J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964)

“So I drank as much hydrochloric acid as I could. But I couldn’t drink enough without burning my stomach. So I drank a solution of ammonium chloride...”

Seventy essays reprinted from the Daily Worker after it’s suppression. I actually learned quite a lot from it. That I can do so from a book eighty years old says something rather worrying about the state of my knowledge of science. It also shows good science writing. It reminded me a couple of times of the approach taken by Isaac Asimov in his essays. I don’t know if there’s a direct line of influence. I do know Arthur C Clarke quotes Haldane somewhere or other (which is why I read this book). Certainly he is endlessly quotable. I’ve restricted myself to one, but I could go on for pages and pages. Really the only fault with the essays is that they’re too short. I’d liked to know more about his auto-experiments (he takes heroin as well), but really the above quotation is all the detail we get.

The book is interesting also as a snapshot of politics, society and science on the eve of the 2nd World War. The essays are written from a Marxist perspective and he quite often refers to the work of Soviet scientists who were involved in something other that rocketry. Quite a shocker. And because of this perspective he often applies the science to the lives of ordinary people, giving you a little glimpse into a world only the very oldest now living remember. That said, some things never change. He discusses the impending doom of the Gros Michel banana and here we are, eighty years later, discussing the doom of the Cavendish.… (meer)