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Rating: 
Summary: Misleading
Review: I am scientist at the European Patent Office. I do not often read very popular books but came accross that one. It succeeds in explaining many things easily, however it is very inaccurate and unreliable, there is an average of one fatal, major mistake per page, both concerning the interpretation, or the history of the experimental sciences, etc. The book has also very strong New Age bias in its use of modern physics, etc. It may be recommandable for New Agers, but for other readers I would rather recommend searching another book, I assume there are some reliable introductory books on the market.If on one hand as I was saddened by all the mistakes in the book, on the other hand I found some funny (e. g. that the medieval scientists believed that the planets and stars were alive or inhabited by gods, etc.)
Rating: 
Summary: Good briefing for the timid or the compulsively curious
Review: This book marvelously accomplishes its objective: providing in easily digested bites a concise reference to major recent (past couple of decades) developments in mathematics and science that are significantly affecting technology and society, frequently across multiple disciplines. In addition, a 30-page introductory section describes the mosaic of which the individual entries are pieces. Unfortunately, it lacks a bibliography or list of suggested further reading. With on average a 1.5 page description devoted to roughly 200 topics with lots of internal cross-references, this book would make an ideal web site. On paper, it is organized alphabetically by topic, which is convenient for looking things up, but not necessarily for browsing, which is what the curious will find themselves doing compulsively. Like with a good encyclopedia, you might open the book expecting to read just one or two entries, and then find yourself following the plentiful cross-references or just what catches your eye, till you've read half the book. If you've been hearing terms like game theory, nano-machines, super-strings, sociobiology, quarks, chaos and complexity theory tossed around but were too embarrassed to ask for an explanation, this book will help build your confidence.
Rating: 
Summary: No uncertainly here--This book is great
Review: This is a great science book for the non-scientific type. It makes very obtuse theories and concepts crystal clear for the lay reader, and brings science to the masses *without dumbing it down.* It reminds me a lot of Charles Osgood's marvelous series "A Science Odyssey" that aired on PBS a few years back. (See my separate review on that for even more raves about science for the layperson without dumbing it down.) Entries are brief, and sometimes I wish there were more detail. As another reviewer points out, references for further reading would be nice as well. However, if you're puzzled but intrigued by such topics as "string theory," "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle" and "Chaos Theory," and all you know about this stuff comes from Star Trek-type shows, this is a great book for you. It also demonstrates, as the late Carl Sagan used to say, that science is far stranger, far more mysterious and far more subtle than science fiction.
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