An authoritative reference survey of the modern age of scientific discovery, "Science in the Contemporary World" is a scholarly yet accessible chronicle of scientific achievement from the discovery of penicillin to the latest developments in space exploration and cloning.

Over 200 A-Z entries cover the full spectrum of contemporary science, with emphasis on its diverse nature. Within the last 50 years, medicine has eradicated the killer disease smallpox, but primarily because the virus can live only in humans. Space probes have revealed that on Europa, a moon of Jupiter, an ice-capped...

Though many books have highlighted the great scientific discoveries of the early 1900s, few have tackled the wider context in which these milestones were achieved. "Science in the Early Twentieth Century" covers everything from quantum physics to penicillin and more, including all the major scientific developments of the period, detailing not only the scientists and their work, but also the social and political forces that dominated the scientific agenda.

Over 200 A-Z entries chronicle the landmark scientific discoveries and personalities of the period, including such scientific giants...

Many are familiar with the ideas of Copernicus, Descartes, and Galileo. But here the reader is also introduced to lesser known ideas and contributors to the Scientific Revolution, such as the mathematical Bernoulli Family and Andreas Vesalius, whose anatomical charts revolutionized the study of the human body. More marginal characters include the magician Robert Fludd. The encyclopedia also discusses subjects like Arabic science and the bizarre history of blood transfusions, and institutions like the Universities of Padua and Leiden, which were dominant forces in academic medicine and...