Chemical Education Today
Summer Reading Thinking ahead to the approaching summer and its promise of free time for reading, here are some suggestions from several Book & Media Reviews editors and reviewers.
Ed Walsh recommends— The Loom of God. Mathematical Tapestries at the Edge of Time , by Clifford A. Pickover. Plenum: New York, 1997. ISBN 0306454114, $29.95.
This is an unusual book, which has large pieces of history, theology, astronomy, and science fiction, and at its center is mathematics, the language of the God in the tapestry of nature. I am having difficulty describing it in a small space because it is indeed a tapestry woven carefully on a large loom. It is written with erudition, wit, and a joyful sense of wonder. Catalyst, by Jennifer Ball. Faber and Faber: Winchester, MA, 1997. ISBN 0571199151, $24.95.
This is a book of fiction or perhaps, as Carl Djerassi would designate, science-in-fiction. Shelby Mitchell is a zany lovable hero whose life does not turn out the way she had planned and that is fortunate for the reader. She is not sure what she wants out of life; and that voyage of discovery is sometimes hilarious and sometimes sad, but Ms. Mitchell is never boring. Where does the chemistry come in. Well, she is married to Max and he is doing his post-doc at a large university in an organic group. The action takes place in New York city, where Max is in a rock band when he is not
hard at work in the lab. There is forbidden passion (Shelby is taken with Max's best friend, Hadley), scientific fraud, some interesting chemistry, and some wonderfully funny scenes. Is all fiction biographical? Could the setting for this book have been Columbia University and could the organic group have been directed by Ron Breslow? Only the Shadow knows. Made to Measure. New Materials for the 21st Centur y , by Phillip Ball. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, 1997. ISBN 0691027331, $29.95.
Ball has made the list again (see July issue, 1997), this time with a timely account of the fascinating area of material science. If you, like me, have not always kept up with the invention of modern materials and have an interest in this field, then this book is for you. It is a look at not only what has just happened but what can be coming. It is as much about what has been accomplished as what may come into use. In this richly illustrated book Ball tells you about materials that use light, not electricity, to carry information; polymers that can be used in astonishing ways; and porous materials that can serve as miniature laboratories. Whether he is describing smart materials that change their shape
and properties in response to stimuli or biomaterials with sophisticated design inspired by nature, you can be assured that the information is delivered in a lucid and interesting manner.
Michael McCallum recommends—
Jeff Kovac recommends—
A Tale of Two Continents: A Physicist’s Life in a Turbulent World, by Abraham Pais. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, 1997. ISBN 0691012431, $35.00.
Old Wine New Flasks: Reflections on Science and the Jewish Tradition, by Roald Hoffmann and Shira Leibowitz Schmidt. Freeman: New York, 1997. ISBN 0716728990, $28.95.
I can’t get enough of physicists in the era before I was born.
This new book is a playful and provocative look at the relationship between science and religion, parallel ways of making sense of the world. Each chapter explores a central theme using a different literary genre. For example, Chapter 1 is an exchange of letters on the question of what is natural; Chapter 4 is a hilarious series of messages from the Bibl-email newsgroup, with participants such as Ira T. B. Liever and Perennial K. Vetch discussing how Moses sweetened the waters for the Israelites; and Chapter 5 is a play in three acts. Readers will be rewarded with delightful insights into science, history, and religion.
The Dilbert Principle: A Cubicle’s Eye View of Bosses, Meetings, Management Fads & Other Workplace Afflictions, by Scott Adams. Harper Audio: New York, 1996 ($12.00, abridged audiocassette); Harper Business: New York, 1996 (ISBN 0694516929, $22.00, hardcover); 1997 (ISBN 0887308589, $12.95, paper).
Unfortunately, universities are starting to act like corporations. I want to know what I’m up against. 806
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 75 No. 7 July 1998 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
Chemical Education Today
Hal Harris recommends— Chemical Achievers: The Human Face of the Chemical Sciences, by Mary Ellen Bowden. Chemical Heritage Foundation: Philadelphia, PA, 1997. ISBN 941901122, $20.00 (paper).
