Asimov Isaac. Words of Science, and the History Behind Them

Houghton Mifflin, 1959. — 280 p.Classic book by Asimov. Most people know him for his genre-defining science fiction, but he also did a number of non-fiction books. This one has a simple format: just a list of words with fascinating background stories for all of them.This is an absolutely superb book. Anyone who has even a passing interest in science, language or both will be enthralled by the 500-odd short articles covering everything from "Absolute Zero" to "Zero Population Growth". Each article is a nicely-crafted gem, giving a peek into an entire subject. I grew up with this book - it was possibly the only science book in my parents' house, and probably helped nudge me toward a career in science; forty years on, I can still pick it up and enjoy it. For a book first published in 1959 (!), it is still astonishingly topical - it may be missing articles on global warming or drones (back in 1959 people were predicting a new ice-age; and drones just made honey), but pretty much everything in it has stood the test of time.
A great read for anyone.What's in a word? Did you know that a lens is named for the lentil seed it resembles? That a straight line actually comes from the words stretched linen? or that a hippopotamus is literally a "river horse"? That oxygen means "giving birth to sharpness" because Lavoisier, who named it, mistakenly thought it was in all acids? (And acid, by the way, comes from the Latin word for vinegar). That alcohol is the word for an ancient Arabic cosmetic? That petroleum in Latin is "olive oil from a rock"? That a nucleus is a "little nut" or that deoxyribonucleic acid simply means... ? Well, read the book and see.
The vocabulary of Science has always been a forbidding one, bristling with many-syllabled words and odd, unfamiliar terms. Now Professor Asimov has opened up this language to the ordinary reader by conducting an informal exploration into the roots and histories of hundreds of scientific terms.
The result is a really fascinating book that combines a vast quantity : scientific information with an equal amount of language history. Even the longest tongue-twisters have simple origins if you go back far enough; and Professor Asimov makes each discovery of the origins of a word a sort of detective story that can't fail to stimulate the reader's interest.
This is a perfect book to dip into again and again. Not only is it entertaining in its own right, but it is also a wonderful introduction to what should become the popular indoor sport of word-chasing. A complete index to the more than 1500 terms covered makes it a unique reference book as well.
Isaac Asimov was born in the USSR in 1920 but was brought up in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Columbia University from which he received his B.S. in 1939, his M.A. in 1941, and his Ph.D. in 1948. He has been a chemist with the naval Air Experiment Station in Philadelphia and since 1949 a member of the Boston University School of Medicine.