Galileo鈥檚 Pendulum by Roger Newton, Harvard University Press, 拢14.95/$22.95, ISBN 067401331X Reviewed by Marcus Chown
THIS book, Galileo鈥檚 Pendulum, reminds me of a London cabbie 鈥渄oing the knowledge鈥�. Rookie drivers must convince an examiner they can get from Fleet Street Hill to Heathrow Terminal 1 in a handful of steps. Roger Newton set out to convince a reader he can get from Galileo鈥檚 pendulum to superstring theory in eight chapters. At times I found myself asking, 鈥淗ow did we get here from Galileo鈥檚 pendulum?鈥�
The connection, it turns out, is the harmonic oscillator, a kind of Platonic ideal that in physics crops up in everything from the undulation of sound waves to the vibration of 鈥渜uantum fields鈥�. And Galileo recognised just about the first example 鈥� the pendulum.
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The book begins promisingly with Galileo, a 17-year-old medical student, bored out of his mind while listening to the Mass in the cathedral of Pisa. Looking around for some distraction, he becomes captivated by the chandelier swinging high above in the breeze. He times the oscillations with his own pulse and is stunned to discover that the period is the same, no matter what the amplitude of the swing.
This colourful and arresting opening anecdote raises hopes that Galileo鈥檚 pendulum will be a riveting piece of storytelling. Disappointingly, Newton follows the Pisa story 鈥� sadly apocryphal 鈥� with pretty didactic chapters. Those cover everything from biological clocks to clock-making, from electromagnetic waves to quantum electrodynamics. It鈥檚 all good and fascinating stuff. But the presentation is workmanlike rather than outstanding.