The Canon

by Angier, Natalie

• ISBN13: 9780547053462
• ISBN10: 0547053460
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-04-03
• Publisher: Mariner Books

Summary

In this exuberant book, the best-selling author Natalie Angier distills the scientific canon to the absolute essentials, delivering an entertaining and inspiring one-stop science education. Angier interviewed a host of scientists, posing the simple question "What do you wish everyone knew about your field?" The Canon provides their answers, taking readers on a joyride through the fascinating fundamentals of the incredible world around us and revealing how they are relevant to us every day. Angier proves a rabble-rousing, wisecracking, deeply committed tour guide in her irresistible exploration of the scientific process and the basic concepts of physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, cellular and molecular biology, geology, and astronomy. Even science-phobes will find her passion infectious as she strives "to make the invisible visible, the distant neighborly, the ineffable affable."

Author Biography

NATALIE ANGIER writes about biology for the New York Times, where she has won a Pulitzer Prize, the American Association for the Advancement of Science journalism award, and other honors. She is the author of The Beauty of the Beastly, Natural Obsessions, and Woman, named one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, People, National Public Radio, Village Voice, and Publishers Weekly, among others.
A New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist, Woman is “a text so necessary and abundant and true that all efforts of its kind, for decades before and after it, will be measured by it” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Angier lives with her husband and daughter outside of Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Sisyphus Sings with a Ying	p. 1
Thinking Scientifically: An Out-of-Body Experience	p. 18
Probabilities: For Whom the Bell Curves	p. 47
Calibration: Playing with Scales	p. 71
Physics: And Nothing's Plenty for Me	p. 87
Chemistry: Fire, Ice, Spies, and Life	p. 121
Evolutionary Biology: The Theory of Every Body	p. 147
Molecular Biology: Cells and Whistles	p. 183
Geology: Imagining World Pieces	p. 212
Astronomy: Heavenly Creatures	p. 235
References	p. 267
Acknowledgments	p. 280
Index	p. 282
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.