The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected

June 15, 2016

Author, educator, blogger, novelist, and theoretical physicist Gleiser (The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning) expounds on the interconnectedness of the physical and natural worlds in this memoir of science and fishing. He artfully interweaves scientific lectures on topics such as field theory and climate change with accounts of fly-fishing forays to northern England, Brazil, Tuscany, and Iceland. Explaining how principles of Newtonian mechanics apply to fly casting, the author effortlessly educates as he entertains. Gleiser likens his quest to improve his fishing skills to the goal of understanding the universe by asking questions and posing theories: a repeating pattern of catch and release. The author's explanations of abstract concepts such as supersymmetry and the multiverse are as accessible to the lay reader as they are beautifully composed. His journey to become closer to nature through the art of fly fishing illuminates science's current understanding of the world and humanity's place in it. VERDICT This elegant treatise will inspire readers who relish a philosophical approach to science and travel.--Catherine Lantz, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib.

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