Scienticity - User contributions [en]

Wilson: Lewis Carroll in Numberland

2009-01-28T20:57:55Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
Robin Wilson, ''Lewis Carroll in Numberland : His Fantastical, Mathematical, Logical Life: An Agony in Eight Fits''.
New York : W.W. Norton & Co., 2008. xii + 237 pages.

We all know of Lewis Carroll, author of the immortal Alice in Wonderland books. Many of us know of his “other” life as Charles Dodgson, mathematician. Some of us know that he was one of the first photographers in England, and one of the finest. Few of us are aware of his life as a professor, poet, friend and family member. (Dodgson himself never married, but was very devoted to his siblings and their children.) This book discusses the man from all those points of view, and it does so very nicely besides.

Full of illustrations, puzzles, stories and excerpts from Dodgson’s works, the book brings to life a brilliant mind, a quirky personality, an interesting, multi-faceted man.

Robin Wilson, himself a mathematician, a professor of pure mathematics (one wonders what “impure” mathematics might be...), takes great delight in explaining the various mathematical issues which fascinated Dodgson. At the same time, Wilson is no slouch in the story-telling side of his endeavor. From the very first page of the introduction, I was hooked. Wilson’s prose is clear and enjoyable, never overly wordy or needlessly dry. With several other books to his credit, including the rather well-known ''Four Colors Suffice: How the map problem was solved'', Wilson is no stranger to publishing and knows how to keep his readers’ attention.

My only slight irritation with the book was the great need to keep flipping to the back of the book for the solutions to the puzzles/problems in the text.

All in all, this was a good read, filled with fun facts and tantalizing puzzles and puns. It is well worth the time to track it down and devour.

{{Notesby|SJB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Marcus: Kluge

2008-07-04T02:11:40Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
Gary Marcus, ''Kluge : The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind''.
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company, 20081. 211 pages, including notes, references and index.

Gary Marcus is a professor of psychology at New York University and director of the NYU Infant language Learning Center. In this book, he investigates how the brain works: sometimes well, sometimes not so well. His premise is that the brain is a patchwork of operations which developed/evolved over time into what he have today. As he writes on page 2:

<blockquote>
Where Shakespeare imagined infinite reason, I see something else, what engineers call a "kluge." A kluge is a clumsy or inelegant -- yet surprisingly effective -- solution to a problem.
</blockquote>

In a very brief and exceedingly entertaining work, we are taken on a tour of various functions of our brain. The chapter titles indicate what is considered:
# Remnants of History
# Memory
# Belief
# Choice
# Language
# Pleasure
# Things Fall Apart
# True Wisdom

I cannot praise the author's clarity, style or wit sufficiently. This is a wonderful book for anyone even in the least interested in psychology. Concise and amusing, scientific and accessible, fact-filled and not in the least dull, this volume is worth every moment spent reading (and re-reading) it. Don't just sit there...go find a copy and read it!

{{Notesby|IB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Simon: Dark Light

2008-06-19T03:41:14Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
Linda Simon, ''Dark Light : Electricity and Anxiety from the Telegraph to the X-Ray''.
Orlando : Harcourt, Inc., 2004. 357 pages, with endnotes, bibliography and index.

Linda Simon is a professor of English at Skidmore College. She has also written a biography of William James, through whom she "bumped into" the topic of electricity and the public reaction to it.

Beginning with the invention of the telegraph, and continuing to the discovery of X-rays and the sometimes lethal effects of X-rays, we get glimpses of personalities who contributed to the discovery and development of electricity.

Some of the people discussed as household names, e.g., Thomas Alva Edison & Marie Curie; others, who may be just as interesting but less well known, are the subject of Ms. Simon's in-depth and rather quirky look into not only electricity, but the phenomenon of public reaction to it.

If Thomas Edison is one of your heroes, you might change your mind about him as a person as you read this work. I certainly did.

This is a fascinating book, full of clever insight, compelling characters, interesting data and sometimes bizarre, not to say macabre, information. The discussion of the public's attitude towards electricity and technology during this time period is particularly well documented and discussed. I've never read anything else quite like this remarkable volume.

