PETIT POINT: A CANDID PORTRAIT ON THE ABERRATIONS OF SCIENCE

by Gennes Pierre-Gilles de

In this fascinating book, Nobel Prize winner Pierre-Gilles de Gennes wittily captures the lives of personalities from both the academic and the industrial world in delightful bite-size stories. Most of the characters in this collection are like those in Aesop's fables, but in modern-day research settings. The book provides a critical account of aberrations (fortunately rare) of the scientific community. Many lessons can be drawn from the stories. For the young researcher, this book is like a for seeing other human beings beyond his or her laboratory. For the administrator, this book is like a for seeing inside the human beings huge and complex structures. However, like Aesop's fables, you would not offer the book as a gift to anyone other than a close and wise friend.Petit Point is not a book to be devoured in a single sitting. It is one to be savored and reflected upon -- it shows what the world may be like and what we ourselves may become. It is like a mirror -- to be visited from time to time.

80 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2004

Reviews

[M Singh Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just loved it.. Crisp, concise and unpretentious throughout. These are in fact some of the most prized qualities in Academia, and also what the community often lacks!
All the tales mentions bring out some very important do's/don'ts for someone aspiring to do very well in their Academic/Research career. And the way each story is presented- apparently impersonal, yet following the character closely and in fact with a latent compassion, it would indeed be very difficult to forget the moral of the story, and might help the reader to avoid committing the same mistakes.

The prose might seem a bit harsh towards the respective protagonists, but everyone trying to plant their feet in Academia, can perhaps vouch for the realism and practicality in each of these "tales"!