The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th Century Science, Including the Original Papers.

THE DISCOVERIES: Great Breakthroughs in 20th Century Science, Including the Original Papers ALAN LIGHTMAN 

The history of science is highlighted by ingenious insights, fateful accidents, and groundbreaking experimentation leading to intellectual leaps. Do these discoveries have a commonality? Were the scientists who were responsible for these insights immediately aware of their significance? Lightman ponders these questions and provides glimpses into the work and thought behind some of 20th-century science's most influential discoveries: from Max Planck's 1900 declaration that energy exists in quanta to Albert Einstein's revolutionary theories about time, James Watson and Francis Crick's discovery of DNA's molecular structure, and Paul Berg's 1972 breakthrough in joining DNA from different organisms. Lightman, a physicist and novelist, provides detailed background of 25 such discoveries. Through the author's biographical efforts, readers are given a rare glimpse into the minds of top researchers. The book includes all or major portions of their history-making papers. Pantheon, 2005, 576 p., b&w plates, hardcover, $32.50.