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Middle World: The Restless Heart of Matter and Life
 
 
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Middle World: The Restless Heart of Matter and Life (Hardcover)

by Mark Haw (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (28 Nov 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1403986037
  • ISBN-13: 978-1403986030
  • Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.7 x 2.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 514,949 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #98 in  Books > Scientific, Technical & Medical > Physics > Liquids & Solids
    #98 in  Books > Science & Nature > Physics > States of Matter > Condensed Matter

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Product Description

Review
"A delightful story of an overlooked and underappreciated science and the scientists who made it. The writing never falters." --Mark Buchanan, author of "Nexus" "Haw's excellent descriptions ensure that concepts normally encountered only at degree level are just part of a riveting story." --"Chemistry World" "An accessible and racy account -- there is something for everyone in this highly enjoyable little book."" --Nature""" "Fast-paced, witty - with vignettes of the great minds who flung science into the modern era."" --American Scientist"

Nature, April 2007
"An accessible and racy account -- there is something for everyone in this
highly enjoyable little book."

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Well-written popular science; a story full of surprises, 20 Jan 2007
By E. K. Read (Nottingham, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is a surprising story about a bit of science that I'd vaguely heard of from school but had no idea quite how important it was. 'Brownian motion' is that constant jiggling around that microscopic objects do all the time--like the pollen grains that were first studied by botanist Robert Brown in the 1820s, which is where the name comes from. This book tells the story of how significant Brownian motion is--these days especially, to things like nanotechnology, and to how molecules like proteins actually work. It's a fascinating story of how science develops as well, as Robert Brown's observations caused controversy throughout the nineteenth century, finally got explained by Albert Einstein--apparently proving the actual existence of atoms too, which believe it or not was still a big controversy at the turn of the 20th century--and then got forgotten about again until the last few years, when scientists started studying how proteins, enzymes, DNA etc really behave in the living cell and realised that Brownian motion is a vital part of the mechanism. Apparently life just wouldn't work at all without Brownian motion--now there's something they never told me at school!

And quite apart from all this, 'Middle World' is also a fun read--even for a complete non-scientist like me. Just about all the top scientists of the 19th and 20th centuries got involved in the story of Brownian motion one way or another. What's even more interesting for me are the scientists you don't hear so much about, like a guy called Waterston who got ignored for years even though he had all the right ideas (apparently he may have committed suicide because of this), and Boltzmann (who definitely did commit suicide--is there a pattern emerging here?!), and most of all Robert Brown, who was a self-taught botanist and explorer who became a big name in the early 1800s--so much so that Darwin claimed to be in awe of him.

If you like well-written popular science, modern stuff you probably haven't heard much about before, and you like some idea of where it all came from and the people who made it happen too--then Middle World is an excellent choice. Heartily recommended!
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4.0 out of 5 stars fun and informative, 24 May 2007
By nano lady (VA & CA) - See all my reviews
I just finished the book, having read all but a bit of the earliest theories of matter, before there was any useful scientific content in them. It's a great way to learn about an interesting and important scientific phenomenon - Brownian Motion - along with a lot of other interesting science and entertaining biographical info. I finally sort of know what a Langevin equation is, after hearing physics toss it around for many years. I'm not sure I completely agree with the interpretation of some of the recent stuff, but overall I'm quite impressed with the book. It started slow, for me: Brown collecting pollen in Ch 1, followed by Brown collecting pollen in even more detail in Ch 2; but it picked up farther along.
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