Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination, and the Birth of a World, Oliver Morton (Picador USA, $30) Scientists studying the surface of Mars have mapped volcanoes twice as high as Mount Everest and a meteor crater so vast you could place all of Western Europe inside it. Morton takes the measure of Mars research and envisions a future in which Earthlings may one day colonize the Red Planet.
The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World, Ken Alder (Free Press, $27) In the late 18th century, two intrepid French astronomers set out to create a new measure—the meter—that was supposed to equal 1/10,000,000 the length of the quarter meridian from the North Pole to the equator. Their calculations were a bit off the mark but are embedded forever in the measure that now signifies scientific exactitude.
