Summer books of 2019: Science

The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information are Solving the Mystery of Life, by Paul Davies, Allen Lane, RRP£20/ University of Chicago Press, RRP$27.50

Davies, a professor at Arizona State University, argues that scientists studying the origins and evolution of life must pay more attention to flows of information and energy on top of more orthodox chemistry and physics. This imaginative book is a good guide to the emergence of information science as a significant influence on biology research.

Superior: The Return of Race Science, by Angela Saini, Fourth Estate, RRP£14.99/ Beacon Press, RRP$26.95

Journalist Angela Saini analyses the way science has contributed to racism over the past 250 years. A rigorously researched and reported journey from the Enlightenment through 19th-century imperialism and 20th-century eugenics to the stealthy revival of race science in the 21st-century. Disturbing but written well enough to be entertaining at the same time.

Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum, by Lee Smolin, Allen Lane, RRP£25/ Penguin Press, RRP$28

Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin tackles one of the hardest subjects in science: quantum mechanics. Dissatisfied with the absurdities of current versions of quantum theory, he advocates a return to “realism”. The book is sometimes hard going but readers who make the effort will find some compelling narrative about the development of different strands of quantum physics.

The Royal Society: And the Invention of Modern Science, by Adrian Tinniswood, Head of Zeus, RRP£18.99/ Basic Books, RRP$26

Social historian Tinniswood captures the intellectual and political ferment leading up to the foundation in 1660 of the Royal Society — the world’s oldest continuously operating scientific body — and the achievements of its early years. Some of the experiments, particularly vivisections, seem cruel and bizarre today but the Society laid the foundations for serious science to come.

Clive Cookson is the FT’s science editor

For a look at the best summer books across genres, go to ft.com/summerbooks2019

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