Cambridge Scientific Minds edited by Peter Harman and Simon Mitton, Cambridge University Press, 拢14.95, ISBN 0521786126
THE Cambridge science phenomenon began even before the beginnings of the scientific revolution. Indeed, it got off to a good start in the 16th century with the likes of William Gilbert, who described the magnetism of the Earth, and William Harvey, the celebrated discoverer of blood circulation. For the general reader, Cambridge Scientific Minds is a fascinating biographical compilation of those scientific 鈥渉eroes鈥� who have had some connection with the University of Cambridge.
Compilations such as this have to make invidious choices, and there will be many a grumble about who is in and who isn鈥檛. Fred Sanger, with his two Nobel prizes, is mentioned only in passing. Only two women figure: mathematician Mary Cartwright and Jocelyn Bell, the radio astronomer.
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Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, the crystallographer, only gets a mention before escaping to Oxford. Non-Brits, apart from James Watson and famous refugees such as the late Max Perutz, are also in short supply鈥攖hough Indian mathematician Ramanajuan, whom his contemporaries Hardy and Littlewood thought of as a 鈥渟econd Newton鈥�, does figure briefly.