Customer Reviews

Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

+++++

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)

+++++

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.

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.

In Electric Universe, David Bodanis attempts to tell the "true story of electricity." This might have been a worthy effort were it not for his incredible ignorance of basic electrical theory. Time and again, he attempts to enlighten the reader with clever analogies to explain the behavior of electricity. More often than not, he only succeeds in displaying his inability to grasp the central concepts he is struggling to elucidate.

The examples are too numerous to list here, but a few examples will give you a taste:

On page 37,in attempting to explain a telephone receiver, he states that a strong electric current causes the diaphragm to move quickly while a weak current causes it to move slowly. This misses the more important point that it is moving faster because it moves further in response to a greater current.

On page 46, he implies that the reason Edison's light bulbs retained their vacuum was because of how tightly the bases were attched to the bulbs. Anyone who has ever detached a bulb from its base know that it is the sealed glass envelope which prevents air from entering.

Page 52 tells us that the darkening inside a light bulb is caused by the electrons streaming off the filament "etching" the glass. In fact, it is the deposition of metal ions from the filament that causes this.

He tells us on page 84 that the warnings given about not touching the parts of de-energized equipment (like the high-voltage section of a TV) is due to static buildup on the metal parts. He doesn't seem to know what a capacitor or capacitance is. Which, by the way, explains why he informs us on page 88 that Napolean's favoring of Volta is why we measure electrical potential in volts rather than "faradays." He never once mentions that capacitance is measured in farads, even when he describes the origin of the terms volt, ampere, watt and Hertz.

Finally, he avers that the short waves used by the German radars were superior because the longer waves the British used spread wider. In fact, the resolution of all wave-based imaging systems (microscopes, radars, telescopes, sonar, medical ultrasound) is a direct funtion of the wavelength of the signal. Shorter wavelengths resolve smaller details.

It astounds me that someone can be deemed a "science writer" and not have the scientific sophistication of an undergraduate physics student. The fact that real writers of the stature of Simon Singh and Ross King could allow their names to be used on the cover blurbs leads me to think they never opened the book. Did he even bother to have an electrical engineer or physics professor critique it before he submitted it? What is his editor paid for?

Based on other reviews I have seen, he hasn't done much better with the history part, either. That said, I can think of no reason for reading this book, unless you are in the mood for fiction.

This book reads like a lot of the papers I wrote in college - just enough content to get to the page requirement. It's really too bad and unexpected, because Bodanis's previous effort at science made understandable for the layman, "E=mc2" is a fun, focused, and educational read.

Electric universe has the makings of a good book, but it seems as if Bodanis realized once he tackled that the topic that it was too big for his planned format so he just chose to touch on a story here and a story there and call it good. The result is unfocused and doesn't help you to understand electricity or its history too much better than whe you started the book.

I don't recommend this one, but don't let that dissaude you from reading "e=mc2," which is fantastic.

The focus on the story of electricity here is on the scientists and inventors involved in its development and how electricity has changed our lives. It begins with "Wires" (title of the first part of the book) to "Waves" (Part II) through computers and finally to "The Brain and Beyond" in Part V.

This is not a technical book on how electricity works, instead Bodanis, who is also the author of E=MC2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation (2000), which I highly recommend, concentrates on how electricity was discovered and how it came to be understood and how it was applied to do useful work. He begins with Joseph Henry who invented the telegraph only to have its value stolen from him by Samuel Morse who knew enough to get a patent. From there Bodanis goes to Alexander Graham Bell who managed to invent the telephone partly to win the hand of his true love, Mabel Hubbard whose social and economic station was at the time much above his. Then comes Thomas Edison, who is not an entirely charming figure, and surprisingly enough was very hard of hearing, but was amazing persistent--which he needed to be to find exactly the right material to burn inside the near vacuum of the light bulb. And then comes J.J. Thomson who discovered the electron.

Once the electron is discovered, the way electricity works seems to be understood, but then along comes electromagnetic waves, invisible force fields that led to radar, radio, television, computers and Global Positioning Systems. Bodanis spends some time with Alan Turing of World War II code-breaking fame who developed the idea of a "Universal Machine" that could calculate step-by-step (almost, I think) anything. Interesting is the development of the idea and usefulness of a semi-conductor.

Bodanis finishes with "wet electricity," the electricity based on sodium ions that works within living beings. There are thirty pages of notes, a Guide to Further Reading, and an index. Bodanis's style is eminently readable with just a touch of the sardonic. He allows the personalities to come to life and he makes the science seem facile.

David Bodanis is one of the more skilled lay science writers around. His "E=mc2" is a brilliant exposition of Einstein's theories that a layperson can easily grasp. A trained physicist might laugh at Bodanis's expositions, but a general reader might gasp in astonishment as he realizes that he is getting it . . . he is understanding what the great Einsten theorized! That is the beauty of Bodanis: yes he waters down the science, but he makes it accessible and that is a glorious thing.

