Which chemist, who inspired the fashion for breathing in the newly discovered nitrous oxide (laughing gas), almost killed himself while testing the effects of carbon monoxide? The answer can be found in Science Firsts, which describes some of the most important discoveries in science. Written by the freelance science journalist Robert Adler, the book picks out 35 landmark discoveries from Thales’ model of the universe in the 6th century BC to the birth of Dolly the cloned sheep in 1997.

Physics features prominently, with many of the usual suspects – Fermi, Hubble, Einstein, Rutherford, Marconi, Planck, Curie, Newton, Galileo and Copernicus ­ getting separate chapters for their key findings. While it must have been hard for the author to limit himself to 35 seminal moments, Faraday’s discovery of electromagnetic induction is conspicuous by its absence. Faraday, after all, was the protegé of the gas-guzzling Sir Humphrey Davy and is said by some to have been Davy’s “greatest discovery”.

Another new book that covers similar ground is The Eureka! Moment by librarian Rupert Lee. It contains more scientific discoveries that Science Firsts – 100 in total – but limits itself to those that took place in the 20th century. So while the discovery of the neutron, the positron, the neutrino, the transistor and quarks (but not the laser) are featured, there is little on the work of Newton or the others on whose shoulders he stood. The book also surveys the state of science in the year 2000 and predicts what lies ahead ­ only the discovery of the Higgs particle and grand unification, as far as physics is seemingly concerned.

So which is the better book? Science Firsts is stylishly written, with each chapter containing a strong storyline that draws out the personalities of the scientists involved. And with 35 chapters spread over 200 pages, each topic is given the space to breathe. There is also an excellent reference list containing a wealth of other popular-science titles. The Eureka! Moment, in contrast, is more formal in tone and crams 100 essays into just 250 pages, which barely gives each subject the justice it deserves. The book also lacks a bibliography, with the only references being to the journals in which the work in question was originally published. Science Firsts looks the better buy.

Buy the book
Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation Wiley
The Eureka! Moment: 100 Key Scientific Discoveries of the 20th Century amazon.co.uk/amazon.com