The Story of Science: Einstein Adds a New Dimension [Hardcover]

Joy Hakim (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2007

In volume three, students will look over Albert Einstein's shoulder as he and his colleagues develop a new kind of physics. It leads in two directions: to knowledge of the vast universe and its future (insights build on Einstein's theories of relativity), and to an understanding of the astonishingly small subatomic world (the realm of quantum physics). Students will learn why relativity and quantum theory revolutionized our world and led to the most important ideas in modern science, maybe of all time.

In the three-book The Story of Science series, master storyteller Joy Hakim narrates the evolution of scientific thought from ancient times to the present. With lively, character-driven narrative, Hakim spotlights the achievements of some of the world's greatest scientists and encourages a similiar spirit of inquiry in readers. The books include hundreds of color photographs, charts, maps, and diagrams; informative sidebars; suggestions for further reading; and excerpts from the writings of great scientists.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“As a good—even great—teacher, Hakim knows exactly where students might stumble and is always there, making sure they don't.”—Diana Lutz, Natural History

“Hakim has interwoven creation myths, history, physics, and mathematics to present a seamless, multifaceted view of the foundation of modern science. . . . At its essence, the book displays the most appealing aspect of science and mathematics: that advances result from a practical need solved by curious minds.”—School Library Journal, starred review

“[W]hen master storyteller Joy Hakim wields her pen, take heart: you're in for a breathtaking adventure.”—American Educator

“If Leonardo da Vinci had studied school science, he would have been fascinated with The Story of Science.”—Juliana Texley, lead reviewer for National Science Teacher Association Recommends

About the Author

Author of the prize-winning series A History of US, Joy Hakim is the recipient of the James Michener Award in Writing and the Gold and Silver Parents' Choice Awards in Writing.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Smithsonian Books (November 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1588341623
• ISBN-13: 978-1588341624
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 1.2 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #221,841 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #89 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Physics > Relativity

More About the Author

I started my career as an author with a ten-volume U.S. history: A History of US, published by Oxford University Press in 1993, and now in a third updated printing. I had no idea the history would end up in ten books, or that it would be so much fun to write.
A History of US has been awarded a bunch of prizes. David McCullough commented, ". . .the idea that history might ever be thought of as a chore has clearly never crossed her mind." In testimony before the Senate Education Committee he called the series "superb." People Magazine described me as "the J.K. Rowling of the history world." (Umm, that would be nice. But the books have sold 5 million copies.)
Mine are narrative history books that attempt to set literary standards. I mean for them to be exciting to read. They're meant for young readers, and their teachers and parents, or for anyone without a deep background in U.S. history. These are books that can be found in bookstores, on Amazon, and in schools. Oxford and Hopkins have done teaching materials for those who want to use the books in academic study.
That series was followed by: Freedom: A History of US (published in 2003), the companion to a 16-part PBS series of the same name that was narrated by Katie Couric, with voices by a host of Hollywood figures, from Tom Hanks to Robin Williams. The videos are available to schools from PBS. And the book spawned a terrific website: (www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus).

I'm now writing The Story of Science. The first three books are jointly published by Smithsonian Books and the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association). They focus on the quest to understand the universe--from ancient Greece to today's expanding universe. The first volume is Aristotle Leads the Way; the second, Newton at the Center; the third book, Einstein Adds A New Dimension, attempts to explain quantum theory and relativity with black holes and space travel too. Writing in the New York Times, Natalie Angier called the books, "richly informative." Alan Alda raved. These books have won prizes too. Science writer Timothy Ferris said he wished he had them when he was a boy. Educators at Johns Hopkins and NSTA have developing coordinated teaching materials for classroom use (available from NSTA or Amazon).

I'm currently working on two books that put biology into a narrative framework.

Before I began writing books, I was an associate editor, editorial writer, and business writer for The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk's morning paper) and a general reporter and photographer on the staff of The Ledger-Star (Norfolk's afternoon paper. I did a whole lot of freelance writing while raising three kids. And I was an assistant editor of World News, a foreign news service at McGraw-Hill.

Writing and teaching seem to be two faces of the same need to explain things. Which may explain why I've had dual careers--as writer and teacher.

I've taught elementary school (Omaha, NE), high school English (Virginia Beach, VA), special education in a middle school (Syracuse, NY), and English composition and American literature at a community college (Virginia Beach). I initiated and taught a writing course for high school teachers of English through the University of Virginia.

I do a lot of speaking, especially to education groups. For three years I worked with a group of history teachers in Los Angeles under a TAH (Teaching American History) grant. I've spent some of my time in an inner-city school where most of the students speak Spanish at home and reading English doesn't come easily. I'll be speaking at Teachers College, Columbia in the fall of 2009 where reading guru, Lucy Calkins, has called my books the "gold standard" in the field.

As to my schooling: I earned a B.A. from Smith College after high school in Rutland, Vermont. Then I received a M.Ed. and an honorary doctorate from Goucher College. Smith gave me the Smith Medal (2000); the Matrix Foundation, the Edith Workman Award (2003); I've taken graduate courses in journalism and in geography at New York University, child psychology at Johns Hopkins, and courses in American history and science at Brown, Harvard, Cornell, and Cambridge University. My website is: joyhakim.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite Story of Science book!, February 25, 2009

By 

Science Goddess (Champaign, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Story of Science: Einstein Adds a New Dimension (Hardcover)

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Hi, this is Joanne, a bioengineering instructor at the University of Illinois. I read science books and review them. See more at my youtube site [...]

If my brain is tired from reading all those high level science journals, I take a break and read about science in a fun, lighthearted but still informative way with Joy Hakim's The Story of Science Series. Great for educators and homeschoolers, too! Covers the basics of physical sciences thoroughly but at a middle to high school level.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All science books should be written like this, March 2, 2008

By 

William R. Klemm - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Story of Science: Einstein Adds a New Dimension (Hardcover)

Joy Hakim's book on modern physics is the most exciting science book I have read in my 45-plus years as a scientist. The book truly is, as she puts it, "written for young thinkers of all ages." She doesn't call it a "textbook," but the book not only is that, it is also the way all science textbooks should be written. To her, physics is not just a body of observations and theories; it is the process of discovery.

Although Einstein's thinking is the underlying centerpiece of the book, Hakim deftly traverses, without mathematics, the whole history of physics from electromagnetism, atomic structure and chemical bonding to special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, black holes, quarks, supernovae, dark matter, dark energy, and more. This is a story-book journey of discovery that is described in terms of the people involved. Physics is brought to life in a most engaging way. On every page it seems, physics, the mother of all science, is embellished with side-bar stories about key discoveries, how they were made and the lives of the people who made them. Numerous color photographs adorn the pages throughout.

The two great and exciting present-day frontiers of scientific research are physics and neuroscience. Joy's book almost makes me wish, after a lifetime of being a neuroscientist, that I had started off in physics. Science is great fun, and this book proves it.

Bill Klemm, author of "Thank You Brain for All You Remember. What You Forgot Was My Fault" and "`Dillos. Roadkill on Extinction Highway?" (both available on Amazon.com)

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Science, History, & Vocabulary! Oh MY!, November 7, 2006

By 

Wynter Fyre Woodbury (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Story of Science: Einstein Adds a New Dimension (Hardcover)

This book is informative and interesting, not dry and/or stuffy like most science books. This is the 2nd or 3rd in the "Story of Science" series that I have purchased and I would highly recommend them to anyone. Joy Hakim not only writes about science, but she writes about how the world was when these scientists were making their discoveries and the struggles they had while doing so. Another great feature is that any word the reader might not know and understand is explained in the margins.