Annal:2002 Aventis Prize for General Science Book
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Aventis Prize in the year 2002. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- Aventis Prize for General Science Book
- Nonfiction books
- Nonfiction authors
- Science/Technology books
- Science/Technology authors.
- 2002 Aventis-General winner
- Score: 10.52
Stephen Hawking’s phenomenal, multimillion-copy bestseller, A Brief History of Time, introduced the ideas of this brilliant theoretical physicist to readers all over the world. Now, in a major publishing event, Hawking returns with a lavishly illustrated sequel that unravels the mysteries of the major breakthroughs that have occurred in the years since the release of his acclaimed first book.
Measuring Eternity: The Search for the Beginning of Time
- 2002 Aventis-General shortlist
- Score: 6.52
The untold story of the religious figures, philosophers, astronomers, geologists, physicists, and mathematicians who, for more than four hundred years, have pursued the answer to a fundamental question at the intersection of science and religion: When did the universe begin?
The moment of the universe’s conception is one of science’s Holy Grails, investigated by some of the most brilliant and inquisitive minds across the ages. Few were more committed than Bishop James Ussher, who lost his sight during the fifty years it took him to compose his Annals…
The Secret Life of Dust: From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, the Big Consequences of Little Things
- 2002 Aventis-General shortlist
- Score: 6.52
Some see dust as dull stuff, useless at best, and sneeze-inducing at worst. But in the hands of writer Hannah Holmes, dust becomes a dazzling and mysterious force. As Holmes says, dust is a messenger, and air is its medium. And by the end of this fascinating journey through The Secret Life of Dust, we cannot help but agree.
Humble dust, we discover, built the very planet we walk upon. It tinkers with the weather and it spices the air we breathe. Billions of tons of tiny particles rise into the air annually—the dust of deserts and forgotten kings mixing…
The Madness of Adam and Eve: How Schizophrenia Shaped Humanity
- 2002 Aventis-General shortlist
- Score: 6.52
This radical, highly readable and absorbing narrative leads to a new understanding of human evolution.
100,000 years ago we became human, and technical, religious, artistic, military and criminal abilities emerged. The first modern humans migrated from Africa to Eurasia and Australasia, carrying with them the genetic basis of schizophrenia, the only major illness found to the same extent in all racial groups. Modern evidence shows that families where schizophrenia is present are also exceptionaly creative in many different fields. Albert Einstein and James…
A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons
- 2002 Aventis-General shortlist
- Score: 6.52
“I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla,” writes Robert Sapolsky in this witty and riveting chronicle of a scientist’s coming-of-age in remote Africa.
An exhilarating account of Sapolsky’s twenty-one-year study of a troop of rambunctious baboons in Kenya, A Primate’s Memoir interweaves serious scientific observations with wry commentary about the challenges and pleasures of living in the wilds of the Serengeti—for man and beast alike. Over two decades, Sapolsky…
Rivals: Conflict As the Fuel of Science
- 2002 Aventis-General shortlist
- Score: 6.52
White’s thesis is that the greatest advances in science come about through the stress of rivalry, whether between individual scientists, groups of scientists, institutions or even international communities of scientists. Not in this book do we have the thunderbolt of divine inspiration, or the placid, sterile and rather dull world in which it is popularly imagined the scientist lives: for White, great scientific advancements often find their origin and progression into the wider world through the very human battles for supremacy among the experts in any…
