GREAT CALCULATIONS. By Colin Pask. Prometheus Books. 414 pp. $34.99
The latest book by Canberra academic Colin Pask could be described as a selected history of science. The selection is made of advances that were either stimulated by a particular mathematical understanding or whose validity was enhanced by such understanding. The method used by Archimedes to estimate pi, the way that Kepler used his calculations to derive the laws of planetary motion, the accurate prediction of when Halley's Comet will return, the verification of Einstein's theories about light from astronomical observations in Brazil and Spanish Guinea are all worthy entries in his list of 50 Great Calculations. Though there is some advanced mathematics (this reviewer cannot believe that he could once derive Maxwell's Equations), this does not take from the flow of the narrative. Pask ends by making a super-selection of a Top 10 from his 50, promising that he will not be offended if the reader would choose differently.
THE BEST AUSTRALIAN SCIENCE WRITING 2015. Edited by Bianca Nogrady. Newsouth. 301 pp. $29.99
The entries in this annual reprise of popular science writing are particularly strong on the medical sciences. The longest entry is an excellent account of recovery from a stroke. There are also accounts of replacement antibiotics, research on the possible mal-effects of statins, honest placebos, DNA, the immune system, and the way dust affects health. But the outstanding essay is journalist Trent Dalton's account of the development and testing of BiVACOR, an artificial heart whose only moving part is floating in a magnetic field, never touching anything; so there is no mechanical wear, no friction – and the recipient has no pulse. The inventor is a young Brisbane man Daniel Timms, whose father died of heart disease at the age of 55. There are other essays on archaeology, animal noises, cane toads, reproduction in lower animals, deep ocean exploration, and robotics, but surprisingly little if your interest is in physics or cosmology. Fascinating and readable.
DR KARL'S SHORT BACK AND SCIENCE. By Dr Karl Kruszelnicki. Macmillan. 267 pp. h/b $32.99
In the US, the antioxidant industry generates more than $US23 billion a year. In this book, Dr Karl advises his readers not to be taken in by the hype around these products: they are, he says, "at best useless, and at worst harmful." He takes to the coconut fads with equal lucidity, pointing out, for example, that although coconut oil has no proven health benefits, it is twice as expensive as olive oil, which does have proven health effects. Some of his entries explain unusual science facts – Quantum Life, Surprising Sun, Bouncing Batteries. In others he explains why veins are not blue, why mice seem to like their running wheels, why wine glass shape affects flavour and why our bodies produce small amounts of radioactivity. Interesting and readable, though the many references he makes to some of his earlier books suggest that he may be running out of topics.
WE ARE ALL STARDUST. Conversations with Stefan Klein. Scribe. 265 pp. $27.99
"In a scientific publication, the use of the word "I" is sacrilege," Stefan Klein points out in an introduction to this collection of interviews with some of the world's leading scientists. He sets out to find the "I", the human person in the scientist, their interests and cultural roots, and – in the case of the women interviewed – the extra price they paid for their commitment. The cosmologist Martin Rees admits that he was "within an inch of becoming an economist". Richard Dawkins talks about the evolutionary benefit of being nice, the Tasmanian Nobel Prizewinning biologist Elizabeth Blackburn suggests that we could become immortal, the Indian neuroscientist V S Ramachandran says that there may be special brain circuits for religious experience. Other interviewees include ethicist Peter Singer, primatologist Jane Goodall and the world's supreme authority on physics Stefan Weinberg. All but two of the interviews took place between 2007 and 2012.
