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The Great Scientists in Bite-sized Chunks

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Since ancient times, the greatest minds have tried to make sense of the universe by observing objects far beyond our abilities to see or touch - from the smallest atom to the farthest star.



Covering, in chronological order, the key discoveries of the most prolific thinkers in each scientific field, including Aristotle, Darwin, da Vinci, Newton, Descartes and Hawking, the book also includes highlights of the most influential scientists' lives and works. Learn how Ptolemy fixed his results to match his theories; how Freud used cocaine to expand his thinking; and how Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, was banned from using university computers after being caught hacking.



Revealing how human curiosity knows no bounds, this book showcases the visionaries who have dared to question established 'truths' and whose theories shaped how we now look at the world.

224 pages, Hardcover

Published September 3, 2015

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179 people want to read

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Meredith MacArdle

25 books2 followers

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5 stars
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53 (39%)
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
Profile Image for Maria Espadinha.
1,144 reviews490 followers
January 11, 2020
Ciência (e Cientistas) em Pequenas Doses


Florence Bascom, uma geóloga do século XIX, chegou a leccionar por trás dum biombo, para que os alunos não se apercebessem que estavam a ser ensinados por uma mulher!
(E, quanto a mim, é bem provável que tenha também engrossado a voz e envergado trajos de homem!)

Sigmund Freud, o grande mestre da psicanálise, consumia cocaína para expandir a mente (ou seria para melhor suportar os incontáveis neuróticos que o procuravam?! 😉) ao ponto de atingir o estatuto de viciado!

Na descoberta da poliomielite foi utilizado um vírus morto. Morto?! Não estaria apenas moribundo?! Porque raio iria o sistema imunológico defender-se dum vírus já morto?!
Não! Estava realmente morto! Por incrível que pareça, um vírus inerte também desencadeia uma resposta defensiva no nosso, ultra prudente, sistema imunológico! Não fosse ele, algum dia, ressuscitar e causar danos irreversíveis 😂!

O célebre Pasteur, era de tal forma obcecado por germes, que examinava à lupa 🔍 copos, pratos e talheres antes de cada refeição!

Lavoisier, viu a sua brilhante carreira de cientista interrompida pela malfadada guilhotina!............


Enfim!... São múltiplas as curiosidades com que este livrinho nos presenteia. São pequenas doses de ciência e cientistas que nos deixam a aguar por mais, levando-nos a matutar, questionar, investigar e... em última análise ... a improvisar!... 😉👍
Profile Image for Maria Espadinha.
1,144 reviews490 followers
January 24, 2021
A Glimpse of Science History


If you read an awful book the only reason you won’t flush it into the toilet it’s because you fear for the health of the pipe 😉

If you read a so-so book the only reason you won’t use most of its pages as toilet paper it’s because you fear for the health of... you know what 😉

How manny books are there where every page counts?

Sadly, not manny!...

Even in good books, you often find pages that could be perfectly disposable cos they are adding zero to the contents!

In this book you’re bound to feel the opposite:
A very few pages for such a vast subject!

However, it will provide you some good glimpses in quite interesting subjects and will tease you to search for more...

Better a lil hunger than a stuffed belly 😜🌟🌟🌟🌟👍
Profile Image for Nathan Petrin Baranauskas.
26 reviews1 follower
November 19, 2017
Before I start this reading this book, I saw some people complaining that it's too superficial. Fact one: Yes, it's true. Fact two: This is also obvious.
The proposal of the book is to give you a very short overview about the science history, and it's exactly what it delivers. If you want something deeper, you need to look for another book.

I liked it because gave me the chance to knew about some names that I never had the chance to hear about, mainly the oriental names, which aren't very popular on the occident. Worth the read.
159 reviews2 followers
August 25, 2019
Really interesting. Delves into all branches of science from astronomy to physics to medicine. Back in the dark ages they would burn a guy at the stake for going against the church, these days science and religion can and do co exist.
Profile Image for İlhanCa.
857 reviews5 followers
February 21, 2022
Kitap adıyla hem hal olmuş..bir nefeste büyük bilim insanlarının anlatıldığı bir eser..bir çırpıda bitirmek yerine, ihtiyaç halinde içindeki bilgilere ulaşılacak ansiklopedik kitap gibi geldi bana..
167 reviews19 followers
July 21, 2021
A simple book gives an overview of many scientists and explains their achievements within a page. The book is divided into categories such as Astronomy, Physics, Biology, Environment, etc, and goes from the earliest changemaker in this field to the latest. It is very easy to see how each of the scientists stood on top of the research done by the previous one, sometimes in a different field. The personal characteristics and the challenges faced by these scientists in their respective eras were entertaining to read.

