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Rating: 
Summary: Such a shame it's out of print!
Review: I can't believe this book is out of print. Didn't the Astronomical Society of the Pacific carry it?It succeeds at its unique role: a travel guide for the scientifically inclined. It notes the problem that one can easily walk right by places of great importance in the history of science that are in the immediate vicinity of places everyone knows, mainly for lack of a handy summary of where they are. One example of this is the old Cavendish lab in Cambridge, the nursery of the atomic age and where the genetic code was deciphered, is barely 100 m from Kings College, the most popular tourist spot in the city. Another is the plaque at Oxford commemorating where Robert Boyle did experiments with his air pump, built by Robert Hooke, who built a microscopy and discovered living cells. (If they'd been awarding them at the time, would that have been two Nobel prizes, or three?) It's just down the street from All Souls College. This book is also a pleasant read, not bad for first-class history of science. The organization is unusual, being geographical, but then, it is a travel guide. Still, the history is thorough and well written: I wish I could use it as a text in a history of science course I will probably be teaching next year. Get this book back in print!
Rating:
Summary: Such a shame it's out of print!
Review: I can't believe this book is out of print. Didn't the Astronomical Society of the Pacific carry it? It succeeds at its unique role: a travel guide for the scientifically inclined. It notes the problem that one can easily walk right by places of great importance in the history of science that are in the immediate vicinity of places everyone knows, mainly for lack of a handy summary of where they are. One example of this is the old Cavendish lab in Cambridge, the nursery of the atomic age and where the genetic code was deciphered, is barely 100 m from Kings College, the most popular tourist spot in the city. Another is the plaque at Oxford commemorating where Robert Boyle did experiments with his air pump, built by Robert Hooke, who built a microscopy and discovered living cells. (If they'd been awarding them at the time, would that have been two Nobel prizes, or three?) It's just down the street from All Souls College. This book is also a pleasant read, not bad for first-class history of science. The organization is unusual, being geographical, but then, it is a travel guide. Still, the history is thorough and well written: I wish I could use it as a text in a history of science course I will probably be teaching next year. Get this book back in print!
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