Physics – Physics Education
Scientific paper
Jul 2000
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2000phyed..35..307a&link_type=abstract
Physics Education, Volume 35, Issue 4, pp. 307-310 (2000).
Physics
Physics Education
Scientific paper
This is an interesting and wide-ranging book, but not, I regret to say, one that will have much appeal to most readers of Physics Education, nor to most of their students. It is a cultural study rather than a scientific one, and its concern is with civilization's relationship to the small in general rather to dust in particular. This in itself is no barrier to value or enjoyment, but I felt that even as a cultural history the book lacked focus and structure. The subject of dust is cleverly interwoven into the book's broad general fabric, but the reader will not gain much insight into the nature of dust (in the technical sense) and may even be misled about its role in specific scientific contexts.
Perhaps my sensibilities have been dulled by reviewing too many fact-packed textbooks, but I felt somewhat alienated by the dilute and wordy style of this book from the outset. Dust is clearly designed for cover-to-cover reading, rather than occasional or repeated consultation. Even so, I found it annoying to be confronted by a work of non-fiction that had no index and used chapter headings that were often obscure. A reader trying to relocate some specific point is unlikely to be much helped by headings such as `Lighting Up the Microcosm' or `The Snake Still Lurks'. The second of these chapters is largely about the relationship between dust (in the author's general sense of that term) and environmentalism, and is actually quite good. `Lighting Up the Microcosm', on the other hand, is much harder to characterize. It starts with a comment on the improvement of lighting in the 20th century and goes on to embrace DNA, Dolly the sheep, Chernobyl, PET scanning, x-ray astronomy, cosmic dust and a variety of other topics, all within a single subsection entitled `Science achieves greater control of the small'. It's here, incidentally, amidst the dusty cosmos, that I became most alarmed at the possibility of readers being unintentionally misled. A discussion of (baryonic) cosmic dust becomes confusingly entangled with a discussion of dark matter (quite possibly non-baryonic) in a way that could leave many readers with quite the wrong impression of the current astronomical view regarding the significance of dust.
This is a generous spirited book, written by an author of wide learning (though clearly not by a scientist). It touches on many subjects, explores many aspects of history, and exposes a number of unexpected links between our ability to observe the microworld and the general currents of our culture. I am sure that there are many students of cultural studies who will enjoy Dust and benefit from it. For most physicists, however, even those looking for some holiday reading, or seeking a good basis for an essay on the cultural significance of physics, this is book is probably best left on the shelf.
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