The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors (Paperback)

by John Gribbin (Author), Adam Hook (Illustrator) "Greece, some 1500 years before Copernicus came on the scene..." (more)
Key Phrases: phlogiston model, caloric model, phosphorescent salts, Royal Society, Charles Darwin, Big Bang (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
As expansive (and as massive) as a textbook, this remarkably readable popular history explores the development of modern science through the individual stories of philosophers and scientists both renowned and overlooked. Prolific popular science writer Gribbin wants to use the lives of these thinkers to show how they "reflect the society in which they lived, and... the way the work of one specific scientist followed from that of another." While he makes this case well, the real joy in the book can be found in the way Gribbin (who has made complex science understandable in such books as In Search of Schr"dinger's Cat) revels not just in the development of science but also in the human details of his subjects' lives. He writes, "Science is made from people, not people by science," and the book weaves together countless stories of the people who made science, from the arrogance and political maneuverings of Tycho Brahe in the 16th century to Benjamin Thompson's exploits during the American Revolution as a spy for the British and his later life as Count Rumford of Bavaria (in the realm of science, he studied convection and helped discredit the caloric theory of heat). Though the names and discoveries become more and more prolific as the book reaches the 19th century, Gribbin does an admirable job of organizing his narrative around coherent topics (e.g., "The Darwinian Revolution," "Atoms and Molecules," "The Realm of Life"), leaving the reader exhausted by the journey, but in awe of the personalities and the sheer scope of 500 years' worth of scientific discovery. Illus.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The Washington Post

Anoted historian recently told me that his colleagues seem reluctant to write grand histories of science these days. More occupied with the trees than the forest in recent years, they could be wary of the wrath that might descend upon them for leaving out a cherished detail. Fortunately, John Gribbin has no such apprehension. His latest book takes us on a rollicking and intellectually absorbing ride through the last 500 years of Western science.

A British astrophysicist and the prolific author of many other books on science, Gribbin focuses heavily in this work on the physical sciences, but the great moments in biology, geology and chemistry are well covered. "My choice of events to highlight is necessarily incomplete," he admits, "but my aim is to give a feel for the full sweep of science, which has taken us from the realization that the Earth is not at the centre of the Universe and that human beings are 'only' animals, to the theory of the Big Bang and a complete map of the human genome."

His story opens in the days of Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, the 16th-century scholars whose discoveries helped initiate the age of modern science. This era dawned when investigators no longer relied on reason alone (the tradition established by the ancient Greeks) but began to set up experiments to test their hypotheses and to match theory with observation. As William Gilbert, personal physician to England's Elizabeth I and discoverer of the laws of magnetism, noted: "Stronger reasons are obtained from sure experiments and demonstrated arguments than from probable conjectures and the opinions of philosophical speculators." Gilbert's work directly influenced Galileo, whose own experimental tests ultimately led to Isaac Newton's revolutionary laws on gravity and motion.

Gribbin sets these accounts within a rich biographical narrative, allowing us to see how both major and minor scientists at a particular time, often interacted with one another, their influence then filtering down to succeeding generations. Sometimes the results can be surprising. For example, Robert Hooke, a man known predominantly as Newton's nemesis, is depicted in a more congenial way. Hooke was an accomplished engineer (he devised a balance-spring pocket watch) and microscopist (he introduced the term "cell"), and he correctly identified fossils as the remains of once-living creatures. But Hooke unluckily proceeded to irritate Newton, a man with Machiavellian attributes, when he also had inventive insights on gravity and light propagation. Newton, who Gribbin hints was inflamed by jealousy, may have conveniently "lost" Hooke's portrait when the Royal Society moved to new quarters in 1710.

Although Gribbin at first lingers over his venerable subjects, his pace eventually quickens, matching the exponential expansion of science over the centuries. The industrial revolution, with its advances in finely honed instrumentation, served as a catalyst for further progress. In France, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier largely put alchemy to rest and established the modern field of chemistry with his model of combustion and a more simplified chemical nomenclature. This minor aristocrat might have made further contributions had he not been caught up in the French Revolution and guillotined in 1794. Meanwhile, in England, James Watt with his steam engine instituted a trend that continues to this day: turning scientific research into high-tech items.

The success of Newtonian physics, says Gribbin, encouraged "chemists and biologists to think that their parts of the natural world might be explained on the basis of simple laws" as well. And just as astronomers earlier struggled with the theological implications of Earth's subordinate position in the solar system, geologists and biologists in the 18th and 19th centuries had to confront the growing evidence of Earth's great age, far older than the Bible implied. This struggle culminated in the Darwinian revolution.

Charles Darwin was one of the last "gentlemen scientists," well off enough to pursue his interests almost as a hobby. He sat on his theory of evolution for two decades, fearful of the public reaction to its heretical concepts. Gribbin carefully renders the historic precursors to Darwin's ideas, including the work of botanist John Ray (who in the 17th century established our modern notion of species) and of geologist Charles Lyell, who in the 1830s gathered extensive evidence that the Earth's surface undergoes continual resculpting from erosion, sedimentation and uplifting over long stretches of time. Darwin was not the first to suggest an evolutionary scheme or that man descended from the apes, but in light of Lyell's findings he was at last able to offer a viable mechanism for evolution -- natural selection, the adaptation of a species to ever-changing environments and resources.

The 20th century passes by speedily in the last quarter of the book. We come upon Alfred Wegener and his proposal that continents drift (the seed of what is now known as plate tectonics), the rise of atomic physics, the discovery of our expanding universe, and the rapid development of the field of genetics. What linger and beguile, though, are the quaint little facts: that the plus and minus signs in arithmetic were not introduced until 1540; that Edmond Halley (of comet fame) spied for England and developed a diving bell; that Marie Curie's laboratory notebooks are still so radioactive that they are kept in a lead-lined safe, taken out only under extreme precaution.

