Review of "The How and Why Wonder Book of Light and Color," by Harold Joseph Highland

 Review of

The How and Why Wonder Book of Light and Color, by Harold Joseph Highland

Three out of five stars

 When reading this book, I was puzzled by some of the language used, for it simply did not have the expressions and tones of a physicist. For example, on page 35 there is the sentence, “Actually, no one today is certain exactly what light is.” This book was published in 1963 and at the time, all the characteristics of light were well known. The wave-particle duality was by then well-established scientific fact. Furthermore, physicists do not talk like that. When I investigated, I learned that the author is in fact the chair of a department of business administration and not billed as a scientist.

 I found this rather odd, this is a book about science, so it should have been written by someone well versed in the sciences. There are other phrasings that are questionable, for example the last sentence of the book is “What is light?” One can ask this question in the metaphysical sense, but that should not be a topic in an introductory book.