Sabbagh, Karl
| A Rum affair
| Allen Lane, 1999 | ISBN: 0306810603
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In the 1940's the botanist John Heslop Harrison (1881-1967) reported finding several rare plants and insects on the remote Scottish island of Rum. But many were suspicious - no one else was finding such specimens and the findings fitted in too well with Harrison's own theories. In A Rum affair: A True Story of Botanical Fraud Karl Sabbagh tells the story.
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| Dr. Riemann's Zeros
| Atlantic Books, 2002 | ISBN: 1843541009
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The Riemann Hypothesis seems so far removed from everyday life that those who aren't specialists in number theory might have difficulty in understanding why a million dollars is being offered for its proof. In Dr. Riemann's Zeros Karl Sabbagh gives a well presented account of this area of mathematics in a way that can be followed by non-mathematicians. Sabbagh packs plenty of information into this short book - the meaning of the mathematics, the origins and history of the hypothesis, some of the current work on it, and how similar sorts of mathematics, such as Fermat's last theorem, were finally proved.
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Sacks, Oliver
| Uncle Tungsten
| Knopf, 2001 | ISBN: 0330390279
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'Uncle Tungsten' is a description of Oliver Sacks' life between the age of 10 and 14, when he was discovering the joys of science, interspersed with historical material about scientists who inspired him. The title of the book comes from an uncle who ran a factory making tungsten light bulb filaments, but many of the Sacks family were involved in metals in one way or another giving Oliver a ready source of answers to his questions as well as material for his chemical laboratory. The book needs no prior scientific knowledge and is recommended for all readers for its fascinating story of how Sacks developed his enthusiasm for science.
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| Seeing Voices
| Picador, 1990 | ISBN: 0330320904
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Having read other books by Sacks, I found this something of a disappointment. He seems to jump too rapidly between different areas - a bit of history, a bit of applied linguistics, a bit of politics. Coupled with the fact that many of the pages are dominated by footnotes, this results a book which is difficult to read. Sacks became aware of the poor deal the deaf have been getting in our society - essentially being denied the use of their own language - and wanted to get this message out to a wider audience. However, in his enthusiasm for the cause, I feel Sacks has not given sufficient consideration to the readability of the book. That said, if you are not put off by the way it is laid out, then you will find much of interest in the book, for example the account of the students' strike at Gallaudet University (where Sacks does stay on one topic for a decent length of time).
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Sagan, Dorion
| Into the Cool
| University of Chicago press, 2005 | ISBN: 0226739368
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You might not think of thermodynamics as the most interesting of subjects, but if you read Into the Cool then perhaps you'll change your mind. In it Eric D. Scheider and Dorion Sagan show how non-equilibrium thermodynamics can be applied to a wide variety of situations. Starting from the idea that 'nature abhors a gradient', they show how such thermodynamic gradients lead to systems organising themselves to use the energy available. I'm usually pretty skeptical of one-size-fits-all theories, but the application of this idea to the origin and evolution of life, to trees and forests, to human health, and to cities and the world economy, did seem pretty convincing.
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Sagan, Nick
| Future Proof
| Icon books, 2007 | ISBN: 9781848310049
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We live in a world full of gadgets, but we don't seem to have reached the futuristic world imagined by so many. In Future Proof: The Greatest Gadgets and Gizmos Ever Imagined Nick Sagan ,Mark Frary and Andy Walker look at the gadgets we have and some of those that didn't quite make it.
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Sample, Ian
| Massive: the hunt for the God particle
| Virgin Books, 2010 | ISBN: 9781905264957
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A great deal of effort is being put nto the search for the Higgs boson, in particular it is a major reason for the building of the Large Hadron Collider. You might wonder why it is so important. In Massive: the hunt for the God particle Ian Sample tells the story.
