topics: |  science | physics | astronomy | reference | anthology

90+ Brilliant essays by scientists like
- Feynman (atoms in motion, chapt 1 of FLP),
- Turing (Can a machine think?),
- Penrose (Black holes),
- Einstein (e=mc^2)
- Planck (2nd law of thermodynamics),
- Hardy (excerpt from his Apology),
and also a number of excellent science writers, including Ferris.

The title's a bit grandiose, since this 864-page anthology deals almost
solely with Western science and, moreover, except for a few poems, includes
no pre-20th-century entries (no Newton, for instance). . .but never
mind. What's between the covers is magnificent, a royal flush of exemplary
passages, expertly edited by Ferris (Coming of Age in the Milky Way, etc.),
by scientists who write (Feynman, Hawking, Einstein, etc.) and writers who
write about science (Annie Dillard, Primo Levi, Ferris himself). Included are
firsthand accounts of scientific breakthroughs (Einstein on "E=MC2,"
Heisenberg on "The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory"); science
exposition (Carl Sagan and Anne Druyan on "Astride the Comet"); memoir
(Stanislaw Ulam on "Los Alamos"); philosophy (Heisenberg again, on
"Positivism, Metaphysics, and Religion"); biography (C.P. Snow on
"Rutherford," Lee Dembart on 77-year-old "Paul Erdos: Mathematician," who
has no home, having "traveled continuously for 50 years, never spending more
than a month in one place"). Poems by Whitman, Updike, Pope, and many others
round out this splendid, deeply informative volume, first in a projected
series of World Treasuries (others will cover religious thought, science
fiction, mystery and detection, and so on).  Kirkus