THE CANON: THE BEAUTIFUL BASICS OF SCIENCE

Science is generally perceived as for children or scientists only. Children are obliged to study science at school; science museums are full of the whoops of excited children pressing buttons to see what happens.

However, when children turn into teenagers, unless they choose to study science, they see it as a geeky subject, best left to the ‘techies’ and certainly not a topic of conversation. And this attitude pervades into adulthood.

Angier, science writer on the New York Times, couldn’t disagree more. Her book is not only an entertaining argument for everyone to learn more about science, but it is also a gem, a cornucopia of facts and insights, a rounded round-up of the basics of science: physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and the utter importance of all of them.

Take chemistry, for instance, which has a terrible press. It’s the subject that at least six out of every 6.0225 Americans say they “flunked in high school”. Even other scientists — non-chemists — accuse it of being neither here nor there, an uninteresting middle way between physics and biology, between large and small.

But Angier makes a compelling case for the vitality of chemistry. After all, it is the study of molecules, and the 115 elements from which you can make a near-infinity of molecules: there are at least 100,000 different molecules in the human body alone. And it’s the study of bonds, of transformations: without chemistry, there would be no alcohol preparation, no special effects in stagings of Macbeth, which often exploits the property of dry ice in going straight from the solid to the gaseous form.

Whereas physics deals with atoms, and considers itself the foundation stone of science. Angier takes us on a whirlwind journey through electricity, magnetism, why your hair stands up when you take your hat off, and why some drinks taste good cold, some taste good hot.

Astronomy, probability, calibration — all get the Angier treatment, rendering accessible what many might have considered inaccessible. For Angier manages, in this brief paperback, to conduct a clever distillation of the basics of science in an inspiring and educational way, without being at all patronising. Angier’s writing is full of humour, with amusing anecdotes and engaging analogies.

She argues that knowledge of the basics of science should be essential, just as everyone should be familiar with a smattering of Shakespeare, Beethoven or Picasso. And her explanations are so persuasive, her passion so heartfelt, that it’s hard to read this book and not be convinced.