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Schilthuizen, Menno
| Frogs, flies, and dandelions
| Oxford University Press, 2001 | ISBN: 0198503938
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The origin of new species has always been something of a puzzle - Darwin answered some of the important questions, but left a lot of others unanswered. In Frogs, Flies and Dandelions: The Making of Species Menno Schilthuizen looks into some of the debates on this issue.
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Schneider, Eric D
| Into the Cool
| University of Chicago press, 2005 | ISBN: 0226739368
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You might not think of thermodynamics as the most interesting of subjects, but if you read Into the Cool then perhaps you'll change your mind. In it Eric D. Scheider and Dorion Sagan show how non-equilibrium thermodynamics can be applied to a wide variety of situations. Starting from the idea that 'nature abhors a gradient', they show how such thermodynamic gradients lead to systems organising themselves to use the energy available. I'm usually pretty skeptical of one-size-fits-all theories, but the application of this idea to the origin and evolution of life, to trees and forests, to human health, and to cities and the world economy, did seem pretty convincing.
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Schneider, Reto
| The Mad Science Book
| Quercus, 2004 | ISBN: 9781847244949
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The idea of a Frankenstein style mad scientist is a myth isn't it? Well, certainly most scientists I've come across are not like that. But reading Reto Schneider's book, The Mad Science Book: 100 Amazing Expreiments from the History of Science, showed that there might be some truth beäB$¦ZxÏn
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Schramm, David
| The Shadows of Creation
| Oxford University Press, 1993 | ISBN: 019286159X
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The Shadows of Creation:Dark Matter and the Structure of the Universe is a look at the nature of dark matter, and why it is necessary to postulate it in cosmological models. The book was published in 1993, which was before the COBE results showed the detailed structure of the Cosmological Microwave Background Radiation, and the ensuing addition of dark energy to the model of the universe. Hence the book is somewhat dated. However, you might find it interesting to see what the problems were which faced cosmologists at that time, so that you can get an idea of which ones have now been solved.
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Scigliano, Eric
Searle's ideas don't really fit into my categories of theories of mind. Maybe this is because these categories are too simplistic, but then again, maybe he is skating round the important issues.
| Seeing the Elephant
| Bloomsbury, 2002 | ISBN: 0747574715
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Elephants are intelligent and powerful animals, and it's not surprising that humans have often formed bonds with these creatures. In Seeing the Elephant: The Ties That Bind Elephants and Humans Eric Scigliano looks at examples of our relationship with elephants through the ages.
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Scott, David
Searle's ideas don't really fit into my categories of theories of mind. Maybe this is because these categories are too simplistic, but then again, maybe he is skating round the important issues.
| Two Sides of the Moon
| Pocket, 2004 | ISBN: 0743450671
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In Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race Astronaut David Scott and Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov tell of their involvement in the space programs aimed at moon landings.
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Scott, John T
Searle's ideas don't really fit into my categories of theories of mind. Maybe this is because these categories are too simplistic, but then again, maybe he is skating round the important issues.
| The Philosophers' Quarrel
| Yale University Press, 2009 | ISBN: 9780300121933
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In 1766 David Hume was instrumental in find Jean-Jacques Rousseau a place to live in Britain, freeing him from the persecution he had faced on the Continent. One might have expected a lifetime of gratitude for this action, but in fact things turned out rather differently. In The Philosophers' Quarrel: Rousseau, Hume, and the Limits of Human Understanding Robert Zaretsky and John T Scott tell the story.
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Searle, John
Searle's ideas don't really fit into my categories of theories of mind. Maybe this is because these categories are too simplistic, but then again, maybe he is skating round the important issues.
| Mind, Language and Society
| Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999 | ISBN: 0297643002
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Philosophy, and in particular the philosophy of mind, can be a difficult area for those not used to the ways of philosophers. In Mind, Language and Society:Philosophy in the real word John Searle gives a readable discussion of realism, consciousness, society and language, explaining why others seem to tie themselves in knots about such issues.
