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STUDIO 8
Published in the United States by DK Publishing
4th floor, 345 Hudson Street New York, New York 10014
14 15 16 17 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 001–192893–July/2014
Copyright © 2014 Dorling Kindersley Limited
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of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the
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Published in Great Britain by Dorling Kindersley Limited
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ISBN: 978-1-4654-1965-1
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LONDON, NEW YORK, MELBOURNE,
MUNICH, AND DELHI
ADAM HART-DAVIS, CONSULTANT EDITOR
Adam Hart-Davis trained as a chemist at the universities of
Oxford and York, and Alberta, Canada. He spent five years
editing science books, and has been making television and
radio programs about science, technology, mathematics, and
history, as producer and host, for 30 years. He has written 30
books on science, technology, and history.
JOHN FARNDON
John Farndon is a science writer whose books have been
short-listed for the Royal Society junior science book prize four
times and for the Society of Authors Education Award. His
books include The Great Scientists and The Oceans Atlas. He
was a contributor to DK’s Science and Science Year by Year.
DAN GREEN
Dan Green is an author and science writer. He has an MA
in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and has
written over 40 titles. He received two separate nominations
for the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize 2013 and
his Basher Science series has sold over 2 million copies.
DEREK HARVEY
Derek Harvey is a naturalist with a particular interest in
evolutionary biology, and a writer for titles that include DK’s
Science and The Natural History Book. He studied Zoology at
the University of Liverpool, taught a generation of biologists,
and has led expeditions to Costa Rica and Madagascar.
PENNY JOHNSON
Penny Johnson started out as an aeronautical
engineer, working on military aircraft for 10 years
before becoming a science teacher, then a publisher
producing science courses for schools. Penny has been
a full-time educational writer for over 10 years.
DOUGLAS PALMER
Douglas Palmer, a science writer based in Cambridge,
Britain, has published more than 20 books in the last
14 years—most recently an app (NHM Evolution) for
the Natural History Museum, London, and DK’s WOW
Dinosaur book for children. He is also a lecturer for the
University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education.
STEVE PARKER
Steve Parker is a writer and editor of more than 300
information books specializing in science, particularly
biology and allied life sciences. He holds a BSc in Zoology,
is a Senior Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society of
London, and has authored titles for a range of ages and
publishers. Steve has received numerous awards, most
recently the 2013 UK School Library Association
Information Book Award for Science Crazy.
GILES SPARROW
Giles Sparrow studied astronomy at University College
London and Science Communication at Imperial College,
London, and is a best-selling science and astronomy author.
His books include Cosmos, Spaceflight, The Universe in
100 Key Discoveries, and Physics in Minutes, as well as
contributions to DK books such as Universe and Space.
CONTRIBUTORS
10 INTRODUCTION
THE BEGINNING OF SCIENCE600 BCE–1400 CE
20 Eclipses of the Sun can be predicted Thales of Miletus
21 Now hear the fourfold roots of everything Empedocles
22 Measuring the circumference of Earth Eratosthenes
23 The human is related to the lower beings Al-Tusi
24 A floating object displaces its own volume in liquid Archimedes
26 The Sun is like fire, the Moon is like water Zhang Heng
28 Light travels in straight lines into our eyes Alhazen
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION1400–1700
34 At the center of everything is the Sun Nicolaus Copernicus
40 The orbit of every planet is an ellipse Johannes Kepler
42 A falling body accelerates uniformly Galileo Galilei
44 The globe of the Earth is a magnet William Gilbert
45 Not by arguing, but by trying Francis Bacon
46 Touching the spring of the air Robert Boyle
50 Is light a particle or a wave? Christiaan Huygens
