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Tales of physicists and mathematicians , by Semyon Grigorevich Gindikin (Translated from the Russian by Alan Shuchat). Pp 157. SFr48. 1988. ISBN 0-8176-3317-0 (Birkhäuser)

Until I appreciated with what care this book's title had been chosen, I had been seeking to describe it in terms of the history of science in Europe from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. But in his Foreword the author—from the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Bioorganic Chemistry in Moscow State University—confesses to 'a certain element of randomness in the choice of the people and events to which the stories collected in the book are devoted'. These, he goes on to say, 'do not have the nature of texts in the history of science'. Apparently he means that he describes his characters' achievements in his language, not theirs. So he offers tales, rather than a professional historian's history, about scientists, rather than about science as such. Naturally enough, Gindikin starts with the Italian algebraists, Girolamo Cardan (150176) and his contemporaries, since their epoch marked the renaissance of mathematical discovery, as well as of so much else, in Europe. Then he devotes about 50 pages to Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), his work on the laws of motion, and then his telescopic discoveries in astronomy, going into considerable detail about his troubled life. Then there is a shortish chapter on Christian Huygens (1629-95), his strivings to perfect the pendulum clock and his associated mathematical studies. There follows a comparable chapter on the incredibly versatile Blaise Pascal (1623-62), his far-ranging writings on geometry, fluid mechanics, probability and on many philosophical topics. The last 40-odd pages are about Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) and his great achievements on regular polygons, numbertheory, geometry, theory and computation of orbits, electrodynamics and geomagnetism, and geodesy. The presentation is attractive, a valuable feature being the indications of the proof for most of the mathematical discoveries described. The author has two interesting comments in his foreword (page viii). One is that even though his topics are a largely random selection, they are nevertheless seen to include numerous examples of the connectedness of scientific advances. The other is how in most cases his scientists themselves set most store by some contribution that has proved to be by no means their most important one. Gindikin offers no comment on the circumstances that his 'random' selection includes no English-writing scientist. It could be that the most likely candidates other than, say, Newton and Halley—for instance, Faraday, Hamilton and Clerk Maxwell—fall somewhat outside his period. And the omission of Newton and Halley could be because so much about them should be known already to any reader who would be interested in the people he does write about. Although Gindikin lays no claim to new historical insights, his book can be recommended as supplementary reading for students studying the scientists included in it, or for anyone preparing lectures about them. A Shuchat has made a highly readable translation. The copy sent to me has blank pages where an index would be welcome; it is to be hoped that other copies have this.