Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them [ハードカバー]

This is Dr. Pickover's first scientific book since his A Beginner's Guide to Immortality and The Mobius Strip writings of 2006. After over a year of pursuing science fiction, the author has provided us with a work that was worth waiting for. This is his best yet.

Archimedes to Hawking is no dry listing of scientific laws. Yes, it does have the important laws of science and the runners-up which Pickover generously calls the "Great Contenders." The reason that the book runs to five hundred pages is that Pickover describes the lives and works of the lawgivers. These are not just people who showed up. Their biographies show that they worked at it. "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration."

Although the illustrations appear to be more for decoration than explanation, some are quite stunning. I particularly liked Bode's Virgo and Hooke's Flea, even if they have nothing to do with the laws named for those two. More illustrations like those would have been nice.

The author's approach is interesting. The laws are arranged chronologically. Archimedes is the first, but we have to skip almost two millennia to the Renaissance to find the next. The Industrial Revolution then brings the bulk of the science. There is very little past the turn of the twentieth century. Only three of the scientists named in this collection are still alive. Perhaps we have stopped naming scientific laws after people because we regard the laws of nature more as discovery than personal invention, or maybe it is that we are so expectant of future refinements that we now distrust the concept of the immutable law.

The geography of the lawgivers is mostly European. The bulk of the laws are attributed to French, English, and German physicists and chemists. Americans are fourth in number, but only if you include the runner-up category.

Although Pickover is not a physicist by training, he shows that he understands the thought process of the physicist. He shows their quest for understanding of the principles of the universe, the search for the beauty and symmetry of nature.

Even more, Pickover has learned to think like a physicist. Pickover gives a rational explanation for his inclusion of works in the great laws and the runner-up categories. Many people may be surprised to find that Maxwell's Equations do not have a chapter of their own but share the Faraday chapter, while relatively obscure works are included, even one of the runners-up that includes my name. Pickover explains that the individual laws that make up Maxwell's Equations were developed by other people: Ampere, Faraday, Gauss. For a book like this it is necessary to make choices. The author explains his reasoning in a convincing manner. You may argue with his choices, but I think that if he errs, it is mostly on the side of inclusion, not exclusion.

I do not think that you have to be a physicist or chemist to appreciate this book, but some formal science training may help you to appreciate the simplicity and beauty of the equations. I see this book becoming a standard reference work for those who study the physical sciences or the history of science. Or you may just like it for the joy of the science and the history.

Cliff Pickover's newest book is both significant and unique. The blend of factual data and biographically interesting stories of the scientists lends itself to being appealing to a wide variety of readers. No other book that I'm aware of covers both a wide range of scientific laws in addition to covering the back story behind how those laws were developed. Michael Guillen's Five Equations That Changed the World is similar in both interest and in target audience, but the Pickover book is covers many more laws and people. Jennifer Bothamley's Dictionary of Theories, in contrast, has a much wider scope (and including non-scientific theories), but the special interest of the back story is absent, again distinguishing the Pickover book as distinctly different.

Archimedes to Hawking can be enjoyed by everyone with a curious mind: why DO we name some physical laws after people and some not? how did these geniuses live, and what prompted them to do the work in their fields? how did they stumble upon a brilliant concept, and what struggles did they go through to prove it? All written with Cliff's unique and entertaining style.

In all, it's a brilliant book that I would recommend to anyone. I plan on recommending that my science teachers have their students buy the book for summer reading for our high school science courses.

Science is often erroneously, I think, seen as "cold and austere like sculpture" as Bertrand Russell once described the field of mathematics. But, the story told by Pickover of some of the great laws of science and the lawgivers who gave us these laws is much different from that. It is a story of incredible human passion, of people like Michael Faraday who described electricity as "the soul of the universe", the modestly educated Pierre Curie who won a Nobel Prize in physics, and Robert Hooke who invented the hygrometer to measure humidity after observing that the hairs of the beard of a goat would bend when wet and straighten out when dry. Other figures endured bizarre afflictions, strange religious beliefs, harsh criticism from rivals, and even simultaneous discoveries of their own work by others. Yet, they triumphed and continued in what Murray Gell-Mann described as "the most persistent and greatest adventure in human history, this search to understand the universe."

Pickover describes the laws, the lawgivers, and the nature of scientific laws in a brisk and lively pace, and peppers the book with loads of color and black and white illustrations. And, since you will doubtlessly want to learn more, there is a generous supply of references, both in print and on the internet. Science is dull and dry - nah, don't believe it. It's full of life and human drama when Pickover tells the story!

Dennis W. Gordon
Madison, Wisconsin