{{Notesby|IB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Trout: Tell Me Where It Hurts

2008-06-19T03:24:33Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=4|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
Dr. Nick Trout, ''Tell Me Where It Hurts : A Day of Humor, Healing and Hope in My Life as an Animal Surgeon''.
New York : Broadway Books, 2008. x + 286 pages.

The author, born in England but who has lived and worked in the US for many years now, gives a fascinating overview into the life of a working veterinary surgeon. Beginning with an early wake-up call from a young colleague, he traces a "typical" workday at the Angell Animal Medical Center near Boston, Massachusetts.

Along the way, we meet many interesting people and their pets, or rather animal-patients and their humans. There a many fascinating asides and background discussions, all very nicely written and engaging. If you've ever wondered what a veterinarian does all day, here's your chance to find out.

A highly enjoyable read, not to be missed.

{{Notesby|IB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

McCredie: Balance

2007-11-05T01:06:42Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=4|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=4|recommendation=4}}
Scott McCredie, ''Balance : In Search of the Lost Sense''. New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2007. viii + 296 pages.

Scott McCredie is a journalist who has written for Smithsonian Magazine, as well as other publications. This is his first book.

Balance, the sense of equilibrium that keeps us on our toes, so to speak, in a properly aligned position, is something few of us pay much attention to...until that balance is disrupted. And it seems that this is becoming ever more common these days.

McCredie explores how the body regulates balance, the history of medical knowledge about balance, and new therapies in treating people with balance issues. While there are occasional technical terms used, the book is not difficult to read or understand, and the stories of people whose lives have been disrupted by their 'lack of balance' are truly awesome! Funny, disquieting, encouraging, fascinating examples of what it's like simply not to have what we assume everyone has: a sense of which end is up! There is an appendix of 'balance exercises' in the back of the volume, just in case you want to see if you can expand your equilibrium...and they're fun too!

Here's the final paragraph of McCredie's text:

<blockquote>One of the more intriguing things I discovered about the human balance system is that it is both the oldest and newest of senses. By oldest, I mean on an evolutionary scale. We possess otolith organs, for instance, equivalent in form and function to those of lobsters and crayfish, which originated some 360 million years ago, according to the fossil record. And newest refers of course to how late in the game we humans have come to recognize and understand this enormously important faculty, which only in the past fifty years has begun to achieve what Dr. Terence Cawthorne, the influential British otologist from the 19040s called "The dignity of a sense. If Aristotle had known what we know today, he would surely have included balance on his list of human senses. Consequently, schoolchildren today would recite six instead of the traditional five. And we would all stand in greater awe of this ancient, intricate, vital, and easily lost power our bodies possess.</blockquote>

While I would not consider this one of the most felicitous science-related books I've read in the last few months, it is certainly worth the trouble to read and digest. After all, we do need to keep a sense of balance in all things, don't we?

{{Notesby|IB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Ball: Critical Mass

2007-02-25T23:29:48Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
Philip Ball, ''Critical Mass : How One Thing Leads to Another''. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. 520 pages with notes and index.

Ball's thesis is easily summarized: that modern concepts and models from a discipline of physics known as condensed-matter physics (encompassing thermodynamics, statistical physics, fluid dynamics, critical phenomena, chaos theory and others) can be usefully applied to the behavior of large groups of people, leading to deeper understanding of collective human behavior in sociology, economics, and such. Now, since my research interests as a working physicist were nearly all contained within condensed-matter physics, one can safely predict that my reaction to this book then will be anything but tepid: either I would love it or hate it.

Fortunately, I loved it. What thermal physicist would not be wooed by this attitude the author reveals in the following paragraph?
<blockquote>
Most people who have encountered thermodynamics blanch at its mention, because it is an awesomely tedious discipline both to learn theoretically and to investigate experimentally. This is a shame, because it is also one of the most astonishing theories in science. Think of it: here is a field of study initiated to help nineteenth-century engineers make better engines, and it turns out to produce some of the grandest and most fundamental statements about the way the entire universe works [referring to the concept of entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics]. Thermodynamics is the science of change, and without change there is nothing to be said. [p. 37]
</blockquote>
I don't know that I'd go quite so far as "awesomely tedious", but it's true that its elegance as a science is more in the concepts than in the mathematical formalism. Nevertheless, thermodynamics is usually talked about in the pejorative even by its partisans, so it's exciting and unique to see Ball adopt such an enthusiastically positive attitude.

