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    The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science
    The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science
    The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science
    Audiobook13 hours

    The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science

    Written by Natalie Angier

    Narrated by Nike Doukas

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Natalie Angier takes a joyride through the major scientific disciplines-physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. Her approach is smart, funny, and sure to inspire a new appreciation of science.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateMay 1, 2007
    ISBN9781598874969
    Author

    Natalie Angier

    NATALIE ANGIER is a Pulitzer-Prize winning science columnist for The New York Times. She is the author of several books including The Canon, Woman, The Beauty of the Beastly, and Natural Obsessions. She lives outside Washington, D.C.,

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    Reviews for The Canon

    3.5/5

    258 ratings37 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A beautifully written, well-researched love letter to science. This author attempts to clarify the dimensions of science, taking each science one by one and discussing what we do know, how we know it, and what we still have to learn...so far as we know it. Stripping science of unnecessary obscurity, she is able to show how it is not only fun, but comprehensible.
    • 3/5
      Somewhat long in the tooth in its colloquial explanations, but generally enjoyable. Angier has asked a good question ("What should people know about your field?") of scientists and has lots of fun summarizing the results. Unfortunately, her enjoyment is a self-contained at times and forgets to take the reader along. Nevertheless, the good outweighs the bad.
    • 4/5
      A lot of great information, mostly understandable to a layman, performed with a lot of enthusiasm. She is very fond of puns and "dad jokes" which would have been better if they had been edited down 80%. or 90% . Or...
    • 4/5
      This is a rather good book. It's intended as a primer to science for a science-illiterate adult and it deals, as such, with all the major areas of science (biology, chemistry, psychology and geology) and has sections or chapters devoted to evolution and global warming. It's not a specialist book so doesn't go into details and I'm science literate so I can't review it from the perspective of a layman but I did think is was a damn nice book. Concise and cutting straight through to the heart of the issue, instead of trying to dazzle you with facts and figures. I did have a few problems in some places. Angier uses very informal language and a lot of, not purple prose but more poetic language and I fel as though sometimes she got caught up in the language and forgot the plot, or at least trying to deciper her word choice distracted from the meaning behind the words. I did, however, like how in every example she always, humerously, took it back to something everyday and familiar which, as well as being amusing, underlined how intergal science is to modern life.
    • 4/5
      Subtitled: “A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science.” I read Natalie Angier’s The Canon because I wanted to bone up on areas of science where my knowledge and understanding lag behind. I’m a motivated layman when it comes to astronomy, but the other chapters here: 1. Thinking Scientifically; 2. Probabilities; 3. Calibration; 4. Physics; 5. Chemistry; 6. Evolutionary Biology; 7. Molecular Biology; and 8. Geology (Astronomy is the 9th and last chapter) promised a wealth of material to fulfill my desire. They held a lot more than that.Angier is a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist covering science. She’s also quite a card. She presents her material not only with a strict, sensible logic, but she leavens it throughout with breezy throw-away lines, like: “power lines … fastened onto high-tension towers that loom phantasmically over the highway, like a procession of giant Michelin Men with arms of aluminum lace,” or in reference to the snout of the star-nosed mole: “Ringing its snout are twenty-two fleshy, pinkish-red, highly sensitive tentacles that … look like a pinwheel of earthworms, or children’s fingers poking up from below in a cheap but surprisingly effective horror movie.”It’s easy to see why - and highly appreciated - that Angier included multiple throw-away phrases on nearly every page: she set herself a gigantic task, which would feature untold facts and theories, and she needed a way to engage general readers. As often as she quips throughout her book, it never descends into anything seriously jokey, or ironic. Her science, as you would expect, is quite up to snuff, her passion is real, and her hope for scientific literacy is fervent. These attributes add up to a very worthwhile book. If your interest extends to modern science, here is an excellent way to fill in any sketchy areas you feel you have. Take it up!
    • 2/5
      I'm debating whether it is outdated.
