"The Building of Innovation!"
Have you ever had an intuition or hunch about something?
It felt like an epiphany or lightning bulb shedding
clarity and significance on all around it, didn't it?
Well, Joseph Priestly, the venerable scientist celebrated
in this amazing book, would say it really wasn't literally
such a momentous event! Joseph Priestly insisted, after his early years of
learning and experiment, that natural philosophy or
learning is "...a story of progress, a rising staircase of
enlightenment, with each new innovation building on the
last." So consciously or unconsciously, you've previously
been tinkering or leaning about someone else's tinkering
with the ideas behind your "aha" moment. Why is this so
important? Why is it that certain centuries produce a
wealth of discovery, inventions and new ideas so far
beyond the wildest imaginations of the time? How is that
cultural change parallels scientific growth periods? In Steven Johnson's latest book, the reader gets to
explore the world of Joseph Priestly, his American founder
peers, and the Royal Society to which he belonged that led
to world-changing inventions involving electricity and
oxygen. Opening with a mind-boggling chapter on the vortex
of waterspouts, Benjamin Franklin, Priestly and others
came to realize the presence of the "Gulf Stream," which
changed shipping and our understanding of weather forever.
Priestly then wrote his first book, The Rudiments of
English Grammar, and began exploring the phenomena of what
really conducts electricity. It is to Priestly's credit
that he was willing to admit that only part of his
experiments were important and that often more was learned
through admitted mistakes. On and on this adventurous
account moves, with the reader enjoying Priestly's
invention of soda water, his experimentation
with "circulation" being more important than a vacuum, his
true discovery of oxygen and its connection to the entire
ecosystem, and so much more. But Priestly's life was not all glory and honor. Funding
was initially a huge problem eventually solved by
subscriptions to his work. His writing of History of the
Corruptions of Christianity and his defense of same is
absolutely fascinating reading, a stirring attack on
churches that altered the message of Jesus Christ to form
churches and ideas radically different from those of the
man whose life irrevocably changed history and religion.
The founder of Unitarians, Priestly faced English
ostracism and eventually left England for America, a land
where he found more acceptance but also criticism for his
unorthodox sermons and beliefs. America was founded upon great ideas that often come
across as dusty, boring statements or papers. Steven
Johnson's The Invention of Air is a very readable and
honest account of the men, ideas, revolutionary moments,
inventions and debates that are an integral part of the
freedom, inventiveness and greatness exemplified in this
simple but profound man, Joseph Priestly, and his American
patriot peers! A superb, exciting and memorable addition
to the understanding of science, politics and history in
the late 1700s and early 1800s! Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on February 12, 2009
Reviewed by Viviane Crystal
Courtesy Crystal Reviews
Posted March 4, 2009
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