In a succession of chapters, Ball elucidates some key concepts quite well and looks at recent research that aims to use concepts and models from condensed-matter physics to investigate a wide range of topics: traffic jams, the stock market, world trade, economics, the growth of businesses, alliances in international politics, globalization, networks, and some others. It's a breathtaking array of applications with appropriate quantification as a unifying idea for organizing and comprehending its diversity.

Here, for example, are some concluding thoughts after a discussion of a model for the growth of companies based on the complex interaction of individual worker agents and their motivations:
<blockquote>
IF we believe that such a simplified model can tell us anything at all about the real world, then we learn some revealing things about firms. First, they are not maximizers. Firms as a whole maximize neither profit nor overall utility (as conventional theories would have us believe). Individual agents do try to maximize their utility, but this does not induce such behavior in the group as a whole.
 
The firms that do best are not those that aim to make the most profit. Rather, longevity in a company stems from being able to attract and retain productive workers. A firm fails not when its profit margins are ended but when it is infiltrated by slackers.
 
The notion that putting profits first does not make a firm successful should not come as a surprise to those in the business community, although they have sometimes been reluctant to acknowledge it. Some market fundamentalists regard profit maximization not just as a principle of sound management but as a social obligation: it is the notorious "greed is good" paradigm. But as the British economist John Kay points, out, it simply doesn't work. If the employees suffer from the profit motive, so does the firm: "The piece-rate systems of car factories were abandoned because they destroyed social relationships in the workplace, provoked endless negotiation and confrontation, and established a working environment in which no one cared about the quality of the product." [p. 268]
</blockquote>

From the summary chapter:
<blockquote>
The notion that we could ever construct a scientific "utopia theory" is, then, doomed to absurdity. Certainly, a "physics of society" can provide nothing of the sort. One does not build an ideal world from scientifically based traffic planning, market analysis, criminology, network design, game theory, and the gamut of other ideas discussed in this book. Concepts and models drawn from physics are almost certainly going to find their way into other areas of social science, but they are not going to provide a comprehensive theory of society, nor are they going to make traditional sociology, economics, or political science redundant. The skill lies in deciding where a mechanistic, quantitative model is appropriate for describing human behavior, and where it is likely to produce nothing but a grotesque caricature. This is a skill that is still being acquired, and it is likely that there will be embarrassments along the way.
 
But properly and judiciously applied, physical science can furnish some valuable tools in areas such as social, economic, and civic planning, and in international negotiation and legislation. It may help us to avoid bad decisions; if we are lucky, it will give us some foresight. If there are emergent laws of traffic, of pedestrian motions, of network topologies, of urban growth, we need to know them in order to plan effectively. Once we acknowledge the universality displayed in the physical world, it should come as no surprise that the world of human social affairs is not necessarily a ''tabula rasa'', open to all options.
 
Society is complex but that does not place it beyond our ken. As we have seen, complexity of form and organization can arise from simple underlying principles if the are followed simultaneously by a great many individuals. John Stuart Mill already recognized this in the nineteenth century: "The complexity does not arise from the number of the laws themselves, which is not remarkably great, but from the extraordinary number and variety of the data or elements—of the agents which, in obedience to that small number of laws, cooperate toward the effect." [pp. 451—452]
</blockquote>

