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Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society: 350 Years of the Royal Society and Scientific Endeavour |  | Creator: Bill Bryson
Publisher: HarperPress
Category: Book
List Price: £25.00
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Seller: adrian11775
Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 2636
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 7.1 x 2.1
ISBN: 0007302568
EAN: 9780007302567
ASIN: 0007302568
Publication Date: January 7, 2010
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Edited and introduced by Bill Bryson, with contributions from Richard Dawkins, Margaret Atwood, Richard Holmes, Martin Rees, Richard Fortey, Steve Jones, James Gleick and Neal Stephenson amongst others, this beautiful, lavishly illustrated book tells the story of science and the Royal Society, from 1660 to the present.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 It's not what you think July 27, 2010
potomac
This is NOT a Bill Bryson book. Do not expect the usual wit and good humour. It is a collection of writings from learned worthies, some of whom can write better than others - and none can write as well as Mr Bryson.
Not recommended... hard to get your teeth into. July 1, 2010
Mr. Dh Welch (Newark UK)
The Bill Bryson introduction was the best thing about this book - it's a collection of short pieces by various authors, some of which are treading familiar ground and others seem to be wildly out of their comfort zones. I'm not sure that I can recommend it, as the structure of the book is such that as soon as you've got interested in an essay it finishes, and the next one is not nearly as impressive.
Disappointing April 14, 2010
Nige (Ashtead)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I must confess, I was disappointed by this physically beautifully-produced book, having held high hopes for it. I was expecting something more like The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, edited by Dawkins, which is brilliant and very varied, but I guess its purpose was different, mining articles by famous scientists from a century of publications, from Einstein (1919) to various more recent authors, such as Watson, Crick, Hawking, Maynard Smith (individually brilliant!), Perutz, Brenner, amongst many others. In the RS book we get a motley crew of writers, many of whom are known (just) as science writers rather than practising scientists, and some I found boring. Having said that, some articles are by well-known scientists, not necessarily at their best; the articles are longer, therefore fewer and less varied, but some are interesting. Nevertheless, I'm glad I bought it, but only at the £[] price from Amazon.
In my disappointment, I went to the two special issues of the Philosophical Transactions of the RS: Series A, Physical Sciences; Series B, Biological Sciences. Unfortunately the second was unbalanced and two of the most interesting biological articles were in the Series A volume; to me they were better than any in the Series B volume. The Series A volume was varied, interesting and worthwhile. I'm afraid that this review is about publications other than the Bryson volume, but this was where the book led me.
 A great disappointment April 7, 2010
Mr. B. J. Marsden (Bolton, UK)
1 out of 9 found this review helpful
My wife gave me this book for Christmas, knowing that Bryson is one of my favourite authors and my general interest in science. She thought it was written (not edited) by Bryson. I found it too general and unfocussed for my taste. I Started reading every chapter but few of them really grabbed my interest and found myself skimming through the remainder of most of them. It might appeal to students of the history of science but my copy will shortly be posted on Amazon.
 The Royal Society:The Founding of modern science April 2, 2010
Serghiou Const (Nicosia, Cyprus)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
The book was written to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society founded in 1660 and in the process marking the beginning of modern science. The momentous event was precipitated by a lecture given to a dozen people by a 28-year-old astronomer, Christopher Wren, who would later design St Paul's cathedral. These gentlemen were followers of Sir Francis Bacon, a 17th-century statesman and philosopher who argued that knowledge could be gained by testing ideas through experiments. Inspired by the lecture and Bacon, they determined to meet every week to discuss scientific matters and to witness experiments conducted by different members of the group. Two years later Charles II granted the Society its royal charter. The establishment of the Royal Society marked the invention of processes on which modern science rests, including scientific writing and peer review. During its illustrious history the Royal Society counted among its members such stellar scientists as Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell and Lord Ernest Rutherford while Sir Isaac Newton served as its President;the election of Leibniz, a Hanoverian, as Fellow of the Royal Society in 1673 established its cosmopolitan character since its inception.
The book introduced and edited by Bill Bryson, comprise twenty-one essays written by distinguished personalities-men and women-of science but also letters reflecting on science and technology since the foundation of the Royal Society. The essays in their commanding majority are truly excellent.
Early in the book Margaret Wertheim provides a profound insight on the challenge that modern science which we identify with the Royal Society posed to existing worldviews and systems of meaning. This is immediately followed by an equally profound essay by Neal Stephenson relating to one of the sharpest intellectual disputes in the early days of the Royal Society between the two giants Newton and Leibniz. I do not allude here to their well known feud on the fatherhood of Calculus. But on a most profound debate on the nature of physical reality. Newton, of course, was well aware that his model led to a deterministic world posing a problem on free will. Lebniz in his theory of monads, primary entities interacting with all other similar entities anticipates contemporary thinking that matter is a secondary manifestation of the primary physical reality. Richard Dawkins' essay on Darwinian evolution is as always beautifully written and incisive. Georgina Ferry's essay on crystallography is written with sensitivity and among other relates woman recognition in science. One of the heroins, Dorothy Hodgin, was not only elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS 1947) but was awarded the 1964 Nobel prize for Chemistry, the first (and so far the only) British woman to win a science Nobel. Ian Stewart convincingly reveals the all permeating nature of Mathematics underpinning science and technology. Stephen H. Schneider, Nobel prize laureate and member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relates among other how Bayenesian probability aids in tackling risk management in climate change. The concluding essay is appropriately written by Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society who reminds us that for Bacon, science was driven by two imperatives:the search for enlightenment, and the 'relief of man's estate'. But additionally and importantly articulates his own position that contemporary scientists have a special responsibility. They should as 'citizen scientists', be prepared to engage in public debate and discussion. And this is particuarly important because challenges of the twenty-first century are more complex and intractable than those of the twentieth century.
The book is richly illustrated drawing on the arhives of the Royal Socitey. Photographs include pages with the signatures of the founding members of the Royal Society but also of the 2001 and 2002 members some of whom are contributors in the book;photographs of Isaac Newton death mask;and photographs of original editions of monumental publications such as Newton's Principia, Darwin's on the Origin of Species and Einstein's Uber die spezialle und die allgemeine relativitast theorie (On the Special and Ceneral Theory of Relativity).
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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