View From a Height

Cover scans

Click a cover for a larger version.

Cover artist
Dean Ellis
Language
English
Original language
English
Publisher
Avon Books
Publication year
1975
Original publication year
1963
ISBN
0-380-00356-2
Pages
224
Has read?
Yes
Debut?
No

Synopsis

This is an essay collection broken into four parts: Biology, chemistry, physics, and astronomy. As the subtitle says, it's a brilliant overview of the exciting realms of science. The title invokes the image of viewing science from above, to get an overview of it, and in the introduction Asimov likens science before 1800 to a well-managed orchard. After 1800, it's overgrown and even though there's still an underlying order to it, each wanderer through the orchard only gets to see a small part of it.

"So I have here a collection of essays with little internal unity. They are glimpses, here and there, of the orchard of science, as viewed from a height."

Table of contents

  • INTRODUCTION
  • PART I BIOLOGY
    • 1 That's About the Size of It
    • 2 The Egg and Wee
    • 3 That's Life!
    • 4 Not as We Know It
  • PART II CHEMISTRY
    • 5 The Element of Perfection
    • 6 The Weighting Game
    • 7 The Evens Have It
  • PART III PHYSICS
    • 8 Now Hear This!
    • 9 The Ultimate Split of the Second
    • 10 Order! Order!
    • 11 The Modern Demonology
    • 12 The Height of Up
  • PART IV ASTRONOMY
    • 13 Hot Stuff
    • 14 Recipe for a Planet
    • 15 The Trojan Hearse
    • 16 By Jove!
    • 17 Superficially Speaking