Is SCIENCE BEAUTIFUL? Yes, argues Robert E Crease in this engaging exploration of history's ten most beautiful experiments. The Prism and the Pendulum is an engrossing journey through nearly 2,500 years of scientific innovation.

Along the way, we see the first measurement of the earth's circumference, accomplished in the third century B.C. by Eratosthenes using sticks, shadows, and simple geometry. We visit Foucault's mesmerizing pendulum, which revealed the rotation of the earth on its axis. We meet Galileo brilliantly measuring the speed of falling bodies. And we travel to the quantum world, in the most beautiful experiment of all.

From ancient ideas to cutting-edge physics, these ten exhilarating experiments each reveal something fundamental about the world, bringing us face-to-face with the wonder of science.

Earliest known hour-counter The Louvre,photo RMN

Eratosthenes'reasoning

Eratosthents'measurement

The Leaning Tower of pisa

The belled plane Copyright istituto e Museo di Storia

Inclined plane and free fall

Reconstruction of Galileo's demonstration Reprinted With

newton's experimentum crucis

Light passing through prism

Experimentum crucis

Cavendish's equipment to measure earth's density

Cavendish's beam and balls

Interference pattern

Inter ference pattern

Foucault's Pendulum at the Pantheon

Foucault's pendulum at the pantheon

Robert Millikan's oil-drop apparatus courtesyof the Archives,California Institute of Techonlogy

Diagram of the oil-drop apparatus

Rutherford's first note on atomic structure

Detecting wide-angle scattering

Gradual buildup of elecron interference patern from single electrons

Three two-slit experiments used With permission from the estate

Optical and electron biprisms

Electron interference pattern

First BNL g-2squiggle