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It has always seemed a hope that we could help readers to think about science through science fiction, and this latest book in Springer's noble attempt to have crossover titles between science and science fiction (more on the series later) digs into the history of schemes to educate using SF as either bait or a medium of education. Jörg Determann sets out up front that he is not out to tell us how…
Andrew Jaffe is professor of astrophysics and cosmology at Imperial College, London and director of the Imperial Centre for Inference and Cosmology. His new book is The Random Universe. Why science? I’ve always been interested in science, in particular in astronomy, astrophysics, and space. One of my earliest memories - back in nursery school in New Jersey, I think - was watching one of the moon…
The central thesis presented by Roopika Risam is that information gives us (and particularly countries) the power to organise, control and dominate others. Although I have a couple of issues with the presentation, this is a genuinely interesting trip through the history of our use of stored information from the earliest tallies to the latest information technology. I loved a quote from Lisa…
Christophe Galfard holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Cambridge, where he was Stephen Hawking's graduate student from 2000 to 2006, researching the so-called black hole information paradox. With Stephen Hawking and his daughter Lucy Hawking, he co-authored George’s Secret Key to the Universe. His own book, The Universe in Your Hand, has been translated into over twenty…
I love popular science books, but it's a quiet sort of love: it's not often a book like this gets me really excited - but Meet the Neighbours (sorry, I know it's Neighbors, but it grates) does just that. Once upon a time there was quite a market in books speculating about life on Mars, but of late most Martian titles have focused on getting to and colonising Mars (though often avoiding the 'c'…
Remarkably for those who came across it in the early days, this classic of popular science writing is now 50 years old - and like many of us who reach a certain age it has become somewhat overweight: a reasonable sized paperback has morphed into a 500-page monster. Even so, we have to recognise the importance of the book, despite its message not being as clear as it once was. One major change is…
The introductory chapter of this book, called 'there is something about chips' encourages a response of 'especially with salt and vinegar', but the reality we are presented with in this analysis of the importance of computer chips to technology and the world economy is more reminiscent of another edible delight: the banana. Bananas are hugely popular, but the world supply is fragile because it is…
Trisha Muro is a lifelong space nerd, former high school physics teacher, and perpetual science communicator who loves helping people see - and appreciate - physics in their lives. She has written for readers of all levels in Science News Explores, OpenMind magazine and NSF NOIRLab. Her new book is It's (Just) Rocket Science : she is donating all proceeds from her book to funding scholarships for…
As a particle that has been around the lifetime of the universe and is central to electricity, chemistry and the existence of matter we owe a lot to the electron - but most of us know little about it. Brian Clegg’s biography skims over the first 13.7 or so billion years of its existence to concentrate on the period when humans have been aware of what it does and have gradually come to realise how…
Reading Victorian fiction can be difficult without context - in some cases, an annotated version can work wonders. The best remains Martin Gardner's wonderful annotation of the Alice books and The Hunting of the Snark , but while the annotation of Jules Verne's moonshot tale lacks Gardner's light touch it still delivers plenty of useful background. I started devouring science fiction when I was…
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