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When the ice caps melt
BOOKS & ARTS
For more reviews and to add your comments, visit www.NewScientist.com/books-art
Elusive stuff
theo allofs/corbis
The concept of energy is explained through this intriguing history of its discovery
Energy, the Subtle Concept: The discovery of Feynman’s blocks from Leibniz to Einstein by Jennifer Coopersmith, Oxford University Press, £29.95 Reviewed by Manjit Kumar
MOST of us have a vague idea of what energy is, if only because we have to pay for it. We know that it is the E in Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc2, and all of us have an opinion about the pros and cons of nuclear energy. For William Blake’s devil in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, energy was “eternal delight”, yet Newton never fully appreciated the importance of a concept that was rarely used until the 19th century. So, what is energy? Easy to ask the question but, as Jennifer Coopersmith shows in Energy, the Subtle Concept, finding the answer was a messy and tangled affair,
involving plenty of argument and controversy. It’s a tale of persecuted genius, of royal patronage, of social climbers and dreamers, of rich men and poor men, a foundling, entrepreneurs and industrialists, lawyers, engineers, a taxman, a spy and a brewer. Some were showered with honours, others neglected until long after death. The concept of energy is hard to grasp because it is something that cannot be directly observed. It was only in the early 19th century that it was even recognised as a distinct physical quantity. Since then it has played a vital role in the development of science and technology. Its importance lies in the fact that it possesses the very rare property of being preserved. Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be converted from one form to another. So fundamental is this property to nature that it is enshrined, in more sober scientific terms, as the first
law of thermodynamics. The first step on the long road to understanding the true nature of this relationship had been taken in the 1800s by Benjamin Thompson, an Anglo-American physicist, inventor and soldier of fortune. While supervising the boring of new cannons Thompson realised that heat might be a form of motion rather than a special weightless substance called “caloric”. Most remained unconvinced, largely because Thompson was a notorious opportunist and spy. The turning point came in the form of experiments performed, in the 1840s, by English brewer and amateur scientist James Prescott Joule, who introduced the term thermodynamics. The conservation of energy is arguably the most important law in physics. But what exactly is being conserved? Are some forms of energy more fundamental than others? You will have to read the book to find out. Coopersmith sets out to answer such questions and to explain the concept of energy through the history of its discovery. This is neither a straightforward narrative nor one for the faint-hearted. Those not put off by the odd bit of mathematics, will be well-rewarded by dipping into this book.
Wacky findings Dunk Your Biscuit Horizontally: 106 strange scientific facts by Rik Kuiper and Tonie Mudde, Summersdale, £7.99 Reviewed by Bill Parry
SOME books were never written for the shelves of bookshops, but rather to adorn counter space by the cash registers of card shops for those looking to find something more substantial – quirky but witty, and occasionally enlightening. This quick read fulfils that role very well.
The authors have trawled through decades of published research, from arcane theses to papers in top scientific journals, to bring us a smattering of the fairly obvious to the curiously intriguing and amusing. An article from the near-aptly named Annals of Emergency Medicine describes how a rectal massage has proved the only cure for persistent hiccups. Another prescribes slicing pizza on the toilet seat cover rather than your cutting board if you’re concerned about nasty bacteria. And 104 more. A digestible compendium of amusing facts, definitely.
Meltdown The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World without Ice Caps by Peter D. Ward, Basic Books, £15.99 Reviewed by Jon Turney
AS THE Earth warms, so its surface ice melts into the sea: true in the past, and true in the future. How far, and how fast, the melting goes will affect millions who live in low-lying cities or rely on crops from coastal plains. Peter Ward, prolific writer on Earth history, is a sure-footed guide to the state of play. He relates how projections of this century’s sea-level rise are going up, but still nowhere near the 60-metre leap that would follow if the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets go. And he highlights geological evidence which suggests the sheets could melt faster than the centuries or millennia often assumed. The science is leavened by glimpses from his own travels – of bleached corals and the new sea defences of countries such as Belgium. In the end, uncertainty remains, but he convinces us that it would be foolhardy to risk a global meltdown.