In many ways The Scientists also serves as a handy reference work. Each scientist's story, succinct and entertaining, can be perused and appreciated individually. Historians may quibble over a particular detail or analysis, but no matter. Gribbin's work offers general audiences an engaging and informative view of modern science's prodigious accomplishments since the Renaissance.

Reviewed by Marcia Bartusiak

Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 646 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (August 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812967887
• ISBN-13: 978-0812967883
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #17,512 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The History of Science and the Scientists, March 23, 2004

By	Timothy Haugh (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors (Hardcover)

It is very difficult for me to dislike a book like this. I am a big fan of scientific histories and this is a very good one. Gribbin takes us through the development of Western science from its roots in the Renaissance through modern threads of research. His prose is very readable and well organized even as he takes us through the major topics of physics, chemistry and biology.

One of the things that makes his book so readable is that he focuses a lot of his energy on the lives and personalities of the great scientists. Though we get a grounding in the theories, we get more about science as a human pursuit which is often forgotten in our technologically-swamped age. It is a nice approach through which we not only get to hear about the ones everybody knows--Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, etc.--but a number of names with which even a science teacher like myself is less familiar.

My main problem with this book is that Gribbin's prejudices show through loud and clear. He is clearly not a supporter of Thomas Kuhn's ideas of scientific revolution which I think have a certain validity and usefulness though Gribbin is correct in that science would progress even without revolutions; however, it would not likely have progressed in the way that Gribbin himself outlines so well. Gribbin also clearly has some problems with the really famous scientists like Einstein and, in particular, Newton. I'm not quite clear why Gribbin is so anti-Newton but his assertions that everything discovered by Newton and Einstein would have eventually been discovered by other scientists, while likely true, dismisses the fact that these genius certainly accelerated our understanding. In addition, in my view, men like Newton, Darwin and Einstein had a capability to see the big picture far beyond that of any of their contemporaries. They deserve the credit they usually receive and Gribbin's complaints often come off sounding like sour grapes from a less successful scientist.

Still, Gribbin makes no secret of his views and no apologies and I can appreciate that. He has done a great service with this book. Obviously, with all the ground he has to cover, even at 600+ pages he cannot go into much depth; however, he presents a fascinating story of the men and women who have done so much to shape our modern world. It is worth reading for any educated person.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Science is done by men who can be very human, March 6, 2004

By	David N. Reiss (Haymarket, VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors (Hardcover)

I do want to point out that this is a very good book. I did give it five stars after all. It is a great book for getting a good view of several scientists and their contributions to the sciences and engineering from the late renaissance period to modern times.

The topic our kind author, John Gribbin, is tackling is very large and no one book can hope to cover the entire topic. Even, as is the case here, in a book of almost 700 pages. Gribbin has chosen to focus on the interplay among the scientists, mainly when he wants to segway from one scientist to another, and the social implications of their discoveries... including much on the political realties of the time. Especially in the case of Galileo Galilei, where the political issues can be as important as his scientific discoveries.

I would say that the great weakness to this approach is that he focus's a lot of those who invented things, and less on those who developed new ways of thinking about the world. He claims to be doing the later, and does do a good job of it at times, but he appears to ignore the implications of a quote from Galileo he likes to use a lot: "science is written in the language of mathematics". Gribbin almost totally ignores the contributions the people he covers made to mathematics, and pure mathematicians have trouble even getting a mention from him. For example, in discussing Newton he could have discussed Gottfried Leibnitz a little, but instead just mentions that Newton and him argued about who discovered Calculus as leaves it at that.

The second great weakness of this book is there is no quick introduction to the best of the Greek and Roman philosophers who did a lot of science. Aristotle was thought highly of for a lot of good reasons by people in the middle-ages, and he was right about a lot of things. It is easy, especially now-a-days, to think that the ancient Greeks sure missed the boat on a lot things. Aristotle gets mentioned, now and again, is passing, but I haven't even run across a mention of Archimedes (when discussing Newton and Calculus it would have been nice to point out that Archimedes came close to discovering it almost 2000 years before. Some think the only reason he missed was the faulting numeral system he had to work with), Pythagorus, or Euclid.

Hindsight is 20/20, and the Greeks and other ancients got most of the things correct, especially when you consider that they didn't have many of the tools that the later true scientists had access too.

Then there are the two great oversights among great scientists that I think would have site well into the mold he was using: Pasteur and Goddard. Not minor folks in the history of science.

Because he couldn't cover everything, I overlook these problems and still give it a high rating. People should know that their is a lot of ground to cover in science and the history of science and seek out more information on the topic. Especially since an informed populace is the requirement and basis for a democracy. People need to understand how science and true scientists work in order to have informed opinions about many of the issues facing society today.

Still a fine work and worthy of anybody library.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply the best, October 31, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors (Hardcover)

This is undoubtedly John Gribbin's best book, and only a real nit picker could object to the fact that it doesn't cover every single scientist who ever lived. Where Gribbin is so good is in weaving the story of scientists'lives together to tell a gripping story of how science as a whole has developed from the time of Copernicus to the beginning of the 21st century. The chapter about Benjamin Thomson aka Lord Rumford is particularly good, and Gribbin delights in telling you about the weirdness of many of his subjects, including Henry Cavendish who was the richest man in England, and a great scientist, but only ate boiled mutton. Even if you don't care about the science, this is still grsat history.