The Mad Science Book: Experiments from the Wilder Side of Science - Hardcover

Reto U. Schneider

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847244947 ISBN 13: 9781847244949

Publisher: Quercus Publishing, 2008

Synopsis

You don't have to be an eccentric obsessive to be a scientist, but it helps...In The Mad Science Book, Reto Schneider tells the extraordinary tales of 100 of the more unusual experiments conducted across seven centuries of science. From the attempts of the 14th-century Dominican monk Theodoric von Freiberg to discover the cause of the rainbow, to the efforts of the 20th-century psychologist Harry Harlow to be the perfect mother to a family of reluctant rhesus monkeys, these are stories that are often bizarre, sometimes mind-boggling - occasionally stomach-churning - but always diverting, informative and enlightening. Among the myriad delights on display in this cabinet of scientific curiosities are the renowned doctor from Padua who sat in a pair of scales for 30 years, recording the minutest changes in his weight; the sheep, the duck and the rooster who became the world's first air passengers; the disgusting Dr Stubbins Ffirth, who swallowed other people's vomit in an attempt to prove that yellow fever cannot be transmitted from one person to another; the hapless soldier Alexis St Martin, left with a hole in his stomach after an accident with a musket; and the ever-optimistic Charles-Edouard Brown-Sequard, who injected himself with essence of guinea pigs' testicles as an anti-ageing remedy. There is trivia here in abundance, but also quirky, but genuinely influential, science, notably Merrill Flood's and Melvin Dresher's experiments with choices of outcomes, which have been widely influential as game theory. A fizzing cocktail of fascinating science and rich entertainment, The Mad Science Book tells the extraordinary stories of some truly, madly, geeky people. It should be top of every self-respecting science buff's Christmas 2008 wishlist.

About this title

About the Author

Born in 1963, Reto Schneider is a distinguished science journalist. A graduate of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich with a degree in degree in electrical engineering, he is the author of Planetenjager (Planet hunter), Birkhauser, 1997), the story of the discovery of the first planet found outside the solar system.

From the Back Cover

What happens when a human child is adopted by a family of apes? Does a dog think that a robot dog belongs to the same species? If three men meet who all think they are Jesus, how do they decide who is right?
These questions and a myriad others are answered in The Mad Science Book. Here you will find blinking corpses, flying sheep and fanatical theology students, not to mention wandering pubic hair and a two-headed dog. Find out how cats always manage to land on their feet, and what strategies waiters use to get bigger tips.

From the Inside Flap

You don't have to be an eccentric obsessive to be a scientist, but it helps...
In The Mad Science Book Reto U. Schneider tells the extraordinary tales of 100 of the more unusual experiments conducted across seven centuries of science. From the attempts of the 14th-century Dominican monk Theodoric von Freiberg to discover the cause of the rainbow, to the efforts of the 20th-century psychologist Harry Harlow to be the perfect mother to a family of reluctant rhesus monkeys, these are stories that are often bizarre, sometimes mind-boggling - occasionally stomach-churning - but always diverting, informative and enlightening.
Among the myriad delights on display in this cabinet of scientific curiosities are the renowned doctor from Padua who sat on a pair of scales for 30 years, recording the minutest changes in his weight; the sheep, the duck and the rooster who became the world's first air passengers; the disgusting Dr Stubbins Ffirth, who swallowed other people's vomit in an attempt to prove that yellow fever cannot be transmitted from one person to another; the hapless soldier Alexis St Martin, left with a hole in his stomach after an accident with a musket; and the ever-optimistic Charles-Edouard Brown-Sequard, who injected himself with essence of guinea-pigs' testicles as an anti-ageing remedy. There is trivia here in abundance, but also serious science, notably Merrill Flood's and Melvin Dresher's experiments with choices of outcomes, which have become widely influential as game theory.
A fizzing cocktail of fascinating science and rich entertainment, and illustrated throughout with unusual and rarely seen images, The Mad Science Book tells the extraordinary stories of some truly, madly, geeky people. It should be top of every self-respecting science buff's Christmas wish-list.

Edition details

• Publisher: Quercus Publishing
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1847244947
• ISBN 13: 9781847244949
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288