    • 3/5
      The goals of The Canon are twofold. A. Describe what leaders in the scientific fields consider to be the basic concepts of their respective disciplines. B. Present the concepts such that the layman without a scientific background will find understandable and entertaining. Perhaps the hidden agenda is to allow parents to bone up on enough current science to help their daughters with their homework or to sound knowledgeable when taking the little tykes to museums of science and technology. Dinosaurs are not covered. Problems: “Understandable” means no math. Arguably this doesn’t do justice to the aesthetics and difficulty of doing science and maybe guts the concept. A number of the LT reviews didn’t like the relentless plays on words and other silliness that accompany the summary/descriptions, but the kids like it, I bet, and probably come across better at bookstore readings. Another book I’m reading, The Hindus, also is a little heavy on the humor (or just heavy humor—see, it’s catching). The first part is on methodology: How to think scientifically. Probabilities (statistics). Calibration: how to describe the very small and the very large using mathematical notation. The second part is chapters on Physics. Chemistry. Evolutionary biology. Microbiology. Geology. and Astronomy. In the discipline chapters the methodology chapters are put to use: the focus is on very small things: atomic structure, DNA, cell development, and very large things: planets, stars, galaxies, evolutionary time. The last chapter, Astronomy, via the Big Bang Theory, brings together the infinitesimally small and the very very large universe. The best explanatory work is on DNA and cell structure (a couple of really good pages are in the Geology chapter), but the author also does a good job relating the initial exposition on atomic structure in the Physics chapter to explain specific structures In Chemistry.
    • 3/5
      A succinct tour of the foundational (key) concepts /theories in the sciences: Scientific Thinking /Method; Probability; Calibration / Scale; Physics; Chemistry; Evolutionary Biology; Molecular Biology; Geology & Astronomy. Angier impresses with her grasp of scientific subjects and her ability to communicate these through both exposition and analogy. Most of the concepts will not be new to interested readers of science books for non-scientists. Writing for a lay audience means utilizing language rather than math to communicate complex ideas. In fact, of course, some science isn't translatable into words. As one scientist interviewed by the author admits, what can be perfectly comprehensible to him mathematically (the age & size of the universe, for example) may still be incomprehensibly mind-boggling personally. My one quibble with Angier, as a writer, is that her use of analogy, which is quite helpful at times, veers too often to the overly glib. She often piles up the wise-cracks, which in the end distract from, rather than serve her purposes. Humor and felicitous analogy aid mightily in any presentation of scientific topics to non-scientists. However, there is a point at which such tools turn into tricks, where a folksy approach becomes too smart alecky for its own good.
    • 3/5
      A series of essays outlining what each lay person should know about Math, Physics, Biology, Geology, and Astronomy. Many are very basic, for me anyway, except the Biology one, which I guess I still don't understand very well. I enjoyed it.
    • 5/5
      Even if you are educated a in a science, typically you will know one branch of one field in depth and only be familiar with the rest. This book, written for the interested general public, will give you a conceptual introduction to the methods and principles of science in general as well as more in-depth coverage of chemistry, biology, math, physics, geology and astronomy. Fascinating, well written, and educational too!
    • 4/5
      Hilarious, wondrous and delightful tour of the sciences. I'm of the considered opinion that this book should replace every single basic intro to science text at the high school & even college level. Angier hits the high points in a genuinely enlightening fashion, and brings humor to marble halls where laughter hasn't rung out in a very long time. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      My comments are based on the audio book. I really enjoyed Angiers' "Woman" and looked forward to this one. Sigh, 5 D's in I HAVE to stop. Other's have commented about the excessive wit, and indeed, I can't handle it. Maybe in text format I could find it amusing, or skim as needed. However, the book as narrated by a relatively high-pitched female voice, is too irritating for me to continue. I do believe I will get the Kindle version of this for travel reading, the lay person approach to scientific copies will certainly educate me. One other comment, the introduction went on so long I could hardle stand it and almost quit there. With all the excessive text in the intro, I think it might have been helpful if she would have defined "canon".
    • 5/5
