Carlos Fiolhais

Histórias de ciência e da vida dos cientistas naqueles raros momentos em que não estão a receber um Prémio Nobel ou a retirar um osso de uma espécie desconhecida do interior da boca. O calendário com um buraco de onze dias, a chatice das bactérias extraterrestres que estão sempre a aparecer, os cientistas incendiários, a física do futebol com especial atenção aos penáltis, o striptease tecnológico nos aeroportos, José Sócrates e o gelo quente, a espantosa ascensão e queda do DTT, as previsões dos resultados no final dos jogos, a razão por que os homens são todos iguais (o que as mulheres sabem, claro), o herói dos pacotes de leite, a base genética da alma e o ADN de Bin Laden… (mais)

Published in 2005, the international year of Physics, as the catalogue of a bibliographical exhibition commemoratinf the first centenary of the publication of the special relativity paper of Albert Einstein, this book has a number of very interesting essays on the reception and influence of Einstein's relativity ideas in Portugal in the first half of the twentieth century. Specially interesting are the chapters by Augusto Fitas on the theory of relativity in Portugal, by Elsa Mota, Ana Simões and Paulo Crawford on the impact in Portugal of the first experimental test of the general ralitivity theory, and by Paulo Crawford on the genesis of the general theory of relativity. The chapter by Fiolhais and Sandra Costa listing the books about relativity published in Portugal is also quite informative (although not exaustive: they missed one that I have one in my personal library...) In a country where scientific culture is not exactly widespread, this book, and the exhibition it accompanied, was a particularly welcome initiative by the then director of the General Library of the University of Coimbra, the physicist Carlos Fiolhais. Well done!… (mais)