The scientists : an epic of discovery / edited by Andrew Robinson.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Robinson, Andrew, 1957-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Scientists--Biography.

Scientists.

Discoveries in science.

Science--History.

Science.

History.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

304 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 26 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Thames & Hudson, 2012.

Summary:

This reference for high school and up offers profiles of 40 giants of science, from Copernicus to Albert Einstein, and from Gregor Mendel to Crick and Watson. The 5-6 page profiles are divided into sections on the universe, Earth, molecules and matter, inside the atom, life, and the body and mind. Contributors are scientists, science historians, and science writers. The book's appealing design features b&w and color historical and contemporary photos and illustrations on every page, plus photo reproductions of the scientists' own notes, drawings, diagrams, and letters. Robinson has written other books on science for general readers. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Contents:

On the shoulders of giants

Universe. Nicolaus Copernicus: inventory of the solar system; Johannes Kepler: analyst of planetary motion; Galileo Galilei: laying the foundations of modern science; Isaac Newton: the laws of motion and gravity; Michael Faraday: seminal experiments in electromagnetism; James Clerk Maxwell: the electromagnetic nature of light and radiation; Albert Einstein: thought experiments in space, time and relativity; Edwin Powell Hubble: astronomer of an expanding universe

Earth. James Hutton: the earth's stable system; Charles Lyell: earth's present as the key to its past; Alexander von Humboldt: adventurous explorer and pioneering ecologist; Alfred Wegener: meteorologist and proponent of continental drift

Molecules and matter. Robert Boyle: experimental investigations into the nature of matter

Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier: the founder of modern chemistry

John Dalton: the development of atomic theory

Dmitri Mendeleev: the creator of the periodic table

August Kekulé: carbon chains, the benzene ring and chemical structures

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: the structure of complex biological molecules; Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman: molecular physicist and theorist of light

Inside the Atom. Marie Curie and Pierre Curie: pioneers of radioactivity; Ernest Rutherford: penetrating the secrets of the atomic nucleus; Niels Bohr: leader in quantum research; Linus Carl Pauling: architect of structural chemistry and peace activist; Enrico Fermi: creator of the atomic bomb; Hideki Yukawa: Japan's first Nobel Laureate. Life. Carl Linnaeus: botanist who named the natural world; Jan IngenHousz: physiologist and discoverer of photosynthesis; Charles Darwin: the theory of evolution by natural selection; Gregor Mendel: the father of genetics and the laws of biological inheritance; Jan Purkinje: investigator of vision and pioneer of neuroscience; Santiago Ramón y Cajal: the fine structure of the brain; Francis Crick and James Watson: decoding the structure of DNA and the secret of life

Body and mind. Andreas Vesalius: renaissance anatomist of the human body; William Harvey: experimental physician who discovered the circulation of blood; Louis Pasteur: revolutions in the treatment of disease; Francis Galton: explorer, statistician, psychologist and inventor of eugenics; Sigmund Freud: theorist of the unconscious and the founder of psychoanalyis; Alan Turing: the father of computer science and artificial intelligence; John von Neumann: mathematician and designer of the electronic computer; Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey: the origins of humankind.

Notes:

"First published in 2012 in hardcover in the United States by Thames and Hudson Inc...New York, N.Y." -- T.p. verso.

"With 220 illustrations."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 293-298) and index.

ISBN:

9780500251911

0500251916

OCLC:

783161000