Compared to Bill Bryson
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Having read Gribbin's Science and Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything in the last few months its interesting to contrast the two, which are approximately the same length.
Gribbin firstly is a professional scientist and Bryson a popularist. Unsurprisingly then Gribbin's book has the more authoritative air about it. However Bryson's is undoubtedly more entertaining and is packed with fascinating facts, continuing to illustrate how amazing the world we live in is. Gribbin frequently doesn't explain things as well, he assumes - sometimes I presume without realising it - that the reader knows certain facts. Bryson explains everything from first principles as that's the way he has had to learn it to write the book. Gribbin instead effectively has written a lot of mini-biographies of the scientists he's selected, and perhaps not put as much into what they did as Bryson.
One criticism of this book is that it is very biased towards the physical sciences, especially physics. Other than Darwinism and a bit about DNA and genetics, there is very little outside Gribbin's own subject. Bryson's book seems to have a much broader scope.
In summary if I was studying for a History of Science degree I would plump for Gribbin's book. If I wanted a good read for a desert island I'd go from Bryson's.
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McLogs
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I am still in the process of reading this so my star rating is provisional. However I wish to point out the "howler" on p66, which refers to the "inventor" of logarithms as John Napier of England. In fact John Napier was Scottish and carried out his work in Scotland. The author is probably confusing him with Henry Briggs who shortly after adapted logs to their modern format.
Nevertheless, a rattling good read.
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Authoritative, detailed, full of context, hugely readable
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What a book!
For anyone with an interest in how we humans have found ourselves in our current state of scientific understanding this is a very good read. Taken in small chunks this book will last you weeks, with every chunk being full of insight and fascinating information, all set in context. So for example, while we all have been taught that Gregor Mendel was the prime discoverer of the principles of heredity and therefore genetics, this book tells you about others who had related views and observations and shows how "scientific progress takes place step by step". This book will convince you of the author's proposition that scientific discovery is not so much a series of revelations by individual scientific geniuses, but rather as a combination of events, a wave of small discoveries and insights, a tidal flow leading to where we are today. Only one exception is made - that of Isaac Newton who is a clear winner in the single greatest individual stakes.
I am now looking forward to my second reading, so will not be offering my copy second hand through Amazon!
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The number of times I thought "Wow!"
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Science books are not meant to be this interesting. I found it hard to put down, and read it in a little over a week. By tackling science chronologically, the author presents scientific discoveries like a 'whodunnit' - making the subject intrinsically interesting. Compare this with the way science is taught in schools - to use the 'whodunnit' analogy, pupils are taught that 'x' murdered victim #1, 'y' murdered victim #2 etc. The latter approach strips the subject of a major part of its interest. There are some great little revelations, such as how the ultra-tedious Principle of Conservation of Energy was (so to speak) 'discovered' (it involves arteries, veins & leeches), and the significance of the structure of the atom (e.g. the chair you are sitting on is mostly made of nothing - reflecting the massive gap between the electrons & nucleus. I never thought of it like that. Wow!) The author even makes quantum mechanics simple to understand. Wow! (There I go again). This is only the second ever Amazon review I have written. Why did I bother? Because the book enthuses me.
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A very good read spoilt by some idiosyncracies
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I enjoyed reading this marathon 600-page tome, and I learned a lot from it. However, I'm always disappointed when I see errors in these works, because it makes me ponder what other things are described wrongly that I now believe to be truths? It must be difficult to know what to include and leave out, but given the title, I'm surprised not see to see any reference whatsoever to
* Pasteur, Koch, Ehrlich, Salk or Fleming
* Onnes (Superconductivity), Goddard (Spaceflight), Libby (Radioactive Dating), Oppenheimer, Teller or Hawking
* Shockley (Transistors) or Neumann (Information Technology) The errors & anomalies are myriad; here are a few :
Ch.1 p.20 "Constantinople wasn't founded until 330AD" - true - but it was called Byzantium for 400 years before that.
Ch.5 p.191-192 the bequests of money to Newton's Housekeeper from Lord Halifax occupy 25 lines (no science content there); yet the last 17 years of Newton's life aren't described, just the date he died and how much was in his estate.
Ch.6 p.220 "plants are mainly made of carbon dioxide" - no - via photosynthesis they take carbon dioxide from the air, fix the carbon, and give back the oxygen - for us animals to breathe!
Ch.7 p.248 the detailed explanation of specific heat is expressed in units of 'Pounds" and "Fahrenheit" - it doesn't pretend to be a quotation from Black, so why not use grams and Celsius as appear elsewhere on the same page?
Ch.9 p.326 there's an engaving of Santorini, but on p.324 the text only mentions Lyell going to Etna in Sicily, so no mention of his ever going the extra 1,000 km to visit Santorini or the significance of what he observed there?
Ch.10 p.387 despite all the attention to detail elsewhere in quoting many decimal places, Absolute Zero gets defined as exactly -273C, not -273.15
Ch.11 p.426 Clerk Maxwell's home at Dalbeattie (nr Dumfries) is described (for some unknown reason) as "a few score km from Birmingham" - well on modern roads its 400km from Birmingham, and its 150km from Glasgow, so I don't know what place they had in mind? Anyway, still very worthwhile and a good read; I read it in 3 days, not wanting to put it down.
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