Since condensed-matter physics in general, and critical phenomena in particular, was once my area of expertise. I will venture to correct one small error that Ball makes in describing fluctuations in fluids near the critical point. He writes
<blockquote>
One experimental peculiarity that the theory [a late 19th century by physicist van der Waals) did embrace was the extraordinary sensitivity of the critical point. A system near its critical state becomes extremely responsive to disturbances. If you squeeze a substance, it shrinks in volume. The resistance it offers to the is compression is a measure of its so-called compressibility A rubber ball is more compressible than a steel, ball, and a gas is typically much more compressible than a liquid--one can squeeze it more easily. At the critical point of a liquid and gas, the fluid becomes absurdly compressible--in fact, more or less infinitely so. In principle, the gentlest squeeze is sufficient to collapse a critical fluid into invisibility. This sounds absurd, and experimentally one can never observe such extreme behavior, because maintaining a substance exactly at its critical point is too difficult--the critical state is too unstable. but one can see the compressibility start to increase very rapidly as the critical point is approached. [p. 228]
</blockquote>
This capture the essence, but the fluctuations (in density, which correspond to fluctuations in local temperature) are unstable only ''below'' the critical temperature. Above the critical temperature the fluctuations can grow to nearly macroscopic sizes but they remain stable, although it does take quite a bit of work to contrive getting a system that close to the critical point and keeping it there.

Ball writes with what I've come to expect as his accustomed clarity on some pretty challenging concepts; he gets the important meanings across through good exposition, without the use of silly and imprecise analogies. On nearly every page I found stimulating ideas and informative, exciting writing. This is another book that requires some investment in time to get through it, but the reader is well rewarded for the effort.

{{Notesby|JNS}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Ball: Critical Mass

2007-02-25T22:43:15Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
Philip Ball, ''Critical Mass : How One Thing Leads to Another''. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. 520 pages with notes and index.

Ball's thesis is easily summarized: that modern concepts and models from a discipline of physics known as condensed-matter physics (encompassing thermodynamics, statistical physics, fluid dynamics, critical phenomena, chaos theory and others) can be usefully applied to the behavior of large groups of people, leading to deeper understanding of collective human behavior in sociology, economics, and such. Now, since my research interests as a working physicist were nearly all contained within condensed-matter physics, one can safely predict that my reaction to this book then will be anything but tepid: either I would love it or hate it.

Fortunately, I loved it. What thermal physicist would not be wooed by this attitude the author reveals in the following paragraph?
<blockquote>
Most people who have encountered thermodynamics blanch at its mention, because it is an awesomely tedious discipline both to learn theoretically and to investigate experimentally. This is a shame, because it is also one of the most astonishing theories in science. Think of it: here is a field of study initiated to help nineteenth-century engineers make better engines, and it turns out to produce some of the grandest and most fundamental statements about the way the entire universe works [referring to the concept of entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics]. Thermodynamics is the science of change, and without change there is nothing to be said. [p. 37]
</blockquote>
I don't know that I'd go quite so far as "awesomely tedious", but it's true that its elegance as a science is more in the concepts than in the mathematical formalism. Nevertheless, thermodynamics is usually talked about in the pejorative even by its partisans, so it's exciting and unique to see Ball adopt such an enthusiastically positive attitude.

In a succession of chapters, Ball elucidates some key concepts quite well and looks at recent research that aims to use concepts and models from condensed-matter physics to investigate a wide range of topics: traffic jams, the stock market, world trade, economics, the growth of businesses, alliances in international politics, globalization, networks, and some others. It's a breathtaking array of applications with appropriate quantification as a unifying idea for organizing and comprehending its diversity.

Here, for example, are some concluding thoughts after a discussion of a model for the growth of companies based on the complex interaction of individual worker agents and their motivations:
<blockquote>
IF we believe that such a simplified model can tell us anything at all about the real world, then we learn some revealing things about firms. First, they are not maximizers. Firms as a whole maximize neither profit nor overall utility (as conventional theories would have us believe). Individual agents do try to maximize their utility, but this does not induce such behavior in the group as a whole.
 
The firms that do best are not those that aim to make the most profit. Rather, longevity in a company stems from being able to attract and retain productive workers. A firm fails not when its profit margins are ended but when it is infiltrated by slackers.
 
