Rating: 
Summary: Good biographical history, but not any significant teachings
Review: This book is a mostly if not all about the biographical history of the scientists. It is very easy to read, since there are no teaching materials what so ever. I recommend this book to people who are interested in the lifes of these 5 scientists, rather than their development. I expected to see more formulas and mathematical concepts. However, this was not the case. The author did a good job in describing the events that lead to the discoveries by these scientist. It does not go into any detail about their actual work.
Rating: 
Summary: a book for everyone
Review: This book offers great insight into the historical foundations of modern physics through exploring five equations and the people who deduced them.Guillen is much stronger in explaining the lives of great scientists than their equations. However, by reading about the conditions of the lives each scientist faced one gains a much better understanding of the "evolution" of science. As a prospective physics major, I found this book particularly inspirational and have shared it with my friends (who also enjoyed it). I recommend reading this book, if only because you'll feel smart next time your professor starts rattling off anecdotes from some scientist's life. If you're not a science person, it's a good general introduction. Not too strenuous, yet not too basic. My recommendation: Go for it.
Rating:
Summary: Five Most Influential Equations
Review: This is an interesting book. However, I feel that as a writer, he is not that good comparing to Issac Asimov or George Gamow. The flow of the book seems not continuous. I have to spend several days to finish reading it, not because it is hard to understand but it is just easily interruptable. I am not a physicist but I kind of think Danial Bernoulli's equation (1738AD) is not really that influential since it took more than 150 years for human being to get the first airplane flying. I doubt that Wright brothers really using this equation to have their plane flying. Also I don't know how the Entropy equation changes the world except that it is a very intriguing concept. (...)
Rating: 
Summary: More than a book on physics and math
Review: This is more than just a physics book. It's more than just
a mathematics book. It's a humanistic, clearly written,
conversational book that I recommend EVERYONE reads. Not
just people in technical or scientific fields. This is the type of book that expands someones knowledge, that lets
them see the world in a new light. No longer will you look
at the world the same way again (especially when you find
out that the world is against you in chapter 4!). Superb
read. High school algebra is all you need to read this
eloquent and succint book.
Rating:
Summary: Not the Book it Claims to Be, But Excellent Nonetheless
Review: Throughout history, innovators in science have risen from obscurity to fame by virtue of some original inspiration. These are the tales of five such pilgrims and their journeys. They are facinating biographical sketches of young boys, some poor or frail, whose life's work brought into clearer focus some aspect of the world around us. In the course of the book the author coaxes us to a better understanding of the state of knowledge before and after these innovators. We learn about gravity through Isaac Newton, hydrodynamic pressure through Bernoulli, electromagnetics from Faraday, thermodynamics from Clausius, and special relativity from Einstein. Michael Guillen's book isn't about equations, or even math, as a quick flip through the pages will illustrate. But the general reader, whom Guilen knows well through his television work, will not be disappointed by the lack of mathmatical notation. Ultimately we come away believing that, understanding the five protagonists, we understand their contribution, ...if not the language of their legacies.
Rating:
Summary: The poetry of equations --
Review: You might characterize this book along the lines of "an opera book for people who think they don't like opera." The author, Dr. Michael Guillen, sets himself the formidable task of instilling into non-mathematicians an appreciation of the beauty and glory of mathematical equations. His approach is to take five historical figures, give a brief biography of each, select an equation best encapsulating their accomplishments, and explain this equation's relevance for contemporary society. The figures selected are Isaac Newton, Daniel Bernoulli, Michael Faraday, Rudolph Clausius, and Albert Einstein. Is his format a good choice? Yes, perhaps among the best. Are the historical figures good choices? Yes again; but here one might quibble a bit: all the figures selected are male physicists who lived during the approximately 300-year time-span, 1640-1950. Were there no important equations prior to this? What about the Pythagorean theorem? Euclid's proof of the infinity of primes? Archimedes's formula for pi? The delFerro-Tartaglia-Cardano equations for the cubic? What about women? Is his approach successful? Generally speaking, yes. It is not clear what readership Guillen has in mind. At first I though it might be your typical Scientific American reader. But the biographies tend toward a Horatio-Alger style, suggesting a younger audience. Dr. Guillen's unique talent is his understanding of the relationship between religion and science. Although he treats the subject only briefly, I have never seen a better exposition in readily accessible material. As Guillen points out, this relationship has not always been favorable to religion. A comparison with the proverbial ingrate camel comes to mind: having inveigled its nose into the tent, the camel proceeds to evict the original tenants. This process began with Plato's plea that science be allowed to investigate the celestial realm (at that time considered the province of the gods), and ended with Laplace's claim he had no need of the "God hypothesis." Although I liked the book as a whole and applaud Dr. Guillan's effort, the book is unfortunately marred by some careless and misleading passages. I cite some in the hope these might be corrected in a future edition. Page 58: "...a giant titanium bullet" - the Apollo capsule was made mainly of aluminum, not titanium. Page 61: "As the rocket thundered its way to the clouds it began to spin like a bullet" - not so! Small rockets are sometimes "spin stabilized," but never large rockets like Apollo. Page 61: "... the spaceship started to speed up ...the astronaut's had reached the point at which the moon's gravity was stronger than the earth's" - because the moon is a moving target, the minimum spacecraft speed along the trajectory does not occur at the point where the two gravities cancel. Page 137: "He discovered that the force between [two magnets] diminished with the square of their separation" - Magnets always have two poles, so the force between them is complicated. For large separations the force diminished with the fourth-power of the separation. Page 259: " ... letting out a hundred billion times more energy than one could ever get from ordinary, old-fashioned combustion" - the ratio is more like ten million.
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