Brian L. Silver (–1997)

I really like this book and I'm sad to see it going to a charity. But I have to downsize my library and this is one of the victims. The reality is that I will never be able to sit down and read it ....pity. I've just been skimming through it now as i write this review. And I'm half of a mind to retrieve it ,,,quite torn really. But I have too many other great books yet to read so will stick with my original decision. It's a giant overview of the history of science and Silver writes beautifully...though I was a little disappointed by his chapter on entropy. He dismisses entirely the possibility that time can run backwards (or, act least all the equations seem to be neutral with respect to a direction of time)...and there are nice little examples of a spot of ink diffusing in a rotating cylinder ...then as the rotation is reversed the diffused ink collects itself into a single dot again. Anyway, I give the book four stars and it's still going to charity.… (mer)