The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments
I’m still working on Oliver Twist, but tend to read a few books at a time. I started George Johnson’s The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments a few days ago. It’s a quick read at, you guessed it, 10 short chapters.
It was…ok. Johnson is apparently a seasoned and well known science writer, but I couldn’t gather that from the book. He’s hopped on the bandwagon of the science-history genre that’s become so popular as of late. I’m slightly addicted to books like these. I loved reading The Discoveries , The Scientists, and especially A Short History of Nearly Everything. The latter is unsurpassed in my mind. It is hilarious, impossible to put down, and makes complex theories easily understood by the scientific uninitiated.
The former two are at least readable and, though not nearly as entertaining, provide a curious mind with digestible fodder for a few days.
This book was none of the above. The author stated that he picked these experiments based on the elegant looking equipment, hands on nature, and the fact the the scientist themselves made the equipment.
Then come 10 chapters that are extremely hard to follow and when each one is ended the reader can be heard muttering, “Is that it…really?”
I consider myself an intermediate science reader, and because of this I was able to hang on when Johnson alluded to complex ideas like quantum theories, relativity, calcination, anodes, cathodes, etc. But plenty of the other allusions left me scratching my head.
I think the editor was probably the one to blame here. They apparently tried to make a coffee table book out of graduate level sceince. Without the proper foundational knowledge this book is frustratting to say the least. Its about 75 pages too short.
And I still can’t tell you why even one of the experiments was beautiful. The author never mentions it.
I will say, if you can rent this from a library and not purchase it, the chapters on Newton’s experiments with the character of light and Pavlov’s dogs were interesting.
Let me know what you think…(as soon as Tumblr gives me a comment option)
