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37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Wonderful Book, April 22, 2008
This review is from: The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments (Hardcover)
In this little book, the author, a seasoned science writer, takes the reader on ten fascinating adventures into the world of science. Each adventure focuses on an important experiment that has provided humanity with a certain insight into the way in which nature works. The author's selection of these ten particular experiments appears to be a bit arbitrary, since he freely admits that others could have been included; however, in his view, these stand out the most. But that's not all: not only are the experiments described (with plenty of illustrations), but mini-biographical sketches of the scientists themselves are included, as are snapshots of the times in which they lived. The writing style is very accessible, friendly and quite engaging. This book can be enjoyed by anyone - especially those fascinated by how science works.
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40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Too brief..., June 14, 2008
This review is from: The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments (Hardcover)
Scientists call an experiment beautiful or elegant if it is relatively simple and yields clear results, preferably involving a new discovery on an important topic. All of the experiments described by Johnson meet that criterion. We read brief descriptions of experiments by major scientists such as Galileo, Newton, Lavoisier, Faraday, Michelson, and Pavlov. The author, George Johnson, tells us a little bit about the personalities and the scientific-historical context of the experiments, including brief backgrounds on related work by other scientists. Though the described experiments were important, in some cases the meaning of the results was not fully understood at the time: for example, Galvani's work on animal electricity, where he demonstrated that nerve impulses could be electrically stimulated, but he did not understand that the impulse itself involved electrochemical activity. Seven of the ten chapters are on early experiments in physics. Only three topics are on biology topics, including those on William Harvey and the heart, Ivan Pavlov on conditioned responses, and Galvani on frog-leg twitches. One can always quibble over the selections. Why not make it a dozen beautiful experiments, and include Gregor Mendel on heredity, plus another one from biology or biochemistry?
Johnson's book is brief, with only 158 small pages of text before the notes and bibliography section. Unfortunately, it is too brief. The problem is that several of the experiments are not explained in sufficient detail to enable the non-expert to understand exactly how they were done, and/or why they were done the way they were done, and/or why the results demonstrated what they were claimed to demonstrate. For example, I still don't fully understand how an electromagnet or a cathode-ray tube or Michelson's interferometer work. Nor do I fully understand how Millikan used a cloud chamber to demonstrate the existence of electrons and to measure their electric charge. Johnson includes many drawings of experimental apparatuses, most of them taken from the original published sources. Unfortunately, most of the drawings are not labeled or described well enough to enable the non-expert to understand how the apparatus worked. In some cases it would have been better to create entirely new drawings, similar to those found in most modern introductory physics textbooks.
I like the basic idea of Johnson's book very much. Parts of it were interesting and informative, and I enjoyed learning some personal information about the researchers, such as the fact that Ivan Pavlov was very fond of his research dogs and treated them as humanely as possible. But the author could have done a better job of science education if he had extended the text to, say, only 199 pages, and included better illustrations, in order to make the explanations of the experiments clearer.
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40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful dreamers, April 26, 2008
This review is from: The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments (Hardcover)
Here's a surprisingly compelling read, a lively blend of history and science filled with interesting true tidbits about the people involved. Author George Johnson's mission is to list and describe the top 10 most "beautiful" experiments that have explored the mysteries of science. By "beautiful," he means an experiment that has a straightforward elegance, where "confusion and ambiguity are momentarily swept aside and something new about nature leaps into view."
Each chapter covers one experiment or series of experiments. It explains the back story, the theory, the procedures the scientist used and any conclusion he or she drew. Included is a drawing or photograph of the scientist, quotes, diagrams and drawings.
The most unforgettable chapter for me concerned how Ivan Pavlov trained dogs to salivate to different stimuli. Pavlov loved his animals, and gave them names such as Buddy and Gypsy and Spot. He tried to spare his dogs pain, unlike many other animal researchers. The author describes an ornate fountain topped by a large dog that graces the grounds of Pavlov's institute still today, complete with busts of eight canines around the top, "water pouring from their mouths as they salute in salivation."
Here's the chapter list:
1. Galileo: The way things really move
2. William Harvey: Mysteries of the heart
3. Isaac Newton: What a color is
4. Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier: The farmer's daughter
5. Luigi Galvani: Animal electricity
6. Michael Faraday: Something deeply hidden
7. James Joule: How the world works
8. A.A. Michelson: Lost in space
9. Ivan Pavlov: Measuring the immeasurable
10. Robert Millikan: In the borderland
Afterword: The eleventh most beautiful experiment
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