It has been estimated that there are more new words in a science course today than there are in an introductory foreign- language course. Because of the burgeoning role of science and technology in our lives we are all, in effect, students on a crash course in technical terminology. The aim of this book is to aid the quest for scientific literacy by providing a quick, but comprehensive reference guide to the vocabulary. The dictionary contains over 650 alphabetical definitions.
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Library Journal Review
Scientific literacy allows us to understand phenomena encountered in our daily lives and to make informed decisions about public issues involving science and technology. This dictionary provides 650 selective entries arranged alphabetically without regard to subject. It gives cross references and over 100 drawings, diagrams, and photographs to aid understanding. The concise definitions are followed by a sentence or two relating the technical term to something understandable to laypeople. The book is not comprehensive; it must be used in conjunction with the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms (McGraw, 1988. 4th ed.) and specialized dictionaries. Other recent books on science literacy, e.g., Robert Hazen and James Trefil's Science Matters ( LJ 1/91) and the New York Times Book of Science Literacy ( LJ 2/15/91), differ in that they present articles, not definitions, arranged by subject. Recommended for general science reference collections.-- Bruce Slutsky, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Following on the heels of his guide to technological literacy, Levitating Trains and Kamikaze Genes, Brennan's dictionary is a handy guide to scientific terminology for the general reader and the science student. It defines more than 650 terms in alphabetical order from absolute zero to zygote. Terms from all major disciplines are represented--astronomy, computer science, mathematics, medicine, and others. Words selected for coverage include those likely to be encountered in news stories about science, including terms like cellulite and astrology that have no scientific standing. There are biographies of a few famous scientists. The typical entry is one or two paragraphs in length. Cross-references are liberally provided; they appear in uppercase within each entry or as see also citations at the end of the entry. There are few pronunciation guides, and treatment of acronyms is uneven--sometimes the entry is under the acronym (CAT scan), sometimes spelled out (positron emission tomography), and they usually aren't cross-referenced. This is not a major obstacle; the user will find the entry as there are few words defined. The definitions are clear and concise for the most part. The most difficult to understand are those for theoretical aspects of science--quarks, for instance. There are three entries for these building blocks of matter (quark, flavor, and charm), but these terms are not cross-referenced to each other. More than 100 black-and-white drawings, diagrams, and photographs help to explain concepts. Though there are many science dictionaries that treat far more words, the Dictionary of Scientific Literacy is notable for defining terms of current interest in a manner that laypeople will understand. It will be of use in all public and secondary school libraries, and academic institutions may want it for their nonscience majors. (Reviewed Feb. 1, 1992)
