The Science Magpie: Fascinating Facts, Stories, Poems, Diagrams and Jokes Plucked from Science

Fascinating lists, facts, stories, poems, drawings, diagrams – and even jokes – across the scientific disciplines and from science’s bejewelled history. Science, humankind’s greatest intellectual achievement, is capable equally of delight and amusement as much as learning and the advancement of knowledge. The Science Magpie brings together a hugely diverse collection of classic, common and unusual tidbits from across science and its history. Read in full Galileo’s infamous recantation of his view of a heliocentric solar system; sample questions from the University of Oxford’s first public examination in 1858 and marvel at Sir Ronald Ross’s poem describing his discovery of the life-cycle of the malaria parasite. Meet the full family of subatomic particles, view a geological clock, learn pi to 500 decimal places, discover the animals that have become extinct since 1900, see what a spiral periodic table looks like and much, much more.