Customer Reviews

Masters of Theory: Cambridge and the Rise of Mathematical Physics

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I especially like the original research that the author did to write the book. His use of examination papers seems to be a novel method and yields good analyses. The gems of his research cannot be found elsewhere in the form. However, his writing style is rather bad. He really likes to repeat things. His sentences and paragraphs are loosely structured. Honestly, I believe that if he write in a more succinct style, the book can be five times shorter and five times more pleasant to read at the same time. Furthermore, there are a lot of typos - I would say about one or two every 20 pages. Anyhow, the book is worth reading if you are an avid reader of the history of the sciences.

A recreational read this book is not. However, if you hang in there, bit by bit a truly wonderful story of the history science teaching in the English college system emerges. Here is a detailed description of the origins of "homework" and "end-of-the-chapter" problems! The whole teaching approach to science, which is a problem-solving approach, was developed at Cambridge in the early 1800's. Probably a similar tact was taken in German and French schools too.
I found the descriptions of the "wrangler" system that ranked students by exam scores, the nine-day examinations, the required walks taken by students and tutors, and all that, to be fascinating.
This book was favorably reviewed in Science magazine when it was published, which is how I got onto it.
-a university chemistry professor

This is my third major rewrite of my review on this book. So far...
1st review was ***** (5 stars)
2nd review was * (1 star)
3rd (this) review is ***** (5 stars)

Turns out that book shows that a respect for manual labor and working with one's own hands were probably as important to Masters of theory such as James Clerk Max as were their razor sharp minds. Recommend some of the major works by the Dutch Historian Reijer Hooykaas to understand reference to respect for working with one's own hands. (At first I thought this book was taking us down the dark road scientific materialism of Marxist-Lenism, but Hooykaas reveals that I was completely mistaken.)