Talking Science / Edition 1

by Adam Hart-Davis

Overview

talking SCIENCE

TV personality Adam Hart-Davis meets 14 of the world’s leading scientists to discuss their work, their passions, and those elusive ground-breaking moments in their lives.

This is a book that shows how science can explain the world that we inherited and shape the world that we would like to leave for future generations.

• Jocelyn Bell Burnell (Bath, UK) tells her personal story of the discovery of the first pulsar.
• Sir Michael Berry (Bristol, UK) ties knots in nothing.
• Richard Dawkins (Oxford, UK) explains what Darwinism means today.
• Loren Graham (MIT, US) explains why Stalin’s top-down policy meant that no Russian engineering project would ever work properly.
• Richard Gregory (Bristol, UK) explores some of the visual illusions that so easily fool us.
• Eric Lander (MIT, US) discusses the excitement of the human genome project.
• Lord May of Oxford (UK) President of the Royal Society talks about chaos, ecology and HIV.
• John Maynard Smith (Sussex, UK) discusses why we bother with sex.
• Rosalind Picard (MIT, US) believes in wearable computers that understand our emotions.
• Sir Martin Rees (Cambridge, UK), Astronomer Royal, discusses the big bang, black holes and the end of the universe.
• Eugenie Scott (Oakland, US) is a leading campaigner for the teaching in schools of evolution rather than creationism.
• Lewis Wolpert (UCL, UK) speaks on the ethics and practicality of cloning and on his own depression.
• Colleen Cavanaugh (Harvard, US) describes the excitement and discomfort of exploring the deep ocean.
• Peter Raven (St Louis, US) is a leading advocate of biodiversity – described by Time magazine as a hero for the planet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780470093023
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	10/15/2004
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Adam Hart-Davis is a successful freelance broadcaster, writer and photographer. He is an acclaimed presenter of TV programmes, primarily for the BBC, that make science, technology and history accessible to a wide audience. Before becoming a presenter he was a TV producer on a wide range of programmes for commercial television.

Adam Hart Davis holds a Dphil from York University and an MA in Chemistry from Oxford University. He was educated at Eton College. He completed three years post doctoral research in Canada and the UK and several years with Oxford University Press before beginning his television career at Yorkshire Television.

Full details of the programmes on which he has worked can be found on his web-site: www.adam-hart-davis.org.

Table of Contents

Preface.

Chapter One: Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

Chapter Two: Sir Michael Berry.

Chapter Three: Colleen Cavanaugh.

Chapter Four: Richard Dawkins.

Chapter Five: Loren Graham.

Chapter Six: Richard Gregory.

Chapter Seven: Eric Lander.

Chapter Eight: Lord May of Oxford.

Chapter Nine: John Maynard Smith.

Chapter Ten: Rosalind Picard.

Chapter Eleven: Peter Raven.

Chapter Twelve: Sir Martin Rees.

Chapter Thirteen: Eugenie Scott.

Chapter Fourteen: Lewis Wolpert.

Credits.

Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...a good book for anyone who wants to see how real science is done..." (Focus magazine, No.148, March 2005)

"...As well as being stimulating and awe-inspiring, the transcripts are packed with humour and insight..." (South Coast Magazine, February 2005)

"...this wonderfully accessible book brings to life today's most intriguing scientific discoveries, debates and personalities." (Focus, Number 154, 2005)

"...wonderful resource...in a library with a shelf for scientists as personalities, this volume merits a place." (Journal Of College Science Teaching, June 2006)

From the Publisher