science book rec: The Canon, by Natalie Angier
I took a bit of a detour from reading about structural modeling to read The Canon: a whirligig tour of the beautiful basics of science by Natalie Angier. The book is about the fundamental ideas that underlie each of the sciences (physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, molecular biology, geology, and astronomy)... but it isn't written for kids. The goal it to show people who have outgrown science museums that, hey, science is fascinating and fun and really cool, even if you failed high school chemistry.
And it is absolutely delightful. It really does go to the basics of science... using funny, cutting, delightful metaphors.
For instance:
Physicists propose that the four forces are really four manifestations of a single underlying superforce, and that when our universe was young, firm, and hot, the forces behaved as one, too; only with the inevitable aging and cooling and spreading of the cosmos did the single force fracture into four separate instruments.
The kinetic energy released by the protracted combustion of natural gas will be transferred steadily to the water molecules, causing them to bobble about faster and faster until they undergo a phase shift and turn to gas. Even after all the water has boiled away, the energy from the burning natural gas can continue working the system, oxidizing the metal alloys of the saucepan and rupturing the bonds among them, and melting the tough resin polymers of the handle, until finally you, the negligent cook, will need to open another system -- the windows and doors of your home, to clear the kitchen of the stench of your favorite saucepan gone to pot.
Self-propelled, governed by an internal sense of proportion and purpose, the linear chain of amino acids folds and squirms and chases its tail and does the rumba and the ay, caramba, and, with very little help from the proteinous crowd around it, attains its three-dimensional Nerf ball origami form.
The descriptions are wonderful on a number of levels. They are hilarious, in a very particular, culturally specific way. Cooking. Shopping. Riding a subway. Searching for the original cast and crew of The Love Boat or 3000 unopened copies of We're an American Band on the ocean floor. A child's indestructible Mylar balloon. They are descriptions for people of a certain age, with certain experiences... often urban, often educated and culturally sophisticated. And often very female.
And that's particularly delightful. I remember taking physics in high school, and even though I enjoyed the equations (no, seriously), I frequently got confused by the analogies. Tools and guns, and guns and tools. And an occasional baseball. Not great for somebody who had no clue which way to turn a screw. But this... this book explains physics for girls.
One other thing about the descriptions in general. They often end with something... well, alliterative or rhyming or culturally catchy, but also very silly:
As for Pluto and Sedna and others of their subcompact class, whether you consider them planets, dwarf planets, planetisimals, planet parodies, or Planters party mix...
And it works beautifully. It's like a bucket of cold water after lying in the warm, sleepy sun. When science analogies are effective, they run the risk of doing their job too well. The mantle doesn't just convect like soup; it becomes soup, and another whole class of intro students leaves convinced that the mantle is entirely molten. The analogy becomes the reality, the map becomes the territory, at least in the students' minds. But when the analogies are taken to their most absurd extremes, it reminds me that: whoa, yeah, this is a mental model here, not the reality itself.
I particularly love the molecular biology chapter. I haven't taken a biology class since my sophomore year in high school (and that class was taught by a young-earth creationist who had originally been hired to teach drivers' ed), and I simply don't understand a lot of modern biology. But now I can imagine the inside of a cell, and the behavior of enzymes and DNA, and wow... it's incredibly cool. I've never been inspired by the search for designer drugs or genetic engineering; I'm too much of a neo-hippy at heart, and besides, I love the taste of organic heirloom tomatoes. But this... this makes me understand how someone could love the part of biology that deals with teeny-tiny things.
I actually had the fewest squees-per-page in the geology chapter. I found a few things to add to my mixed bag of teaching metaphors, but not much. But perhaps that says that the book is accomplishing its goal. It isn't a book aimed at experts. It's a book for the old, jaded novice -- a book designed to make people go "oh, WOW" at the underlying ideas of each of the sciences. The geology only has a few things that make me squirm conceptually. (The worst one is actually in the chemistry chapter, in a discussion of diamonds. Angier says that diamonds come out of volcanoes. My reaction is: ok, yeah, diatremes are volcanoes. But how many diamonds have been harvested from active volcanoes?)
