Prism and the Pendulum The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments in Science Book

Crease seems to really think highly of scientists. He also seems to think that beauty in science is a foregone conclusion. What's of interest in this book is the short historic biographies of these interesting people and the experiments they did, and the impact that they had. Crease himself is not a poet, nor does he seem to have a deeper understand of what is beauty or anything else. Instead he looks to share what he has found in with us, and that's okay.

I think this could be an inspirational text for people in college or high school. Crease takes a very standard view of what is real and venerates these scientists, although he seems to take art, truth and beauty in a very uncritical way, repeating these words over and over as though to impress upon us the depth of what these scientists did and the impact they had on our world view. Essentially Crease is a reporter and historian of no great depth, although what he writes is interesting because it adds meaning for me -- although I am not sure that Creases readers will see what he means to impart automatically. Crease assumes a context in his book that he doesn't fully explain -- and that I think is beyond his ability to explain.

This is a basic history-science book, and that's okay.