The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science » (Bargain)

NATALIE ANGIER writes about biology for the New York Times, where she has won a Pulitzer Prize, the American Association for the Advancement of Science journalism award, and other honors. She is the author of The Beauty of the Beastly, Natural Obsessions, and Woman, named one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, People, National Public Radio, Village Voice, and Publishers Weekly, among others. A New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist, Woman is "a text so necessary and abundant and true that all efforts of its kind, for decades before and after it, will be measured by it" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Angier lives with her husband and daughter outside of Washington, D.C.

A playful, passionate, ebullient guide to the science all around us by a Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author.

Buckle up for a joy ride through physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. Drawing on conversations with hundreds of the world's top scientists and her own work as an award-winning science writer, Natalie Angier does the impossible: She makes science fascinating and seriously fun, even for those of us who, in Angier's words, "still can't tell the difference between a proton, a photon, and a moron."

Most of the profound questions we will explore in our lives—evolution, global warming, stem cells—have to do with science. So do a lot of everyday things, like our ice cream melting and our coffee getting cold and our vacuum cleaner running (or not). What does our liver do when we eat a caramel? How does the horse demonstrate evolution at work? Are we really made of stardust? (Yes, we are.)

In The Canon, Lewis Thomas meets Lewis Carroll in a book destined to become a modern classic—because it quenches our curiosity, sparks our interest in the world around us, reignites our childhood delight in discovering how things work, and instantly makes us smarter.

The New York Times - Steven Pinker

The Canon is never dull or obscure, and despite the distracting wordplay, most of Angier s explanations are anything but superficial. She conveys the real substance of field after field, without distortion or dumbing down, and often her sensual descriptions (of the interior of a cell, a star or the Earth, for instance) leave the reader with images both vivid and useful. The Canon is an excellent introduction (or refresher) to the beautiful basics of science, and I hope it is widely read. It could make the country smarter.

Introduction: Sisyphus Sings with a Ying     1
Thinking Scientifically: An Out-of-Body Experience     18
Probabilities: For Whom the Bell Curves     47
Calibration: Playing with Scales     71
Physics: And Nothing's Plenty for Me     87
Chemistry: Fire, Ice, Spies, and Life     121
Evolutionary Biology: The Theory of Every Body     147
Molecular Biology: Cells and Whistles     183
Geology: Imagining World Pieces     212
Astronomy: Heavenly Creatures     235
References     267
Acknowledgments     280
Index     282