Random House Webster's Dictionary of Scientists

Rating:
Summary: I stand on the shoulders of those before me....
Review: Any modern work of science is in turn based on the work of many thousands of scientists. If one considers that the work that these scientists (and other researchers) produced is in turn based on the work of a great number of other researchers, then the number of individuals that contributed to the rational base for a scientific work, is truly an impressive figure. The reference section usually only effectively credits only a small percentage of these workers, with a bias somewhat towards those researchers published in the most widely available and recent journals. This reference, the Random House Webster's Dictionary of Scientists, like other works of this nature, provides a more comprehensive coverage of different scientists' works. But again, even with its 1800 biographies, it too covers only a small percentage of the workers that contributed to mankind's scientific knowledge at the time of this reference. I did not read this reference from cover to cover but found it useful as a handy, compact reference on the life and works of various scientists. As well, it includes brief introductory essays on history of the development of Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Engineering and Technology, Geology, Mathematics and Physics, as well as chronologies for various fields, and listing of the Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Physics Nobel Prizes and the Fields (mathematics) Medals.

Rating:
Summary: Uneven, but still useful
Review: This book has two major parts to it: the biographies, which are pretty much standard fare; and a preface liv pages long that tries to cover the content and history of all of science. The latter portion of the book is pretty much a failure and adds little to the collected biographies. It just is not possible to cover all that ground in so few pages, and the editors' wind up with a rather unpalatable recital.

The biographies themselves, usually consisting of a few paragraphs, do form a useful compendium, and many of them are well written and interesting. However, some errors appear, as they almost inevitably must, in any work of this kind. One whopper is their report that Carnot actually discovered the formula for the efficiency of an ideal heat engine. While he knew that some formula involving temperature must exist, he did not know about absolute temperatures, and did not discover the formula.

The most offensive thing to me was the comparative space given to Freud and Jung (many paragraphs, plus portraits), neither of whom were scientists, and that given to William Shockley (two short paragraphs, no portrait), whose invention of the transistor changed our world so dramatically. One sentence in Shockley's bio is about the transistor, and two slanderous ones on his contributions in genetics. That's it.

Really, now. Jung's psychological system included astrology, spiritualism, and various types of ESP. His totally bogus notion of synchronicity is actually anti-scientific. Why is he here, while Madam Blavatsky is not?

Farnesworth, who invented TV, is entirely omitted from the compilation, which is absolutely disgraceful. And to forget Jack Kilby, inventor of the integrated circuit, is careless. The inclusion of Spinoza and Wittgenstein who were philosophers, and definitely not scientists, can only be described as an error. And including Hahnemann, the quack that invented homeopathy, is ludicrous.

Rating:
Summary: Uneven, but still useful
Review: This book has two major parts to it: the biographies, which are pretty much standard fare; and a preface liv pages long that tries to cover the content and history of all of science. The latter portion of the book is pretty much a failure and adds little to the collected biographies. It just is not possible to cover all that ground in so few pages, and the editors' wind up with a rather unpalatable recital.

The biographies themselves, usually consisting of a few paragraphs, do form a useful compendium, and many of them are well written and interesting. However, some errors appear, as they almost inevitably must, in any work of this kind. One whopper is their report that Carnot actually discovered the formula for the efficiency of an ideal heat engine. While he knew that some formula involving temperature must exist, he did not know about absolute temperatures, and did not discover the formula.

The most offensive thing to me was the comparative space given to Freud and Jung (many paragraphs, plus portraits), neither of whom were scientists, and that given to William Shockley (two short paragraphs, no portrait), whose invention of the transistor changed our world so dramatically. One sentence in Shockley's bio is about the transistor, and two slanderous ones on his contributions in genetics. That's it.

Really, now. Jung's psychological system included astrology, spiritualism, and various types of ESP. His totally bogus notion of synchronicity is actually anti-scientific. Why is he here, while Madam Blavatsky is not?

Farnesworth, who invented TV, is entirely omitted from the compilation, which is absolutely disgraceful. And to forget Jack Kilby, inventor of the integrated circuit, is careless. The inclusion of Spinoza and Wittgenstein who were philosophers, and definitely not scientists, can only be described as an error. And including Hahnemann, the quack that invented homeopathy, is ludicrous.