46 | NewScientist | 17 July 2010
100717_Op_Review_Shorts.indd 46
12/7/10 16:06:32
For more reviews and to add your comments, visit www.NewScientist.com/books-art
Elusive stuff
theo allofs/corbis
The concept of energy is explained through this intriguing history of its discovery
Energy, the Subtle Concept: The discovery of Feynman’s blocks from Leibniz to Einstein by Jennifer Coopersmith, Oxford University Press, £29.95 Reviewed by Manjit Kumar
MOST of us have a vague idea of what energy is, if only because we have to pay for it. We know that it is the E in Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc2, and all of us have an opinion about the pros and cons of nuclear energy. For William Blake’s devil in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, energy was “eternal delight”, yet Newton never fully appreciated the importance of a concept that was rarely used until the 19th century. So, what is energy? Easy to ask the question but, as Jennifer Coopersmith shows in Energy, the Subtle Concept, finding the answer was a messy and tangled affair,
involving plenty of argument and controversy. It’s a tale of persecuted genius, of royal patronage, of social climbers and dreamers, of rich men and poor men, a foundling, entrepreneurs and industrialists, lawyers, engineers, a taxman, a spy and a brewer. Some were showered with honours, others neglected until long after death. The concept of energy is hard to grasp because it is something that cannot be directly observed. It was only in the early 19th century that it was even recognised as a distinct physical quantity. Since then it has played a vital role in the development of science and technology. Its importance lies in the fact that it possesses the very rare property of being preserved. Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be converted from one form to another. So fundamental is this property to nature that it is enshrined, in more sober scientific terms, as the first
law of thermodynamics. The first step on the long road to understanding the true nature of this relationship had been taken in the 1800s by Benjamin Thompson, an Anglo-American physicist, inventor and soldier of fortune. While supervising the boring of new cannons Thompson realised that heat might be a form of motion rather than a special weightless substance called “caloric”. Most remained unconvinced, largely because Thompson was a notorious opportunist and spy. The turning point came in the form of experiments performed, in the 1840s, by English brewer and amateur scientist James Prescott Joule, who introduced the term thermodynamics. The conservation of energy is arguably the most important law in physics. But what exactly is being conserved? Are some forms of energy more fundamental than others? You will have to read the book to find out. Coopersmith sets out to answer such questions and to explain the concept of energy through the history of its discovery. This is neither a straightforward narrative nor one for the faint-hearted. Those not put off by the odd bit of mathematics, will be well-rewarded by dipping into this book.
Wacky findings Dunk Your Biscuit Horizontally: 106 strange scientific facts by Rik Kuiper and Tonie Mudde, Summersdale, £7.99 Reviewed by Bill Parry
SOME books were never written for the shelves of bookshops, but rather to adorn counter space by the cash registers of card shops for those looking to find something more substantial – quirky but witty, and occasionally enlightening. This quick read fulfils that role very well.
The authors have trawled through decades of published research, from arcane theses to papers in top scientific journals, to bring us a smattering of the fairly obvious to the curiously intriguing and amusing. An article from the near-aptly named Annals of Emergency Medicine describes how a rectal massage has proved the only cure for persistent hiccups. Another prescribes slicing pizza on the toilet seat cover rather than your cutting board if you’re concerned about nasty bacteria. And 104 more. A digestible compendium of amusing facts, definitely.
Meltdown The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World without Ice Caps by Peter D. Ward, Basic Books, £15.99 Reviewed by Jon Turney
AS THE Earth warms, so its surface ice melts into the sea: true in the past, and true in the future. How far, and how fast, the melting goes will affect millions who live in low-lying cities or rely on crops from coastal plains. Peter Ward, prolific writer on Earth history, is a sure-footed guide to the state of play. He relates how projections of this century’s sea-level rise are going up, but still nowhere near the 60-metre leap that would follow if the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets go. And he highlights geological evidence which suggests the sheets could melt faster than the centuries or millennia often assumed. The science is leavened by glimpses from his own travels – of bleached corals and the new sea defences of countries such as Belgium. In the end, uncertainty remains, but he convinces us that it would be foolhardy to risk a global meltdown.
46 | NewScientist | 17 July 2010
100717_Op_Review_Shorts.indd 46
12/7/10 16:06:32