Science Time-Pass by Dilip Salwi, Rupa and Co, 195 rupees, ISBN 812910492X Reviewed by Roy Herbert
IT IS hard to know what purpose this book serves. The best that can be said is that you might find something in it to lighten up a dull lecture.
It is a miscellany of what struck the author, Dilip Salwi, as noteworthy examples of scientists鈥� foibles, hobbies, ambitions and pursuits. He attempts to make them sensational by scattering exclamation marks, most of them unjustified and occasionally absurd, as in, 鈥渉e jumped into the volcano of Mount Etna and died!鈥� It would have been sensational if he had survived. Misspellings do not help: 鈥溾�e began to keep a kind of dairy鈥︹��
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Incidentally, Salwi has also written a biography of the Indian scientist and nuclear energy proponent Homi J. Bhabha. The latest in Rupa鈥檚 excellent series of biographies, it is short, well written and lavishly illustrated.