July 1, 2007
Gr 5-7-As a companion to "100 Greatest Science Inventions of All Time" (Libraries Unlimited, 2006), Haven offers his choices for the most significant advances (in recorded history) in our knowledge or understanding of the physical universe. Listed in chronological order, the "discoveries" range from young Archimedes's description of levers (ca. 260 B.C.E.) and Vesalius's revolutionary study of human anatomy (1543) to Niels Bohr's theory of atomic bonding (1913) and the mapping of the human genome (2003). The author opens each entry with a lucid justification for its inclusion, goes on to relate each discovery's circumstances in a lively way ("Tipped off that Franklin had new information, Crick stole one of Rosalind's X-shaped X-rays"), and concludes with a substantial reading list. He closes the volume with several indexes plus a "B" List of discoveries that didn't quite make the cut. Along with several typos and spelling errors (e.g., "Young Vesalius poured over each volume"), the gray, pictureless layout makes this more suitable for reading aloud to classes than for individual study or pleasure reading. Still, it would make a useful supplemental resource for students of the history of science."John Peters, New York Public Library"
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