This review was first published by Booklist on September 1, 2023.

Grace in All Simplicity traces the development of our current, standard model of physics from the earliest days of atomic theory to the development of particle physics to challenges of dark matter and energy. Cahn and Quigg highlight the many people who contributed to this history, alongside the technology that made it possible and the experiments that revolutionized our understanding of the universe. This isn’t a chronological account. By bouncing around the time line, they highlight the connectedness of the underlying concepts and the ways experiment and theory interact over time. There’s equal attention paid to theory, experiment, and technology. All are necessary to build our best scientific understandings. Theory requires experiment, technology enables new experiments, and experiments deliver results which require new theory. It’s all connected. While there’s no math, the content is very dense, chock-full of concepts and names of people and particles. Because this isn’t a chronological account, the dates can get muddled, but the payoff is a wonderful and engaging dive into the last century of revolutionary physics.

This review was first published by Booklist in July 2023.

**STARRED REVIEW** The history of math is typically taught from an exclusively Greco-Eurocentric perspective as a parade of great men. This significantly distorts reality. Mathematics has been invented in one form or another by every culture on Earth, and the exclusion of women and people of color from traditional narratives is particularly glaring. Kitagawa and Revell do an excellent job of broadening our view to the far more vibrant, collaborative, diverse, and interesting history. Different cultures developed the same ideas at different times, and there is no one inventor of any given idea. The foundations of calculus were discovered by mathematicians in India centuries before Newton or Leibniz were even born, for example, and binary notation has roots in the traditional hexagrams of the Chinese Book of Changes. The mathematics of different cultures were driven by different needs and values, and some of our biggest mathematical revolutions were fueled when these different traditions encountered and altered each other. Math, like all human endeavors, has been subject to politics, religious and cultural influences, and struggles for power and wealth. Mathematics is the most powerful tool humans ever invented, and this book is a welcome corrective to our understanding of how it came to be.

This review was first published by Booklist on March 1, 2023.

Physics is modern magic, and condensed matter physicists are the wizards of the modern world. Condensed matter physics is the study of how matter behaves in the real world, and how we can harness it to improve our daily lives. It’s what gave us steam engines, electric grids, and computers. It’s the single largest branch of physics, yet it’s one of the least discussed, with more glamorous theoretical fields commanding popular attention. Flicker seeks to reveal the wonder and fascination of this work. He walks readers through the history of how the field developed, introducing the major milestones and scientists along the way. He guides us through the different states of matter, thermodynamics, relativity, quantum mechanics, topology, and magnetism, to show us just how enthralling these can be. The joy he has for this work is infectious. Much of the content gets abstruse, but he avoids complex math, and by framing it as modern magic this becomes part of the charm. It’s OK if you don’t understand: it’s magic. You can still enjoy the show.

This review was first published by Booklist on January 6, 2023.

In 1978, NASA recruited Astronaut Group 8, the first group of astronaut candidates selected to serve on the space shuttle and the first opportunity open to nonmilitary personnel. This group included the first American women, first African Americans, first Asian American, first married couple, and (unbeknownst at the time) the first gay astronaut to fly into space. NASA recruited scientists, engineers, and medical professionals, not just pilots. Members of this remarkably diverse group—known as the “new guys”—served from the shuttle’s first flight to its final decommissioning. They launched technology (including the Hubble Space Telescope) that fundamentally altered our world and weathered disasters (Bagby covers the loss of the Challenger in significant detail), political maneuvering, and bad press. Their crowning achievement was construction of the International Space Station. Much has already been written about these men and women, their successes and tragedies, and Bagby doesn’t break new ground here. But she brings together a wealth of information and crafts it into a compelling, cohesive, and complete narrative. An excellent choice for anyone interested in the history of space exploration.

This review was first published by Booklist on January 1, 2023.

**STARRED REVIEW** The Things We Make is a heartfelt ode in praise of engineers. Hammack, a long-time engineering educator, argues that far from merely being “applied science,” engineering boasts a robust method all its own, meaningfully separate from science. He offers several compelling examples of how engineering has changed our world and pushes back against the harmful myth of the lone inventor, which too often excludes the work of marginalized individuals, and perpetuates popular misunderstandings of what engineering actually is. The book starts with a description of how, in the Middle Ages, illiterate masons who didn’t know any math managed to build Gothic cathedrals that have stood for centuries. Other examples range from the development of color photography to the creation of designer enzymes, from such marvels as the modern computer chip to the quotidian soda can. He really runs the gamut with his examples, but all of them show how engineering utilizes rules of thumb and compromise solutions to resolve real-world problems.The Engineering Method, as much as the Scientific Method, stands as one of humanity’s greatest achievements. A must-read for anyone interested in engineering or the history of technology and human achievement.

This review was first published by Booklist on October 15, 2022.

The question of whether we’re alone in the universe is one of the most profound, and one which struggles to be taken seriously in scientific circles. It’s a question that extends beyond science into the realms of religion and philosophy. Evidence of intelligent life elsewhere would upend our understanding of our place in the universe. In his latest, Whitehouse summarizes the efforts we’ve made to search for other life in the universe, from SETI to UFO sightings, and the limitations such efforts must overcome. He assesses what we actually know about the likelihood that anyone else is out there. He also explores possibilities for what alien life might be like, an impossible question to answer, as we only have ourselves as an example, whereas life on other planets could be radically different. Finally, he examines what’s in store for the future of the universe with an eye toward whether or not life might survive. In the end, without definitive contact with extraterrestrials, any searches we make tell us more about ourselves than about life elsewhere.