Rating: 
Summary: E = mc2
Review: Well written and most interesting. The author was also quite an historical researcher. Who ever knew that Voltair knew Newton or that Voltair's love was a brilliant French lady (who contirubted the 2/square to E = mc2).
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining Education Read
Review: Bodanis notes that people tend to think of e=mc2 as being a formula for a theory that is beyond them. Yet by focusing an entire book on the history of the equation e=mc2 and the life of the people who contributed to its creation and application, Bodanis has made it accessible to all. This is not a book about special relativity, it is a book about how mass and energy relate and the discoveries that led to it.The book is well written and focused much on the life and discoveries of scientists who helped bring life the famous equation. Bodanis loves to find the young and inspired scientist, and champion how they are able to stand up the oppressive institution of worldwide physicists. He has a habit of championing the people he likes a little too much, and making the other side seem shallow. But it helps to give life to the "heroes" of the story. Anyone interested in knowing the meaning of this equation should give this book a read. It's surprisingly light reading for a book about physics. There are plenty of side affairs into the world surrounding the physics, especially when talking about the nuclear race between the Axis and Allies of WWII.
Rating: 
Summary: Vivid and misleading stories
Review: Bodanis' book is a quick and easy read, introducing readers to E=mc^2, the personalities involved in its creation and use, and its consequences on Earth and in stars. Bodanis tells vivid stories that make the science and history come alive. Some of these stories are substantially true, and many are misleading. By oversimplifying the science, Bodanis makes it more accessible but introduces inaccuracies. His descriptions of fission and particle creation and annihilation are good examples of E=mc^2, but one of his favorite examples is problematic. Bodanis twice repeats the popular misconception that an object gains mass as its speed approaches the speed of light (p.52, 81), and exaggerates this fiction with descriptions of the object "swelling" as it accelerates. While an inconspicuous note in the appendix (p.250) acknowledges that this explanation is not really true, many readers will not find the note, and if they do, they'll find the cartoon image easier to remember. Bodanis' pattern of oversimplification disappoints in a book that aims to educate the public. Another of the book's apparent strengths becomes a weakness. Its emphasis on simple, vivid portraits of key characters too often comes at the expense of deeper understanding of both the history and the science. Bodanis makes a habit of vilifying Authority and lionizing youthful independence and undersung women scientists. Lise Meiter's story is particularly compelling (and consistent with other histories), but Bodanis' more one-dimensional characterizations lose credibility. For example, his Heisenberg is simply an evil scientist while Einstein is a good and humble genius. History, however, tells more complex stories than Bodanis does. See Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen" (and its references) for a richer and more nuanced investigation of Heisenberg's motivations (he suggests that he sabotaged with purposeful scientific misdirection the Nazi effort to build the Bomb). And see Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" for an excellent account of the people and the science involved. While Bodanis' retelling of history might make for exciting TV, it demands critical reading. Bodanis paints an heroic image of Einstein that many readers will recognize by now as oversimplified. For example, Einstein's protrayal as devoted father is belied by his letters to his first wife, Mileva Maric (see Renn and Schulmann's compendium and Byatt's "Possession"). Is this the same Einstein who gave his physicist wife written instructions for keeping house so disorder and children wouldn't interfere with his work? Given Bodanis' interest in uncovering credit for women scientists, it is surprising that he does not mention the possibility that Maric contributed significantly to the development of the special theory of relativity (despite the emotional trauma of losing their first child as an unwed student; see the series of articles in fall 1994 Physics Today, the journal of the American Physical Society). This is, however, consistent with Bodanis' uncritical and common deification of Einstein, which unfortunately appears to require minimization of the contributions of scientists such as Poincare (who proposed that the speed of light was constant and called his idea "relativity" well before Einstein did, grudgingly acknowledged on p.104). In a book that purports to tell the true story clearly, how can Bodanis neglect to even mention the contributions of Michelson and Morley, Lorentz and Fitzgerald, and Einstein's intellectual debts to them? The black-and-white images of science and scientists in this book will either disappoint or mislead readers who seek deeper understanding. If you really want to know, let this book jump start your curiosity, don't believe everything you read, and use more careful sources (such as Jeremy Bernstein) to investigate your questions.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-written scientific journalism
Review: It's certainly for those of us who took no physics beyond grade 12; never at all dull. Actually, it's a history, not a textbook, explaining the origins of each part of the equation (Faraday & Davy's rivalry in the "e" chapter, Lavoisier experiments and eventual demise in the "m" chapter, etc). Before reading this, those names would ring a bell but I couldn't tell you one thing about those men or what motivated them to pursue the experiments they did. This, of course, is all a precursor to Einstein's work, and the atomic and other uses of the equation. It's spoonfed, but it's the only way I will ever keep this stuff down.
