Mapping the Next Millennium: The Discovery of New Geographies

The title's ``new geographies'' encompass the furthest reaches of the universe and the ``landscape of the chromosome,'' regions made newly visible with such imaging tools as the computer, Voyager 2 satellite and other remote sensors. Most of these new maps are the purest of data images, constructed of information gathered in galactic surveys, from mathematicians' computers and in the laboratories of molecular biologists. In the last 20 years, having developed the means to make its concepts visible and therefore more accessible, science offers maps of a moon of Neptune, the mathematical constant pi and a crooked string of DNA. Hall ( Invisible Frontiers ) is a knowledgeable guide and fluid writer; his introductory and concluding considerations of the map as an extended ``tool of thought'' are fluent science writing. But the sheer range of the areas he investigates--chaos theory to neurology--may overreach the limits of his theme and the comprehension of many readers. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Nov.)