Acid Tongues and Tranquil Dreamers: Tales of Bitter Rivalry That Fueled the Advancement of Science and Technology

Scientific discovery, observes popular science writer Michael White, hinges on argument: at the root of all investigation lies a scientist's argument with the world, conducted in order to coax out information and secrets "until ideas and observation coalesce."

White's interest, however, is on a less elevated plane. In this entertaining book, he recounts personal and professional feuds that have driven scientists to reach new heights--for, as the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, himself no stranger to rivalry, once optimistically observed, "the longer two intelligent people argue, the better their arguments become." Among the arguments that rage through White's book are Isaac Newton's hatred for Gottfried Leibniz, whose formulation of the calculus was independent of Newton's own but, Newton insisted, was a second-rate plagiarism; Richard Owen's fierce refutations of his onetime friend Charles Darwin's theories of speciation and natural selection; the personal squabbles that engulfed Francis Crick and James Watson's discovery of DNA; and a whole complex of rivalries and nasty politics that surrounded the development of the atomic bomb ("perhaps more than any other scientific endeavor in history," White writes, "the making of the atomic bomb exemplifies how pure intellect, corrupted by greed and fear, and supercharged by vast material resources, is capable of transforming the course of society"). White closes with another transforming episode, the development of the personal computer through a battle of "cyber-kings": Microsoft versus NOISE ("Netscape, Oracle, IBM, Sun ... and Everyone Else"). His book is an entertaining sidelong glance at the history of science, full of sound--and plenty of fury. --Gregory McNamee