Hugh Aldersey-Williams

Including facts, stories and information drawn from across history, science, art and literature - from finger-prints to angel physiology, from Isaac Newton's death-mask to the afterlife of Einstein's brain, this title explores our relationship with our bodies and investigates our changing attitudes to the extraordinary physical shell we inhabit.

Všechno ve vesmíru je z nich vytvořeno, včetně nás. podobně jako my sami i chemické prvky mají svoji osobnost, postoje, talent, nedostatky a smysluplné příběhy. V této knize se setkáme se železem, které prší z nebes, i se vznešenými plyny, jež osvětlují cestu k neřestem. dozvíme se, jak dokáže olovo předpovídat naši budoucnost, zatímco zinkem bude jednoho dne možná zevnitř potažena naše rakev. objevíme souvislost mezi kostmi našich těl a bílým domem ve Washingtonu, mezi září pouličních lamp a solí na našem jídelním stole… kniha Periodické příběhy odhaluje udivující tajemství a barvitou minulost chemických prvků. má podobu úžasné a objevné cesty, která ukazuje, že příběhy chemických prvků jsou našimi příběhy a jejich životy jsou neoddělitelně spjaty s našimi životy.

'At last - a scintillating biography of Christiaan Huygens . . . Hugh Aldersley-Williams has evocatively illuminated this brilliant polymath who laid the foundations of modern European science.' Dr Patricia Fara, Emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge 'Fascinating . . . an impressive piece of scholarship. I learned a lot.' John Gribbin, author of Six Impossible Things and In Search of Schroedinger's Cat Filled with incident, discovery, and revelation, Dutch Light is a vivid account of Christiaan Huygens's remarkable life and career, but it is also nothing less than the story of the birth of modern science as we know it. Europe's greatest scientist during the latter half of the seventeenth century, Christiaan Huygens was a true polymath. A towering figure in the fields of astronomy, optics, mechanics, and mathematics, many of his innovations in methodology, optics and timekeeping remain in use to this day. Among his many achievements, he developed the theory of light travelling as a wave, invented the mechanism for the pendulum clock, and discovered the rings of Saturn - via a telescope that he had also invented. A man of fashion and culture, Christiaan came from a family of multi-talented individuals whose circle included not only leading figures of Dutch society, but also artists and philosophers such as Rembrandt, Locke and Descartes. The Huygens family and their contemporaries would become key actors in the Dutch Golden Age, a time of unprecedented intellectual expansion within the Netherlands. Set against a backdrop of worldwide religious and political turmoil, this febrile period was defined by danger, luxury and leisure, but also curiosity, purpose, and tremendous possibility. Following in Huygens's footsteps as he navigates this era while shuttling opportunistically between countries and scientific disciplines, Hugh Aldersey-Williams builds a compelling case to reclaim Huygens from the margins of history and acknowledge him as one of our most important and influential scientific figures.