THIS attractive little book is many things at once: a coffee table book, a love letter to science and a stand against scientific illiteracy. Theoretical physicist Sander Bais is interested in the ways in which scientific understanding affects world views. For instance, he explains how the discovery that the Earth’s surface is a closed sphere rather than an infinite plane suddenly transformed the world into a knowable place, and one with limited resources.
Bais’s passion for science and his respect for its methods are contagious, even if his musings at times seem random and muddled as he meanders from HIV denial to string theory, from postmodernism…
