The Harmonious Universe by Keith Laidler, Prometheus Books, $28, ISBN 1591021871 Reviewed by Marcus Chown
BY A peculiar coincidence, only yesterday I happened to walk past the shop in London where in 1805 the 13-year-old Michael Faraday began his apprenticeship as a bookbinder. Within those walls, his employer encouraged the uneducated boy to read the books he was binding. He boned up on science, and one day, Keith Laidler tells us, a grateful customer gave him a ticket to Humphry Davy’s lectures at the Royal Institution. Incredible to think that a single act of kindness and a single ticket changed…
