- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: Allen Lane (3 Nov 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0713999055
- ISBN-13: 978-0713999051
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 13.7 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,023,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
A Teaspoon and an Open Mind
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Product Description
Product Description
How do you build a Tardis? What are the secrets of teleportation? Could Cybermen take over the world? Is telepathy possible - even for an alien? Will extra-terrestrials one day visit planet earth on their travels through the galaxy? Can a robotic dog catch a cold ...?
Take a journey with the Time Lords as Michael White guides us through the real science behind Doctor Who. Here he shows us how one of the world's best-loved science-fiction programmes is actually based on genuine theories - some of which could soon become a reality. Drawing on the latest discoveries, on shows from Star Trek to The X-Files and films like Twelve Monkeys and Contact, he asks (among other things): is time travel possible through a wormhole? What are the dangers? Could we make contact with life on other planets? How could aliens get here? And how soon until creatures like the Daleks become a reality? He also looks at areas as varied as crystal power, robotics, shape-shifting and multi-dimensions, not to mention the mysterious science of 'chameleon technology' currently under study by major military research organizations. We even discover how, with the use of cybernetics to replace body parts - or maybe regenerate whole bodies - Doctor Who could hold the key to eternal life.
A book for avid fans and the merely curious, A Teaspoon and an Open Mind reveals that reality is even stranger than science fiction ...
About the Author
Michael White is the author of some twenty-five books, which have appeared in more than 150 editions around the world. His titles include international bestsellers, Stephen Hawking: A Life In Science, Leonardo: The First Scientist, Tolkien: A Biography and The Science of the X-Files. He divides his time between London and Perth, Western Australia.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Unfortunately (for I like the title) this book hasn't got much to do with Doctor Who and doesn't explain science very well.
I think the problem is that it's simply much too short to talk about any of its topics in great depth, and so the author often just tells us things without explaining why they are so, or how scientists came to think this or that. Then again, when he does explain something, I often feel talked down to, as when he says: "Now, you might wonder, if the consequences of relativity are true facts, then why don't we experience them every day of our lives?" Because we're incredibly slow compared to the speed of light, I thought, so they're incredibly small and we don't notice them. Two rhetorical questions later (in one of which he appeared to confuse mass and weight) he finally says just that.
As for Doctor Who, it's just the hook for the scientific topics: 'Doctor Who is about time travel, so let me tell you all I know about time travel. There are aliens in Doctor Who, so let me tell you all I know about aliens.' Apart from putting the time travel chapter first, it could have been called The Science of Star Trek without changing much of the content; especially when, at the beginning of the chapter on interstellar travel, he admits that this doesn't play a big role in Doctor Who, but adds that it does in other scifi series, films and books, so he's going to talk about it anyway. When he does mention Doctor Who, he makes mistakes that are to the fan what confusing weight and mass is to the physicist: "... the malevolent aliens ... who regularly clash with Doctor Who and many other science-fiction heroes" (... but the name is italicised anyway just to be confusing.) He claims that Tom Baker was one of his two favourite Doctors, and that "'Time Ladies' are never mentioned in Doctor Who." I wish to return my copy of City of Death on the grounds that it must be some sort of complex illusion and doesn't really exist.
It's only in the epilogue (8 pages) that he finally goes into some Who-specific things - but even there he quickly gets from chameleon circuits to stealth vessels, after having dismissed transdimensionality as almost certainly impossible, in one short paragraph, without explaining why.
In short, I was disappointed both as a fan of Doctor Who and as someone interested in what the author calls "pretty far-out physics".
I think the problem is that it's simply much too short to talk about any of its topics in great depth, and so the author often just tells us things without explaining why they are so, or how scientists came to think this or that. Then again, when he does explain something, I often feel talked down to, as when he says: "Now, you might wonder, if the consequences of relativity are true facts, then why don't we experience them every day of our lives?" Because we're incredibly slow compared to the speed of light, I thought, so they're incredibly small and we don't notice them. Two rhetorical questions later (in one of which he appeared to confuse mass and weight) he finally says just that.
As for Doctor Who, it's just the hook for the scientific topics: 'Doctor Who is about time travel, so let me tell you all I know about time travel. There are aliens in Doctor Who, so let me tell you all I know about aliens.' Apart from putting the time travel chapter first, it could have been called The Science of Star Trek without changing much of the content; especially when, at the beginning of the chapter on interstellar travel, he admits that this doesn't play a big role in Doctor Who, but adds that it does in other scifi series, films and books, so he's going to talk about it anyway. When he does mention Doctor Who, he makes mistakes that are to the fan what confusing weight and mass is to the physicist: "... the malevolent aliens ... who regularly clash with Doctor Who and many other science-fiction heroes" (... but the name is italicised anyway just to be confusing.) He claims that Tom Baker was one of his two favourite Doctors, and that "'Time Ladies' are never mentioned in Doctor Who." I wish to return my copy of City of Death on the grounds that it must be some sort of complex illusion and doesn't really exist.
It's only in the epilogue (8 pages) that he finally goes into some Who-specific things - but even there he quickly gets from chameleon circuits to stealth vessels, after having dismissed transdimensionality as almost certainly impossible, in one short paragraph, without explaining why.
In short, I was disappointed both as a fan of Doctor Who and as someone interested in what the author calls "pretty far-out physics".
Format:Paperback
i received this book as a Christmas present and was amazed at how easy it was to just pick up and read. the book itself is a decent size and has lots of information and is packed with interesting facts that is a plus compared to any other type of book
the book itself is loosely based around some of the concepts in the television show doctor who which is alright and does not take away from the reading experience
i would recommend this book for readers aged 12 and up seeing as they do have some rather difficult words inside it plus some of the scientific pieces can be confusing
the book itself is loosely based around some of the concepts in the television show doctor who which is alright and does not take away from the reading experience
i would recommend this book for readers aged 12 and up seeing as they do have some rather difficult words inside it plus some of the scientific pieces can be confusing
Format:Hardcover
Michael White has simply taken some of his previous research from superscience and the x-files and combined them in this book and incorporated new scientific research. His descriptions of gene and nano technology, robotics and cloning were the clearest explanations thus far of these very controversial subjects.
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