Black Bodies and Quantum Cats by Jennifer Ouellette: A series of essays about various milestones in the history of physics from Leonardo da Vinci to string theory. If you are a hardcore physicist, you will probably find this too dumbed down to be entertaining. However, though I was already familiar with all the concepts presented here, I was drawn in by the historical anecdotes surrounding the discovery and development of these various ideas. The pop culture references, while occasionally amusing (I hadn’t known, for instance, that Fabio once killed a goose with his face), could have been cut. They were not always relevant and the connection often felt forced. Still, I genuinely enjoyed reading this book and will have to find some other science history texts in the future.

Also posted on BookCrossing.