Nine Crazy Ideas in Science: A Few Might Even Be True

(Paperback)

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Description

AIDS is not caused by HIV. Coal and oil are not fossil fuels. Distributing more guns reduces crime. These ideas make headlines, but most educated people scoff at them. Yet some of science's most important concepts - from gravity to evolution - have surfaced from the pool of crazy ideas. Here, a physicist with an affinity for odd ideas applied his open mind to nine controversial propositions on topical subjects. Some, it turns out, are considerably lower on the cuckoo scale than others. Anyone interested in unorthodox ideas should enjoy this book. And, as a fun way of learning how to think like a scientist, it also has educational value.

Reviews

"Modern science, especially physics, is replete with outlandish ideas that defy common sense and intuition. It is almost impossible for the non-scientist to discriminate between the legitimately weird and the outright crackpot... Robert Ehrlich has assembled a fascinating collection of apparently crazy ideas, and subjected them to careful analysis... Ehrlich points out how statistics can be misleadingly presented ... and how the distinction between effects that are causally related and those that are merely correlated often gets blurred."--Paul Davies, Nature "Clear and lively... Ehrlich ... is entertaining, but the genuine value of his book lies in the analyses... An important addition to an underpopulated genre of science books: It critically examines both sides of interesting, important, and unsettled arguments."--William H. Ingham, Physics Today

Author Bio

Robert Ehrlich is Professor of Physics at George Mason University. His books include "Why Toast Lands Jelly-Side Down" and "Turning the World Inside Out and 174 Other Simple Physics Demonstrations" (both Princeton).