52 The first observation of a transit of Venus Jeremiah Horrocks
53 Organisms develop in a series of steps Jan Swammerdam
54 All living things are composed of cells Robert Hooke
CONTENTS
55 Layers of rock form on top of one another Nicolas Steno
56 Microscopic observations of animalcules Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
58 Measuring the speed of light Ole Rømer
60 One species never springs from the seed of another John Ray
62 Gravity affects everything in the universe Isaac Newton
EXPANDING HORIZONS1700–1800
74 Nature does not proceed by leaps and bounds Carl Linnaeus
76 The heat that disappears in the conversion of water into vapor is not lost Joseph Black
78 Inflammable air Henry Cavendish
80 Winds, as they come nearer the equator, become more easterly George Hadley
81 A strong current comes out of the Gulf of Florida Benjamin Franklin
82 Dephlogisticated air Joseph Priestley
84 In nature, nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything changes Antoine Lavoisier
85 The mass of a plant comes from the air Jan Ingenhousz
86 Discovering new planets William Herschel
88 The diminution of the velocity of light John Michell
90 Setting the electric fluid in motion Alessandro Volta
96 No vestige of a beginning and no prospect of an end James Hutton
102 The attraction of mountains Nevil Maskelyne
104 The mystery of nature in the structure and fertilization of flowers Christian Sprengel
105 Elements always combine the same way Joseph Proust
A CENTURY OF PROGRESS1800–1900
110 The experiments may be repeated with great ease when the Sun shines Thomas Young
112 Ascertaining the relative weights of ultimate particles John Dalton
114 The chemical effects produced by electricity Humphry Davy
115 Mapping the rocks of a nation William Smith
116 She knows to what tribe the bones belong Mary Anning
118 The inheritance of acquired characteristics Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
119 Every chemical compound has two parts Jöns Jakob Berzelius
120 The electric conflict is not restricted to the conducting wire Hans Christian Ørsted
121 One day, sir, you may tax it Michael Faraday
122 Heat penetrates every substance in the universe Joseph Fourier
124 The artificial production of organic substances from inorganic substances Friedrich Wöhler
126 Winds never blow in a straight line Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis
127 On the colored light of the binary stars Christian Doppler
128 The glacier was God’s great plough Louis Agassiz
130 Nature can be represented as one great whole Alexander von Humboldt
136 Light travels more slowly in water than in air Léon Foucault
138 Living force may be converted into heat James Joule
139 Statistical analysis of molecular movement Ludwig Boltzmann
140 Plastic is not what I meant to invent Leo Baekeland
142 I have called this principle natural selection Charles Darwin
150 Forecasting the weather Robert FitzRoy
156 Omne vivum ex vivo— all life from life Louis Pasteur
160 One of the snakes grabbed its own tail August Kekulé
166 The definitely expressed average proportion of three to one Gregor Mendel
172 An evolutionary link between birds and dinosaurs Thomas Henry Huxley
174 An apparent periodicity of properties Dmitri Mendeleev
180 Light and magnetism are affectations of the same substance James Clerk Maxwell
186 Rays were coming from the tube Wilhelm Röntgen
188 Seeing into the Earth Richard Dixon Oldham
190 Radiation is an atomic property of the elements Marie Curie
196 A contagious living fluid Martinus Beijerinck
A PARADIGM SHIFT1900–1945
202 Quanta are discrete packets of energy Max Planck
206 Now I know what the atom looks like Ernest Rutherford
214 Gravity is a distortion in the space-time continuum Albert Einstein
222 Earth’s drifting continents are giant pieces in an ever-changing jigsaw Alfred Wegener
224 Chromosomes play a role in heredity Thomas Hunt Morgan
226 Particles have wavelike properties Erwin Schrödinger
234 Uncertainty is inevitable Werner Heisenberg
236 The universe is big… and getting bigger Edwin Hubble
242 The radius of space began at zero Georges Lemaître
246 Every particle of matter has an antimatter counterpart Paul Dirac
248 There is an upper limit beyond which a collapsing stellar core becomes unstable Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
249 Life itself is a process of obtaining knowledge Konrad Lorenz