Balls, Bangs and Flashes ¦ Germs, Jabs and Laughing Gas ¦ Whirrs, Watts and Whooshes

All my early science teachers insisted that we write up every experiment we did, however trivial. Tedious though this seemed at the time it was very proper, for, of course, at least half of scientific research and discovery consists of communicating the results - which is why scientific journals achieve such respect and longevity. So how pleasant it is to find in each of Meredith Hooper's spirited accounts of milestones in scientific progress a little bit entitled 'How do we know?' Here we find out about the private publications (Jenner, John Snow), letters (Malpighi, Priestly), reports by contemporary observers (Guericke), and magazine articles (Newton, Pasteur) that made the discoveries known.

Germs is about important medical firsts and ranges from Vesalius to penicillin, Balls deals with famous experiments and the importance of the resulting findings. Hooper writes with a humorous touch - though not at the expense of accuracy - and never lets us forget that scientists are people and that science is a pre-eminently human activity, not something that just happens.

Angela Royston writes about what some experiments and discoveries lead to - inventions. To some extent those inventions which have become household words are self-documenting and so the absence of a 'How do we know?' feature is less crucial, especially as she leads with Gutenberg whose invention sped the circulation of scientific news no end.

There are plenty of little laughs in this trio - Edison's abortive attempts at flight by fart-power and Ben Franklin knocking himself out trying to find out how much electricity would stun a turkey - further enhanced by Izhar Cohen's illustrations (especially good on the covers) which are full of relevant life. Format is slim paperback and price within individual pocket-range; the publishers are to be congratulated on an attractive and goodvalue package.