A Field Guide to the Invisible - Hardcover

Biddle, Wayne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805050698 ISBN 13: 9780805050691

Verlag: Henry Holt and Co., 1998

Inhaltsangabe

In this witty and captivating blend of science, humor, metaphysics, and popular culture, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author catalogs the invisible sphere that surrounds the human race. Illustrations throughout.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Wayne Biddle, author of Barons of the Sky, Coming to Terms, and A Field Guide to Germs (Holt, 0-8050-3531-1, $22.50), is at work on a full-scale biography of Wernher von Braun called Dark Side of the Moon. He lives with his family in Washington, D.C.

Rezensionen

Biddle's "field guides" are the ideal conveyances of scientific information for readers leery of "serious" science books. Germs were the subject of his first guide; in his second, he explores more forms of the invisible in a set of short essays on intriguing topics, such as allergens, bad breath, gamma rays, and no-see-ums. Biddle defines the invisible as "everything going around and through us that we not only can't see, but can't do much about anyway." This statement hints at the subtext of his book, his awareness of and concern over the toxins pumped into the environment, but his delight in the magic of the invisible realm keeps things light. As Biddle explains radiation, for instance, he states cheerily that we absorb more radiation snuggling with a loved one than "we would get lounging against a nuclear reactor." So agile is Biddle, he works in concise histories of key scientific theories without once losing his momentum. Donna Seaman

A resoundingly fun if sometimes unappetizing inquiry into the world of microbes, germs, and other invisible but influential phenomena. Popular-science writer Biddle (A Field Guide to Germs, 1995) here offers an Allergens-to-Zeitgeist series of smallish essays, necessarily severe distillations, about the things that lie beyond our immediate senses and are thus not only out of sight but out of mind. He delights in turning up little facts that make fine fuel for did-you-know party conversation: The average adult, for instance, breathes 13.5 kilograms of air each day, about four times more in weight than the food and water he or she ingests; if all photosynthesis were to cease tomorrow, the Earth would still have an 8,000-year supply of oxygen; if you turn your back to the wind, low pressure will always be to your left side, high pressure to your right; a scream can indeed make someones ``blood run cold,'' inasmuch as loud noises can lower blood pressure and heart rate. Along the way he addresses such matters of perennial interest as farts, burps, and cooties (the first the product of nefarious methanogens, the last the horrible bearers of typhus, to say nothing of schoolboy terrors), and he urges that such things be not too much feared; as he writes in the instance of bad breath, bacteria . . . cannot be escaped, household disinfectants notwithstanding. . . . Nothing is more natural than meeting a microbe. Its their scene. Its their scene indeed, and Biddle does a fine job of making it meaningful to his readers. Biddles book adds up to little more than an assemblage of scientific and cultural factoids and gross-out triviawhich makes it just right for bright teenagers of an inquiring bent, and for collectors of useless information everywhere. (b&w illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Henry Holt and Co.
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1998
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0805050698
• ISBN 13: 9780805050691
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 208
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar