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"Science only knows one commandment: contribute to science." This line, spoken by the title character in Bertolt Brecht's
The Life of Galileo, inspired the title of this collection of science writing by 59 diverse authors. Most of the pieces collected by editor Edmund Blair Bolles are excerpted from texts by working scientists or natural philosophers, including George Smoot of NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer to Lucretius. Marie Curie's joy on seeing the lovely, glowing bottles of impure radium in her workroom at night is just one of the vivid images to be extracted from this volume, though with far less effort than the radium cost the Curies.
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From School Library Journal
YA?Science is a way of thinking as much as it is a body of knowledge. Bolles provides potent evidence of great thinking as he chronicles the cumulative process of doing science in this sampler of excellent historical and contemporary writings. This book is not so much about the current understanding of scientific principles (although there is certainly ample material included) but rather the thought and reflections of individuals who have struggled throughout human history to tease out, bit by bit, the fundamental linkages of our world and universe. It is the author's contention that "science writing can be great writing in the same sense as other genres" and this book proves his point. The selected writings include pieces by Herodotus, Galileo, Kepler, Voltaire, Piaget, Newton, and Darwin, as well as by Asimov, Gould, Sagan, and Feynman. Because of the underlining order to the sequence of selections, the book can be read all the way through as an "accessible and appealing" journey through the history of science. It can also be read randomly without losing an appreciation of the writing. Great primary-source material for students researching specific scientists.?Dennis McFaden, Fairfax County Public Schools,
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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