The Fringe of the Unknown


The Fringe of the Unknown is a science book by L. Sprague de Camp, first published in hardcover and paperback by Prometheus Books in 1983.

Summary

The book is a collection of articles that constitute a "study... of controversial and often little-known happenings in science and technology, with an emphasis on the wayward activities of those who dabble in fringe science." The material is organized in three sections, "Our Ingenious Forebears," "Beasts of Now and Then," and "Scientists, Mad and Otherwise." The first debunks extravagant occult and pseudoscientific claims regarding ancient civilizations while highlighting these cultures' actual accomplishments. The second performs much the same function in regard to biology, focusing on elephants, claims regarding the survival of dinosaurs into the present day, and past extinction events. The third explores the distinction between science and pseudoscience as illustrated in the lives of a number of scientists holding extreme views.

Contents

;Part I. Our Ingenious Forebears
1. "The Wisdom of the Ancients"
2. "Apollonios Enlists"
3. "Appius Claudius Crassus"
4. "The First Missile Launchers"
5. "The Iron Pillar of Delhi"
6. "The Mechanical Wizards of Alexandria"
7. "The Landlocked Indian Ocean"
;Part II. Beasts of Now and Then
8. "Dinosaurs Today"
9. "Mammoths and Mastodons"
10. "Death Comes to the Megafauna"
11. "Xerxes' Okapi"
12. "The Temperamental Tank"
13. "How to Plan a Fauna"
;Part III. Scientists, Mad and Otherwise
14. "The Care and Feeding of Scientists"
15. "The Great Whale Robbery"
16. "Mad Men of Science"
17. "Orthodoxy in Science"
18. "Hoaxes in Science"
19. "Little Green Men from Afar"
20. "The Need to Know"
"Acknowledgments"

Reception

Joel W. Hedgpeth, noting that the book's "assemblage of articles" includes "all sorts of more-or-less scientific subjects," feels de Camp "writes about these matters in... good-humored spirit, but with a... substantial factual basis." While highlighting the essays on sea serpents, the extinction of the megafauna, the "strange story of the okapi," and the Cope-Marsh feud, Hedgpeth states "is most entertaining piece is about the use of elephants in warfare, which is aptly titled 'The Temperamental Tank.'"