So my overall impression: this is the best popular science book I've read in a long time. Hilarious writing, great descriptions, both entertaining and on-the-mark. It makes me want to put together a Continuing Ed class titled "Fun Science for Grownups," and read this book and play with canonical physics toys and cook and star-gaze.
It's too much fun not to share.
And it is absolutely delightful. It really does go to the basics of science... using funny, cutting, delightful metaphors.
For instance:
Physicists propose that the four forces are really four manifestations of a single underlying superforce, and that when our universe was young, firm, and hot, the forces behaved as one, too; only with the inevitable aging and cooling and spreading of the cosmos did the single force fracture into four separate instruments.
The kinetic energy released by the protracted combustion of natural gas will be transferred steadily to the water molecules, causing them to bobble about faster and faster until they undergo a phase shift and turn to gas. Even after all the water has boiled away, the energy from the burning natural gas can continue working the system, oxidizing the metal alloys of the saucepan and rupturing the bonds among them, and melting the tough resin polymers of the handle, until finally you, the negligent cook, will need to open another system -- the windows and doors of your home, to clear the kitchen of the stench of your favorite saucepan gone to pot.
Self-propelled, governed by an internal sense of proportion and purpose, the linear chain of amino acids folds and squirms and chases its tail and does the rumba and the ay, caramba, and, with very little help from the proteinous crowd around it, attains its three-dimensional Nerf ball origami form.
The descriptions are wonderful on a number of levels. They are hilarious, in a very particular, culturally specific way. Cooking. Shopping. Riding a subway. Searching for the original cast and crew of The Love Boat or 3000 unopened copies of We're an American Band on the ocean floor. A child's indestructible Mylar balloon. They are descriptions for people of a certain age, with certain experiences... often urban, often educated and culturally sophisticated. And often very female.
And that's particularly delightful. I remember taking physics in high school, and even though I enjoyed the equations (no, seriously), I frequently got confused by the analogies. Tools and guns, and guns and tools. And an occasional baseball. Not great for somebody who had no clue which way to turn a screw. But this... this book explains physics for girls.
One other thing about the descriptions in general. They often end with something... well, alliterative or rhyming or culturally catchy, but also very silly:
As for Pluto and Sedna and others of their subcompact class, whether you consider them planets, dwarf planets, planetisimals, planet parodies, or Planters party mix...
And it works beautifully. It's like a bucket of cold water after lying in the warm, sleepy sun. When science analogies are effective, they run the risk of doing their job too well. The mantle doesn't just convect like soup; it becomes soup, and another whole class of intro students leaves convinced that the mantle is entirely molten. The analogy becomes the reality, the map becomes the territory, at least in the students' minds. But when the analogies are taken to their most absurd extremes, it reminds me that: whoa, yeah, this is a mental model here, not the reality itself.
I particularly love the molecular biology chapter. I haven't taken a biology class since my sophomore year in high school (and that class was taught by a young-earth creationist who had originally been hired to teach drivers' ed), and I simply don't understand a lot of modern biology. But now I can imagine the inside of a cell, and the behavior of enzymes and DNA, and wow... it's incredibly cool. I've never been inspired by the search for designer drugs or genetic engineering; I'm too much of a neo-hippy at heart, and besides, I love the taste of organic heirloom tomatoes. But this... this makes me understand how someone could love the part of biology that deals with teeny-tiny things.
I actually had the fewest squees-per-page in the geology chapter. I found a few things to add to my mixed bag of teaching metaphors, but not much. But perhaps that says that the book is accomplishing its goal. It isn't a book aimed at experts. It's a book for the old, jaded novice -- a book designed to make people go "oh, WOW" at the underlying ideas of each of the sciences. The geology only has a few things that make me squirm conceptually. (The worst one is actually in the chemistry chapter, in a discussion of diamonds. Angier says that diamonds come out of volcanoes. My reaction is: ok, yeah, diatremes are volcanoes. But how many diamonds have been harvested from active volcanoes?)
So my overall impression: this is the best popular science book I've read in a long time. Hilarious writing, great descriptions, both entertaining and on-the-mark. It makes me want to put together a Continuing Ed class titled "Fun Science for Grownups," and read this book and play with canonical physics toys and cook and star-gaze.
It's too much fun not to share.