SCIENCE’S achievements don’t get a look-in here in Mark Pilkington’s collection of scientific blind alleys and crackpot inventions. Based on his column in The Guardian in London, it is an entertaining roam through history’s fringe ideas. While some people featured are firmly in the pseudoscientific or even fraudulent camps, we also hear of the wilder notions of a few arguably successful scientists: Nikola Tesla, who pioneered the use of AC electricity, also claimed he invented a death ray, for example. This is no compendium of failure, though, more a celebration of science’s dreamers.
Far Out
Disinformation
