Ian Marshall (1)

This is an excellent guide to "all the new science ideas you need to keep up with the new thinking," as the subtitle reads. It is arranged alphabetically, and gives surprisingly accessible summaries of each concept in just a few pages or less. While I would characterize most of the content as falling into the category of physics, the book also covers biology, psychology, cosmology, and more. Somewhat amusingly, there is no direct entry for "Schrodinger's Cat" - it's not even in the index. Somehow you have to know that it will appear under "The Wave Function and Schrodinger's Equation." But if you read through the book, you'll find it eventually! It's a book you can also peruse at will or according to what interests you.

Most of the time when a complex term is used, it will be defined within the segment, viz: "Morphognesis, or the growth of form...."

The real beauty of this book is that each section deals with ideas people may have heard of and want to know more about, but they will get explanations too complicated for novices by consulting Google or Wikipedia. Examples include Complexity Theory, Cybernetics, Godel's Theorem, Olber's Paradox, Planck's Constant, Punctuated Equilibrium, and Quantum Electrodynamics.

There are a few diagrams in the book, but few of them are illuminating - I imagine they were added for interest or to break up the text. No need for that though - the entries are short and sweet enough on their own.

Yes, science is developing new ideas all the time, but I wouldn't call this book "dated" at all, although it was published in 1997. Things haven't changed that much - the laws of physics are still the same! And while, for example, the Higgs boson wasn't found until 2012, its existence was theorized well before then, and you can read about it in this book.
A good resource for any library, especially for students!… (más)