On Giants' Shoulders : Great Scientists and Their Discoveries from Archimedes to DNA

"Well-known English journalist Melvyn Bragg presents stimulating portraits ...[and] well-rounded evaluations of each pioneer's life and influence."--Publishers Weekly Explore the greatest minds in the history of science with some of today's top scientific thinkers On Giants' Shoulders elucidates the milestones in the history of science, focusing on twelve of the greatest minds and their extraordinary breakthroughs. From Galileo and Newton to Darwin, Freud, and Einstein, author Melvyn Bragg explores the life, work, and legacy of these remarkable people in conversations with today's leading scientists and historians, including Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Roger Penrose, Martin Rees, Oliver Sacks, John Gribbon, and Paul Davies. Ranging from the foundation of hydrostatics in the third century B.C. to the discovery of DNA's structure in our own time, this is an accessible and thought-provoking roundtable on the seminal scientific discoveries of the past 2,500 years. Melvyn Bragg is an acclaimed journalist in England, host of the popular television interview show the South Bank Show (broadcast in the U.S. on Bravo), and the author of seventeen novels and five works of nonfiction.