A wonderfully readable account of scientific development over the past five hundred years, focusing on the lives and achievements of individual scientists, by the bestselling author of In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat
In this ambitious new book, John Gribbin tells the stories of the people who have made science, and of the times in which they lived and worked. He begins with Copernicus, during the Renaissance, when science replaced mysticism as a means of explaining the workings of the world, and he continues through the centuries, creating an unbroken genealogy of not only the greatest but also the more obscure names of Western science, a dot-to-dot line linking amateur to genius, and accidental discovery to brilliant deduction.
By focusing on the scientists themselves, Gribbin has written an anecdotal narrative enlivened with stories of personal drama, success and failure. A bestselling science writer with an international reputation, Gribbin is among the few authors who could even attempt a work of this magnitude. Praised as “a sequence of witty, information-packed tales” and “a terrific read” by The Times upon its recent British publication, The Scientists breathes new life into such venerable icons as Galileo, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Linus Pauling, as well as lesser lights whose stories have been undeservedly neglected. Filled with pioneers, visionaries, eccentrics and madmen, this is the history of science as it has never been told before.
Essential reading...tells the story of science as a sequence of witty, information-packed tales...complete with humanizing asides, glimpses of the scientists personal life and amusing anecdotes. London Sunday Times, Books of the Year
Excels at making complex science intelligible to the general reader...If youre looking for a book that captures the personal drama and achievement of science, then look no further. The Guardian
Gripping and entertaining...wonderfully and pleasurably accessible... Much of the history of science reads like a detective story, which in the hands of a skilled narrator like Gribbin makes the description of each new advance appear as an illumination. The Independent on Sunday
Tremendous...moves me to bestow a reviewers cliché I long ago vowed never to use: a tour de force. The Spectator
A splendid book...exposes the factual roots of some of sciences well-known tales (for example, Galileo never dropped weights of different sizes from Pisas leaning tower). The Economist
Focusing on the lives and achievements of individual scientists, this wonderfully readable description of scientific development over the past 500 years is by the bestselling author of In Search of Schrödinger's Cat."
Includes bibliographical references (p. 617-623) and index.
John Gribbin trained as an astrophysicist at Cambridge University and is currently Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex. His many books include In Search of Schrödingers Cat, Schrödingers Kittens and the Search for Reality and Q Is for Quantum. He lives in Sussex, England.
ContentsList of Illustrations xi
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction xvii
Book One: OUT OF THE DARK AGES
1. Renaissance Men
Emerging from the dark — The elegance of Copernicus — The Earth moves! — The
orbits of the planets — Leonard Digges and the telescope — Thomas Digges and the
infinite Universe — Bruno: a martyr for science? — Copernican model banned by
Catholic Church — Vesalius: surgeon, dissector and grave-robber — Fallopio and
Fabricius — William Harvey and the circulation of the blood
2. The Last Mystics
The movement of the planets — Tycho Brahe — Measuring star positions — Tycho’s
supernova — Tycho observes comet — His model of the Universe — Johannes Kepler:
Tycho’s assistant and inheritor — Kepler’s geometrical model of the Universe — New
thoughts on the motion of planets: Kepler’s first and second laws — Kepler’s third
law — Publication of the Rudolphine star tables — Kepler’s death
3. The First Scientists
William Gilbert and magnetism — Galileo on the pendulum, gravity and
acceleration — His invention of the ‘compass’ — His supernova studies —
Lippershey’s reinvention of the telescope — Galileo’s developments thereon —
Copernican ideas of Galileo judged heretical — Galileo publishes Dialogue on the
Two Chief World Systems — Threatened with torture, he recants — Galileo
publishes Two New Sciences — His death
Book Two: THE FOUNDING FATHERS
4. Science Finds its Feet 107
Rene´ Descartes and Cartesian co-ordinates — His greatest works — Pierre Gassendi:
atoms and molecules — Descartes’s rejection of the concept of a vacuum —
Christiaan Huygens: his work on optics and the wave theory of light — Robert Boyle:
his study of gas pressure — Boyle’s scientific approach to alchemy — Marcello
Malpighi and the circulation of the blood — Giovanni Borelli and Edward Tyson: the
increasing perception of animal (and man) as machine.
