The Best American Science Writing 2005

by Alan Lightman and Jesse Cohen

Together these twenty-seven articles on a wide range of today's most current topics in science, from Oliver Sacks, James Gleick, Atul Gawande, and Natalie Angier, among others, represent the full spectrum of scientific writing, proving once again that "good science writing is evidently plentiful" (Scientific American).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060726423
• ISBN13: 9780060726423
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.3" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Stimulating addition to an outstanding series

I look forward every year to the annual edition of this series and its competitor, Best American Science and Nature Writing. Since there are way too many good magazines published I gave up long ago trying to keep up with them, and this book/series serves two useful functions. First, it provides a delightful sampler of science-related writing of the past year, and, second, it often introduces me to some new writers as well as familiar names. It is the kind of book that has repercussions: I have never failed to follow up by buying additional books, either books by the authors represented or books referred to in the selections (WARNING: This book could be dangerous to your budget!) The series editor provides a certain stability and may ensure some breadth to the selections, but each volume bears the stam of the interests of the guest editor. Given Alan Lightman's literary bent, it was therefore not surprising to see someone like Diane Ackerman included. This was probably not the best of the series, but it nonetheless was not one I would want to miss.

My Personal opinion of "The Best American Science Writing 2005"

I am a scientist. U of Michigan. I am 61 I make synthetic gem and laser crystals for a living. I read many scientific journals weekly. I think this series of "The Best American Science Writing" is extremely good with always very up to date topics. An absolutely great selection of articles written by or about top people and topics each year. I use this series to help keep me up to date on everything scientific. I highly recommend the entire series.

Another Captivating Collection of Great Science Writing

Each year I am thrilled when this book comes out, along with its equally good competitor of the same format (Best of Science and Nature Writing, 2005). This year, my kids gave me one of each for Christmas. This book has 27 articles from 16 magazines. Without further ado, I will briefly summarize or provide a provocative quote from each essay for you. If at any time you feel inspired to quit reading this review in favor of the real thing, you will not be disappointed. Introduction, by this year's editor, Alan Lightman, who made the final selections: "So far, not a shred of experimental evidence supports string theory. However, some of the best theoretical physicists in the world are infatuated with it." Oliver Sacks: The story of how scientists have created new elements based on what could be predicted from the Periodic Chart of the Elements. James Gleick: The grand new exhibition on Isaac Newton at the New York Public Library correctly portrays him as the genius of rationality and order that he was. His fingerprints mark every part of science, but they left out a major part of the story. Newton was heavily into alchemy and other pseudoscience, was a social disaster who had no friends, and was chronically poisoned by the mercury he experimented with. His works ended up being a pivotal event in the emergence of the age of science from centuries of dependence on superstition. His complex and tormented soul might represent the conflict between science and superstition. Frank Wilczek: A discussion of Newton's second law of motion, F = ma. Force is "insubstantial" and has no independent meaning. For these reasons and that it has no algorith, Wilczek had problems with it as a student. He elaborates...a little over my head, but that's OK. Peter Galison: As any pilot knows, the standard compass is problematic in aircraft because it leads and lags in turns, acceleration, and deceleration. Einstein addressed this problem as an expert witness because of technical skills he learned in the patent office. William Broad: Reversal of the Earth's magnetic fields appears to have started in earnest about 150 years ago. The author discusses earth's long history of magnetic reversals and present implications for power grids, satellites, ozone holes, migratory animals, and extinction of species. K.C. Cole: The only life we know is built on a scaffolding of carbon that floats in bags of water. As we search (SETI) for other life in the universe, why are carbon and water necessary - or are they? Dennis Overby: Looking for planets: "What seems indisputably clear is that our knowledge of the universe is dwarfed by our ignorance." Jim Holt: Some of the more fanciful speculations of top cosmologists about the eventual fate of the universe. Natalie Algier: Women in top-level science are scarce - A close look at multiple award-winning chemist, Jacqueline Barton. Jennifer Couzin: The competition and conflict between two prominent researchers s

"It does not matter now that in a trillion trillion years nothing we do now will matter"

Alan Lightman in this sixth anthology of ` The Best American Science Writing' ( Previous anthologies were edited by James Gleick, Timothy Ferris, Matt Ridley, Oliver Sacks, Dava Sobel) points to three different kinds of science writing." There is reportage, in which the writer "gets the story," interviews the experts, and largely stays out of the way. There is the essay, in which the writer goes inward rather than outward, casting himself or herself center stage and unashamedly inviting the reader to watch as the writer personally grapples with an idea. Yet, a third category might be called experimental narrative.Here, the writer the writer may be trying to capture a scene or a moment of life, as in fiction wwriting, without full explanation or understanding, or may be constructing a fantasy that demonstrates important principles of science." Lightman then goes on to say that the `best writing is clear, captivating, intelligent, provocative, imaginat6ive, graceful and funny when the humor is natural'. His concluding observation is a remark of Henry James indicating that the one essential quality of good writing is that it be interesting. There are twenty- six essays in the anthology. Oliver Sachs in his essay `Greetings from the Island of Stability' writes of the discovery of two new elements, and in doing so considers the work of Glenn T. Seaborg and his colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the making of new elements beyond element ninety- two. In the course of this Sachs reawakens his own childhood interest in chemistry. James Gleick in his essay considers the other non- scientific side of Newton, his mystical religious researches and how they mark the great pioneering figure of the New Age as somehow belonging also to the pre-scientific world before. Frank Wilicek speaks of his own difficulty in understanding a certain area of fundamental physics, and this leads him into a deeper exploration of the meaning of Newton's second law of motion. Peter Gallison turns to a small bypath in Einstein's career the time when he used the compass( which had first drawn his scientific interest) to explore certain qualities of magnetism. William J. Broad writes about the perhaps impending reversal of the Earth's magnetic field , and some of the great disturbances that might result. K.C. Cole considers the various possibilities for forms of life which do not have water as prime component. Dennis Overbye considers the recent discovery of a larger number of planets which might be suitable for life. He concludes with his own optimistic observation that he expects Earth- like planets will be found in his own lifetime. Jim Holt in a sense goes in the operation direction and explores scenarios as to how the universe will end. He speaks with some of the most well- known cosmologists( Freeman Dyson, Ed Witten, Frank Tipler) theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, astrophysicist Richard Gott, Nobel Laureate in Physics Steven Weinberg a

Lots of fun

As a layperson interested in science, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. There's something in this collection for everyone; biology, chemistry, physics, evolution, astronomy, psychology. There are soft, touchy-feely articles, and articles that are pure, rock-hard science. I learned a lot of interesting things about Sir Isaac Newton and man-made "heavy" elements that could potentially last thousands of years. Fascinating stuff.