Reflections

This book is a fascinating voyage back to the Romantic Age in Europe when there were still far flung parts of the globe to explore, most of the chemical elements awaited discovery, and time and space were found to be much vaster than anyone had expected. Even more wonderfully, scientists and artists were not naturally at odds—chemist Humphry Davy and poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge were friends, Percy Bysshe Shelley attended science lectures at the Royal Society and a musician, William Herschel, became the leading astronomer of England. Poets looked to the brave new world of science for inspiration, and many scientists—including Davy and Charles Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus—wrote poetry. While scientists were perfecting the inductive reasoning of Newton and Francis Bacon they also used poetic devices like analogies to advance their understanding and inspire their research. It was an exciting and unsettling time and that makes for a great reading experience.