They saw the difference

This is a social history of science.

After a lifetime of talking, broadcasting, writing, explaining and teaching about science to all levels from kindergarten to tertiary and the general public, Peter Macinnis thinks he is getting close to hanging up his mouse and keyboard.

This is a curated selection from the essays, articles, stories, talks and chapters he has delivered across half a century of science activism, with some bridging passages thrown in.

Here, you will find background on most aspects of science, from stable isotopes to black holes; from what Darwin got wrong to magic numbers; climate change to difference engines; the Antipodes to liquid crystals; scientific fraud to the other six types of science; plate tectonics to slime moulds; unconformities of a geological kind to steam turbines; statistics to killing cancers with germs; perfect numbers and imperfect, fraudulent scientists; who Wimshurst was and why he mattered, why James Watt never watched a kettle and why it's too late to worry about 'Frankenstein genes'.

This is a lively potpourri of science, a gentle flood of understanding of the whys and wherefores of science.

The base page for all of these books is here.