Tal Golan
A review of The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession, by Ken Alder. A gripping account of the adventures of the men who conceived, developed and marketed the lie detector
Bernard Schutz
A review of Traveling at the Speed of Thought: Einstein and the Quest for Gravitational Waves, by Daniel Kennefick. The fascinating story of how gravitational-wave theory, long plagued by mathematical confusion and battling egos, became a dead certainty
Ken Binmore
A review of A Beautiful Math: John Nash, Game Theory, and the Modern Quest for a Code of Nature, by Tom Siegfried. This tour of new ideas in game theory is entertaining, says Binmore, but pays little attention to economics, the subject where game theory has had its biggest successes
Peter Andrews
A review of A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the “Hobbits” of Flores, Indonesia, by Mike Morwood and Penny van Oosterzee. A firsthand account of the discovery of a tiny skeleton that may represent another hominin species
John Morgan
A review of The Poincaré Conjecture by Donal O'Shea. O'Shea's historical account of this important conjecture and its dramatic proof by Grigory Perelman contains much to interest readers of all mathematical backgrounds, says Morgan
Paul S. Sutter
A review of Aldo Leopold's Odyssey: Rediscovering the Author of A Sand County Almanac, by Julianne Lutz Newton. A study of the intellectual and scientific development of the man who brought ecological thinking to American conservation
David Schoonmaker
A review of The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement, by Mark Hamilton Lytle, and Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson, edited by Peter Matthiessen. Reflections on two books that bring to life Carson's writings, convictions and dedication
Seymour Mauskopf
A review of The Periodic Table: Its Story and Significance, by Eric R. Scerri. Scerri shows that the relation between quantum mechanics and the explanation of chemical periodicity is complex
Robert Crease
A review of From Clockwork to Crapshoot: A History of Physics, by Roger G. Newton. This concise survey of well-marked territory is best suited for beginners, says Crease
Matthew Bunn
A review of The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor, by William Langewiesche. Bunn fears that this book's emphasis on the inevitability of nuclear proliferation may discourage people from taking action to prevent it
William B. Swann
A review of Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. Cognitive-dissonance theory explains a great deal
Michael D. Gordin
A review of Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science, by David Lindley, and Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics, by Gino Segrè. The story of how indeterminism became a central tenet of modern physics
David Colander
A review of The Soulful Science: What Economists Really Do and Why It Matters, by Diane Coyle. Coyle takes readers around the world of economics in 280 pages, but she fails to convince Colander that the field today has soul
Robert L. Rabin
A review of The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America, by Allan M. Brandt. The dramatic story of how the cigarette industry grew to prominence—and was eventually brought to a reckoning by scientific evidence that its products are harmful
Daniel Kennefick
A review of Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson. This comprehensive and readable biography is the first to include material from a recently unsealed cache of personal letters
Robert Levine
A review of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, by Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo applies the lessons of his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment to contemporary evils ranging from the fraudulence at Enron to the sadism at Abu Ghraib prison, showing how good people can succumb to situational forces that elicit evil actions
Anna Lena Phillips
A brief review of Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis, by Kim Todd. An imaginative account of Merian's travels, life and work
Carlos Castillo-Chavez, Carlos Castillo-Garsow
A review of Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life, by Martin A. Nowak. This hands-on account of the contributions of mathematics and simulation to the understanding of evolution covers topics ranging from quasispecies theory, fitness landscapes and game dynamics to disease progression, the virulence of infectious agents, and linguistic fitness
David W. Farmer
A review of Why Beauty is Truth: A History of Symmetry, by Ian Stewart. Stewart provides an entertaining historical account of mathematical symmetry from ancient Babylon to modern string theory, and of the people who did the math along the way
David Rosner
A review of The Great Lead Water Pipe Disaster, by Werner Troesken. The widespread introduction of lead-pipe water systems in the 19th century was one of the greatest environmental disasters of the past 200 years, suggests Troesken, who uses statistical analysis to show that lead poisoning from the water pipes likely killed or harmed large numbers of people
Dan Rockmore
A review of Mathematics and Common Sense: A Case of Creative Tension, by Philip J. Davis. The 33 essays in this book offer a bird’s-eye view of professional mathematics and reveal the subject to be not just useful but a source of mystery, beauty and pleasure
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
A review of The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began, by Stuart Clark. Amateur astronomer Richard Carrington—who in 1859 witnessed the first solar flare on record—is placed by Clark at the fulcrum of a century-long debate over the effects of sunspots
James Propp
A review of The Art of Mathematics: Coffee Time in Memphis, by Béla Bollobás. This collection of puzzles, which range from clever to fiendishly difficult, is not for the fainthearted, says Propp, but like potent espresso, the problems should have a stimulating effect on the mathematically prepared reader
Michael Corballis
A review of Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals about the Mind, by Margalit Fox, and The Gestural Origin of Language, by David F. Armstrong and Sherman E. Wilcox. Both of these books bear on the question of whether language evolved from manual gestures and then shifted to a vocal mode: Fox makes the case that the hands provide a more natural signaling system than the voice, and Armstrong and Wilcox propose that speech itself is a gestural system
Paul M. Barrett
A review of Glorified Dinosaurs: The Origin and Early Evolution of Birds, by Luis M. Chiappe. In this accessible, well-illustrated book, Chiappe first summarizes the evidence supporting the close relationship of birds and theropods and then guides readers through recent advances in understanding the sequence of evolutionary changes in early birds