Customer Reviews

The Scientific 100

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

 

 

I had to put off reading this book until the summer because under normal conditions a person would pick this book up and look for a specific scientist, or science, and then get the wanted information on those specifics. This is not one of those books that you just pick up and read straight through. Most scientists are interested in a limited area of science. For example, Marie Curie was a chemist, a physicist, and interested in other sciences and the math that were involved in those sciences. Very rarely, if ever, did she wander into the domain of biological sciences (if she had, she may have been a bit more careful with the radium she and her husband were 'pocketing' on a daily basis)!

There are always a few men and women out there who remain curious about the entire world. Men like Leonardo de Vinci, Linus Pauling, even those outside of the world of science such as Thomas Jefferson. But the fact remains that this book would be used as a starting point or a reference by teachers and students to gain information about specific scientists and the fields they investigated; whether it be chemistry, physics, biology, or linguistics.

This is an excellent reference book. I can highly recommend it for use by teachers in gathering information about these famous men without going into so much detail about their scientific interests that the teachers who have not been trained in these areas, get lost. I especially recommend it for highschool and college level reference. If teachers of lower grades plan to use this book, I highly suggest they read carefully the information on specific scientists first rather than just handing the book over to a student. I am a little leery of recommending books that I have not read, or of teachers who recommend books that they have not read. The reason for this hesitation is that Simmons puts a small amount of personal information concerning these men and their families, especially their wives, in the chapters...and some of this information is not only not pertinent to their lives in science, but is actually slightly more detailed about their sex lives than a seventh grader needs to know. This is the only reason I gave the book a 4 star rating rather than a 5 star rating.

Otherwise, I enjoyed reading about so many interesting men and women (again, there is a limit on the amount of women and minorities in the book but that is in large part due to historical prejudices which were not overcome until the last century). There are definitely several scientists I am going to read more information on because of this book raising my interest in them.

Again, a highly informative reference book for science, math, and libraries.

Karen Sadler,

Science Education

Review of The scientific 100: a ranking of the most influential scientists, past and present by John G. Simmons by Citadel Press of New York.

Reviewer Dr W. P. Palmer

The task of choosing the one hundred most influential scientists, past and present and putting them in order of merit is difficult. To obtain any exact agreement with others is completely impossible; but it is fun trying. The point of the book is the large measure of disagreement that it generates. The author is well aware of these difficulties and explains his views in an introductory chapter. He thinks that although there may be disagreement in exact position of scientists on the list, there may be wider agreement that, for example, a scientist in the top ten on the list is unlikely to be graded as being in the bottom ten on another list.

In the view of the reviewer, the problems arise precisely because the category `most influential' is itself ill-defined. For example, I would certainly include Robert Bunsen in any list of the top 100 scientists. Of course as soon as an extra scientist is included, another scientist will need to be omitted from the list. The author offers two escape mechanisms; firstly scientists often co-operate and in Bunsen's case, Bunsen obtains the reader's attention through the description of the work of Gustav Kirchoff, who was, in a sense, Bunsen's discovery; secondly he has a final chapter entitled `Inexcusable omissions, honorable mentions and also-rans' in which the author apologises for not including a number of scientists, such as Robert Boyle, Henry Cavendish. Joseph Priestley, and Edmond Halley, all of whom are important scientists. A case could also be made for the inclusion of Thomas Henry Huxley in his own right rather than brief mentions under the sections on Charles Darwin, Ernst Mayr and Jean Baptiste Lamarck.

Some general points! Only one female scientist, Marie Curie, is included in the top one hundred scientists; this is not just. The author rules out applied scientists such as Thomas Edison; if he were included several other inventors and engineers would also find a place. John Dalton, creator of the atomic theoy seems to get no mention. Australian scientists are omitted entirely; probably Howard Florey was a better scientist than Alexander Fleming. Australians, William and Lawrence Bragg were unfortunate to be omitted.

This paperback book runs to 504 pages, in a good size print with numerous black and white illustrations. Each scientist has about four pages allotted to them. Even if one disagreed profoundly with the rankings of the scientists, the book is an excellent basic reference work in the history of science and could be used for that purpose in school or public libraries. Provided that the idea of creating an order of merit between 100 scientists all of whom are great men, is not taken too seriously, then this reviewer thoroughly recommends this book.

BILL PALMER

This book contains 100 brief biographies covering scientists in all fields. I feel that it is a much better book than many of this genre as the choices were not geared towards popular perceptions. It restricts itself to real scientists and does not include people like Thomas Edison or the Wright Brothers, who were important as inventors and entrepreneurs rather than scientists. The selections are given in what the author feels is the order of importance, hence one and two are Newton and Einstein respectively. One may quibble at the choices (for instance it leaves out Gibbs), but on the whole I think that they are quite reasonable. Each selection contains a photograph or painting of the individual, but generally no other illustrations. While a few selections do contain an additional drawing or photograph, this is definitely not a picture book. It is text based book, with a very readable text, and given the four to six pages allotted to most of the biographies (Einstein's did go to seven pages) reasonably complete. (Obviously in only a few pages you do not get a book size biography, but you do get a reasonable idea of the person and what they did to warrant inclusion in the book.) I rate this as five stars for this genre of book.

This ranking of the top 100 scientists, providing a short (no more than four pages) biography and the significance of their respective inventions or discoveries, is a fine collection of biographies and scientific explanations.

While I would have preferred seeing James Clerk Maxwell with a slightly lower rank than 12, and even though he is one of my favorites, I would not have been disappointed had Sigmund Freud received an even higher rank than the 6 accorded him, on balance the list is difficult to quibble with. Arguably also Neils Bohr ranked third even before Darwin may cause some to groan.

The list is "top heavy" with quantum physicists and missing many in the biological sciences, but again, one can argue, as the author did that the heyday for biology has come and gone.

The only rationale for selections appear in the appendix beginning at page 471, and which is more an apology as to why some scientists were left out than as an explanation. Among the "also ran" are Robert Boyle and Henry Calvendish, and the scientists of yore such as Hippocrates and Ptolemy. It was also a shame that Wolfgang Pauli was omitted and that the brilliant Paul Dirac did not even make the honorable mention list.

All in all, it was a good read and will remain a useful quick and handy resource. Three stars

The Scientific 100: A Racnking of the Most Influential Scientists is an interesting book that provided many life facts about 100 interesting scientists. Anyone interested in science should definitely buy this book. It is packed with facts about the 100 most influential scientists in Science.