible for radio, not Marconi. This was an enormous issue of its day and resulted in a court case that awarded recognition to Nikola Tesla for his work on wireless (radio).
I also find it strange how that horrible character Edison is given so much praise. He was a nasty individual who took Tesla for a jolly ride and twice refused to pay Tesla for work that probably saved his [Edison's] company. Edison also organized the public electrocution of live animals to shock the public into support for his inferior DC electricity distribution (as opposed to Tesla's AC system, purchased by Westinghouse). Edison was a marketing, business and propaganda master, not a scientist. (He was a gifted inventor however).
Further, Tesla made great improvements to the lighting systems of the day, was the first to light up a massive stadium, winning the job over Edison's DC proposal, single-handedly designed and built the Niagara Falls plant (where a statue of Tesla stands to this day), and built the first radio-controlled device. Tesla also had the first patents on anything resembling modern digital electronics (the AND gate). There is speculation that this might be why IBM and DEC failed to patent logic circuits.
The entire twentieth century was practically invented (certainly "illuminated!") by Nikola Tesla, and yet he is given no credit in this book. That destroys the credibility of this book in my view, unless you use this book as a history of electricity until 1880 or thereabouts.
There is an explanation for the omission of Nikola Tesla in most books on electricity and electronics. Tesla arguably went "slightly funny" in his old age, and lost the credibility he had as a younger man. Tesla was nearly as famous as Albert Einstein in his prime. Einstein personally sent Tesla a telegram for his birthday.
Tesla is also strongly associated with conspiracy theories about the US government covering up cheap wireless generation and distribution of electricity. This is almost certainly nonsense. Tesla's wireless and electricity patents are available for all from the US patent office and Tesla patent collection CDs can be purchased cheaply over the Internet. Nobody has yet built one of his wireless "free energy" gizmos and made it work. Tesla was therefore almost certainly mistaken in his belief about the potential of his wireless research.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
What does the Book try to Accomplish?, May 3, 2005
I read E = mc2 by David Bodanis and was thouroughly impressed with the book from cover to cover. This was a truly enjoyable and imformative treatment of the subject.
On the basis of my most favotable impression of E = mc2 I was eager to engross myself in Electric Universe. After the second chapter I bacame confused about the intent of this new Bodanis book. Is Electric Universe a history? Is it a science book dealing with biographies? Is the intent to scientifically explain the development of electricity? Electric Universe fails in all these purposes.
The author makes no distinction between scienctfic discoveries and technological advances. Perhaps mixing of the two is appropriate in a general book such as this, but somehow distinctions between the two must be made. An entire chapter is devoted to Edison and the development of electric motors and the light bulb. Yet, in regard to J.J. Thomson, he writes, "The quietly bumbling JJ ....". Every chemistry and physics book that I know of gives credit to J.J. Thomson for making his important discovery. Yet, in Bodanis' opinion, Thomson's discovery of the electron is considered to be a bumbling accident.
The discoveries of Hans Christian Oersted and Michael Faraday go together like hand and glove. The consideration of both Oersted and Faraday to explain that magnetism and electricity are two aspects of the same force is indeed basic. Yet, Bodanis does not mention Oersted. Is this because his biography is not spiced with the unusual?
The powerful electric motors, described in the chapter giving praise to Edison, utilized DC current which was problematic if the use of electricity was to become widespread over great distances. Not one word was written about Nikola Tesla who promoted the use of AC motors and AC current which addesssed this critical concern. What about Tesla's other many fascinating inventions? This omission is strange given that Tesla was one of the more fascinating characters of his day.
This is just a sampling of my concerns. Enough said. In short, I have no idea what the author intended to accomplish. Although the writing style is pleasant and the anecdotes interesting, they do not weave themselves into the story of electricity.
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