      The Canon is vital reading for anyone who wants to understand the great issues of our time — from stem cells and bird flu to evolution and global warming. And it’s for every parent who has ever panicked when a child asked how the earth was formed or what electricity is. Angier’s sparkling prose and memorable metaphors bring the science to life, reigniting our own childhood delight in discovering how the world works. “Of course you should know about science,” writes Angier, “for the same reason Dr. Seuss counsels his readers to sing with a Ying or play Ring the Gack: These things are fun and fun is good.” The Canon is a joyride through the major scientific disciplines: physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. Along the way, we learn what is actually happening when our ice cream melts or our coffee gets cold, what our liver cells do when we eat a caramel, why the horse is an example of evolution at work, and how we’re all really made of stardust. It’s Lewis Carroll meets Lewis Thomas — a book that will enrapture, inspire, and enlighten. Summary BPLParticularly enjoyable for Ms Angier’s linguistic artistry: puns, alliteration and analogies full of fun and cleverness!NOTE: I found the written format too dense to stay with and downloaded the audiobook; all the better to catch Ms Angier’s nimble wordplay!9 out of 10. For readers who want their learning delivered in high quality prose.
    • 4/5
      Everything you need to know about science in one place? There are books available and this is one of them. Written for the average reader with little or no knowledge of science, Natalie Angier, a science writer for The New York Times, manages to cover all the important points without losing her reader. But by far the best chapter is the first on “Thinking scientifically” where she discusses the process and how scientists come to the conclusions they do. She also talks about misinformation like the difference between winter and summer. I had a hard time convincing my son of the truth when his elementary teacher insisted that the earth was nearer the sun in summer. (It has to do with the earth’s tilt, not where we are in our orbit.)Each of the other chapters takes on a scientific disciplines or subsets of them such as probabilities and calibration (math), physics (which includes quite a bit of chemistry), chemistry (with its own chapter further explaining concepts), evolutionary and molecular biology, geology and astronomy. I am most familiar with chemistry and I do have to say she got it right, especially with her explanation of orbitals and why atoms are or aren’t stable. She also explained water and its importance and the difference chemically between its bonds and the bonds of salt. From the laws of thermodynamics to the big bang to activity in human cells, it’s all there in understandable language.Another interesting point she makes is the definition of the word “theory”. Most people tend to dismiss the theory of evolution or the big bang theory as not proved or suspect in a way. Angier states that theory is: “not a hunch, not even a bunch of hunches, but a grand synthesis that gathers ‘facts’ or robust findings … and infuses them with meaning. A scientific theory has predictive power.” So theories are rock solid. Interesting!Angier obtained most of her material by interviewing scientists and professors. Although she does quote quite a few (and these comments are most interesting), she does not footnote where most of the material was obtained. However she does have a bibliography for each chapter consisting of major books in each field along with websites. What is surprising is that she uses Wikipedia and other ephemeral web sites; no student would cite these in a paper. To be fair, there were also good solid websites which are extremely usable.As I read further into the book, I got more and more annoyed with Angier’s writing style. Yes, she writes in a chatty style and makes things very clear. But the puns and witticisms started to wear thin after the first few chapters and I wished that she hadn’t put them into such a serious book. However I can still recommend this book as an excellent introduction into the hard sciences for all those folks who had trouble with chemistry or physics in high school. Understanding magnetism would have been a whole lot easier.
    • 5/5
      A beautifully written, well-researched love letter to science. This author attempts to clarify the dimensions of science, taking each science one by one and discussing what we do know, how we know it, and what we still have to learn...so far as we know it. Stripping science of unnecessary obscurity, she is able to show how it is not only fun, but comprehensible.
    • 5/5
      I read this book, and then I listened to it in the car with my husband and kids. My 12 year old son was especially fascinated, and tickled by the puns.;as was I. I didn't find the style of writing irritating, but I can understand it would be so to some. For us, it made the journey fly - and I can almost explain how electricity works now.
    • 5/5
      An intense look at science as a whole, and what we should know about it. I completely enjoyed listening to this book. The reader is enthusiastic and has the perfect voice for this text.