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| The mystery of consciousness
| Granta, 1997 | ISBN: 0940322064
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The nature of consciousness is the subject of a great deal of discussion, in one form or another. In The Mystery of Consciousness contributes to this discussion by looking at the work of other writers on the subject. Many of these, such as Francis Crick, Daniel Dennett, and Gerald Edelman have an essentially reductionist viewpoint, and Searle shows how this point of view seems unsatisfactory in that it seems to avoid the difficult questions. He also discusses the work of Roger Penrose, in particular arguing that there are serious flaws in Penrose's idea of a link between consciousness and Gödel's incompleteness theorem.
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| Minds, brains and science
| Harvard University Press | ISBN: 0674576314
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The 1984 Reith Lectures. Searle describes his ideas on the philosophy of mind, arguing against physicalism. A version of his Chinese room argument appears here
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Segre, Gino
| Einstein's Refrigerator
| Penguin, 2002 | ISBN: 0140290877
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In 1926 Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard patented a new design of refrigerator which avoided the dangers of poisonous refrigerants used in existing designs. However, Einstein's Refrigerator by Gino Segré isn't about that. Well the book does devote a couple of pages to it, but it's really a more general look at the concept of temperature and together with discussion of various scientific topics related to temperature. It contains plenty of interesting science, but it written in a non-technical way and so is a fairly easy read, even if you've had no previous experience of the subjects dealt with.
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| Faust in Copenhagen
| Jonathan Cape, 2007 | ISBN: 9780224072564
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In the 1920's and 1930's, Niels Bohr organised annual meetings at his Copenhagen Institute. These informal conferences gave physicists the chance to exchange ideas on the what was happening at the forefront of physics. It became the tradition for some of the younger attendees to put on a skit poking fun at more experienced physicists. In Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics, Gino Segrè links the 1932 skit with the progress of physics and the lives of physicists of this era.
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Seife, Charles
| Alpha and Omega
| Transworld Publishers, 2003 | ISBN: 0142004464
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Just a few years ago dark matter and energy seemed highly speculative ideas. Hence the announcement that the percentages of normal matter, dark matter and dark energy had been found fairly precisely came as something of a surprise to me. In Alpha and Omega Charles Seife looks at the discoveries which brought this about, which he calls the third cosmological revolution. Despite the title it's really about &Lambda - the cosmological constant - and &Omega - the density of the universe, and what these mean in our view of cosmology. The book is highly readable and is aimed at a non-technical audience, but there's plenty of information on the latest (in 2003) experiments, so more knowledgeable readers are still likely to find it of interest.
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| Zero - the biography of a dangerous idea
| Souvenir press | ISBN: 0285635867
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Zero is a strange sort of number - for instance division by zero in a computer program causes all sorts of problems. This book is a look at the development of the concept of zero, and infinity, zero's twin, from ancient times to recent discoveries in cosmology and quantum physics. Aristotle tried to hide paradoxes associated with zero, with pronouncments such as 'Nature abhors a vacuum'. This held back the development of mathematics in the West, while in the East zero was accepted and the subject flourished. Eventually the usefulness of zero was accepted in the West, and mathematics took off agian, leading to the use of infinitesimals and the development of the calculus. I felt that the book would be very useful to someone learning calculus, as it gives a clear description of the ideas behind the subject.
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Selleri, Franco
| Quantum mechanics versus local realism
| Plenum, 1988 | ISBN: 0306427397
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Shachtman, Tom
| Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold
| Mariner Books, 2000 | ISBN: 0618082395
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I haven't read this book, but it looks to be and interesting investigation into the understanding of cold - is it just the absence of heat? - and into the attempts to achieve ever lower temperatures. It seems more directed towards the people involved in this quest, rather than the science i ved.
