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Science for the Citizen the Most Part Look As Though They Have Been Scratched out Using a High-School Graham Farme/O Indian Ink Set

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Science for the Citizen the Most Part Look As Though They Have Been Scratched out Using a High-School Graham Farme/O Indian Ink Set AUTUMN BOOKS most of Barrow's illustrations, which for Science for the citizen the most part look as though they have been scratched out using a high-school Graham Farme/o Indian ink set. The other member of the Science Mas­ A new series of books intended to make science accessible to a mass ters opening trio, Richard Leakey's agree­ able The Origin of Mankind, is in every audience has just been launched - but will they repeat the success of sense more down to earth than its two Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time? companions. This clear, plain-spoken account of human evolution covers not THE most depressing thing about today's would imply that readers will not put up only the relationships between ourselves popular science books is that they are so with this, yet sales figures of astrophysics and our African ancestors but also the unpopular. Apart from a handful of block­ books make it clear that there are many latest thinking on the development of busters, very few of the science books who are prepared to struggle with the language, consciousness and economic written for the general public sell in sub­ most challenging material that the experts cooperation. Once again the standard of stantial numbers: according to a recent throw at them. the illustrations is indifferent-even the survey, only two per cent of the UK popu­ This was first demonstrated 17 years chapter on art has only one unpreposses­ lation have bought a nonfiction book on ago when the Nobel prizewinning physi­ sing figure. science or technology within the past 12 cist Steven Weinberg published The First months. Three Minutes, his best-selling account of Personal view The Rh6ne-Poulenc Prizes for science the origins of the Universe. Paul Davies Leakey's account is pleasingly personal books have done much to focus attention pays handsome tribute to Weinberg's pio­ and he occasionally points out where he on fine-quality science writing, notably neering book and cleverly chooses to disagrees with orthodox views, most strik­ Steve Jones's The Language of the Genes, focus on the other extreme of the Uni­ ingly when he explains why he dissents Jared Diamond's The Rise and Fall of the verse's life, a subject that at first seems to from the popular interpretation of Don­ Third Chimpanzee and Stephen Jay have similar promise. But whereas Wein­ ald Johanson and Tim White of the rich Gould's Wonderful Life. Yet none of the berg could give a straightforward and dra­ collection of fossils found two decades ago winners in the prize's eight-year history matic frame-by-frame account of the birth in Hadar, Ethiopia. The reasoning that has sold in vast numbers or established of space, time, matter and energy, Davies underlies this and other disagreements itself in the popular mind as an acknowl­ has to consider several scenarios of obliv­ will give nonspecialists useful insights into edged 'good read'. Perhaps the works that ion, including a collision with a comet that how and why scientists so often view a are generally praised as gems of popular­ ends life on Earth, the big crunch and the piece of evidence in different ways. A ization are actually examples of excellent so-called 'deep freeze' in which the Uni­ little more emotion would have added a writing for other scientists or, at least, for verse slides towards degeneration "inex­ further touch of veracity. keen and well-informed lay people. orably" (a favourite word in the Davies So the Science Masters series begins These three attractively packaged lexicon). well, if not quite as strongly as we might books launch the new Science Masters Davies takes what is described on the have hoped. Our appetite has, however, series, which plainly intends to make mod­ dustjacket as a "free-ranging" approach, been whetted for books in this format and ern science accessible to a mass audience. delving into dozens of areas in modern we look can forward to contributions from This much-heralded series, which is being astrophysics, several of which nonspecial­ Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, published in 26 countries, is the ambitious ists may perceive to be peripheral to the Colin Blakemore and a host of other lumi­ brainchild of Anthony Cheetham, chair­ main subject. As a result, The Last Three naries. One hopes that it will not be long man of the Orion Publishing Group in Minutes comes over as a concatenation of before the publishers recruit Freeman London, and John Brockman, the New well-crafted tableaux that collectively have Dyson, one of the most graceful essayists York literary agent famous for the lavish a frustratingly hazy focus. to have written on physical science. Mean­ advances he is said to have secured for Davies's account would have been a while, will someone talk to whoever is several eminent scientists. good deal clearer if he had included the responsible for the series' graphics? D Each of the volumes is short, complete­ familiar plot of 'size' against time for the ly (or almost completely) devoid of equa­ various types of expanding Universe. Such Graham Farmelo is Head of Programmes at tions and written for a wide audience by a a diagram obligingly turns up in Barrow's the Science Museum, Exhibition Road, leading scientist. The series aims to cater first chapter, which expertly summarizes London SW7 200, UK. for the "educated but non-specialist read­ "the universe in a nutshell", including the er", which we are told implies that "no gist of Davies's story. The subsequent prior knowledge of science or mathemat­ parts briskly cover most of the key topics Books mentioned In ics is required". This is an odd statement: in contemporary cosmology including cos­ this review: can someone be regarded as educated if mic ripples, wormholes, black holes and they know no science at all? inflation. For those who can stomach the The Last Three Minutes. By Paul challenge-and this cohort will include Davies. BasicBooksjWeidenfeld and Jargon everyone who finished Stephen Hawking's Nicholson: 1994. Pp. 162. $20, Scientific greenhorns will certainly strug­ A Brief History of Time -Barrow has writ­ £9.99. gle with the accounts of astrophysics given ten what is probably the best available The Origin of the Universe. By John here by John Barrow and Paul Davies, short introduction to modern cosmology. D. Barrow. BasicBooksjWeidenfeld both theoretical physicists. Given their High-quality illustrations are crucial to and Nicholson: 1994. Pp. 150. $20, uncommon talent for penning lively and the appeal of popular science books, so it £9.99. well-informed expositions of the arcana of is disappointing that both Davies and Bar­ modern physics, it is surprising how freely row have been badly let down in this The Origin of Humankind. By Richard they use jargon that will certainly be respect. The Last Three Minutes features Leakey. BasicBooksjWeidenfeld and Greek to those with no training in science far too few diagrams and the ones that are Nicholson: 1994. Pp. 171. $20, (examples: asymptote, ionized plasma, included are miserably inadequate, to say £9.99. joules and kelvin). Pedagogic justice the least. Yet even these are superior to NATURE · VOL 372 · 17 NOVEMBER 1994 297 © 1994 Nature Publishing Group.
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