Who Discovered What When

David Ellyard (author)

Reed New Holland, Australia: 2005; 426pp

ISBN: 1877069221

Note: extension vocabulary

Genres: factual text, general knowledge, information text, non-fiction, science

Issues: creativity, discovery

‘Who Discovered What When will introduce you to the growth of scientific ideas over the past five hundred years and to the people who brought them to life. It sets the ideas in a context of time and place and provides a framework for understanding the concepts and theories that have shapd our modern scientific world view.' (p7)

Many Australians will know David Ellyard as a former weather presenter on the ABC. He is much more than that, however, having been, amongst other things, a scientific researcher, teacher and government policy adviser. At the time of writing he was President of the Australian Science Communicators.

This is a fascinating book for those who are interested in a wide range of things, especially in the sciences. Ellyard has divided the history of science from 1550 to 2000 into bites of fifty years, with each section broken into easily accessible subheadings with usually no more than five paragraphs of information under each. This makes it simple to access information about specific events or people, especially as the dates are printed at the side of the page in a large font, allowing the reader to flick through the pages quickly to arrive at a specific year.

The content itself is absorbing, covering as it does everything from the very beginnings of science - the theories (without experiments) of Aristotle, Ptolemy and Galen - to the Ages of Galileo and Newton, the development of machinery, the growth of chemistry, right through to quantum physics and the huge science industry of today. You can scan the index and select from items as wide-ranging as amber, blue shifts (to do with light), caffeine, human immunodeficiency, weather forecasting and x-rays, not to mention any number of far more esoteric topics.

What is particularly appealing about this book is that the text is so readable. Ellyard uses jargon, certainly - it would be impossible to avoid, given the subject matter. Each segment is easily understandable, however, and technical terms are explained simply. Very much a book for those who are interested but not necessarily trained in science, this is a must-have for the curious, the collectors of minutiae, or those who simply care about the world and how it works.

Highly recommended.