    • 3/5
      I had no sooner finished reading the painfully long introduction, thinking, "wow, this sounds like NPR," when I actually heard a Ms Angier essay, on NPR. The essay on the radio wasn't too bad. The chapters in this ostentatiously-titled book however, seemed to get progressively worse. As I read further and further, I began to wonder, what do these incessant, distracting, cutesy, corny, quips, remind me of? Sedaris? No. 'Maybe that Carrie Bradshaw character on Sex and the City? Yeah. 'Or even better, a Saturday Night Live charicature/skit based on Sex and the City? That's it! I learned quite a bit. But Pulitzer Prize winning science writers shouldn't describe space as "inky-dinky" and really shouldn't call solvent vapors from nail salons, "fumes". If you have the urge to read this book I suggest reading a wittier compilation, like Bill Bryson's effort, first. Better yet read it twice. Then tackle this one. You will find about 50% of it fascinating. The remainder are puns for 9-year old girls. Two stars for the writing style and blather. A full extra star for some of the most fascinating topics in all of non-fiction.
    • 4/5
      An entertaining and essential guide to not only the basics of science, but also the amazing wonder of our world. With each chapter covering the major scientific disciplines (physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, etc), the reader is taken on a journey of discovery and amazement. These are things that all people should know about in order to understand our world and Angier tells it in such an engaging and playful way. Although you will need a dictionary handy: I found myself needing to look up at least one word on every page. I do agree to a small extent with some of the other reviewers about the style of writing, but it is worth grimacing through the more annoying passages (which are few) for the great reward of reading the entire canon of science in one small volume.
    • 4/5
      Science is cool. I didn't think so back in high school but I like to think I've matured since then. Back then I evaded chemistry by taking an earth science course (Rocks for Jocks). Seems a shame because now I find that stuff very interesting. What Ms. Angier so ably and entertainingly covers in this slim — under 300 pages — volume is the scientific method, probabilities, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. You don't have to be a Ph.D. to understand it either. I only wish some of my teachers in high school had been as interesting as Ms. Angier. (In particular, my physics teacher in high school was a waste of meat.) I've read about several of these subjects before in some other entertaining books. Two that come to mind are Innumeracy by John Paulos and A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. I'd recommend all of these books as they complement each other and if you're interested learning cool stuff and filling in a few gaps in your knowledge, these three books are excellent and a good place to start. And Ms. Angier has some fun turning a good phrase here and there. One passage that stood out was one in which she explains just what it means to be a scientific theory. It should be taught in school. The rigorous work and facts behind an established theory (like, say, evolution) makes a statement like "Of course, it's just a theory," sound especially obtuse.
    • 4/5
      Very entertaining, very clever, sometimes a wee bit too cute. If you're well versed in science, it should be some pleasant amusement. If you're not, it's a great primer. Lots of wordplay and gags, but on the whole a worthwhile overview of the sciences.
    • 4/5
      I found this book to be an interesting overview of many scientific topics. It was fun to read about many of the important ideas of science all in one place and learn some things about fields other than the ones with which I am familiar. I also thought she did a good job giving understandable explanations, included humor and wit, and expected her readers to be able to follow the discussions. Well done!
    • 2/5
      This is bad science writing, I'm afraid. Not because the material covered is ill-chosen (it's no more and no less than one might expect from a popular science book), nor because it's inaccurate (though there are some tremendous howlers, such as the assertion on (my copy) p 189 that the outer shell of eggs is made of calcium chloride), but because Angier seems to believe that the wonderfulness of science can best be conveyed by whizz-bang wow-gosh prose, and that her credentials as a writer are proved by cuteness, weak puns and linguistic playfulness.As creative writing, I might give it a B. As *science* writing, however, it's a C- at best.
    • 4/5
