Re: What book are you reading now?
Just borrowed "
No Need for Geniuses" by Steve Jones from the local library, it has a sub heading "
Revolutionary Science in the Age of the Guillotine".
This book deals with the astonishing advances made by French scientists of the late 18th century around the time of the French Revolution. The subjects range from the isolation of chemical elements to the understanding of human metabolism to the physics of electricity. The era’s remarkable technical innovations included the metric system, ballooning, the invention of canned food, and the semaphore telegraph. Each chapter seems to be about one subject but he then wanders off to deal with its implications and how the science was developed.
I am only about a quarter way through the book but it is a fascinating read. Well worth reading.
Steve Jones is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Senior Research Fellow at University College. He delivered the Reith lectures in 1991 entitled "
The Language of the Genes", that was where I first heard of him (via the podcast) and have bought several of his books on genetics since, he writes in a very entertaining way and manages to keep your interest when dealing with quite complex subjects.