The Best American Science Writing 2000 (review)

The Best American Science Writing 2000: The ECCO Press. Edited by Jesse Cohen and James Gleick. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. $27.50.

This book consists of a series of 19 essays on a wide variety of topics of scientific import, published in the year 2000 lay press--the New York Times and New Yorker predominate. The selection criteria are not defined and would appear to be "Editor's Choice"--and very good too! If one could conceive of a novel gift for a friend or colleague, surely this would be it.This personal selection by James Gleick cannot not be seriously challenged, but many equally worthy contributions must have been passed over--c'est la vie. He adds a brief paragraph to each essay, underscoring his appraisal of the topic. Happily, it appears that this series will be continued on an annual basis. Gleick, a former reporter and editor, is a highly respected communicator possessing a broad base in, and a fine understanding of, general science. He is the author of several monographs, including Genius, a biography ofRichard Feynman. The majority of chapters tend to 15 pages and are ideal for an evening read--but only one at a time, please, so as to allow reflection on each chapter's significance. Although it is presumed that all of this material was published in the year 2000, I would favor inclusion of more exact references in the "to be hoped for" 2001 edition.

The selection is catholic in its inclusiveness, and more detailed consideration of specific essays is also difficult for this reviewer--all are worthy.The autobiographical essay by Sacks ("Brilliant Light") recalls the influence of members of his highly intellectual family and Uncle Dave (Tungsten by nickname), what became to him the reality of numbers, and his own early interest in chemistry.This led to his fascination with science and thus his career as a distinguished neurologist.To the contrary, Asher ("Lab Notes"), with a somewhat similar family background, found that neither the threat of the draft board nor a career as an organic chemist was to his liking, and he "found happiness" as a night club piano player. "Interstellar Space Flight: Can We Travel to Other Stars?" by Ferris, concludes this possibility is highly unlikely, for the obvious reasons of distance, energy requirements, and human survivability, but that small interstellar probes could be considered for dispatch to communicate via an interstellar Internet. AMANDA, Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detection Array (in "Antarctic Dreams" by Halzen), refers to a detector system of photo multipliers positioned one to two kilometers deep within the South Polar icecap. Although neutrinos represent the best focus for deep space astronomy, they are extraordinary difficult to detect.The building of AMANDA and the associated problems, including the properties of Antarctic ice and the detection of neutrinos coming from 10 billion light years away, represents an awesome challenge to particle and astrophysicists.

At 28 pages, "Analogy as the Core of Cognition" is the longest essay. How do we know, remember, judge, and reason? Hofstadter argues that "chunking"--the taking and combining of words and phrases, resulting in small groupings of facts or concepts with like features--is a primary mechanism. These "chunks" may be stored in long-term memory and available for recall as discrete "chunks," then processed in working memory to allow for higher cognitive functions.The analogy to the organization of the personal computer is obvious.

"Of Mice and Elephants: A Matter of Scale" by Johnson is a fascinating summary of the surprising relationships between body mass and other biological functions. It is well known that most mammals, allowed to live their natural life span, expend approximately the same number of heart beats.The difference is that the mouse uses them up more rapidly, the elephant more slowly. Also, for example, the mouse lives one-third of the duration of the cat--provided it is not...