2008-07-22 Stimulating, informative and entertaining

I have been impressed by the earlier books of John D Barrow that I have read, but when I first saw this one I thought it might be something of a pot boiler - a coffee table book containing pretty pictures with some sort of scientific theme and a text that was basically a set of captions. How very wrong my initial reaction was!

This large, beautifully produced and illustrated book contains 89 fascinating miniature essays each concentrating on an image of an object or an idea that has been important in the development of science or mathematics. Although the images are striking, they have not been selected just for their looks, they are, in their different ways, illustrations of important concepts and windows on how science works. One is struck by what is pictured here, but also informed and entertained by Barrow's text.

Barrow emphasises the importance of the visual in science, and the reader will be inclined to agree - I found the chapters on images in mathematics (not the easiest area to popularise) particularly enlightening.

A word of warning - once one starts reading this book it's very hard not to continue: each section is relatively short and so comprehensible and stimulating that it's very easy to go on and read another, and then another and another. Time will fly, but will certainly not be wasted.