The notion that putting profits first does not make a firm successful should not come as a surprise to those in the business community, although they have sometimes been reluctant to acknowledge it. Some market fundamentalists regard profit maximization not just as a principle of sound management but as a social obligation: it is the notorious "greed is good" paradigm. But as the British economist John Kay points, out, it simply doesn't work. If the employees suffer from the profit motive, so does the firm: "The piece-rate systems of car factories were abandoned because they destroyed social relationships in the workplace, provoked endless negotiation and confrontation, and established a working environment in which no one cared about the quality of the product." [p. 268]
</blockquote>

From the summary chapter:
<blockquote>
The notion that we could ever construct a scientific "utopia theory" is, then, doomed to absurdity. Certainly, a "physics of society" can provide nothing of the sort. One does not build an ideal world from scientifically based traffic planning, market analysis, criminology, network design, game theory, and the gamut of other ideas discussed in this book. Concepts and models drawn from physics are almost certainly going to find their way into other areas of social science, but they are not going to provide a comprehensive theory of society, nor are they going to make traditional sociology, economics, or political science redundant. The skill lies in deciding where a mechanistic, quantitative model is appropriate for describing human behavior, and where it is likely to produce nothing but a grotesque caricature. This is a skill that is still being acquired, and it is likely that there will be embarrassments along the way.
 
But properly and judiciously applied, physical science can furnish some valuable tools in areas such as social, economic, and civic planning, and in international negotiation and legislation. It may help us to avoid bad decisions; if we are lucky, it will give us some foresight. If there are emergent laws of traffic, of pedestrian motions, of network topologies, of urban growth, we need to know them in order to plan effectively. Once we acknowledge the universality displayed in the physical world, it should come as no surprise that the world of human social affairs is not necessarily a ''tabula rasa'', open to all options.
 
Society is complex but that does not place it beyond our ken. As we have seen, complexity of form and organization can arise from simple underlying principles if the are followed simultaneously by a great many individuals. John Stuart Mill already recognized this in the nineteenth century: "The complexity does not arise from the number of the laws themselves, which is not remarkably great, but from the extraordinary number and variety of the data or elements—of the agents which, in obedience to that small number of laws, cooperate toward the effect." [pp. 451—452]
</blockquote>

Since condensed-matter physics in general, and critical phenomena in particular, was once my area of expertise. I will venture to correct one small error that Ball makes in describing fluctuations in fluids near the critical point. At one point he describes these fluctuations in fluid density (which are also local fluctuations in temperature) as unstable, i.e., when a low-density fluctuation appears it will inevitably grow larger into a bubble of low-density gas. That the fluctuations are unstable is true only at temperatures ''below'' the critical temperature; above the critical temperature such fluctuations are stable, although they do grow in size to nearly macroscopic proportions very, very near the critical point.

Ball writes with what I've come to expect as his accustomed clarity on some pretty challenging concepts; he gets the important meanings across through good exposition, without the use of silly and imprecise analogies. On nearly every page I found stimulating ideas and informative, exciting writing. This is another book that requires some investment in time to get through it, but the reader is well rewarded for the effort.

{{Notesby|JNS}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Barron: Piano

2007-02-24T04:05:00Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
James Barron, ''Piano : the Making of a Steinway Concert Grand''. New York : Times Books, 2006. 280 pages, illustrated.

In this marvelously written and researched book, the author traces the making of a Steinway concert grand piano from the beginning of the process to the placement of the instrument as one of the 'instruments in residence’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

A delightful blend of reportage, background information and human interest, this book is well worth reading for the music lover as well as anyone interested in such diverse disciplines as acoustics, wood-working, engineering, and economics, to name but a few.

Technology and art coincide in this work which ought not to be missed.

{{Notesby|SJB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Butcher: Jules Verne

2006-10-13T21:17:31Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=4|readability=5|hermeneutics=4|charisma=4|recommendation=5}}
William Butcher, ''Jules Verne : The Definitive Biography''. New York : Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006. xxxii + 369 pages.

William Butcher is arguably the world’s foremost authority on Jules Verne. In this biography, he traces Verne’s life and career as the most read and most translated authorin French. Oddly, most of Verne's has never been published as he wrote it.

Verne is often thought of as the father of science fiction. However he was not a trained scientist in any meaning of that word. His father, a lawyer, insisted that Jules follow in his footsteps. But his heart was in literature, not the law.

