Very pleased to find this book was actually an amalgamation of famous authors writing 21 chapters to celebrate the 350th anniversary of The Royal Society. Collaboration of various authors including Margaret Atwood, Neal Stephenson, Richard Dawkins, Paul Davies, Maggie Gee, and others. Essays on The Royal Society. Particularly enjoyed Atwood's contribution relating fiction of Swift.
Below is my notes on each chapter:
1. Formation of society bringing like minded men together, and common questions and experiments they aimed to understand and undergo.
2. Mad scientist, Faust. Swift "acting in synergy with the Royal Society". Without the r.s., there would have been no scientist in Gulliver's Travels. Swift's "projectors", the fictional scientists experimentation and inventions existed for the benefit of mankind. "The Grand Academy of Lagado" is a satire of the r.s. itself. Scientific experimentation in fiction; Swift, Shelley (Frankenstein), Hawthorn (Dr Rappacini & The Birthmark "), Tom Brown's Schooldays, Jekyll & Hyde, Dr Moreau,
3. Christianity and science. Brilliant essay.
3. Especially related to Dante.
4. Metaphysics, Leibniz - tutored princess Caroline, invented binary, used reasoning to "prove" his ideas. Invented "monads", the stuff inside atoms that has choice and awareness. Much of his work unpublished.
5. The bringing together of science and maths. Aristotle logic. Galileo, Copernicus Descartes newton maths.
Kant "experimentation without mathematical explanation is blind; mathematical explanation without experimentation is empty "
6. Royal society advising the government. Lightning rods. Public trust in science.
7. Ballomania 1783
8. Specimen collection. Joseph Banks, sir Hans Sloane, natural history
9. Darwin, Patrick Matthew, Alfred Russell Wallace, Robert Malthus. Evolution
10. Civil engineers Telford, Fairbrain and Robert Stephenson elected members of r.s. after success of bridge construction (Britannia bridge). Goes on to describe other world bridges
11. First women to join r s. Kathleen Yardley and Marjorie Stephenson. The relationship between society members and how they helped each other, particularly Bragg's and x-rays
12. Species in danger throughout the world. "1859 London was the largest city on Earth" (population)
13. Argument to establish material science and engineering as a science, particularly related to Francis Bacon's New Atlantis. First description in story is mining metals. Mentions how Agricola's De Re Metallica (standard text for two centuries) contains summary of mining techniques and the detrimental effect mining has on the environment. Henry Ford experimented with an all plastic car made from extracts of soya beans.
14. Evolution of ideas about the universe, discoveries of the milky way, SETI, Goldilocks planets, the multiverse.
15. Relates the importance of Newton and Boole's mathematics in relation to space exploration. Goes on to list various everyday things we use that wouldn't exist without maths, especially describing JPEG images (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
16. The shift of physics to turn towards "gauge" theories, maths to work out a theory of everything, looking at patterns and symmetry. "Mathematics is simply the catalogue of all possible patterns"
17. George Orwell collected essays vol 4, essay on how he could convince a sceptic that the earth was spherical. Visions of astronomy have often stood as an emblem for all the other precise, disinterested but forward-looking observations of science. How looking at the earth from outside changes perception of humans.
18. The apocalypse (newton worked out the date as 2060 from the bible)
Fiction (murakami's hard boiled....) Metaphorical opening of two doors into alternate universes, both longing for a lost daylight world of physical beauty. Talks about many other authors fiction and non fiction related to earth disasters. About her own fiction disasters. How royal society for literature doesn't do anything for climate change, but helps people to come to terms and experience disasters.
19. How r.s. consults and advises about climate change, along with many other scientific groups through out the world (i.e. the IPCC). The use of statistics and probability, particularly Bayesian statistics.
20. Time from the creation of Earth, arguments between religion and science Einstein telling the world time can speed up or slow down with movement How time cannot go backwards (entropy) Time can be obliterated (by black holes)
21. A summary of the role of r.s. in it's 350th year, by Martin Rees, the present (in 2010) elected president. ( )

I enjoyed the contributions and perspectives by the various authors. Being an IT professional my favorite line was by Martin Rees FRS "The global village will have its village idiots". ( )

This is a collection of essays written to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society of London, edited and curated by the omnipresent Bill Bryson. The main attraction for me was that the essays, each focusing on a member of the Society, or a discovery, or on some aspect of its innumerable contributions to human knowledge, were written by a large cast: authors like James Gleick, Margret Atwood, and Neal Stephenson rub shoulders with actual scientists and mathematicians like Richard Dawkins, Ian Stewart, and Gregory Benford. This means there's a variety of perspectives, which is both good and bad. My favorite was Stephenson's explanation of how superstar philosopher/mathematician/inventor/general scientific badass Gottfried Leibniz's bizarre monad philosophy compared not only with archrival Isaac Newton's discoveries, but also with contemporary work into the nature of reality. It's a perfect example of a talented author tackling a difficult subject (I'm not sure anyone knows exactly what Leibniz was thinking, but he's been ridiculed by everyone from Voltaire on down) with style and thoughtfulness. My other favorite was Dawkins' essay on Darwin, which is a similarly good example of how to clearly explain exactly why a complicated idea not only makes sense, but explains the world better than its alternatives. While there were several that either fell short of the mark or were otherwise lacking of interesting content (Margaret Wertheim's piece in particular had an almost unbearably high ratio of words to ideas, and was full of freshman undergrad-type vagaries), overall it was an excellent collection. If you're looking for a quick sampler of perspectives on scientific issues, you could certainly do worse, and it made me aware of the Society's vast influence on the modern world. ( )

5706. Seeing Further The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society, edited by Bill Bryson (read 14 Sep 2020) This 490 page book contains 22 essays by mostly British scholars, on various aspects of science, past and present. I nearly always finish a book I start but almost quit when early on I read an essay which was hard to understand. But the next essay was comprehensible and interesting so I kept reading and finished the book. I will not claim I comprehended all the concepts discussed but there was enough fascinating that I think I got something from the book. Lots of things to think about. ( )

A mostly-very-good collection of essays to mark the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society. The contributions by James Gleick, Margaret Atwood, Richard Holmes, Richard Fortey, and Neal Stephenson were those I liked best. ( )