Discarded Science: Ideas that Seemed Good at the Time

A bestseller in its hardback incarnation, this is an erudite but delightfully readable journey through the history of scientific ideas that once seemed plausible, at least to some, but which turned out to be wrong. From the flat earth to the hollow earth to the lost lands of Atlantis, Lemuria and Mu, from phlogiston to the luminiferous aether to cold fusion and homeopathy, from bizarre ideas about fossils to earnest descriptions of homunculi or the canals of Mars… here’s a feast of curiosities that will endlessly fascinate.