In terms of personal characteristics, Roentgen, after discovering X-rays, had refused to benefit financially from his discovery believing that it should be freely available to all.

I wanted to note down Rudolf Virchow's view, wherein he believes: "Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale".
Profile Image for Razan.
14 reviews1 follower
May 14, 2024
قرأت هذا الكتاب مترجم ولم ادري هل المشكلة في اسلوب الكاتبتين نفسه ام في الترجمة. حيث بدت الكلمات جامدة بلا طعم ولا تناسق .
يحتوي الكتاب عدة فصول وهي: علم الفلك،الفيزياء،الرياضيات،الكيمياء،الاحياء،الطب،الجيولوجيا.
وقد تم ذكر انجاز كل عالم بإيجاز فعلًا مع ذكر مقتطفات من السير الذاتية لبعض العلماء . والمميز انه تم ذكر بعض المعلومات الجديدة والتي لم اسمع بها من قبل
عدا ذلك الافضل لك ان تقرأ على الانترنت ان كنت ترغب بالتوسع والتفصيل
Profile Image for Eva.
703 reviews31 followers
November 23, 2016
For a person life long in humanities whose science knowledge is a patchy mixture of whatever makes the news and leftover highschool facts it's always a good idea to brush up on the basics, and in that regard, this book definitely did its job for me. I don't have wide enough knowledge to judge how accurate or inclusive it is, but I can say it's very accessible and readable, when not particularly amusing. The chunks about each scientist is indeed bite-sized, with a good portion of autobiography and achievements, but the book lacked that little bit extra in order to call it very enjoyable.
19 reviews
June 24, 2018
This is a great book and is exactly as the title says
Profile Image for Fábio Ferreira.
55 reviews
January 28, 2021
A proposta do livro nos permite notar bem como a ciência evoluiu nas diversas áreas do conhecimento em época diferentes.

Interessante ver como a química começou ontem perto de outras ciências, como a astronomia.
133 reviews2 followers
September 22, 2019
Horrível. Incompleto e com forte viés. Informações de Wikipedia. Não recomendo.
19 reviews
August 12, 2020
Legal por alguns fatos interessantes sobre cientistas ao longo do livro.
3 reviews
April 8, 2020
This book made me know some characters that I never had heard about. Yes, even being much superficial this book it worth!
Profile Image for Audrey Strange.
2 reviews
April 30, 2022
Over half of the population in the world are females. I'm sure many of them are scientists. So, WHAT IS YOUR EXCUSE FOR PUTTING SIX WOMEN IN THIS AND OVER 100 MEN?
No, didn't think you had one.
I read this whole book and at the start I liked it. Then I realised, oh wait- THERE ARE NO LADIES IN THIS. IF YOU WANTED TO BE HONEST YOU COULD HAVE SAID THE GREAT MEN Scientists and then this stupid book never would have been published.

Women scientists get enough recognition in the world today, less than 30% of the world's scientists are women because they weren't even given a chance before. Additionally, if you look closer in history you also see that many many many times men stole the credit for the discoveries that women made. Couldn't they take it to court? Oops oh no women weren't allowed to charge court cases :/

Okay so I did a count to prove it:
Men: 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 卌 II so that's 117
Women: 卌 I and that, my friends, is six.
I can't believe no one else has commented on how unacceptable this is.

But yeah, other than that, go ahead and read it.
36 reviews
January 1, 2018
I'd give this three and a half stars if it were possible. I really liked the idea of going through different scientists in small sections and the way the book was organised into different sections for things like Biology and Chemistry.

I would have fewer scientists to have been mentioned, so that the authors could have gone into more detail with the same number of pages, but I do understand that it goes against the concept of the book. Sometimes, the work of some scientists weren't as fully detailed as some of the newer scientists, which I didn't think was fair.

The ending felt very abrupt.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews

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