The end of December is irrevocably a period of looking back and looking ahead, even when it comes to science books. An old acquaintance from the Netherlands appears in the first category NRCscience supplement to: Marlies ter Voorde, who provided the Science Rhyme section on the back page in 2021 and 2022. The rhyming asides have also appeared elsewhere in current news (including on science platform NEMO Kennislink and on
The title of the collection, His name was one-three-sevenrefers to a special prime number. But in addition to mathematics, countless other disciplines are also discussed: from history and psychology to climate science (riddle for the enthusiast: which plant species rhyme with ‘roadside enforcer’?). The scientific news item that inspired the rhyme is briefly explained at the top of almost every verse. If you want, you can turn it into a game: recite one of the poems and let the others guess the reason. (For example, what was the following poem about? Da Vinci almost never met deadlines / Many masterpieces remained unfinished / But Mona – see that smile on her mouth / was happy that Ritalin did not yet exist?)
It is nice that Ter Voorde frequently experiments with poetic forms: from punctilious to ollekebolleke and sonnet. Pastiches of well-known poems also appear, and occasionally beautiful internal rhymes appear.
Lunar calendar
A brief look back, but especially a look at the coming year, appears in it Astronomy Yearbook 2025 by Govert Schilling. If you want to continue looking at the sky after the decorative fireworks, you will find all the necessary information in this book. At a glance you can see on the lunar calendar when exactly the full and new moon will be next year, and for each month Schilling shows a clear map of the starry sky as it can be seen from the Netherlands at that time (including constellations and planets). He also describes special dates per month: for example, on Sunday, January 5, the waxing moon, the planet Saturn and the bright planet Venus are aligned in the south-southwest sky (look between 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM, Schilling advises). A partial lunar eclipse will be visible from the Netherlands and Belgium on March 14, followed by a partial solar eclipse on March 29. (“During the maximum eclipse, at 12:09 p.m., 36 percent of the Sun’s diameter is covered by the Moon.”)
The many images of star nebulae are also beautiful, such as the Horsehead Nebula in the constellation Orion and the Sickle Nebula in the constellation Cygnus. Although it is of course the most fun to look up yourself. Let’s hope for many clear nights in 2025.