Book of Scientific Curiosities by Cyril Aydon: book review

A Book of Scientific Curiosities: Facts and Feats (2005) is jammed packed with exactly as the title describes: facts, feats, and interesting oddities.

Fortunately there is order in the myriad of facts. The contents are divided into 10 sections, such as The Heavens; The Earth; The Living World; Mass and Energy; The Nature of Matter; People and Places; Science in Society; Keeping Count; and two appendices – Measuring Things and Timelines.

From science history to people of science to the various sciences themselves, the information ranges from half a page to three pages, which makes it easy-to-read, easy to pick up and put down without losing your place, easy to drift through, or easy to read in detail. In it, there is something for everyone: from the microscopic to the macroscopic, tera to pico, convergence to divergence, terminology to vocabulary, and from chaos and confusion to clarity. It covers astrology to zoology, air to zodiac, and al-Ma’mun to Zhang Heng.

As Aydon says in the introduction, no prior knowledge is required and there is only one equation in the whole book of 308 pages. There are few diagrams, but that does not detract from the text because it’s precise and concise, leading the reader to further material as their interest dictates.

No, it is not an excuse to avoid science classes altogether because it’s not the definitive answer to the theory of everything, nor is it a scientific encyclopedia or dictionary. It’s an interesting book for the curious about the curiosities of science.

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