thanks Fred, fascinating topic, much appreciated

E= MC5 as well.

Or, as the Duke tells us on his Mondo show, E = MC Hammer.

Nice job, Fred, and great sounding book.

Thanks, Eric.

More reviews to come, including one I just posted called The Hole in the Universe, which you might consider a Seinfeld book. It's about nothing and everything!

I'm appalled at this book. It lacks any useful explanation and what little it gives is missleading or downright wrong. One example is in mass dilation. The mass does not actually change - merely the inertia - which is similar in effect. "Wobbly" neutrons and protons "squirmingly escaping" imply to me that Mr. Bodanis does not have enough science background to paraphrase his research.

The author gets distracted by the French Revolution and digresses into unrelated history. He also confuses Heisenberg's Nationalism with Naziism. He not only misdescribes Rutheford's results, but fails to give even an elementary description of the experiment itself which is both important to know and famous.
I would not recomend this book to anyone.

As I noted, this is not a physics book, but a history. I would have been much harder on the author if he was purporting to explain Rutherford's experiment rather than note its key result -- an astonishingly small nucleus containing most of the atomic mass.

Likewise, his imperfect analogies are the kinds of things a physicist would quibble about.

I liked his digressions, and I thought his presentation of Heisenberg was fair. The man's life, especially in light of dubious post-war claims about his lack of success in building an atomic bomb, was full of uncertainties. It's been a while since I read the book, but I don't think Bodanis called Heisenberg a Nazi, and history has generally been kind to Heisenberg in that regard.

Anyway, it's clear Bodanis didn't write the book for people like Stephen Yip, or even for me if I were to put on my nit-picking physicist's uniform. But as a book critic, I try to figure out who the author was trying to reach and then judge how well he did that.

I don't expect Mr. Yip to like it, and I'm pleased that he offered his disagreement here. But as my retired dentist used to say, "That's why they make chocolate and vanilla."

Fred Bortz, a butter-pecan kind of guy

Thanks for the review, Fred. I missed this the first time around. I'm sure there are many misconceptions about how Einstein came up with the equation. I think most people would have it that it just popped out of his head like magic. Also, I don't think most people realize that E=mc^3, for example, is obviously wrong, simply on dimensional grounds. I had the pleasure of deriving the equation years ago in school, using the wondrous (at the time) Taylor expansion, the result of which shows how mc^2 sits next to the Newtonian value of kinetic energy. Even Einstein must have been scratching his head.

Thanks, Duane.

I stopped posting at Blogcritics because I found a more suitable hangout for an occasional poster like me at Science Blog. There are some great folks here, too, but I could drive myself crazy if I went from blog to blog. So a friendly wave to those who remember when I was active here.

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I'm glad you liked this review.