Scientist in the City

After last year's brave foray into the biology of the abortion controversy in The Facts of Life (written with Harold Morowitz), Trefil returns to the general science territory he staked out in A Scientist at the Seashore. This city-mouse version of that title is an equally felicitous adventure for the science lover isolated from nature's countryside lab. The physical sciences predominate here as Trefil offers deft analogies to explain invisible forces like gravity in building architecture, e.g., comparing masonry structures and skyscrapers to crustaceans (with exoskeletons) and humans, whose weight-bearing skeleton is internal. He explains the atomic structure of materials that underlie every corner of a city block and includes other systems like power grids on the tour. The addition of a futurist urban vision adds little to the text but does not mitigate Trefil's particular talent for lively explanation. Illustrated. (Jan.)