Black Bodies and Quantum Cats: Tales from the Annals of Physics

An English major turned science writer, Ouellette describes physics, that most mathematically demanding science, using books, TV shows, movies and other pop culture mainstays, and the result is remarkably fresh and immensely readable. Starting with Da Vinci, Ouellette uses-what else?-The Da Vinci Code to explain the divine proportion before taking the reader on an anecdotal tour of the blacksmiths, shopkeepers' sons and royalty who tinkered with their curiosities, cumulatively advancing a science from Copernicus' looking at the sky, through Einstein's theory of special relativity (explained in terms of Back to the Future and Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen), until today's subatomic string theory. All major theories and breakthroughs, along with the personalities that brought them to life (including a particularly ruthless Thomas Edison and a resourceful patent clerk named Chester Carlson, who built the first photocopier in his Astoria, New York, kitchen), are presented clearly by the reader's pop-culture escort. It is a credit to Ouellette that, as the reader progresses into more complex theories, the TV and movie references aren't nearly as interesting as the science.