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Shankar, N
| Metamathematics, machines, and Godel's proof
| Cambridge University Press, 1994 | ISBN: 052142027X
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How much computers can be used to prove mathematical theorems is a question of great interest. Some would claims that Gödel's incompleteness theorem means that there are severe limits on what a computer can do. Well, Metamathematics, machines and Gödel's proof presents a computerized proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorem itself. Natarajan Shankar uses the lisp programming language, firstly to write a program to check proofs for the first order set-theoretic language Z2, and secondly to express the proof checking program itself in Z2, using the Boyer-Moore theorem prover to prove the existence of an unprovable sentence
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Shapiro, Stewart
| Thinking about mathematics
| Oxford University Press, 2000 | ISBN: 0192893068
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Even the least mathematical of us will deal quite a bit with numbers, but exactly what are they - do they have an independent existence? In Thinking about mathematics : the philosophy of mathematics , Stewart Shapiro discusses what philosophers throughout the ages have thought about this question.
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Shubin, Neil
| Your Inner Fish
| Allen Lane, 2008 | ISBN: 9780713999358
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The study of ancient fossils may seem somewhat remote from our everyday lives, but Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body Neil Shubin shows how such study can reveal important information about our origins and how our bodies work.
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Silk, Joseph
| The infinite cosmos
| Oxford University Press, 2006 | ISBN: 0198505108
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I'm not particularly keen on blogs - I prefer what I read to be more structured. This probably means that I'm not the best person to review Joseph Silk's new book, as at times it seemed to lack structure in the same way as a blog. There didn't seem to be any central thread to lead the reader through the book, and the author sometimes seemed to be repeating himself. On the other hand he is an expert in the field and it is clear that he has thought about the things he is writing about, so if you don't mind the style of writing you might consider reading this book.
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| On the Shores of the Unknown
| Cambridge University Press, 2005 | ISBN: 0521836271
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What we hear about the universe can sometimes seem a bit unlikely, with most of it being in the form of unseen matter and energy. In On the Shores of the Unknown: A Short History of the Universe Joseph Silk demonstrates that the evidence is stronger than you might think. He describes how the fluctuations in the Cosmological Microwave Background impose constraints on the nature of the cosmos, but goes on to look at several other discoveries which support the cosmologists models. In particular he examines what theories of galaxy formation can tell us about the large scale nature of universe.
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Silvers, Robert B
| Hidden Histories of Science
| Granta, 1995 | ISBN: 1862070059
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Hidden histories of science is based on a series of talks given by well known scientists. It looks like the idea of the talks was to highlight scientific discoveries which were dismissed, only to be rediscovered at a later date. Oliver Sacks looks at examples of this in medicine. Jonathan Miller describes the theatrical origin of hypnotism, and how it was frowned upon but later became more respectable. Daniel J Kevels looks at how early work linking viruses and cancer was unpopular until it provided a basis for the 'War on Cancer' in the 1970's.
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Singh, Simon
| Fermat's Enigma
| Fourth Estate, 1997 | ISBN: 1841157910
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Note:This book also has the title Fermat's last theorem in the UK. Andrew Wiles heard about Fermat's last theorem when he was 10 years old, and decided that he was going to prove it. He finally succeeded 30 years later. Fermat's Enigma by Simon Singh tells the story of this proof. Singh tells of how Fermat claimed to have a proof, and of how in the following centuries many people also thought that they had proved the theorem, only for a fault to be found in their work. The attempts did lead to a lot of interesting mathematics though. Thus Fermat's conjecture became more and more famous, and several prizes were offered for its proof.
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| Big Bang
| Fourth Estate, 2004 | ISBN: 0007152515
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The big bang is well known as the consensus view of the beginning of the universe, but the history of how it achieved this position may be less well known. In Big bang : the most important scientific discovery of all time and why you need to know about it Simon Singh gives the reader a gentle introduction to this history.
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Sipser, Michael
| Introduction to the theory of computation
| Course Technology | ISBN: 053494728X
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Undergraduate level computer science textbook. Plenty of diagrams which make it easy to follow the arguments.
