The Art of Science: A Natural History of Ideas

Science. Does the word fill you with excitement, or dread, or something in-between?

Good science—and good science writing—can, and should, be something to get excited about. The extracts contained in this book span centuries and continents, but are unified by their authors’ desire to understand, explain and benefit the world in which we live.

Good Science is not necessarily a book about great scientific theories, complicated equations, or grand old men (or women) in their laboratories; instead, it’s about the places we draw our inspiration from; it’s about daily routines and sudden flashes of insight; about dedication, and, sometimes, desperation; and the small moments, questions, quests, clashes, doubts and delights that make us human.

From Galileo to Lewis Carroll, from Humphry Davy to Charles Darwin, from Marie Curie to Stephen Jay Gould, from rust to snowflakes, from the first use of the word “scientist” to the first computer, from why the sea is salty to Newtonian physics “for women,“ Good Science is a book about people, rather than scientists per se, and as such, it’s a book about politics, passion and poetry. Above all, though, it’s a book about the good that science can—and does—do.