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Science Time-Pass by Dilip Salwi, Rupa and Co, 195 rupees, ISBN 812910492X Reviewed by Roy Herbert

IT IS hard to know what purpose this book serves. The best that can be said is that you might find something in it to lighten up a dull lecture.

It is a miscellany of what struck the author, Dilip Salwi, as noteworthy examples of scientists’ foibles, hobbies, ambitions and pursuits. He attempts to make them sensational by scattering exclamation marks, most of them unjustified and occasionally absurd, as in, “he jumped into the volcano of Mount Etna and died!” It would have been…

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