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Sklar, Lawrence
| Physics and chance
| Cambridge University Press, 1993 | ISBN: 0521558816
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People don't tend to think of thermodynamics as a subject for philosophising - at least not compared to quantum theory. In Physics and chance : philosophical issues in the foundations of statistical mechanics Lawrence Sklar tries to redress the balance. The book starts with a look at early ideas on the nature of thermodynamics, such as those of Boltzmann, together with criticisms of them. There is then a chapter on the nature of probability. Sklar then moves on to equilibrium thermodynamics, showing that it has quite a few foundational problems - but that those of non-equilibrium thermodynamics are quite a bit worse.
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Smith, Vince
| Sophie's Story
| Portrait, 2003 | ISBN: 0749950218
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In 1990 a baby chimp, Sophie, was abandoned by her mother at Chester Zoo. Vince Smith was a zookeeper at the zoo, and he and his wife offered to care for Sophie at his home. Sophie's Story: Raising a Chimp in the Family tells of how this turned out.
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Smolin, Lee
| The Trouble with Physics
| Allen Lane, 2006 | ISBN: 9780713997
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String theory is a controversial subject at the moment - some people think that it has drifted too far from experimentally testable results. One such person is Lee Smolin, and in The Trouble with Physics he presents his case. As the book proceeds it includes quite a bit of modern physics, but Smolin manages to do this without technicalities, and so the book can be read by those without much experience of the subject. Not everyone will agree with what Smolin is saying, but he presents some well thought out arguments ant the book is definitely worth reading.
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Smullyan, Raymond
| Godel's incompleteness theorems
| Oxford University Press, 1992 | ISBN: 0195046722
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Raymond Smullyan may be known to readers of this site as the author of several books of logical puzzles. But he has also written more serious books on the subject and Godel's incompleteness theorems is such a book.
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| forever Undecided
| Oxford University Press, 1987 | ISBN: 0192801414
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This book gives a gentle introduction to the deep results of Gödel's incompleteness theorems via a series of puzzles for the reader to ponder.
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Sobel, Dava
| The Planets
| Fourth Estate, 2005 | ISBN: 1857028503
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Each chapter of this book deals with one of the planets in the solar system, and goes from early myths, through the history of the study of the planet up to the present day with information from space probes and other observations. The book is written in a much more poetical style than Sobel's earlier works. But this doesn't mean that it's full of airy nothings, on the contrary I was very impressed by her skill in packing such a lot of information into a small space while at the same time producing a book which is easy to read.
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Spinrad, Hyron
| The farthest things in the universe
| Cambridge University Press | ISBN: 0521451701
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When we look into space, it is natural to try to push our observing techniques in order to see as far as possible. The Farthest things in the universe is an account of what astronomers have found when they do this. The book is composed of four chapters, each written by an expert in the subject. The first chapter, by Jay M. Pasachoff, introduces the reader to the expansion of the universe, and describes the methods used to determine the distances of objects. In the second chapter Ed Cheng describes the Cosmological Microwave background radiation, and looks at what it tells us about the early universe.
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Sprague, Ann
| Exploring Mercury: The Iron Planet
| Springer, 2003 | ISBN: 1852337311
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Considering the large number of planetary missions in the last few decades it may come as a surprise that it's over 30 years since a probe had a look at Mercury - Mariner 10 in the early 1970's. Exploring Mercury, the iron planet by Robert Strom and Ann Sprague shows that scientists with an interest in the planet haven't been idly waiting for the new Messenger mission to get there - Earth based observations together with new ways of processing the Mariner 10 data have produced plenty of new information.
