Scientific Discovery from the Brilliant to the Bizarre: The Doctor Who Weighed the Soul, and Other True Tales

by Len Fisher

Overview

Winner of the IgNobel Prize in physics and the 2004 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award, Len Fisher showed just how much fun science can be in his enthusiastically praised debut, How to Dunk a Doughnut. In this new work, he reveals that science sometimes takes a path through the ridiculous and the bizarre to discover that Nature often simply does not follow common sense.   
One experiment, involving a bed, platform scales, and a dying man, seemed to prove that the soul weighed the same as a slice of bread. But other, no less fanciful experiments and ideas led to the fundamentals of our understanding of movement, heat, light, and energy, and such things as the discovery of electricity, and the structure of DNA; improved engines; and the invention of computers. As in his previous book, Fisher uses personal stories and examples from everyday life, as well as humor, to make the science accessible. He touches on topics from lightning to corsets and from alchemy to Frankenstein and water babies, but he may not claim the last word on the weight of the soul!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611457421
Publisher:	Arcade
Publication date:	03/01/2013
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Len Fisher is an honorary research fellow in the
Department of Physics, University of Bristol, England. The author of more than eighty scientific papers, Fisher has made more than 200 radio and television appearances worldwide.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

1 Weighing the Soul 1

2 Making a Move 23

3 A Salute to Newton 45

4 The Course of Lightning through a Corset 69

5 Fool's Gold? 89

6 Frankenstein Lives 111

7 What Is Life? 133

8 Conclusion: Necessary Mysteries 161

Appendix: A Brief Catalogue of Necessary Mysteries 165

Notes 183

Index 243

Editorial Reviews

"Science and common sense often don't mix," notes Fisher, a research fellow at the University of Bristol famous for studying the science of dunking doughnuts. This new effort is largely about discoveries, such as the wave theory of light and the theory of relativity, that defy reason yet are the bedrock for our understanding of the world. To make his various points, Fisher also portrays an eclectic mix of scientists and the ridicule heaped on them for their apparently nutty ideas; he also includes genuine quacks and charlatans, like "Doctor James Graham," whose 18th-century specialty was enhancing his customers' sex lives with electrical devices. Fisher entertains in an airy, lighthearted manner, while also imparting his own philosophy of science, eloquently discussing the borderlines between science and philosophy and faith: In his view, science can't know everything, and those things that it can't know "are the province of philosophy and religion." He also tackles the question of whether science can keep us safe. For instance, can it answer questions about the long-term effect of exposure to microwaves? His answer is guarded; taking risks is necessary for progress; science's job is to provide accurate information with which society can weigh both the risk of trying something new and the risk of not doing it. Illus. Agent, Barbara Levy. (Nov.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

The British science popularizer (How to Dunk a Doughnut: The Science of Everyday Life, not reviewed) describes the counterintuitive elements behind important scientific theories. Fisher's preface defines his latest as a history of scientists who stuck to their guns even though their contemporaries challenged and even ridiculed their ideas. The twist here is that not all the wacky ideas he examines have been upheld by subsequent research and experiment. The title essay, for example, begins with the tale of Duncan MacDougall, a doctor who, just after 1900, put the hospital beds of terminal patients on a sensitive scale in hopes of determining the weight of their departing souls. While the bodies did appear to each lose just under an ounce at the moment of death, there were so many variables that to this day nobody can say for certain just what MacDougall had weighed. From this springboard, Fisher turns to an inquiry into the subject of mass, a crucial physical entity that ultimately eludes precise definition. (Its essence is believed to lie in the hypothetical Higgs boson, at the moment no more detectable than the soul.) Energy, too, remains mysterious, although each of us constantly deals with its specific manifestations. The author goes on to cover the careers of such familiar figures as Galileo and Newton, along with lesser lights like Robert Boyle, who laid much of the groundwork for chemistry while secretly attempting to perform alchemical experiments, and Volta and Galvani, whose scientific controversy about the role of electricity in living bodies is believed to have inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Fisher makes amusing use of his own student years and of anecdotes showing thehuman side of famous scientists. The appendix and the footnotes are as entertaining as the main text. A quirky but winning approach to scientific history.

Kirkus Reviews