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Find out moreGet up to speed with the most popular developments in science, with everything from the tiniest atom to the farthest flung findings of the universe, and every scientific discovery in between. Our selection of books in this category will keep you up to date.
The story of a man’s fascination with these beautiful insects, from Hindu mythology to Aztec sacrifices, Victorian collectors to Polish death camps. It even includes information on the butterfly’s life cycle, and could be the only book on the subject you’ll need.
Cutting-edge science combined with worst-case scenario style informative irreverence. Read it and be in a class of your own at any social gathering.
This was first published in 2001 but I’ve included it here as it is one of the very best books that followed the Longitude method of science writing, homing in on one small step in history, showing how one man’s obsessive quest created the world’s first Geological map in 1815. The man was William Smith, the son of an Oxfordshire blacksmith, and in a story of many twists and seesawing fortunes, Simon Winchester shows how against all odds he surveyed England and created his map, one of the wonders of the age. If you didn’t think you were interested in geology, I guarantee you’ll be fascinated by the whole subject after reading The Map that Changed the World. Comparison: The Floating Egg: Episodes in the Making of Geology by Roger Osborne
Science has never been more popular. You don’t have to understand it to love it. We live in a golden age where we know more about the world and its origins than ever before. Here, some of the biggest questions ever asked find answers, as well as some of the smallest. This is a section bursting from its nucleus with protons of knowledge especially compiled for the lay enthusiast and the curious. Accessible science is no longer the domain of the scientist. We can all have a go at broadening our minds … and what’s more, we can do it from the relative comfort of our favourite chair. Relative comfort, because the chair is merely a mass of vibrating particles on a planet, hurtling through space and time, bending both as it goes in a Universe that may itself just be one of an infinite number of possible universes in an undefinable dimension of matter.
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