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Srinivasan, Ashwin
| Donald Michie on machine intelligence, biology and more
| Oxford University Press, 2009 | ISBN: 9780199573042
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In Donald Michie on machine intelligence, biology and more, Ashwin Srinivasan has compiled a collection of articles by Michie ranging from his work with Alan Turing at Bletchley Park to his comments on the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
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Staddon, John
| The New Behaviorism
| Psychology Press, 2001 | ISBN: 1841690147
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Behaviourism - the idea that psychology should be based on correlating stimuli with behaviour, rather than postulating unobservable mental states - is generally thought to have died out in the 1960's. John Staddon thinks that it's demise was premature, and in The New Behaviourism: Mind, Mechanism and Society he puts forward his ideas for a revival. He feels that it was an accident of history that the behaviourists rejected the connectionist models of thought, which were then taken up by the cognitive psychologists. Such models were made possible by the increase in computer power, and Staddon explains how they fit naturally into the behaviourist ideas.
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Stannard, Russell
| The end of discovery
| Oxford University Press, 2010 | ISBN: 9780199585243
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Having read Russell Stannard's latest book The End of Discovery: Are we approaching the boundaries of the knowable? , I would say that the answer to the question posed in the subtitle seems to be a definite NO.
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Stein, Sherman K
| Strength in numbers
| Wiley, 1996 | ISBN: 0471152528
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Many people have been turned off mathematics by the memorisation of seemingly meaningless facts in school. In Strength in numbers : discovering the joy and power of mathematics in everyday life Sherman K Stein shows that it doesn't have to be this way. He gives an easy to follow explanation of some of the key areas of school mathematics, including why minus × minus equals plus, pythagoras's theorem and the area of a circle. He even gets on to look at calculus. But my impression is that this book isn't really aimed at those who are currently struggling with learning this mathematics at school.
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Steinberg, Derek
| Consciousness Reconnected
| Radcliffe, 2006 | ISBN: 1857757785
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What is Consciousness? The idea that it is just a property of a collection of chemicals seems to leave so much out. In Consciousness Reconnected: Missing Links Between Self, Neuroscience, Psychology and the Arts Derek Steinberg explores how taking input from differing areas of knowledge might contribute to the answer.
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Steinhardt, Paul J
| Endless Universe
| Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007 | ISBN: 9780297845546
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The idea that the universe started with a big bang, including a period of inflation, is the consensus view amoungst cosmologists today. However, Paul J Steinhardt and Neil Turok think differently. In Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang they describe their alternative, Ekpyrotic model. Here the universe consists of two branes, and what we know as the big bang was actually the result of these colliding. This caused them to move apart, but eventually they will approach each other again, and the whole story will begin again. Hence the universe did not begin with the big bang- this is just one of a possibly infinite number of cycles.
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Stenger, Victor J
| The Comprehensible Cosmos
| Prometheus Books, 2006 | ISBN: 1591024242
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When you start studying physics, you realise that it's a big subject - lots of seemingly arbitrary laws to learn. In The Comprehensible Cosmos: Where the Laws of Physics Come FromVictor J. Stenger claims that in fact it's much simpler than it seems.
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Sterelny, Kim
| Dawkins vs Gould
| Icon books | ISBN: 1840462493
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The names of Richard Dawkins and Stephen J Gould will be familiar to readers of popular science books, but sometimes its difficult to place the two in context. Dawkins is responsible for some provocative work, such the idea of the 'selfish' gene, but his view seems to be the one adopted by the mainstream. Gould on the other hand seems more moderate and conciliatory in his books, but has sometimes been seen as a thorn in the side of the scientific establishment, with his ideas of punctuated equilibrium. This book summarises the positions of these two famous biologists and does an excellent job in providing the required context.
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Stewart, Ian
| The Foundations of Mathematics
| Oxford University Press, 1977 | ISBN: 0198531656
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University level mathematics can be a daunting subject, and if you haven't studied maths to this level then you may think that those who have are speaking a different language. Well help is at hand in the form of a short book, The Foundations of Mathematics, by Ian Stewart and David Tall.
