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Featured author/ editor of the Popular Science site: Brian Clegg
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Whisper it: science can be dull. But it doesn't have to be like that. Celebrate the best that science writing has to offer on a site totally dedicated to popular science books and authors. This is primarily a book review site, but we also cover software, DVDs and gifts with a science flavour.
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We have two copies of Car Science, the Top Gear presenter's excellent new book for young readers that uses cars to explain aspects of physics as prizes in our latest competition. The competition closes at noon GMT on 11 July. All you have to do to be entered in the draw is subscribe to our free newsletter (see below). If you already subscribe, there's no need to re-join. You will automatically be entered into the draw. Click here to read more about Car Science. Unfortunately, we can only enter UK residents in this draw.
... and play the game. Dorland Kindersley, the publisher of Car Science, has set up a free online game to accompany the launch of the book. You build a car, then play a sort of Top Trumps game based on your car's capabilities. Click on the button to the left to have a go.
See the terms and conditions for full details of the competition rules. Want to keep up to date? It's easy to sign up for our free newsletter. It's free, informative and (like the best popular science) always readable. Just click here to send us an email to info@popularscience.co.uk - and include your name in the body of the email. (Apologies - we have had to remove the form for doing this as it was being subjected to a spam attack.)
Privacy Information Featured Book Cosmic Imagery: key
images in the history of science by
John D. Barrow
This lavishly illustrated book is a must-have, not just for the beautiful pictures within it, but for Barrow’s spectacular commentary on the significance of the diagrams, images, and illustrations it contains, and how they have helped to shape science and mathematics over the centuries. As you may expect there are many pictures in the book from the field of astronomy, which have given us significant insights in to how our Universe works – such as the Hubble Deep Field image of some of the earliest known galaxies. But what is slightly less obvious is the link that Barrow makes between the Earl of Rosse’s famous drawings of the Whirlpool Galaxy, which he made with the famous Leviathan telescope, and the way these drawings probably inspired the swirling night sky in Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’. This is where Barrow succeeds in making this an engrossing read in drawing out the boarder significance of the scientific discoveries he looks at. The book is a mixture of the things you may well expect in a title of this sort; Crick and Watson’s first sketch of the structure of DNA, the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of stellar evolution, Hooke’s drawing of a flea as seen under his microscope, etc. and the unexpected – a picture showing quantum entanglement, the first ever graph, the symbol for infinity and its religious connotations. This is an extremely well written work. Barrow’s writing adds tremendously to the amazing images within the book making it eminently readable for expert and layman alike. I would say it is arguable that this is one of the best popular science books ever written. Only in hardback. Reviewed by Scotty_73 Featured Children's Book Car Science by
Richard Hammond
There's nothing better to get science across than a real world application - and here's one that will appeal to many: using the jokey, techie approach favoured by the Top Gear TV show on the car as a science illustration, brought to you by the show's most loveable presenter, Richard Hammond. Although plenty of girls do like cars, the publisher, Dorling Kindersley, makes no secret of the fact that the primary audience for this book is boys. It's not totally clear of Richard Hammond actually wrote the book, or just the chatty little introductions. In standard DK fashion, the copyright is with the publisher rather than the author, so it's hard to tell - but there certainly is a different feel to these introductory bits, as if they were written separately. This lack of continuity is probably the worst aspect of the book - for example the first section introduction one talks about power, giving the impression we'll find out what power is, and ends with 'Incidentally, why on earth is it called horsepower...' which makes you think you'll turn the page and find an answer. But over the page is a two page spread about fuels, then a pair of pages about energy. You do get there eventually, but the way it's done is a touch off-putting. While we're getting moans out of the way, the page layout wasn't the clearest. It follows the standard DK format of pairs of facing pages on a subject, but the way the different elements are thrown together on the page lacks the clarity of main DK layouts - it was often quite difficult to work out how to make your way around the page, and the different areas weren't always well differentiated. It was okay, but not brilliant. However, that's a relatively small moan - and the fact is there's plenty of good stuff in here. First of all, for young car fans, there's tons about what all those terms mean, from understeer and oversteer to split differentials. I particularly liked the bit about the now obscure and totally out-of-date measure horsepower. It's amusing that this is still used with such modern vehicles. We find out about Watt's original error in estimating the power of a horse that means a horse actually only has around 0.7 horsepower - a bit of a disappointment for four-legged speed freaks. Linking to the animal power/speed aspect there's also an interesting spread covering the speed of everything from a snail to Thrust SSC via a person, a racehorse and a Bugatti Veyron (amongst others). It would have been interesting to explore more why different animals are able to achieve different speeds (this is mentioned for a human), and particularly how the 'bounce' factor means many animals can effectively produce more energy than they consume - but in the end the book is about cars. Having said that, the other thing Car Science does particularly well is to bring in the physics of motion - Isaac Newton and his laws figure heavily - and apply them to just about everything in a car from stopping distance to the friction between a driver's hand and the steering wheel. By mixing ordinary road cars, racing cars and strange concept cars, it's possible to explore some extremes of the physics involved, including the way different fuels have different capabilities to store energy. We also see energy involved in everything from jet and rocket cars to car crashes and crash test dummies (given Richard Hammond's spectacular and well-publicised high speed crash, it's rather strange this is never used to illustrate any of these points). The result is great coverage of much of the physics of motion that is pitched at just the right level and with enough fun and excitement to keep the interest at Formula One level. It's not totally clear what age range this book is aimed at - our suggested range is more of a guess than usual. One of the Amazon listings has it classed as 4 to 8, which it is clearly not suited for. Some of the wording almost suggests an adult audience, as it's very much talking about 'you' (the reader) being behind the wheel, but I suspect this is aspirational, in the same way that younger viewers enjoy Top Gear without being able to drive the cars described. Overall a good book - not one of Dorling Kindersley's best as far as page layout goes, but this doesn't get in the way of it being great fun for those who like cars, and educational with it in a painless fashion. Only in hardback Reviewed by Brian Clegg * Our age range recommendation is an estimated guide, but individual readers outside the range could still enjoy the book! Featured Gifts Looking for a different present, or a gift for someone who's difficult to buy for? Take a look at this:
Gift review - Creative Zen
There simply is no better way to listen to music on the move than an MP3 player - and if you want to carry your whole library around, you can't beat the New Zen. Its massive capacity enables it to hold up to 16,000 tracks in the WMA format or 8,000 as MP3s in its 32Gb memory. For me, this is a real iPod buster as it crams in all the capacity of the iPod Classic, but in a credit-card sized form, with no fragile hard disc to break and the ability to play WMA files. The player itself is attractively designed and has an easy-to-use touch control panel to the side of the big, full colour screen. With all your tracks on a player you want to be able to find something easily. The great thing about the Zen is that it imports all the information and structure from the standard PC player, Media Player (or you can set it up with Creative's own software) - so for those who already have all their music on their PC there's no reformatting or re-entering information. What's more there's great media support too - it displays photos and videos well on the big, clear colour screen. And there's a good radio and voice recorder as well. Even better, there's an SD card slot so you can extend that memory even further or use it as a storage device to syphon pictures of your camera. Brilliant. What sets it apart for PC user from products like Apple's iPod is that it is truly PC compatible. iPods can't handle the Microsoft WMA music format, which many people use on their PCs because it's smaller than an MP3. To get WMAs onto iPod you have to go through a slow conversion process. Also available in smaller memory sizes with prices from £65/$90: see below. Gift category - special - costs around £199/$299 4 Gb -
8 Gb - 16 Gb - Reviewed by Jo Reed
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