Who's Read: The Story of Science: Einstein Adds a New Dimension

[SonshineLearner]

Hey There, I was looking at these. Who has an opinion about this series by Joy Hakim?

 

Thanks!

[flmochamom]

We have the first two books and I think they are terrific. There is some controversy over her worldview, as well as the fact that some consider her pages cluttered. That being said, we love both the science and US history series.

[Guest]

I read it, but thought it wouldn't engage my daughter nearly as much as the history series. While it is of course well-written and has a lot of great information, I was disturbed by a few things: the almost exclusive focus on chemistry/physics -- which by default becomes the definition of science -- the downplaying of the role of Eastern science as "merely technology" while theory is the real thing, and a disjointed feel rather than a natural, flowing narrative she achieved with the History of US series.

 

And although Hakim does a really good job of explaining much of the theory, and although I love reading about physics of late, I still thought it was a difficult book to get through in places and wouldn't be a good read for any but the most fascinated child below high school age.

 

I'd love to hear whether other people have different ideas, or ideas about how to use the book.

Edited March 28, 2010 by Guest

[Matryoshka]

I just bought all three, and was just thinking of assigning a chapter at a time for the kids to read along with their history. They've read the first chapter so far, and no complaints yet. :tongue_smilie: I'm not considering it part of our science, but history of science. I'm also going to have them read the "Science of the Past" series, which are only ancients - have to see if there's something similar for medieval (that would be a good time to focus on Islamic, Indian and Chinese science, as pretty much no science got done in Europe in the medieval period).

 

I admit I have not read the books myself, which I should probably do at some point (so many things on the should-read list!). Hopefully any bias will be smoothed out by reading other material as well. I actually find these books better laid out than her history series, which I find so cluttered an unattractive that I can't even bring myself to give the text a chance. :glare:

[elegantlion]

I'm not a big fan of Hakim's history books, but I have looked through the first two volumes of the science series, Aristotle and Newton, and plan to use all three.

 

My son is very science oriented and we plan to use them as a supplement for the next three years. My goal was to have something that studies science in a chronological order, not divided into subject. We also have the John Hudson Tiner Exploring books that I plan to use when we study the individual disciplines.

 

As with any subject we tend to attack it from several angles and teaching viewpoints.

[Corraleno]

I was disturbed by a few things: the almost exclusive focus on chemistry/physics -- which by default becomes the definition of science

The Story of Science is intended to be a 6 volume series ~ the next three will focus on biology & medicine ~ so the choice to focus on physical sciences in the first 3 books was intentional. She's not implying that physical science is the only science, but unless one knows that three more books are forthcoming I can see how it would look that way.

 

I wish I knew when the biology ones will be published; I've googled all over the place, and read interviews where she mentions working on them, but I've never seen even a ball-park estimate of when the next one might be coming out. :(

 

Jackie

[Guest]

The Story of Science is intended to be a 6 volume series ~ the next three will focus on biology & medicine ~ so the choice to focus on physical sciences in the first 3 books was intentional. She's not implying that physical science is the only science, but unless one knows that three more books are forthcoming I can see how it would look that way.

 

 

Wow, that's really interesting! I actually wrote Hakim and asked her about some things and she never let me know she was planning other books in the series although she wrote me long e-mails explaining certain other things I had questions about.