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| Algebraic number theory and Fermat's last theorem
| AK Peters | ISBN: 1568811195
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Mostly algebraic number theory, but some coverage of Modular Forms & elliptic curves
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| Why Beauty is Truth
| Basic books, 2007 | ISBN: 0465082360
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Although symmetry seems to be predominantly a geometrical property, Why Beauty is Truth: A History of Symmetryshows that it really gained its importance in mathematics and physics via a different route - that of the solutions of polynomial equations. Ian Stewart starts at the time of the Babylonians, who were able to solve quadratic equations, and moves through the solutions of the cubic and quartic in the Renaissance. Hence we get to the work of Abel and Galois, who demonstrated the insolubility of the quintic by radicals. This was the start of group theory, and the rest of the book shows how this had much influence in later mathematics and physics.
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| Letters to a Young Mathematician
| Basic books, 2007 | ISBN: 0465082327
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In Letters to a Young Mathematician Ian Stewart tells readers what he would like to have known when he was younger, in the form of letters to a budding mathematician, Meg.
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Stock, Gregory
| Redesigning Humans
| Profile Books, 2002 | ISBN: 1861972423
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Many people feel uneasy with new genetic technologies, and in particular feel that human germline manipulation should not be allowed. In Redesigning Humans: Choosing our Children's Genes Gregory Stock sees this as too much of a knee-jerk reaction. He considers such germinal choice technology (GCT) as a continuation of the efforts parents have made to do the best for their children, and believes that such prospective parents won't be put off by laws based on some vague uneasiness. Some will find a way to get such technology, and then others will feel compelled to follow suit - or else face the consequence of having to explain to their children why they were born at a disadvantage.
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Straus, William J
| Forerunners of Darwin
| John Hopkins, 1959 | ISBN: 0801802229
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Forerunners of Darwin is a collection of essays looking at what was written about evolution before Darwin published his theory. Following a substantial introduction, the book has two main parts, dealing with the 18th and 19th centuries respectively. The 18thcentury part has essays on some of the main writers on the subject of this period, such as Maupertuis, Diderot, Linnaeus and Herder. The 19thcentury part deals less with individual writers, and more with considerations of some of the philososophical ideas of evolution and the objections to them, including plenty of discussion of the idea that 'Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny'.
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Stringer, Chris
| Homo Britannicus
| Penguin, 2006 | ISBN: 0713997958
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The Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project was started in 2001 with the aim of using modern methods of palaentology to find out more about the various waves of people which have occupied our islands. In Homo Britannicus Chris Stringer (the director of the project) tells the reader some of the results of this project - how it is now thought that Britain was occupied as much as 700000 years ago, but how sensitive this occupation was to the changes of climate. Chris Stringer is an experienced writer, and the book contains plenty to interest the reader - it certainly whetted my appetite to find out more about the subject.
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Strom, Robert
| Exploring Mercury: The Iron Planet
| Springer, 2003 | ISBN: 1852337311
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Considering the large number of planetary missions in the last few decades it may come as a surprise that it's over 30 years since a probe had a look at Mercury - Mariner 10 in the early 1970's. Exploring Mercury, the iron planet by Robert Strom and Ann Sprague shows that scientists with an interest in the planet haven't been idly waiting for the new Messenger mission to get there - Earth based observations together with new ways of processing the Mariner 10 data have produced plenty of new information.
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Sulston, John
| The Common Thread
| Bantam Press, 2002 | ISBN: 0593048016
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From 1993 to 2000 John Sulston was director of the Sanger centre, which played a major part in the sequencing of the human genome. In The Common Thread : A story of Science, Politics, Ethics and the Human Genome Sulston (with coauthor Georgina Ferry) tells his story.
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Susskind, Leonard
| The Black Hole War
| Little, Brown, 2008 | ISBN: 9780316016414
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In The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics Leonard Susskind explains his arguments why information is never lost even if it falls into a black hole, and how he persuaded the rest of the physics community to agree with him.
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