The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Men Who Transformed Science and Changed the World

This is an excellent read. These friends are truly remarkable although with today's perspective they may seem quite "ordinary" scientists. But they lived at a time when it was common to believe questioning to be blasphemous, and combining chemicals to make a new compound to be playing at God.Laura Snyder runs off into fascinating by-ways, describing in detail the workings of Babbage's difference engine, for instance. I would have liked a similar level of detail on how Whewell handled the huge mass of data which he converted into tidal maps. Without being strident on the point, Snyder makes clear how many brilliant women contributed to the advancement of science in this Victorian male dominated world.The book is well annotated and indexed and has a good bilbiography

It's a very good read, about a fascinating period in the history of British (and world) science. Snyder presents the main characters (Babbage, Herschel, Jones and Whewell) as human beings (and often flawed ones, at that) as well as purely historical figures in a narrative. There are numerous points at which the story could have easily gone off at an intertesting tangent - more detail about the early history of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, for example, and an account of Babbage's Difference and Analytical Engines could obviously constitute an entire book in itself (and, of course does - Doron Swade's "The Cogwheel Brain" - The Cogwheel Brain Doron Swade But Synder manages to give enough detail to satisfy the reader (whilst whetting their appetite for more), but keep the story focussed on the intertwined history of the Breakfast Club members.But there are some elementary factual errors that threaten the reader's confidence in Snyder's research. For example, she describes David Hockney as an "America artist" (has she never heard him speak, or read anything about him?) and locates the British Museum in Kensington, alongside the V&A, when I think she meant the Natural History Museum. The British Museum had been in Bloomsbury for 100 years by the time she's writing about, and whilst it may officially have been called "The British Museum (Natural History)", no-one ever actually called it that - and neither, for that matter, does Snyder. Yes, they're only minor, but they're the sort of thing that niggle, and make you wonder "If she can get such things wrong (and her editor can let them pass), what errors are there in the rest of the text?".

I loved this book Not having a scientific background I wondered if it would be too complex and technical but the strong storyline peppered with facts and analysis is both informative and entertaining The four friends come alive and the descriptions of the way they responded to with their own and each others success and failure, achievements and disappointments ,gains and loss is what held the story together. Perhaps friendships bonded by differences are rare and it was wonderful to share this one

Excellent, informative read.

Very interesting to link all those vital people, but depressing to hear of all the fatalities in their progeny. A bit heavy going at times but illuminating.

This the story of four geniuses in the 19th century at Cambridge. Their personal achievements follow the development of science in its early days when the words had not yet been coined (one of the four coined it). They all made giant contributions to the development of science and along the way their friendship fertilized the process. But they were not without ego, pride of discovery, impatience at delay or anger at being rebuffed. They each made major discoveries or contribution. All told a fgascinating and interesting book, an easy read for those of us who are not scientists.

Very Great....

The period of the 1820's through the 1870's was a dynamic one in the history of 19th century British science. This book focuses upon four extraordinary individuals who did much to shape science and the scientific method during this crucial era: Charles Babbage (1791-1871); John Herschel (1792-1871); William Whewell (1794-1866); and Richard Jones (1790-1855). Coming together as young students at Cambridge University, in a series of breakfast meetings and discussions (hence the book's title), the group was determined to reform how science was conducted and the role of scientists--and to a great extent they succeeded as the book recounts, among other things setting the stage so to speak for the monumental impact of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" in 1859.Each of the four central subjects is profiled throughout the book as they undertake their scientific careers. Their common emphasis was on a scientific method that was empirical, quantitative, and inductive, that resulted in practical benefits for society, while not being constrained by religion. Jones is the most unfamiliar, but he applied these techniques to the study of economics with lasting impact. The others were involved in astronomy, chemistry, physics, and about everything else scientific as perhaps the last great generalists who could cover a number of different dimensions simultaneously. Much of their impact came from their involvement in scientific organizations, like the British Association for the Advancement of Science (founded in 1831) which (as was typical during this period) brought interested individuals together for reading papers, conducting demonstrations, and publishing findings.The author well integrates a discussion of how this new view of science impacted on religious thinking in the period before Darwin's bombshell "Origin." This is a familiar area for the author, since she has written "Reforming Philosophy: A Victorian Debate on Science and Society," and she handles it quite well. Was god like a mechanic, or a "divine programmer," who set up the universe to operate in accordance with universal physical laws, and left it to do so, or did he frequently intervene in the world to, for example, create new species? The group may not have agreed wholly on this issue, but they did agree emphatically that science and religion were compatible. It is interesting speculate on whether Darwin's interactions with Babbage got him thinking about the possibility of evolution.I found Babbage to be particularly interesting. In effect, he created a mechanical computing machine that, had it been built, would have duplicated many of the facets of modern digital computers. Had this machine been built and utilized in the 1830's, imagine the impact it would have had. Among other things, members of the group developed photography, charted the world's currents, studied the earth's magnetic fields, charted the universe, translated Plato, worked on ciphers, and on and on. Truly an amazing and gifted group!By the time of their deaths, science and "scientist" were recognized terms; an empirical and quantitative scientific method prevailed; the government was beginning to financially support science and it had achieved somewhat of an accepted role in the universities; international cooperation was developing; multiple scientific organizations were functioning; and London's "Great Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations" in 1851 demonstrated how science impacted on everyday life and activities. The modern world was just around the corner.Though a long book at around 400 pages, the author's narrative never bores nor does it overwhelm those such as myself who lack a heavy scientific background. The author's 39 pages of useful notes and 16 page bibliography attest to the substantial research upon which the book is based. She knows this period well and the important issues that need to be discussed. 19th century British science is a treasure trove for those of us interested in intellectual history, as these four remarkable individuals attest. The author has unlocked the door to many of these key issues in this fine volume.

This is a well written and interesting book which I am still reading. I ran, however, into a few errors that should not appear, to my opinion, in a book about science. "Order of difference" is not a term I am familiar with or can find in wikipedia. I think the author had in mind the highest order of the derivative in an equation. It would have been easier to explain with an actual equation. It wouldn't have been that scary. Second, the fact that all triangles (in Euclidian space) form 180 degrees is not an axiom but can be derived from the 5th axiom. Further on, the speed of light is given as 310,740,000 miles/hour! I would think first of a mistaken decimal point, but the value of the speed of light in miles is very different - 186282. The previous number resembles somewhat the speed of light in kilometers - 299792, but I doubt this is what the author had in mind. Another issue is the description of Faraday's experiment: "moving a magnetic loop near a battery" - the battery had only an auxiliary role in the experiment. The moved element was a coil (connected to the battery) that was translocated along the axis of a larger coil, thus inducing a current in the latter. These errors are baffling

Excellent summary of scientific thinking in the early 19th C.