by John D Barrow, Oxford University Press. Hardback ISBN 019280569X, £20 ($30).
One contender for the premier division of popular-science writers is cosmologist John Barrow. He now has a long list of impressive titles to his credit, notably The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (with Frank Tipler), which introduced a whole new slant on cosmology and has become a classic of modern science, and The Left Hand of Creation (with Joseph Silk), which was one of the first popular books on modern cosmology.
Some arrogant physicists condemn any science that is not quantum mechanics or relativity as being lightweight. This pompous attitude antagonizes scientists in other disciplines, and many non-scientists too. Barrow’s imaginative literary work helps to demolish such preconceptions, breaking down barriers between specialist subjects and showing how far a mathematical approach can reach.
Barrow says that the popularization of quantum physics and cosmology has been well exploited, and aspiring writers should look elsewhere for subject matter. Heeding this advice, The Artful Universe Expanded, an updated and enlarged edition of a book that first appeared in 1995, is a collection of largely self-contained pieces in which scientific arguments illuminate a range of topics that include art, music, evolution and tradition.
The result is a delightfully diverse package of thought-provoking and entertaining articles. Ploughing through even the best popular science demands a certain effort and motivation, but the compact articles in this book are accessible. It is a book to dip into and meet, for example, “Jack the Dripper” – the fractal-inspired Jackson Pollock.
While Barrow is particularly good at explaining the sizes of things, in a few places there is a sense of déjà vu. Barrow’s figure 3.2 on the distribution of masses and sizes in the universe is the same as figure 5.1 in his Between Inner Space and Outer Space, published in 1999; and the customary illustrations of symmetry by Maurits Escher also appear in the book.
A mine of stimulating material, The Artful Universe Expanded anthology is a good choice for travellers or those simply looking for insight, and it is a prolific source of ideas for offbeat talks.
