This post is a review of a biography of Marie Curie, written by her youngest daughter, Eve. Translated from the French by Vincent Shean, it won the American National Book Award for Non-Fiction in 1937, became a bestseller, and was first adapted into a movie in 1943 (later there were more films, the latest being Radioactive ) . The biography is written by someone who not only knew Marie Curie well, but was a family member. The book reads true and intimately. Issues are consid

Physics presents to us a towering intellectual edifice of knowledge and insight, an immensely deep and powerful way of looking at the world. It may not come as a surprise that human reactions to the structure, organization, nature, demands and implications of this eminent system of thought may sometimes be somewhat off-kilter. As a practitioner of physics, I find these reactions interesting and sometimes revealing of the way non-physicists regards physics. I will consider thr

This post is a review of the book ABCs of Science by Giuseppe Mussardo . General review : The author exposes the reader to some of the great concepts and discoveries of science through the lens of personality and history. This is not a bad idea, in my opinion, as it gives the book coherence and the material the fascination and immediacy of story. As may be expected, there are 26 chapters, arranged in alphabetical order of name or topic: the chapters deal with Abel, Boltzmann

Organized contests in physics and mathematics have been around for a while: probably the most famous ones are the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge; the Westinghouse and the Putnam in the United States; and the International Physics and Mathematics Olympiads. This post is about the correlation - or the lack thereof - between the winners list of these contests and the ranks of top scientists (e.g. signified by the Nobel prize or the Fields Medal). International Physics Olympiad