Associate Professor Mark Krahling is an analytical chemist at USI who uses modern spectroscopy and chromatography for both atomic and molecular analysis. His work with undergraduate students focuses on measuring small and changing amounts of chemical species in the environment with high precision. Dr. Krahling has also collaborated with biologists, physicists, geologists and mathematicians from across all departments of the college of science to help students in the MALS program better understand the breadth and depth scientific pursuits.

My Five Favorite Books on Science

by Mark Krahling

I teach a course that provides liberal arts graduate students with an overview of modern science through contemporary publications. Here are a handful of the science books the students in this course have discovered help them better understand the universe we inhabit.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything provides readers with a folksy and irreverent introduction to our scientific understanding of the world. The book is not as comprehensive as the title suggests, but Bryson captures the wonder he finds in both himself and the scientists he interviews as they work to better understand the world. One of the highlights in this book is Bryson’s explanation of Claire Patterson’s atmospheric work that determined the age of the planet and, along the way, the level of contamination in the atmosphere from leaded gasoline. Another treat is finding USI Geologist Paul Doss with Bryson in Yellowstone. When Doss explains the potential geologic dangers that exist not far from the surface of this popular national park he is just as witty as Bryson.

The Beauty of the Beastly by Natalie Angier.

Natalie Angier describes the survival challenges and behavioral solutions used by an array of organisms living on earth. Angier revels in sharing the quirky relationships of nature, especially if it’s a predator seeking dinner or a mate. In finding the admirable qualities in a cockroach or the vicious behavior in a cuddly newborn, she manages to level the playing field for all organisms. She covers mating rituals without flinching, and allows even the simplest organism complex intentions. I was surprised to find her mating scorpions ‘waltzing’.

The Control of Nature by John McPhee.

John McPhee provides us with three vignettes of human attempts to control nature. These daring efforts chronicle humans against an old, inertial river, against a sporadically restless volcano and against a western, eroding mountain. The results are eerily predictable and reveal the exact result when human endeavors collide with formations of geologic scale operating on geologic timeframes.

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte.

Edward Tufte has created a beautiful book that is a roadmap for presenting complex information. Tufte uses his design skills to reproduce and evaluate how complex data is best displayed. Whether it’s a Paris train schedule, a map of cholera outbreaks in London or a diagram showing the consequence of Napoleon’s campaign into Russia, Tufte provides hints and suggestion that make complex information more accessible to everyone. Some of Tufte’s best examples on how data should NOT be presented are taken from real publications like The Washington Post or The New York Times.

Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson.

Edward Wilson proposes the concept of consilience as the manner, not just to reunite the sciences, but to unite science with the humanities, including ethics, art and politics. Wilson’s quest is ambitious and produces the startling possibility that subjective decisions about art and literature may result from neurobiology. You should probably not read this if you’re clutching to any ideas of your individual importance in the universe.

The books on this list provide a great introduction to some of the very basic concepts that govern the dynamics of our planet and the universe. However, the power in these concepts is the result of the quantitative predictability that they provide. I’d encourage everyone to at least wade into this ocean of math. Go to a library and pull a book from the shelf with a simple, narrow scientific focus. There are dozens of books entitled Classical Dynamics, Thermodynamics, General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics. Read through the introduction and the first chapter. Imagine the creativity needed to dream up this description of the universe and then remember that most of these ideas have been proven wrong. The few ideas that survive have faced torrents of criticism and not been shredded. This is precisely the reason the chapter you are reading is probably our best current understanding of this particular subject.

Every currently accepted scientific theory has survived a similar onslaught. I am in awe of anyone whose work has remained a scientific truth for more than a week or two.