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The bestselling author of E=mc2 weaves tales of romance, divine inspiration, and fraud through an account of the invisible force that permeates our universe—electricity—and introduces us to the virtuoso scientists who plumbed its secrets. For centuries, electricity was seen as little more than a curious property of certain substances that sparked when rubbed. Then, in the 1790s, Alessandro Volta began the scientific investigation that ignited an explosion of knowledge and invention. The force that once seemed inconsequential was revealed to be responsible for everything from the structure of the atom to the functioning of our brains. In harnessing its power, we have created a world of wonders—complete with roller coasters and radar, computer networks and psychopharmaceuticals. In Electric Universe, the great discoverers come to life in all their brilliance and idiosyncrasy, including the visionary Michael Faraday, who struggled against the prejudices of the British class system, and Samuel Morse, a painter who, before inventing the telegraph, ran for mayor of New York City on a platform of persecuting Catholics. Here too is Alan Turing, whose dream of a marvelous thinking machine—what we know as the computer—was met with indifference, and who ended his life in despair after British authorities forced him to undergo experimental treatments to “cure” his homosexuality. From the frigid waters of the Atlantic to the streets of Hamburg during a World War II firestorm to the interior of the human body, Electric Universe is a mesmerizing journey of discovery.
The bestselling author of E=mc2 weaves tales of romance, divine inspiration, and fraud through an account of the invisible force that permeates our universe—electricity—and introduces us to the virtuoso scientists who plumbed its secrets. For centuries, electricity was seen as little more than a curious property of certain substances that sparked when rubbed. Then, in the 1790s, Alessandro Volta began the scientific investigation that ignited an explosion of knowledge and invention. The force that once seemed inconsequential was revealed to be responsible for everything from the structure of the atom to the functioning of our brains. In harnessing its power, we have created a world of wonders—complete with roller coasters and radar, computer networks and psychopharmaceuticals. In Electric Universe, the great discoverers come to life in all their brilliance and idiosyncrasy, including the visionary Michael Faraday, who struggled against the prejudices of the British class system, and Samuel Morse, a painter who, before inventing the telegraph, ran for mayor of New York City on a platform of persecuting Catholics. Here too is Alan Turing, whose dream of a marvelous thinking machine—what we know as the computer—was met with indifference, and who ended his life in despair after British authorities forced him to undergo experimental treatments to “cure” his homosexuality. From the frigid waters of the Atlantic to the streets of Hamburg during a World War II firestorm to the interior of the human body, Electric Universe is a mesmerizing journey of discovery.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the bookPart I: No Wires
When the universe was very young, in the first moments after the Big Bang, powerful charged electrons began to pour out of the swirling furnace that filled empty space. Many became part of simple hydrogen atoms that tumbled through the cosmos and ended up within huge stars.
In their long sojourn within the stars, and then even more when the stars blasted apart, multitudes of those simple atoms were squeezed together with such force that larger atoms were created.
Metals such as copper, iron, and silver were born.
For eons these metals, too, floated through space. In time they fell toward a new solar system, and became part of ore deposits on the North American continent. They were joined by metal atoms that had been created in other distant starbursts. Hidden deep inside each atom, as the ore lay buried, powerful electron charges remained.
Mountains rose and fell. Giant reptiles hunted in fern forests; ecosystems changed, and giant mammals hunted in coniferous and broad-leaf forests. Small groups of arrow-using humans arrived from Asia; thousands of years later, more humans arrived, on giant floating vessels from Europe and Africa. There were cruel frontier wars, and new settlements arose. The soil was turned over for planting, and probed for metal ore. The hidden electrical charges, unchanged for billions of years, were about to be released.
1: The Frontiersman and the Dandy: Albany, 1830, and Washington, D.C., 1836
Joseph Henry was a strapping, rawboned American from the distant reaches of the frontier state of New York, who by the age of thirty had left jobs as a handyman (too boring), a builder (too low paid), a metal worker (too hot), and then, most disastrously, a surveyor, where he’d let himself be talked into leading a crew for several winter months through the forests toward the Canadian border (far, far too cold). In 1826, freshly back from the surveying and miraculously undamaged by frostbite, he heard about a position at a school in his native town of Albany. The salary would be low, and as a new hire Henry would be stuck with teaching elementary arithmetic along with other topics. But the classrooms would be warm—so he nabbed the new job in an instant.
He had dozens of farm boys to keep quiet—boys expert at spitballs and pencil jabs—but he knew what would keep them happy. Boys like building stuff, and the bigger the better. He’d just give them something really, really big to build.
The new field of electricity would be a good place to hunt for an idea, he decided, for it was an area he’d long been intrigued by in a casual, self-educated way. The word covered a whole range of effects, from small sparks of static to the giant lightning bolts investigated, famously, by Philadelphia’s best-known retired printer, Benjamin Franklin. It was interesting stuff, for it always seemed to involve a strange sort of sparking substance. No one knew much more about what it actually was, though—but Henry had just heard an intriguing hint.
Not many European science journals made it to Albany, but one that did, months late—after the usual long ocean voyage and the wait for the ice on the Hudson to melt—described the extraordinary experiment of a recently demobilized British artillery officer, William Sturgeon.