Here, Bodanis turns his attention to electricity, "the invisible force that permeates our universe" and tries to make it understandable. He does an excellent job and I personally wish that his books were required for teen readers who might be led to consider careers in science and technology.

Bodanis has received substantial criticism for not including a number of major figures in the theoretical and commercial development of electricity, such as Tesla. The critics have a point, but not necessarily a very strong one.

Bodanis's goal is not authoring a complete history, but rather educating the lay reader in the basics. And this he does extremely well. He does it with stories of significant points where the nature, potential and application of electricity were discovered and applied. For example, he compares and contrasts the Henry and Morse, both of whom contributed in their own ways to the development of the telegraph. He spends a good deal of time on the development and implementation of radar. He demystifies the operation of electricity in all living things. He broadly deals with the intricacies of computing theory, the development of the transistor and other subjects as well.

On the whole, he educates in a painless and broad way. His goals are not to create a masterly text or cover every person who contributed to the development and practice of electricity, but to educate the masses who may know surprisingly little or nothing.

And this goal he accomplishes wonderfully well. Bodanis keeps what might be a dry, mystifying subject interesting and entertaining. As I said, this book and others like should be given to bright teens: it's the kind of book that may awaken an interest and shape a life.

Jerry

I read the excerpt from the first chapter on Bodanis's website and it is the most wrong--and wrongheaded--history of the invention of the telegraph I have ever read. Morse's telegraph did rely on Joseph Henry's scientific research but Henry never claimed to have invented a telegraph; he only claimed to have done the necessary science which made it possible. Henry also publicly endorsed Morse's telegraph, saying something to the effect that science is now ripe for a telegraph and Morse's is the best of several designs being developed. Morse certainly did not steal Henry's ideas; instead, Henry freely gave assistance to Morse and helped him get Congressional funding for his first line. Their later falling out was petty and bitter and it concerned Henry's testimony in Morse's patent suits. Both were proud men concerned about their reputations and places in history. Also, Bodanis's view of Morse as an opportunistic money grabber is false. Morse had been a successful painter before developing his telegraph. He wanted to sell his patent to the US government, despite the fact that he could (and later did) get more money from selling patent rights to private investors. He believed that the government had the constitutional right and duty to own the means of communication because the Constitution gives Congress sole authority to carry the mail.

I could go on and on. Anyone interested in the REAL history of the telegraph should read Kenneth Silverman's biography of Morse, "Lightning Man," and Albert Moyer's biography of Henry. Tom Standage's book "The Victorian Internet is not bad either. If you can find a copy in your local library the out-of-print "Wiring a Continent" by Robert Luther Thompson is the best history of the telegraph so far.

I received this book as a gift, so my comments reflect thejudgment of someone who wouldn't necessarily buy it for his own reading. Electric Universe is a pleasnt sort of romp thorugh the history of electricy and electromagnetic theory aimed squarely at the non-mathematical reader- there may be a few number in it, but you won't find any equations, even the simple E=IR. The concentration is instead on the personalities involved, and so you'll learn quite a bit about Samuel F.B. Morse' predjudices, Faraday's humble beginnings and the bitter feud between Watson-Watt and Lindemann.

Author Bodanis does do a fairly good job of explaining, in thoroughly untechnical and intuitive language, some difficult physical phenomena. He manages to explain things like how distributed capacitance and inductance nearly did in the early transatlantic telegraph cables, and why metallic surfaces reflect radio waves. That's certainly Bodanis' strongest suit.

His weakest shows when he tries to put things in historical perspective. The overal narrative jumps around quite a lot, and it's very difficult for the reader to get a good sense of how individual events relate to one another. A lot of his attempts to place discoveries and technologies in historical perspective are fraugfht with errors. His section on silicon and transistors seems to imply that broadcasting was a post-war phenomenon made possible by solid state electronics- but of course radio had made its way into nearly every home well before World War II. Bodanis says the silicon technology made it possible for rock-and-roll combos, and electric guitars in particular, to equal the big bands in volume; Solid state technology didn't make appreciable inroads into that arena until the 70s, at least twent years after the beginning of that genre, but the electric guitar had been popular since the 1930s, played by artists like Charlie Christian.

Despite the various asynchronies and the occasionally annoing (to me) overly flip tone, I suspect this would be a very enjoyable book for the liberal artist with an interest in technology, or perhaps the middle school student with an interest in science. I'm going to pass my copy along to my 11 year old nephew, who I think will get a lot of enjoyment from it.

I am truely amazed that someone could write a history of electricity without even mentioning Tesla!