Access

Books and Arts

Nature 446, 494-495 (29 March 2007) | doi:10.1038/446494a; Published online 28 March 2007

Open Innovation Challenges

naturejobs

A little movement

Tom McLeish1

BOOK REVIEWEDMiddle World: The Restless Heart of Matter and Life

by Mark Haw

Macmillan Science: 2006. 256 pp. £16.99, $24.95

The fascinating tale of brownian motion has been looking for a story-teller for a long time. The tangled threads knot together, rather than begin, in the nineteenth century with botanist Robert Brown's original observations of the random, ceaseless motion of particles in pollen grains of Clarkia pulchella.