Verne’s effect on popular science fiction as a genre of literature is immense. Still he never thought of himself in this way. He wanted to be a playright, and, thanks to a manipulative publisher, spent most of his time and considerable literary talents writing “educational” books for “the young”.

Butcher’s thorough biography is worth the reading. His writing is clear and entertaining. Verne’s oeuvre is discussed in detail and every page is full of interest and insight.

One doesn’t need to be a scientist, it seems, to be taken for an insightful science-fiction author.

{{Notesby|SJB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Manhein: Trail of Bones

2006-10-11T17:25:17Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=4|readability=4|hermeneutics=4|charisma=4|recommendation=4}}
Mary H. Manhein, ''Trail of Bones'', Baton Rouge, LA : Louisiana State University Press, 2005. xiv + 127 pages.

Mary H. Manhein assists law enforcement officials across the country in identifying bodies and solving criminal cases. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and an expert on the human skeleton.

In this, her second book, she regales us with various cases on which she has worked. These cases range from the famous to the unknown: from her efforts to recover the remains of the seven astronauts killed in the Columbia shuttle crash of 2003, to several unsolved cases. Her writing is a bit dry, but nonetheless engaging. She relates how various scientific and cultural developments, such as DNA technology and the popularity of tattoos, have made identification easier. For those who like 'true crime', this is a great read, with detail, humor, variety, compassion, and a thirst for justice.

{{Notesby|SJB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Moffett: The Three-Pound Enigma

2006-09-09T03:36:16Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
Shannon Moffett, ''The Three-Pound Enigma : The Human Brain and the Quest to Unlock its Mysteries''. Chapel Hill : Algonquin Books, 2006. x + 309 pages.

According to the dustjacket, Shannon Moffett is a medical student at Stanford University. She is also an author who can present very complicated material in an entertaining manner, with utmost clarity and disarming wit.

While the subtitle may seem a bit daunting, the book is very amusing, not at all difficult to get one's mind around, and well worth the time to track it down and devour it. And for those who want even more material, visit her website: shannonmoffett.com

Essentially, the development of the human brain from conception to death is discussed briefly and succintly in short segments called "interludes". Between interludes, Ms. Moffett gives us discussions, interviews and stories of people who work on various aspects of human brain research, putting a human face on a vast field of study, ranging from neurosurgery, to philosophy, to biochemistry, to psychological diagnostics and therapy.

A marvelously fascinating work! Don't miss it!

{{Notesby|SJB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Moffett: The Three-Pound Enigma

2006-09-09T03:33:58Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
Shannon Moffett, ''The Three-Pound Enigma : The Human Brain and the Quest to Unlock its Mysteries''. Chapel Hill : Algonquin Books, 2006. x + 309 pages.

According to the dustjacket, Shannon Moffett is a medical student at Stanford University. She is also an author who can present very complicated material in an entertaining manner, with utmost clarity and disarming wit.

While the subtitle may seem a bit daunting, the book is very amusing, not at all difficult to get one's mind around, and well worth the time to track it down and devour it.

Essentially, the development of the human brain from conception to death is discussed briefly and succintly in short segments called "interludes". Between interludes, Ms. Moffett gives us discussions, interviews and stories of people who work on various aspects of human brain research, putting a human face on a vast field of study, ranging from neurosurgery, to philosophy, to biochemistry, to psychological diagnostics and therapy.

A marvelously fascinating work! Don't miss it!

{{Notesby|SJB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Moffett: The Three-Pound Enigma

2006-09-09T03:32:50Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
Shannon Moffett, ''The Three-Pound Enigma : The Human Brain and the Quest to Unlock its Mysteries''. Chapel Hill : Algonquin Books, 2006. x + 309 pages.

According to the dustjacket, Shannon Moffett is a medical student at Stanford University. She is also an author who can present very complicated material in an entertaining manner, with utmost clarity and disarming wit.

While the subtitle may seem a bit daunting, the book is very amusing, not at all difficult to get one's mind around, and well worth the time to track it down and devour it.

