Chance and Design: Reminiscences of Science in Peace and War - Couverture rigide

Hodgkin, Alan

 
9780521400992: Chance and Design: Reminiscences of Science in Peace and War
Couverture rigide
ISBN 10 : 0521400996 ISBN 13 : 9780521400992
Editeur : Cambridge University Press, 1992

Synopsis

Alan Hodgkin believes that - contrary to popular conviction - chance plays quite as large a role as design in scientific discovery. This engaging autobiography charts the balance of the two in his own life. Beginning starts with an account of his childhood in an extended Quaker family. Not a great success at school, he nevertheless won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, and he writes informatively of the climate of university opinion in the thirties when he was an undergraduate and came to abandon the pacifist ideals of his upbringing. A chance observation on frog nerve led to a Trinity Fellowship and a year at the Rockefeller Institute in New York (where he met his future wife), to the Nobel Prize in 1963, and ultimately to the Presidency of the Royal Society. His experiments on nerve conduction seemed almost at the point of success when everything had to be abandoned on the outbreak of war in 1939, and for six years Hodgkin worked on the concept and design of airborne radar, described in the central section of the book as Flight Trials and Tribulations. The account of his return to civilian life and the resumption of experimentation includes two chapters of solid detail of Starting Again - for this is a book for any reader interested in the origin and development of a dedicated scientist.

Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Présentation de l'éditeur

Alan Hodgkin believes that - contrary to popular conviction - chance plays quite as large a role as design in scientific discovery. This engaging autobiography charts the balance of the two in his own life. Beginning starts with an account of his childhood in an extended Quaker family. Not a great success at school, he nevertheless won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, and he writes informatively of the climate of university opinion in the thirties when he was an undergraduate and came to abandon the pacifist ideals of his upbringing. A chance observation on frog nerve led to a Trinity Fellowship and a year at the Rockefeller Institute in New York (where he met his future wife), to the Nobel Prize in 1963, and ultimately to the Presidency of the Royal Society. His experiments on nerve conduction seemed almost at the point of success when everything had to be abandoned on the outbreak of war in 1939, and for six years Hodgkin worked on the concept and design of airborne radar, described in the central section of the book as Flight Trials and Tribulations. The account of his return to civilian life and the resumption of experimentation includes two chapters of solid detail of Starting Again - for this is a book for any reader interested in the origin and development of a dedicated scientist.

Revue de presse

'Hodgkin comes across in this enjoyable book as a genial and humane scientist passionately devoted to his research for its own sake both before and after being awarded his Nobel prize.' M. F. Perutz, Nature

'A masterly exposition of his life's work.' Sir Bernard Katz, New Scientist

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
Cambridge University Press
Date d'édition
1992
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
0521400996
ISBN 13 
9780521400992
Reliure
Relié
Nombre de pages
424
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
Avery
https://www.avery.fr/

chemin des peupliers 27
Dardilly
France

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780521456036: Chance & Design: Reminiscences of Science in Peace and War

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  0521456037 ISBN 13 :  9780521456036
Editeur : Cambridge University Press, 1994
Couverture souple