      The Canon is A very well written popular science book.instead of dedicating a whole book to a specific scientific topic like usually done by popular science writers, the author chose to dedicate each chapter of the book to another topic.The book covers the basics of all the important natural sciences : physics, chemistry (which is usually neglected by writers of popular science books), evolutionary biology, cell biology, geology (also a rarely discussed topic) and astronomy. preceding these chapters are two introductory chapters about the nature of science itself and probability.Being the scientific writer for the times magazine, Natalie Angier writes like a journalist - in a good way. the book is witty and funnym drawing analogues and associations from everyday life, but in the same time extremely clear and thorough.This is the book i would recommend as an introduction to science in general and the major topics it addresses.
    • 3/5
      Fascinating material, tedious, wordy presentation. Best read in small doses.
    • 4/5
      All you need to do is roll your eyes at every attempt to be witty and pay attention to what she is really saying. The book truly makes science enjoyable and memorable as she touches on just about every topic. Excellent introduction to science that makes me want to investigate further into some of the topics she does cover.
    • 3/5
      Too chatty with too many suburban life details thrown in for my taste. And the narration (I have the audiobook version) perfectly reflects these qualities. In style, it's like an episode from some tv show about life in the suburbs. But then, I'm not the target audience. The content is generally good, though it errs on the side of preconceived notions about empiricism and fact being truth. I did enjoy, though, taking a little tour through the current basics. Ms. Angier's brief is to popularize science, and she does a good job of it. So, if you don't know much about sicence and generally find it to be somewhat intimidating but would like to know more, this book is for you.
    • 4/5
      Minireview: Angier's "whirligig tour of the beautiful basics of science" is slim, but jam-packed with a high density of interesting information. Beginning with a discussion of just what science is and a review of basic statistics and probability, it outlines the various scales at play in the universe, and then goes through them one field at a time -- from physics to chemistry, biology, geology, and finally astronomy (and back to physics, to an extent). Unfortunately (and somewhat oddly, considering Angier is a science journalist), The Canon lacks the sub-chapter organization that would have helped make its density more manageable. It is also jam-packed with as many puns, bad jokes, plays on words, and silly stories as Angier can fit, which before long becomes more distracting and irritating than amusing and engaging. But overall, I was considerably more impressed withThe Canon than I was with Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything, the most similar work I've read.
    • 4/5
      An excellent general knowledge, presenting scientific ideas in a readable concise manner. even here, some parts will interest you more than others, but very well written and authoritative.
    • 5/5
      My father-in-law was a reader. Before his demise, bless his soul, I used to love talking to him about books. One of his favorite authors, Patrick O'Brian, wrote 23 books in the Aubrey/Maturin series with Master and Commander as the anchor. Mr. Moran was in a happy seafaring knot as he would read all 23 then turn around and start again.A very curious thing was pointed out to me during a visit in the summer of 2003. On Mr. Moran’s nightstand was a textbook titled Ionic and Non-Ionic Surfactants. When asked about the book, he said he read it when unable to sleep.This is the first thing I thought when picking up "The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science" by Natalie Angier. The premise is promising, but sleep is certain.I am happy to report this is one of the most engaging science books read. Angier won a Pulitzer Prize Beat Reporting award in 1991 for her compelling science writing at The New York Times. It was well deserved as she tackles topics in this book such as physics, chemistry, molecular biology, and astronomy with intelligence and humor.The book begins with discussions on critical thinking, probability, and calibration before delving into major topics. In the probability chapter she demonstrates how one can predict whether a class of students, broken into two groups, tosses a coin 50 times or pretends. Both groups must record the number of heads and tails in sequential occurrence. Within seconds of looking at the two results, she has an answer. How?The first topic, physics, is the foundation on which other sciences are built. Angier explains, “Physics is the science of starter parts and basic forces, and thus it holds the answers to many basic questions. Why is the sky blue? Why do you get a shock when you trudge across a carpeted room and touch a metal doorknob? Why does a white T-shirt keep you cooler in the sun than a black one, even though the black one is so much more slimming?”Angier advocates teaching physics before all other topics. She likens beginning with chemistry and biology as to building walls and a roof before pouring the slab. I like the idea but wonder if students have enough math skills to accomplish physics first.This is the perfect book to prop up on your chest while in bed. No need to worry about the effects of gravity.