Popular science, books

Andrei Sakharov was born in Moscow, Russia, to a family of the intelligentsia on May 21, 1921. His father, Dmitri, taught college physics and wrote textbooks and popular science books. Sakharov studied at home until the seventh grade. Dmitri, a man of warmth and culture, was his first physics teacher. 

A slightly different approach will be found in Mark Kurlansky s fascinating book Salt A World History, Walker Publishing Company, New York, 2002, which is more than a popular science book, and will be enjoyed as well as being informative. 

For decades, there have been many popular science books and science-fiction novels on the subject of the fourth dimension. My favorite science book on the subject is Rudy Rucker s The Fourth Dimension, which covers an array of topics on space and time. My favorite science-fiction story is Robert Hein-lein s — And He Built a Crooked House, first published in 1940. It tells the tale of a California architect who constructs a four-dimensional house. He explains that a four-dimensional house would have certain advantages ... 

Good nontechnical, nonfiction writing can provide a model for exposition. Well-written history and biography (e.g., works by H. W. Brand, Martin Gilbert, Paul Johnson, and William Manchester) are useful for learning to handle time and sequence. Well-written popular science books and novels (e.g., by such authors as Isaac Asimov, Michael Crichton, Steven Levy, and James Gleick) are useful in learning that the presentation of factual information need not be dull. 

I was encouraged to write the book by Dr John Emsley who is well known for his popular science books on the chemical sciences. He had reviewed my introductory textbook on toxicology and suggested it might be the basis for a popular science book written for the general public. That is what I have tried to produce. 

Yes. He was a sergeant. His interest was much broader than the farm and he transmitted his interest to me. I became an avid reader and read popular science books. The county library sent a bus with books weekly and I borrowed their books religiously. 

Even in the realm of popular science books, chemistry appears to be under-represented with physics and biology claiming far greater shelf space. Some exceptions include books on the periodic table and books by Peter Atkins, Philip Ball, and Roald Hoffmann all of whom have made valiant efforts to popularize... 

The 1850s and early 1860s were unmistakably the heyday of the popular science book. Rarely so many different initiatives were undertaken in such a short time span, and various motives and social groups played a role. Precisely because so many dissimilar developments overlapped, the third quarter of the nineteenth century was a decisive and exciting episode in the history of science popularization. 

To illustrate the point that popular books on chemistry are rare, we analysed the Guide to Popular Science Books (Rennison, 2000), which consists of titles and summaries of content of popular science books as sold by Waterstones, the major UK bookshop chain. We found that the number of books that have an overtly chemical theme was under 4% of the total. The balance of chemistry to other disciplines reflected in this analysis is echoed by displays on the shelves of Popular Science in most bookshops. A quick check at any shop will confirm that chemistry is under-represented. Even in Singapore, that most technological of societies, a major bookshop features 27 shelves of popular physics, another 29 of astronomy and just one of chemistry. 

Rennison, N. (2000). Waterstone s Guide to popular science books. Brentford Waterstones. 

Emsley, J. The 13th Element The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire, and Phosphorus-, Chemical Heritage Foundation Philadelphia, 2002 327 pp. A popular science book. 

Fisher, D. Much Ado about (Practically) Nothing A History of the Noble Gases-, Oxford University Press Oxford, 2010. 288 pp. A recent popular science book. 

This popular science book by one of the inventors of quantum electrodynamics is a marvelous introduction into the concepts of the theory. Although the mathematical apparatus is not easy to grasp (compare also his technical monograph [164]), Feynman managed to present the essential ideas in the clearest possible language. 

Of those categories, the last one is theological, which is an unusual category to find at the beginning of a popular science book. I am interested in bridging the perceived gap between science and faith, or, in more neutral categories, between fate and free will or order and disorder. 

There seems to have been no systematic study of the availability, use, and value of popular science books for chemistiy education. In order to partially address this omission, a study of informal chemistiy books was recently undertaken (Afonso,... 

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