5. The ‘Newtonian Revolution’ 149
Robert Hooke: the study of microscopy and the publication of Micrographia —
Hooke’s study of the wave theory of light — Hooke’s law of elasticity — John
Flamsteed and Edmond Halley: cataloguing stars by telescope — Newton’s early life
— The development of calculus — The wrangling of Hooke and Newton — Newton’s
Principia Mathematica: the inverse square law and the three laws of motion —
Newton’s later life — Hooke’s death and the publication of Newton’s Opticks
6. Expanding Horizons 193
Edmond Halley — Transits of Venus — The effort to calculate the size of an atom —
Halley travels to sea to study terrestrial magnetism — Predicts return of comet —
Proves that stars move independently — Death of Halley — John Ray and Francis
Willughby: the first-hand study of flora and fauna — Carl Linnaeus and the naming
of species — The Comte de Buffon: Histoire Naturelle and thoughts on the age of
the Earth — Further thoughts on the age of the Earth: Jean Fourier and Fourier
analysis — Georges Couvier: Lectures in Comparative Anatomy; speculations on
extinction — Jean-Baptiste Lamarck: thoughts on evolution
Book Three:T HE ENLIGHTENMENT
7. Enlightened Science I:Chemistry catches up 241
The Enlightenment — Joseph Black and the discovery of carbon dioxide — Black on
temperature — The steam engine: Thomas Newcomen, James Watt and the
Industrial Revolution — Experiments in electricity: Joseph Priestley — Priestley’s
experiments with gases — The discovery of oxygen — The chemical studies of Henry
Cavendish: publication in the Philosophical Transactions — Water is not an
element — The Cavendish experiment: weighing the Earth — Antoine-Laurent
Lavoisier: study of air; study of the system of respiration — The first table of
elements; Lavoisier renames elements; he publishes Elements of Chemistry —
Lavoisier’s execution
8. Enlightened Science II:Progress on all fronts 285
The study of electricity: Stephen Gray, Charles Du Fay, Benjamin Franklin and
Charles Coulomb — Luigi Galvani, Alessandro Volta and the invention of the electric
battery — Pierre-Louis de Maupertuis: the principle of least action — Leonhard Euler:
mathematical description of the refraction of light — Thomas Wright: speculations
on the Milky Way — The discoveries of William and Caroline Herschel — John
Michell — Pierre Simon Laplace, ‘The French Newton’: his Exposition — Benjamin
Thompson (Count Rumford): his life — Thompson’s thoughts on convection — His
thoughts on heat and motion — James Hutton: the uniformitarian theory of geology
Book Four: THE BIG PICTURE
9. The ‘Darwinian Revolution’ 319
Charles Lyell: His life — His travels in Europe and study of geology — He publishes
the Principles of Geology — Lyell’s thoughts on species — Theories of evolution:
Erasmus Darwin and Zoonomia — Jean-Baptiste Lamarck: the Lamarckian theory
of evolution — Charles Darwin: his life — The voyage of the Beagle — Darwin
develops his theory of evolution by natural selection — Alfred Russel Wallace — The
publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species
10. Atoms and Molecules 359
Humphry Davy’s work on gases; electrochemical research — John Dalton’s atomic
model; first talk of atomic weights — Jons Berzelius and the study of elements —
Avogadro’s number — William Prout’s hypothesis on atomic weights — Friedrich
Wo¨hler: studies in organic and inorganic substances — Valency — Stanislao
Cannizzaro: the distinction between atoms and molecules — The development of
the periodic table, by Mendeleyev and others — The science of thermodynamics —
James Joule on thermodynamics — William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and the laws of
thermodynamics — James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann: kinetic theory and
the mean free path of molecules — Albert Einstein: Avogadro’s number, Brownian
motion and why the sky is blue
11. Let There be Light 400
The wave model of light revived — Thomas Young: his double-slit experiment —
