Visit the romantic era of 18th century science
591033
I love all of Richard Holmes' books, particularly this one and "Falling Upward," his history of aerial ballooning. His books about writing biography are wonderful insights into how a dedicated writer follows in the footsteps of his subjects and what he discovers thereby.
The Age of Wonder is about the romantic age of 18th century science and itself contains mini-biographies of a host of important figures, Joseph Banks, William Herschel, Humphrey Davys and the romantic poets and writers inspired by the era's scientific breakthroughs.
The writing itself is a pleasure in Holmes' books and his skill in painting a scene comes from that dedication to the task he writes of in some of his other books. It has a sense of authority derived from his see it for yourself approach. I should add, these books flow like a novel.
2575753
excellent ; a most interesting and enjoyable read. it is worthwhile noting how difficult the job has been ;for politics to stifle inovation and those genuinely trying to improve things for the common man. The work of these early scientists was fraught with diffculty, but their tenacity and ingenuity have produced the most amazing discoveries and left such a legacy. The book is very readable despite its technical subject matter
3991719
For the first time Garber makes sense out of the threads which came together at the end of the nineteenth century to create modern theoretical physics.

Beginning in the late eighteenth century, scientists working on the development of differential and integral calculus showed how a group of bodies possessed invariant qualities such as kinetic energy, action, and potential energy.

Until Gerber's work, these scientists -- Bernoulli, Mayer, Lagrange, Laplace, Poisson, and Jacobi, among others -- were celebrated as doing great work in physics.

Their work did have consequences for physics, and implied quite a bit from the point of view of mathematical treatment of physical phenomena, but their intention had been to develop the boundaries of mathematics, specifically the differential equations of calculus.

Using detailed examples from not only mechanics but electromagnetism and thermodynamics as well, Garber revises the old-fashioned view of the development of theoretical physics, and proves how the work of a large number of her colleagues in the history of 18th- and 19th-century mathematics and physics supports her interpretation.

A major step forward in the history of science.
4367997
To read about science is purifying in my case, helping me to understand this world and today's scientific investigation. Professor Atkins direct and entertaining prose introduce the reader to a fantastic voyage to some of the most interestings and intricates ideas of science, from the theory of evolution and DNA, to quantum theory and mathematical thought. Beware that this book is not as superficial as you might think, so there are parts of it that may be a little complicated. I enjoyed this book altogether, a fuel to read more on the subjects that I think I need more reading and helped me to discover a new subject I didn't have much idea, I am referring to the chapter of Symmetry and its implications on physics, perhaps for a better comprehension of the complex, full of particles, universe.
3203919
This book does for Physics what Sophie's world did for philosophy. Follow an intelligent 18 year old as she strives to understand the world from first principles. She goes back in time and meets Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein and others. The author explains physics in an exceptionally clear and novel way - I have learned new insights even from simple physics which I know well. The development of physics is put into an incredibly captivating context, with wonderful tidbits of the physicists characters and a sense of the place and time in which they lived and worked. The text is peppered with historical photographs which are wonderfully woven into the story. I have really enjoyed this read and highly recommend it. I think it breaks new grounds in the teaching of physics - well done!!
311877
Full disclosure: I'm a scientist with a nerdish fascination with science history, and even *I* had my doubts about how interesting this book would be, but in the end it really surprised me.

The central story involves the quest to precisely define the meter as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the North Pole, along a meridian that passes through Paris.  Of course, measuring the entire distance was not possible, so they set out to measure the distance from Barcelona to Dunkirk, and then use star fixes to measure the latitude at each end.  This could then be extrapolated to determine the entire distance.

All this sounds rather dry, but realize that this was happening at the time of the French Revolution, and it becomes a lot more exciting.  Without giving away any spoilers, both the North and South-bound teams encounter numerous adventures along their way - not to mention dealing with the political instability at home - that make the book much more of a page turner that you might think.

This was in the context of the overarching French vision of standardizing and "rationalizing" everything.  A standard system of measurement had profound implications for commerce and trade.  While the metric system of measurement ultimately succeeded (except in few backward countries like my own), some of their other initiatives - the Revolutionary Calendar and the decimal clock - were abandoned and now seem almost comical.

Finally, there was the important role that this effort plays in the history of science. The Paris convention that "blessed" the final definition of the meter was the first international scientific conference.  Later scientists like Gauss, Legendre, and Laplace used the reams of data gathered in this project to test out their own theories of error analysis and propagation, which now play a central role in all scientific research.

If you have any interest in science history, I highly recommend this book.
548420
As the title suggests, this book does a quality job of comparing mathematics to the arts, especially through the 18th and 19th centuries.
1291850
Loved this story and how it steps back into the 18th century.  I felt the author did an excellent job of really letting you feel the time and era.  I could visualize everything as though I was standing right there.  I loved the fantasy and the relationships between the characters.  It was romantic and fantasizing.  Enjoyed the language detail of the Scottish decent and felt I could almost hear them speaking with the tongue they are so known for....The Gaetic Language.  Beautifully written and look forward  to read more of Diana's work!
1264559
I picked up a copy on a recommendation from a physics professor for leisure reading. As a layperson, I know very little about the composition and actions of the earth underneath me. Which, when you think about it, is a bit shameful. I spend more time wondering about the mechanisms of stellar phenomena.

It's helpful to have a basic understanding of chemistry and physics, because without that some of the book could be confusing. This covers, briefly, how things work at the atomic level and then starts scaling upwards into the amalgams of elements that we know as minerals, gems and the like. The photographs are rich and beautiful, showing the transition from the world below our perception into strange and magnificent shapes that capture our imagination.

