A Scientist in the City

In his previous books, A Scientist at the Seashore and Meditations at Sunset, James Trefil used commonplace settings in the natural world as a point of departure for probing the mysteries of nature. In A Scientist in the City, Trefil takes the opposite tack, looking at the quintessential man-made environment of the city as a way of examining the forces that define our world.

What does the heating system of a building or the construction of a bridge tell us about the development of a city? What does the amplified environmental stress of city life on plants and animals suggest about the wild? How have scientific advances in building materials and an understanding of the structure of the atom helped to shape the cities of today? From an explanation of the evolution and influence of plate glass to reinforced steel to an analysis of the future of the skyscraper, A Scientist in the City offers a fascinating study of the promise and the consequences of technology in our everyday urban lives.

In addition, Trefil goes on to explore how the new technologies being developed today will help to determine the changing forms that cities will take in the future. A Scientist in the City is the kind of book that will open our eyes to the man-made world around us, and show us some of the scientific reasons for why we live the way we do.

“Clear and coherent...refreshingly clear-eyed and unsentimental.”—Washington Post.

“A highly readable look at cities that casually ranges from mudhuts to glass-and-steel skyscrapers, from the atomic structure of iron to the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago.” —San Francisco Chronicle.