Fraunhofer lines — The study of spectroscopy and the spectra of stars — Michael
Faraday: his studies in electromagnetism — The invention of the electric motor and
the dynamo — Faraday on the lines of force — Measuring the speed of light — James
Clerk Maxwell’s complete theory of electromagnetism — Light is a form of
electromagnetic disturbance — Albert Michelson and Edward Morley: the
Michelson—Morley experiment on light — Albert Einstein: special theory of relativity
— Minkowski: the geometrical union of space and time in accordance with
this theory
12. The Last Hurrah! of Classical Science 442
Contractionism: our wrinkling planet? — Early hypotheses on continental drift —
Alfred Wegener: the father of the theory of continental drift — The evidence for
Pangea — The radioactive technique for measuring the age of rocks — Holmes’s
account of continental drift — Geomagnetic reversals and the molten core of the
Earth — The model of ‘sea-floor spreading’ — Further developments on continental
drift — The ‘Bullard fit’ of the continents — Plate tectonics — The story of Ice Ages:
Jean de Charpentier — Louis Agassiz and the glacial model — The astronomical
theory of Ice Ages — The elliptical orbit model — James Croll — The Milankovitch
model — Modern ideas about Ice Ages — The impact on evolution
Book Five: MODERN TIMES
13. Inner Space 487
Invention of the vacuum tube — ‘Cathode rays’ and ‘canal rays’ — William Crookes:
the Crookes tube and the corpuscular interpretation of cathode rays — Cathode rays
are shown to move far slower than light — The discovery of the electron — Wilhelm
Rontgen & the discovery of X-rays — Radioactivity; Becquerel and the Curies —
Discovery of alpha, beta and gamma radiation — Rutherford’s model of the atom —
Radioactive decay — The existence of isotopes — Discovery of the neutron — Max
Planck and Planck’s constant, black-body radiation and the existence of energy
quanta — Albert Einstein and light quanta — Niels Bohr — The •rst quantum model
of the atom — Louis de Broglie — Erwin Schro¨dinger’s wave equation for electrons —
The particle-based approach to the quantum world of electrons — Heisenberg’s
uncertainty principle: wave—particle duality — Dirac’s equation of the electron —
The existence of antimatter — The strong nuclear force — The weak nuclear force;
neutrinos — Quantum electrodynamics — The future? Quarks and string
14. The Realm of Life 529
The most complex things in the Universe — Charles Darwin and nineteenth-century
theories of evolution — The role of cells in life — The division of cells — The discovery
of chromosomes and their role in heredity — Intracellular pangenesis — Gregor
Mendel: father of genetics — The Mendelian laws of inheritance — The study of
chromosomes — Nucleic acid — Working towards DNA and RNA — The
tetranucleotide hypothesis — The Chargaff rules — The chemistry of life — Covalent
bond model and carbon chemistry — The ionic bond — Bragg’s law — Chemistry as a
branch of physics — Linus Pauling — The nature of the hydrogen bond — Studies of
fibrous proteins — The alpha-helix structure — Francis Crick and James Watson: the
model of the DNA double helix — The genetic code — The genetic age of
humankind — Humankind is nothing special
15. Outer Space 572
Measuring the distances of stars — Stellar parallax determinations — Spectroscopy
and the stuff of stars — The Hertzsprung—Russell diagram — The colour—magnitude
relationship and the distances to stars — The Cepheid distance scale — Cepheid stars
and the distances to other galaxies — General theory of relativity outlined — The
expanding Universe — The steady state model of the Universe — The nature of the
Big Bang — Predicting background radiation — Measuring background radiation —
Modern measurements: the COBE satellite — How the stars shine: the nuclear
fusion process — The concept of ‘resonances’ — CHON and humankind’s place in
the Universe — Into the unknown
Coda: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out 613
Bibliography 617
Index 625