This book is more of a stepping stone than an end unto itself.  The author only briefly touches on geophysical phenomena around the world and how certain species of rocks are found in certain places. A fine stepping stone it is, however. I look forward to reading more about geology and mineralogy and reproaching inorganic chemistry with a new eye after this fresh perspective (for me, anyway).
650040
This book does a magnificent job of showing how the Age of Enlightenment blossomed into a new era of scientific exploration and discovery, and of bringing to full-blooded life the men and women who did those things. There are at least six books' worth of biographies in this one book, but though each must be more brief than any one full-length would be, the depth and richness of the writing is such that it never feels compressed, and every person depicted here lives, breathes, and thinks. I was particularly taken with the Herschels, John and Caroline, the latter of whom was perhaps the better astronomer, though never mentioned in any text I'd read before. I wish every scientifically engaged young person, female or male, could read this fine book, if only to marvel at the bravery and determination of these pioneers, conducting their studies often under truly life-threatening circumstances.
2954730
Rebuilding or starting anew, the job of creating a state of the (18th century) art in cooking and heating centres for your house, large or small, is covered in this small book. The author took me step by step through the development of fireplaces and ovens as they were constructed in colonial and newly independent east coast USA. I now feel I have an understanding of the importance of this most essential part of the house. Also some idea of how to use and maintain one. It was a fascinating trip into the past and a look at an almost ignored part of the 18th century home with a view to design, safety and good cooking. Terrific book, easily read and interesting subject!
2066230
I really enjoyed this volume, which serves as a sort of mosaic of science in England in the first two-thirds of the 19th century.

Snyder makes four men -- William Whewell, Charles Babbage, John Herschel, and Richard Jones -- the center of her narrative, but does not trace their lives chronologically. Instead, after some brief biographical sketches that bring the reader to the point where the four men were together at Cambridge, she breaks her narrative up by their fields on interest, addressing in turn chemistry, computers, economics, astronomy, the tides, surveying, photography, cryptography, and evolution. She also addresses the development of the scientific method, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Great Britain's 1851 Great Exhibition, and the conflict (or lack thereof) between the scientists' religious beliefs and scientific discoveries. In keeping with their own view of how science works, ever time she turned to a new field she placed the Club's efforts in context, providing historical background on the field and some anecdotes about the scientists who previously influenced the Breakfast Club and those who were influenced by the Breakfast Club in turn.

That strategy is why I call the book a mosaic -- though Snyder keeps the lives and works of Whewell, Babbage, Herschel, and Jones central, the four men are merely entry points to the larger body of scientific exploration and codification in the 19th century England. Snyder does this admirably, capturing the excitement of the time period, when it seemed that all the secrets of the natural world were on the brink of being unlocked.

I do have some quibbles. The book is rather myopic, conflating the sciences of England with all science worldwide. The final chapter is quite heavy-handed, with Snyder suddenly devolving into a rant against the separation between science and the humanities (a separation she simply assumes that her readers will agree exists). But overall this book was a great deal of fun: accessible, informative, and vibrant in its depictions of the mood of the age and the characters of the men who drove it.
3516915
Reading Robinson Crusoe is akin to visiting England in the early 18th Century. A reminder that while much has changed, much has not changed. A lot of fun.
791277
This book will delight all historians of science.  The indefatigable Naomi Oreskes, known for her excellent history of continental drift and plate tectonics, has assembled reminiscences by the surviving founders of plate tectonics theory.  Dr. Oreskes deserves the highest praise for this. Alas, the senior figures such as Arthur Holmes and Harry Hess are no longer with us; the writers of these essays were graduate students in the critical early 1960s.  Now elders themselves, they recall the excitement of coming on the scene just when all was breaking loose. Even the most sober number-crunchers manage to write with infectious enthusiasm.  The theories are explained in a notably accessible fashion, and the varied intellectual currents of the time (and, in some essays, subsequent decades) are brought out. My one complaint--as a reader interested in the history of science--is that the writers don't say much about their personal lives.  One suspects that some of them have no personal lives beyond number-crunching.  Most, however, hint at or partially reveal rich and interesting backgrounds that clearly affected their thoughts. Only Peter Molnar does much more than hint, and, although he claims that one reader called his essay "unexpurgated," even he is rather reticent.  Still, this volume is a gold mine, providing a very different look at one of the most "revolutionary" (in scare quotes) theoretical advances in the history of science. The consensus here seems to be that it was indeed a revolution, at least in the eyes of American graduate students of the 1960s, but not a Kuhnian revolution brought about by highly intellectualized "paradigm shifts" (Kuhn 1962); it was brought about by new field methods that brought floods of new data. These allowed the development of real mathematical models.  One can only stand in awe of the amount of work this entailed. Several authors speak of working day and night, week after week, on data entry and computer jockeying. They managed this without any loss of enthusiasm--quite the reverse, apparently.  Ah, youth.
427707
I love these books that open your mind to the history of pivotal science and cultural events.  The author makes the characters and their times colorful and entertaining. When he stops the narrative to explain the engineering feats in detail, he provides easy to understand drawings. The book reminds me of one of my favorites of the genre, The Swerve.
1580007
This author does tremendous research in order to bring the people, customs, language and hardships to life in the 1700's. These aren't famous people, but the real men and women of the turblent times preceding the American Revolution. I was absorbed by the story and characters from the beginning.
4391727
I love reading historic novels, and the 18th century is one of my favorite periods. This novel does pretty well in capturing the atmosphere of the French Revolution. It's a good book, but not the absolute best I've read on the subject of the Revolution.