Rating:
Summary: A full history of the equation!!!!
Review: This book is a must read for anyone in a technical field. It gives a great historical and storylike approach to one of the worlds most famous, yet most misunderstood equations. You meet characters like Voltaire and Werner Heisenberg, Lise Meitner and Lavoisier, J. Robert Oppenheimer and of course Einstein himself. This book truly gives you an insight that will leave you on internet book sites writing reviews and looking for more great books.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for the non-scientist
Review: I have read many books on this subject and NONE of them conveyed the essence of the equation the way this book does. I am not a scientist, and did poorly in chemistry in school, so I really needed a book such as this one. Bodanis' metaphors make this famous concept - that mass and energy are the different aspects of the same thing - really easy to understand. For example, he describes the uranium atom like an overstuffed water balloon, ready to be punctured by a slow moving neutron. Now I can finally picture how the atomic bomb worked. Bodanis also shows how this timeless equation developed against a backdrop of human frailty - insecurity, double-dealing, backstabbing, jealousy, and even romance. His description of an Allied nighttime raid against a Nazi-operated heavy water factory in Norway reads like a spy novel. There were at least two surprises in this book for me: 1) the crucial role of women in the development of proof of Einstein's equation, and 2) the academic establishment's resistence towards the equation and other aspects of the new physics. Many of the pioneers either skipped school or did poorly in it - probably because they were too imaginative to put up with orthodoxy. But they kept their individual, iconoclastic spirits alive, and helped found a new physics and cosmology. At the end of the book, author Bodanis writes "I loved writing this book." And one can tell that he did. I loved reading it as well.
Rating:
Summary: first-rate science writing
Review: I know very little about physics -- or, rather, before reading this book I knew very little. I feel now as though I possess a firm grasp of the rudiments of Einstein's famous equation. Neither scientific expertise nor mathematical sophistication are required to learn from, and to greatly enjoy, this superb little book.
Rating: 
Summary: Content good; writing style flawed
Review: While I would give the author 5 stars for making this
subject not only understandable to me but interesting,
unfortunately his writing style is quite unsophisticated
and in some places a grammatical nightmare. His style
is not much better than that of my college freshman
students. It's not that I favor style over content in
writing or anything else in life, but I would have enjoyed
this book much more if the style weren't so distracting.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: I bought the book at an airport and read it in 3 days. I was amazed at how interested I became once I started reading the first page. I'm not a science buff, by any means, but I am intersted in general knowledge of the way things work. How many people can honestly say they know what E=MC2 means? Well, thanks to this book, now I can. After I finished, I gave it to my father-in-law and he couldn't put it down. The people and the stories behind each part of that equation are fascinating. The section on the race to develop the atomic bomb between the U.S. and the Nazis was especially a page turner. Well done, David Bodanis, and thanks for the insight!
Rating: 
Summary: What Tripe!
Review: Hardly a definitive work on the methodology behind the discovery.
Its a poorly written history that misses the most fundamental
points and jumps through topics with Heisenberg uncertainty. The
author can't explain Lorentz contractions, and it appears he
doesn't understand the famous equation either.
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