To begin with, I’d like to take issue with the title of this book, nicely written and highly illuminating as it is. Brian Clegg’s pun on John Reed’s iconic chronicle of the 1917 Russian revolution, ‘Ten Days That Shook the World’, is misleading in that the title of Reed’s courageous and eye-opening reportage was tongue-in-cheek. His diary-style account of the revolution, with all its chaos, poverty, violence and corruption has a negative connotation. In Reed’s view, those ten days changed the world not for the better, but for the worse.
If they shook the world, it was to a point at which it nearly collapsed – the direct opposite of what Clegg ascribes to what he considers the ten most important discoveries in the world of physics, all of which have contributed hugely to improving our lives.
Title aside, ‘Ten Days in Physics That Shook the World’ (Icon, £12.99, ISBN 9781785787478), with no formulae and/or equations of any kind and just a handful of photos...