Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity

In his bestselling E=mc2, David Bodanis led us, with astonishing ease, through the world?s most famous equation. Now, in Electric Universe, he illuminates the wondrous yet invisible force that permeates our universe?and introduces us to the virtuoso scientists who plumbed its secrets.

For centuries, electricity was seen as little more than a curious property of certain substances that sparked when rubbed. Then, in the 1790s, Alessandro Volta began the scientific investigation that ignited an explosion of knowledge and invention. The force that once seemed inconsequential was revealed to be responsible for everything from the structure of the atom to the functioning of our brains. In harnessing its power, we have created a world of wonders?complete with roller coasters and radar, computer networks and psychopharmaceuticals.

A superb storyteller, Bodanis weaves tales of romance, divine inspiration, and fraud through lucid accounts of scientific breakthroughs. The great discoverers come to life in all their brilliance and idiosyncrasy, including the visionary Michael Faraday, who struggled against the prejudices of the British class system, and Samuel Morse, a painter who, before inventing the telegraph, ran for mayor of New York City on a platform of persecuting Catholics. Here too is Alan Turing, whose dream of a marvelous thinking machine?what we know as the computer?was met with indifference, and who ended his life in despair after British authorities forced him to undergo experimental treatments to ?cure? his homosexuality.

From the frigid waters of the Atlantic to the streets of Hamburg during a World War II firestorm to the interior of the human body, Electric Universe is a mesmerizing journey of discovery by a master science writer. more

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Recent Reviews

1/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Mar-16-2009; Incredible Electrical History; I teach electricity and I've read electrical history since I was a young boy. I listened to the audio book and found it rife with preposterous assumptions and lacking credible accounts, histories, and unbiased opinions. This story is...; read full review | report as inappropriate

3/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Sep-18-2007; Good, but not great...; I found Electric Universe interesting, but lacking in certain respects. Granted, I listened to the abridged audio, CD version of this book, and my background is in Electrical Engineering, so I'll try to not to judge harshly because it...; read full review | report as inappropriate

2/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Jul-19-2007; What? No Tesla?; For the critical thinker who studies the history of science or history in general it is often most instructive what an author leaves out. Somehow Bodanis managed to tell the "true" story of electricity without mentioning Tesla once. WTF?; read full review | report as inappropriate

2/5: From: Amazon; Posted: May-14-2007; Shockingly Common; You won't learn much about electricity by reading this book. Oh, there is the odd, interesting snippet here and there, but by and large the book is mostly a recounting of the lives of the British wing of electrical research over the past...; read full review | report as inappropriate

Selected Reviews

4/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Nov-27-2006; Yet another book that proves any subject can be made interesting; Electric Universe is one of those science books full of anecdotal details and the little stories behind the big stories. The book covers some of the big discoveries and inventions in the field of electricity. Lightbulbs, telephones and...; read full review | report as inappropriate

3/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Sep-18-2007; Good, but not great...; I found Electric Universe interesting, but lacking in certain respects. Granted, I listened to the abridged audio, CD version of this book, and my background is in Electrical Engineering, so I'll try to not to judge harshly because it...; read full review | report as inappropriate

1/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Mar-16-2009; Incredible Electrical History; I teach electricity and I've read electrical history since I was a young boy. I listened to the audio book and found it rife with preposterous assumptions and lacking credible accounts, histories, and unbiased opinions. This story is...; read full review | report as inappropriate