Ebook: The Art of Science

Good Science is not necessarily a book about great scientific theories, complicated equations, or grand old men (or women) in their laboratories; instead, it’s about the places we draw our inspiration from; it’s about daily routines and sudden flashes of insight; about dedication, and – sometimes – desperation; and the small moments, questions, quests, clashes, doubts and delights that make us human. From Galileo to Lewis Carroll, from Humphry Davy to Charles Darwin, from Marie Curie to Stephen Jay Gould, from rust to snowflakes, from the first use of the word ‘scientist’ to the first computer, from why the sea is salty to Newtonian physics ‘for women’, Good Science is a book about people, rather than scientists per se, and as such, it’s a book about politics, passion and poetry. Above all, though, it’s a book about the good that science can – and does – do.Review'Relaxed, sunny and domesticated ... the science emerges naturally, and reflectively from our familiar world' Guardian 'The Art of Science showcases not only readable translations of key scientific ideas but situates those ideas in their cultural and historical context' Independent About the AuthorRichard Hamblyn is the author of The Invention of Clouds, which won the 2002 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, Terra: Tales of the Earth, a study of natural disasters, Data Soliloquies, co-written with the digital artist Martin John Callanan, and The Cloud Book, published in association with the Met Office. He teaches creative writing at Birkbeck College, University of London.