Overview

The march of science has never proceeded smoothly. It has been marked through the years by episodes of drama and comedy, of failure as well as triumph, by outrageous strokes of luck, deserved and undeserved, and sometimes by human tragedy. It has seen deep intellectual friendships, as well as ferocious animosities, and once in a while acts of theft and malice, deceit, and even a hoax or two. Scientists come in all shapes: the obsessive and the dilettantish, the genial, the envious, the preternaturally brilliant and the slow-witted who sometimes see further in the end, the open-minded and the intolerant, recluses and arrivistes. From the death of Archimedes at the hands of an irritated Roman soldier to the concoction of a superconducting witches' brew at the very close of the twentieth century, the stories in Eurekas and Euphorias pour out, told with wit and relish by Walter Gratzer. Open this book at random and you may chance on the clumsy chemist who breaks a thermometer in a reaction vat and finds mercury to be the catalyst that starts the modern dyestuff industry; or a famous physicist dissolving his gold Nobel Prize medal in acid to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Nazis, recovering it when the war ends; mathematicians and physicists diverting themselves in prison cells, and even in a madhouse, by creating startling advances in their subject. We witness the careers, sometimes tragic, sometimes carefree, of the great women mathematicians, from Hypatia of Alexandria to Sophie Germain in France and Sonia Kovalevskaya in Russia and Sweden, and then Marie Curie's relentless battle with the French Academy. Here, then, a glorious parade unfolds to delight the reader, with stories to astonish, to instruct, and most especially, to entertain.

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9780198609407

Table of Contents

Reviews

`Walter Gratzer's tales are delightful...' New Scientist `Review from previous edition open the book at any point and be educated, thrilled, sobered or surprised, for there is astonishment and delight on every page . . . a banquet of epiphanies, a reference book which is also a work of art.' Oliver Sacks, in Nature `hilarious, baffling, surreal, dry, shocking, and almost always enthralling. You'll want this book just for the delight of reading it.' Focus `This romp through the best stories from the history of science--from the death of Archimedes to the explanation of superconductivity--will delight even those with just a passing interest in the subject.' Good Book Guide `[Gratzer] is the perfect author and editor for this hilarious compilation of scientific history, gossip and eccentricity.' Sunday Times `Perfect bathroom reading for anyone who wants to get under the skin of science.' Fortean Times `wonderfully entertaining' Sunday Telegraph

Walter Gratzer's tales are delightful... New Scientist Review from previous edition open the book at any point and be educated, thrilled, sobered or surprised, for there is astonishment and delight on every page ... a banquet of epiphanies, a reference book which is also a work of art. Oliver Sacks, in Nature hilarious, baffling, surreal, dry, shocking, and almost always enthralling. You'll want this book just for the delight of reading it. Focus This romp through the best stories from the history of science-from the death of Archimedes to the explanation of superconductivity-will delight even those with just a passing interest in the subject. Good Book Guide [Gratzer] is the perfect author and editor for this hilarious compilation of scientific history, gossip and eccentricity. Sunday Times Perfect bathroom reading for anyone who wants to get under the skin of science. Fortean Times wonderfully entertaining Sunday Telegraph

Author Information

Walter Gratzer is a biophysicist at the Randall Centre for Molecular Mechanisms of Cell Function, King's College London. He is known to a wide readership through his book reviews, which are invariably models of clarity and elegance. He edited The Longman Literary Companion to Science (published in the USA as The Literary Companion to Science) and The Bedside Nature, and he is author of The Undergrowth of Science: Delusion, Self-Deception and Human Frailty (OUP, 2000).

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