History of Science

This book is about the history of science – astronomy, physics, chemistry, life sciences, earth sciences and computer science. It is not a book about the lives of the scientists, though brief biographical details are given for important figures. It aims to get to the bottom of the great discoveries of the modern era. The book is about 78,000 words long – about a quarter of the size of other books on the same subject – but it contains more actual science than most of the others. No one doubts that there are some difficult ideas in science – for example the general theory of relativity, the laws of thermodynamics or quantum mechanics. Yet these can be explained in quite simple terms. What is more, science can be fun! No special knowledge beyond basic school science is required to read this book. There are 35 illustrations including diagrams, photographs and portraits.