Science and Scientists: History and Biography




Biographies

The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester about William Smith, the son of a blacksmith who, in 1815, produced the world's first geological stratigraphical map

The Philosophical Breakfast Club by Laura J Snyder: the 'group biography of William Whewell, Richard Jones, Charles Babbage, and John Herschel

The Man Who Knew Too Much by Stephen Inwood; the biography of Robert Hooke

Alan Turing: the Enigma by Andrew Hodges

The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo: about Paul Dirac, the theorist who discovered antimatter.

The Man Who Found Time by Jack Repcheck: about James Hutton, the pioneering geologist, who proved that the Earth was a lot older than the Bible stories said.

Wizard: the Life and Times of Nikola Tesla by Mark J Seifer: the eccentric genius who discovered, among other things, alternating current


History of science and technology

Raising the Dead by Andy Dougan: a history of anatomists and electricity

The Glass Bathyscaphe by Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin: the history of the manufacture and use of glass

From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe by Alexander Koyre: about the change in world view as a consequence of the Copernican revolution

The Fly in the Cathedral by Brian Cathcart: the thrilling discovery of neutrons in the nucleus by Ernest Walton

The Double Helix by James Watson: the discovery of the structure of DNA, written by one of the discoverers.

Uncertainty by David Lindley: the history of the early days of quantum phsyics leading up to Heisenberg's formulation is his indeterminacy principle.

Scientific ideas:

Beyond Weird by Philip Ball: a review of the varying interpretations of quantum physics


This blog is written by

the author of Motherdarling 

and The Kids of God

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