Light

A Radiant History from Creation to the Quantum Age

By: Bruce Watson

Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray

Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

Light begins at Stonehenge, where crowds cheer a solstice sunrise. After sampling myths explaining First Light, the story moves on to early philosophers' queries, then through the centuries, from Buddhist temples to Biblical scripture, when light was the soul of the divine.

Battling darkness and despair, Gothic architects crafted radiant cathedrals while Dante dreamed a 'heaven of pure light.' Later, following Leonardo's advice, Renaissance artists learned to capture light on canvas. During the Scientific Revolution, Galileo gathered light in his telescope, Descartes measured the rainbow, and Newton used prisms to solidify the science of optics. But even after Newton, light was an enigma.

Particle or wave? Did it flow through an invisible 'ether'? Through the age of Edison and into the age of lasers, Light reveals how light sparked new wonders - relativity, quantum electrodynamics, fiber optics, and more. Although lasers now perform everyday miracles, light retains its eternal allure. "For the rest of my life," Einstein said, "I will reflect on what light is." Light explores and celebrates such curiosity.

©2016 Bruce Watson (P)2016 Audible Studios

Critic reviews

"A sweeping cultural and scientific history of our understanding of light.... With his trademark good storytelling and wide reading, Watson takes us on a delightful journey." (Alan Lightman, The Washington Post)

"Watson's touch is lyrical and deft.... [Light] is an eye-catching display, reflecting and refracting like a gemstone." (Nature)

"Bruce Watson's new book...has the buoyant tone of a writer who is having fun - and who is able to convey that sense of excitement and discovery to the reader. Light, the phenomenon, has fascinated people for millennia. Light, the book, will fascinate them now." (Charles C. Mann, author of the New York Times best sellers 1491 and 1493)

Slow starter but stick with it!

A little tough at times to “purely listen to” without looking at the diagrams referenced in the discussion but way worth the time. It starts off a little sounding like it will be a philosophy lecture but if you stick with it, you get into an engaging discussion of the science and history of our current knowledge on LIGHT!

If you aren’t interested in listening to physics, theories and the history of folks who chased the knowledge of not only how light behaves but what it actually is, then give this a hard pass.

this is more like poetry than prose

Don't read this book if you are looking for a lesson about the behavior of photons. The first half of it is written like poetry and it's nothing but what people from the past thought about light and wrote about it.
the second half gets a little more scientific, but it's still interrupted with quotes and the author reads it the same as the first part, as if he's whimsically sipping a glass of wine and reading a book of poetry.

GREAT BOOK - UNTIL THE SURPRISE ATHEIST EPILOGUE

Any additional comments?

A solid summary of the history and science of light. An enjoyable book. However, he somehow finds it necessary to add an epilogue condemning near death experiences. Without the slightest supporting argument or evidence he states that all near death books are fakes looking for quick money. What this has to do with the history and science of light is beyond me. Please leave the blind ideological stuff at home! Totally spoiled an otherwise well written book.