Light Years: An Exploration of Mankind's Enduring Fascination with Light (Paperback)

In our book stores there has been has a dramatic increase in shelf space dedicated to pop-science books in the last few years. "Light Years" is very typical of the genre. There's no math to frighten the innumerate and everything is written in challenge-free language. The average tabloid newspaper browser with the reading age of a 12-year-old would be comfortable with this book.

The scope of this book could not be broader. It's "everything you want to know about light", written from a historical perspective. It takes us from the wisdom of the ancients, through the insights of Galileo and Newton and ultimately to the exciting possibilities of our post-Einsteinian world. With all this ground to cover, Brain Clegg never really attempts to penetrate or take his topic apart, but rather he just skates around the surface. With his lightweight journalistic style, he sees his role as closer to entertainer rather than educator. There is no serious attempt at elucidation (shedding of light) beyond a feint, superficial illumination.

The structure of the book is in the form of a chronological series of potted biographies of the great luminaries. The author obviously found himself a "Boy's Own Bumper Book" of amazing scientific history and strung together all the references he could find on light and optics. It's very formulaic and it shows. There's not an original insight, in sight.

It is acknowledged that there is a well-deserved place for popular science books in the market place. The real test of their effectiveness is their ability to build a reader's curiosity and to generate a desire to explore a subject in more depth. Instead, after reading this book, you feel bloated as if you have just ingested a big bucket of popcorn. It's all sugar coated literary carbohydrate. Your appetite for the science of optics is blunted, but not satisfied, just like at the movies, you are still in the dark, and the lights have yet to come up.

When considering this book claims to explore the possibility of time travel, we have to work our way to the last few chapters before the strange world of quantum phenomena is even touched on.

We get a few titillating references to some recent breakthroughs in "superluminary" phenomena but it is all very tentative and less than convincing. The author would have been better of giving us more details on well -established quantum phenomena and its applications in (opto-) photo-electronic technology.

He gives us a few words on lasers and holograms, but the amazing world of semiconductors and the related field of photonic devices such as LEDs which are now so commonplace, is barely touched. He tantalizes us with the implications of entangled photons, and what that might mean for Star Trek-like teleporting, but the exciting breakthroughs that are happening in the world of quantum computing are not even hinted at.

While it is great to see more books targeting that growing audience which wants to learn more about science, books such as this one doesn't venture further than a typical Readers Digest article or Discovery Channel program. To his credit, Brain Clegg gives Richard Feynman, one of the greatest scientists and communicators of the 20th Century is rightfully given due prominence in this book. Readers would be better off reading Feynman's very accessible "QED:The Strange Theory of Light and matter".

It's interesting to note that when this book was originally published last year (2001) in the UK it had the simpler title "Light Years". For the North American market we have got "Light Years and Time Travel". Crossing the Atlantic certainly involves some time travel, but you can be sure this book will never make it as an instruction manual for aspiring Captain James T. Kirks.

The first chapter is a taster of the future potential of experimentation with light, outlining some tremendous possibilities. Then we are treated to an overview of the perception of light by the ancients, whose theories were taken as gospel during the Dark Ages and only began to be questioned in the Middle Ages - but even then heresy loomed large for anyone trying to usurp the accepted 'facts'.
Continuing, potted biographies of the greats of science; Bacon, Davinci, Galileo, Descartes, Newton et al, give us a clearer picture of the problems that the new wave of scientists faced.

Then we get into the meat of the problem - what is light made of? (which is still not fully answered). Fascinating insights into recent and modern theory and fact leaves one's mind boggling, trying to contain the concepts, speeds and distances involved.

Immensely readable, I encourage anyone with even a passing interest in light, science or history to read this book - they will be rewarded by a new persective of the world. ****
As further reading, I also recommend 'Unweaving the Rainbow' by Richard Dawkins.