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Middle World: The Restless Heart of Matter and Life.


MIDDLE WORLD: The Restless Heart of Matter and Life

MARK HAW haw, common name for several plants, e.g., the hawthorn and the black haw (see honeysuckle). 

Ultralarge things, those on the scale of planets and galaxies, and ultrasmall things, on the scale of electrons and quarks, have long captured the imagination of scientists, Haw writes. However, the materials scientist focuses here on the world of molecules, pollen granules, and cells. He deems this territory the middle world, and he tells its story by starting with a great but generally forgotten botanist, Robert Brown. The nineteenth-century naturalist was fascinated by the sex life of plants and spent hours observing pollen under the microscope. The behavior of these particles--their incessant motion--seemed to contradict the theories of matter that ruled the day. The phenomenon that would eventually become known as Brownian motion defied some of Newton's deterministic laws of matter. Further work by scientists such as James Clerk Maxwell, Ludwig Boltzmann, and Ruldolf Clausius led to the laws of thermodynamics thermodynamics /ther·mo·dy·nam·ics/ (-di-nam´iks) the branch of science dealing with heat, work, and energy, their interconversion, and problems related thereto.

ther·mo·dy·nam·ics (thûr
, which would overturn Newton's errant rules. Albert Einstein in 1905 finally explained Brownian motion in terms of one of his own revolutionary theories. The middle world, Haw explains, is the realm of life's processes because it's the domain of DNA, proteins, and other molecular components of cells. Finally, he speculates about what Brownian motion reveals about the nature of life. Macmillan, 2007, 197 p., hardcover, $24.95.
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Title Annotation:Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest
Publication:Science News
Date:Jan 13, 2007
Words:219
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