The personal stories of the real people who are responsible for some of the great achievements of chemistry are told in very brief form in this book, which is intended to be used by teachers of chemistry for the enrichment of their courses. Sixty-three persons are profiled, each in a page or two of this large-format, spiral-bound volume. The illustrations associated with each biography are large enough to make nice transparencies for class use, but Chemical Achievers is entertaining reading for any chemist, teacher or not. The Island of the Colorblind and Cycad Island, by Oliver Sacks. Knopf: New York, 1997 (ISBN 0679451145, $24.20, hardcover); Vintage: New York, 1998 (ISBN 0375700730, $13.00, paper); Random House: New York, 1997 (ISBN 0679452486, $18.00, audiocassette).
Neurologist Oliver Sacks has written the best-sellers Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, as well as other books. The Island of the Colorblind is part travelogue and part scientific mystery. We travel with the author as he attempts to unravel pathologies of populations isolated on islands in the South Pacific. This will prob-
ably not sell as well as his other books, but it is of particular interest to organic chemists involved in natural products and to ethnobotanists. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, by Michael Shermer. Freeman: New York, 1997. ISBN 0716730901, $22.95.
In Why People Believe, Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, attempts to explain why people (our students and our former students!) have such a difficult time applying their critical faculties to such ideas as extrasensory perception, abduction by aliens, creationism, and even the Holocaust. In providing serious analysis of the logical faults of many pseudoscientific arguments, he does a service for science educators. Invention by Design: How Engineers Get from Thought to Thing , by Henr y Petroski. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 1996. ISBN 0674463676, $24.95 (hardcover).
I always enjoy reading Henry Petroski’s column in the Sigma Xi journal, American Scientist, in which he describes the engineering of objects we use every day. In Invention by Design, he expounds on paperclips, zippers, aluminum cans, pencils, skyscrapers, and aqueducts, among other things. He has a newer book out, The Evolution of Useful Things, but I haven’t read it yet.
The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, by Parker J. Palmer. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, 1998. ISBN 0787910589, $22.00. A Life in School, What the Teacher Learned , by Jane Tompkins. Addison-Wesley: Reading, MA, 1996 (ISBN 0201912120, $22.00, hardcover); 1997 (ISBN 0201327996, $12.00, paper).
Here are two profound and personal reflections on teaching. Neither is written by a scientist, but both contain important insights on the process of teaching and learning, particularly on the atmosphere of fear that pervades our educational system.
Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative, by Edward R. Tufte. Graphics Press: Cheshire, CT, 1997. ISBN 0961392126, $45.00.
This is the third beautiful book in a series by Edward Tufte on the display of quantitative and qualitative information. Now that most people have a Web page, it might be time to pay attention to this subject. [Editor’s note: Tufte has called this book: “pictures of verbs”. The titles of the two other books in this series are The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (“pictures of numbers”) and Envisioning Information (“pictures of nouns”).] Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents, by Ellen Ullman. City Lights Books: San Francisco, 1997. ISBN 0872863379, $12.95 (paper); ISBN 0872863328, $21.95 (hardcover).
Ellen Ullman is a software engineer who runs her own consulting company. She works on one project at a time, for a few weeks to a year or more, assembling a temporary staff of programmers that is laid off when the project ends. In this autobiographical novel, she describes this peripatetic lifestyle, the people who work with her, and their attitudes toward the digital technology that only those “close to the machine” can really understand.
Giant Molecules: Here, There and Everywhere… , by Alexander Yu Grosberg and Alexei R. Khokhlov. Academic: San Diego, 1997. ISBN 0123041309, $39.95.
This book and the accompanying CD-ROM provide an accessible introduction to modern polymer science. Using simple arguments the authors expose the reader to the most important contemporary research problems, including applications to the biological sciences, all placed in an historical context. Both the expert and the beginner will find the book valuable and enjoyable.
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