Science: A History (Paperback)

John Gribbin

ISBN 10: 0140297413 / ISBN 13: 9780140297416

Published by Penguin Books Ltd, London, 2003

About this Item

Paperback. "This book is the product of immense learning, and a lifetime spent working out how to write in a vivacious way about science and scientists. He moves me to bestow a reviewer's cliche I long ago vowed never to use- he has written a tour-de-force", Robert Macfarlane, Spectator.In this book, John Gribbin tells the story of the people who made science and the turbulent times they lived in. As well as famous figures such as Copernicus, Darwin and Einstein, there are also the obscure, the eccentric, even the mad. This diversecast includes, among others, Andreas Vesalius, landmark 16th-century anatomist and secret grave-robber; the flamboyant Galileo, accused of heresy for his ideas; the obsessive, competitive Newton, who wrote his rivals out of the history books; GregorMendel, the Moravian monk who founded modern genetics; and Louis Agassiz, so determined to prove the existence of ice ages that he marched his colleagues up a mountain to show them the evidence. Galileo, tried by the Inquisition for his ideas, to Newton, who wrote his rivals out of the history books. This book tells the story of the men and women who changed the way we see the world, and the turbulent times they lived in. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780140297416

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Science: A History (Paperback)
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd, London
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140297413
• ISBN 13: 9780140297416
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

From award-winning science writer John Gribbin, Science: A History is the enthralling story of the men and women who changed the way we see the world, and the turbulent times they lived in.

From Galileo, tried by the Inquisition for his ideas, to Newton, who wrote his rivals out of the history books; from Marie Curie, forced to work apart from male students for fear she might excite them, to Louis Agassiz, who marched his colleagues up a mountain to prove that the ice ages had occurred.

Filled with pioneers, visionaries, eccentrics and madmen, this is the history of science as it has never been told before.

'Gripping and entertaining ... Wonderfully and pleasurably accessible'
  Independent on Sunday

'Tremendous ... moves me to bestow a reviewer's cliché I long ago vowed never to use: a tour de force'
  Spectator

'A magnificent history ... enormously entertaining'
  Daily Telegraph

'A splendid book ... demolishes innumerable myths and exposes the factual roots of some of science's well known tales (for example, Galileo never dropped weights of different sizes from Pisa's leaning tower)'
  Economist

'We experience his subjects' triumphs and failures as if we knew them personally ... I found myself whizzing through the pages'
  Sunday Telegraph

John Gribbin is one of today's greatest writers of popular science and the author of bestselling books, including In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, Stardust, Science: A History and In Search of the Multiverse. Gribbin trained as an astrophysicist at Cambridge University and is currently Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex.

About the Author

John Gribbin is one of today's greatest writers of popular science and the author of bestselling books, including In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, Stardust and Deep Simplicity. He is famous to his many fans for making complex ideas simple, and says that his aim in his writing - much of it done with his wife, Mary Gribbin - is to share with his readers his sense of wonder at the strangeness of the universe. John Gribbin trained as an astrophysicist at Cambridge University and is currently Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex.