I once won a prize in a “scientific writing” competition. We did not know the criteria by which we were going to be judged, and I was very surprised to hear that I had won. Soon all was revealed: the prize was for the shortest sentence. Our tutor felt that concise writing was important in science. I was reminded of it reading this book. Although some topics included are mightily complicated, the sentences tend not to be. Despite there being five authors there is a remarkable uniformity in style. The whole book is written in clear and concise way, and at the same time it is comprehensive and covers all the necessary topics.

In the preface, …