When Sturgeon had taken a piece of iron and wrapped a coil of wire around it, nothing much had happened. That was fair enough. But when he’d gone on and connected the wire to a battery so that Volta’s mysterious “electric” current sparked through the wire, the ordinary iron had seemed...
About the Author-
David Bodanis taught intellectual history at the University of Oxford. He is the author of several books, including The Secret House and the bestselling E=mc2, which was translated into more than twenty languages. A native of Chicago, he lives in London. His website can be found at davidbodanis.com.
Reviews-
December 6, 2004 This entertaining look at how electricity works and affects our daily lives is highlighted by Bodanis's charming narrative voice and by clever, fresh analogies that make difficult science accessible. Bodanis examines electricity's theoretical development and how 19th- and 20th-century entrepreneurs harnessed it to transform everyday existence. Going from "Wires" to "Waves" to computers and even the human body, Bodanis pairs electrical innovations with minibiographies of their developers, among them Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Guglielmo Marconi, Heinrich Herz and Alan Turing. In each case, Bodanis deepens his narrative by charting early failures—Edison's difficulty in finding a workable filament for the electric light bulb, for example—and financial struggles. And Bodanis can be a wry commentator on his subjects, noting, for example, how bedeviled Samuel Morse was by his telegraph patents—when the telegraph was actually invented by Joseph Henry, who refused to patent it. Surprisingly, Bodanis goes beyond the inorganic world of devices, delving deeply into the role electricity plays in the seemingly inhospitable "sloshing wet" human body, such as why being out in the cold makes us clumsy, or how alcohol works in the nervous system. Those who don't generally read science will find that Bodanis is a first-rate popularizer—as he also showed in his earlier E=MC 2—able to keep a happy balance between technical explanation and accessibility. Agent, Katinka Matson.
October 15, 2004 Best-selling science writer Bodanis illuminates the discovery-and the discoverers-of the sparkling force that runs your toaster, your brain, and the very atoms of the universe. With a five-city author tour.
Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
February 1, 2005 In his hip history of electricity, Bodanis casts his work with its principal discoverers and animates it with smart, often cutting commentary about their achievements, peculiarities, and tragedies. If some of the figures were racists (e.g., telegraphy inventor Samuel Morse and transistor coinventor William Shockley), Bodanis lets loose as much on their faults as on their electrical merits. If they were romantics (e.g., telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell), the author plays up their more laudable traits. And if their lives were cut short (e.g., Heinrich Hertz, discoverer of radio waves, and Alan Turing, theorist of the computer), Bodanis parallels the intensity of their research with the gloomy foreknowledge of their fate. Bodanis integrates his human-interest approach with effective imagery of electricity's fugitive behavior, in which it acts like something tangible (the electron) and also nonmaterial (the electromagnetic wave). Bodanis demonstrates once again (after " E=mc"" 2" [2000]) his commercial appeal.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)
April 4, 2005 Levy delivers a smart, crisp performance of Bodanis's enjoyable survey of the history of electricity. The text is mainly straight narration, with some diary excerpts and dialogue thrown in, but Levy wisely eschews character voices, letting the material—which is nicely augmented with compelling anecdotes and brief biographies of the scientists and inventors involved— speak for itself. In this way, listeners learn not only how Alexander Graham Bell developed the telephone, but also that his research was tied closely to his work with the deaf and his desire to win over a woman who had lost her hearing through illness. Levy's reading is nicely paced and features a direct, unembellished approach that works well for a book of science. Those looking for a lively popular science primer that will spark their curiosity could do no better than this fascinating audio. Simultaneous release with the Crown hardcover (Forecasts, Dec. 6, 2004).
December 1, 2004 Bodanis, a former Oxford lecturer and current popular science writer (e=mc2), explores the social impact and scientific development of electricity. He devotes individual chapters to the chronological development of technological applications from batteries, light bulbs, telegraph, electric motors, and radio to radar, transistors, computers, and neurotransmitters. Written in a nontechnical and conversational style, Bodanis's historical vignettes and stories of scientific breakthrough will spark readers' interest, but the lack of illustrations and historical photographs is an unfortunate drawback. Still, his successful intertwining of scientific facts and historical context makes this book a good choice for most popular science collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/04.]-Ian Gordon, Brock Univ. Lib., St. Catharines, Ont.
Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Bill Bryson, author of A Short History of Nearly Everything and A Walk in the Woods
"Hugely impressive. No one makes complex science more fascinating and accessible--and indeed more pleasurable--than David Bodanis."
Ross King, author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
"Bodanis wears his immense knowledge lightly. His crystal-clear explanations of everything from force fields under the Atlantic to GPS satellites combine with a flair for narrative and an eagle eye for obscure facts (where else can you learn that antidepressants turn into liquid electricity when swallowed?) to provide an intriguing account of how the wonders of electricity have transformed our world."
Simon Singh, author of Fermat's Enigma and Big Bang
"Electric Universe is a technological odyssey complete with heroes and villains, triumph and tragedy--a true scientific adventure."
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