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A review by allisonarthur
Mind, Life, and Universe: Conversations with Great Scientists of Our Time by Lynn Margulis, Eduardo Punset
4.0
This book is an opportunity to get inside the heads of leading scientists in a variety of fields. Eduardo Punset and Lynn Margulis simplify science through interviews and translate complicated information for the reader who has no professional background in science.
Mind, Life and the Universe is split into the following four parts: People Primates, Animal Body-Mind, Life on an Animate Planet and Toward the Invisible. Topics include many facets of science, including biology, chemistry, physics, nanotechnology, as well as their numerous sub-topics within them. Each chapter/interview/topic is only an average of five to seven pages, which keeps the subjects flowing well.
I lost interest in the middle of the book, somewhere within Life on an Animate Planet, primarily because I have little interest in biology. However, overall, Mind, Life and the Universe is a good, quick read. I could understand almost every topic discussed, even though I have little formal education in the sciences. I'd encourage all those with a broad interest in the sciences to pick this book up.
Favorite Chapters:
Life, Master of the Earth: Interview with James E. Lovelock
Too Huge for the Atom, Too Tiny for the Star: Interview with Sheldon Lee Glashow
Manipulation by Dwarves: Interview with Nicolas Garcia
Favorite Quotes:
"We are in the right place just because life exists; it is life that has modeled this lovely planet that it is so favorable to life." [reference to a group of scientists' opinions, p. 202]
"Physics encompasses chemistry, biology, astronomy, cosmology. Everything is based on physics. All sciences are, in the end, physics." [Sheldon Lee Glashow, p.289]
"If life exists elsewhere in the universe, it doesn't necessarily have to be like ours." [Nicolas Garcia, p. 305]
Note: As this book was published almost five years ago, in includes outdated scientific information. For example, several chapters discuss the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which had yet to be finished. I'd love to hear what these scientists think of the LHC and its findings now!
Mind, Life and the Universe is split into the following four parts: People Primates, Animal Body-Mind, Life on an Animate Planet and Toward the Invisible. Topics include many facets of science, including biology, chemistry, physics, nanotechnology, as well as their numerous sub-topics within them. Each chapter/interview/topic is only an average of five to seven pages, which keeps the subjects flowing well.
I lost interest in the middle of the book, somewhere within Life on an Animate Planet, primarily because I have little interest in biology. However, overall, Mind, Life and the Universe is a good, quick read. I could understand almost every topic discussed, even though I have little formal education in the sciences. I'd encourage all those with a broad interest in the sciences to pick this book up.
Favorite Chapters:
Life, Master of the Earth: Interview with James E. Lovelock
Too Huge for the Atom, Too Tiny for the Star: Interview with Sheldon Lee Glashow
Manipulation by Dwarves: Interview with Nicolas Garcia
Favorite Quotes:
"We are in the right place just because life exists; it is life that has modeled this lovely planet that it is so favorable to life." [reference to a group of scientists' opinions, p. 202]
"Physics encompasses chemistry, biology, astronomy, cosmology. Everything is based on physics. All sciences are, in the end, physics." [Sheldon Lee Glashow, p.289]
"If life exists elsewhere in the universe, it doesn't necessarily have to be like ours." [Nicolas Garcia, p. 305]
Note: As this book was published almost five years ago, in includes outdated scientific information. For example, several chapters discuss the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which had yet to be finished. I'd love to hear what these scientists think of the LHC and its findings now!