Essentially, the development of the human brain from conception to death is discussed briefly and succintly in short segment called "interludes". Between interludes, Ms. Moffett gives us discussions, interviews and stories of people who work on various aspects of human brain research, putting a human face on a vast field of study, ranging from neurosurgery, to philosophy, to biochemistry, to psychological diagnostics and therapy.

A marvelously fascinating work! Don't miss it!

{{Notesby|SJB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Garfield: Mauve

2006-08-26T22:55:22Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
Simon Garfield, ''Mauve : How One Man Invented a Color that Changed the World''.
New York : W. W. Norton, 2001. 222 pages.

One hundred and fifty years ago, an eighteen year-old William Perkin accidentally invented a color that took the world by storm. This book is the story of that accident and its consequences.

Before mauve, chemistry was mostly a theoretical affair; after it, chemical research pushed industry to new heights of applications, and sparked investigations into possilibities that no one had even bothered to consider before. The results of Perkin's discovery led to the development of explosives, perfume, photography, many modern medicines and plastics, among others.

Garfield tells his story with verve and imagination. This is definitely a book worth reading.

{{Notesby|SJB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Garfield: Mauve

2006-08-26T22:54:03Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
Simon Garfield, ''Mauve : How One Man Invented a Color that Changed the World''.
New York : W. W. Norton, 2001. 222 pages.

One hundred and fifty years ago, an eighteen year-old Willima Perkin accidentally invented a color that took the world by storm. This book is the story of that accident and its consequences.

Before mauve, chemistry was mostly a theoretical affair; after it, chemical research pushed industry to new heights of applications, and sparked investigations into possilibities that no one had even bothered to consider before. The results of Perkin's discovery led to the development of explosives, perfume, photography, many modern medicines and plastics, among others.

Garfield tells his story with verve and imagination. This is definitely a book worth reading.

{{Notesby|SJB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Garfield: Mauve

2006-08-26T22:51:52Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
Simon Garfield, ''Mauve : How One Man Invented a Color that Changed the World''.
New York : W. W. Norton, 2001. 222 pages.

One hundred and fifty years ago, an eighteen year-old Willima Perkin accidentally invented a color that took the world by storm. This book is the story of that accident and its consequences.

Before mauve, chemistry was mostly a theoretical affair; after it, chemichal research sparked industry to new heights of applications and investigations into possilibities no one had even considered before. The results of Perkin's discovery led to the development of explosives, perfume, photography, many modern medicines and plastics.

Garfield tells his story with verve and imagination. This is definitely a book worth reading.

{{Notesby|SJB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Garfield: Mauve

2006-08-26T22:51:23Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
Simon Garfield, ''Mauve : How One Man Invented a Color that Changed the World''.
New York : W. W. Norton, 2001. 222 pages.

One hundred and fifty years ago, an eighteen year-old Willima Perkin accidentally invented a color what took the world by storm. This book is the story of that accident and its consequences.

Before mauve, chemistry was mostly a theoretical affair; after it, chemichal research sparked industry to new heights of applications and investigations into possilibities no one had even considered before. The results of Perkin's discovery led to the development of explosives, perfume, photography, many modern medicines and plastics.

Garfield tells his story with verve and imagination. This is definitely a book worth reading.

{{Notesby|SJB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Ehrman: Misquoting Jesus

2006-08-26T03:25:00Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=4|recommendation=5}}
Bart D. Ehrman, ''Misquoting Jesus : The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why''.
San Francisco : Harper San Francisco, 2005. x + 242 pages.

Dr. Ehrman chairs the Department of Religious Studies at Univeristy of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. This is perhaps the first popular book on "textual criticism", the method by which scholars attempt to reconstruct the original version of a document from its many 'children'.

Our author traces the history of the text of the New Testament and describes how scholars use the principals of textual criticism to determine what the 'best reading' of the texts in question might be.

No autographs of any of the books that make up the Bible exist, and the earliest manuscript copies date from many decades -- or even a century or more -- after the time of the original writing. Consequently, the question of which version of the literally thousands of variants of these texts is 'the original' text is not always easy to resolve.

The writing is clear and concise. The style is amusing but not frivolous. A good read.

{{Notesby|SJB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Ferguson: Tycho and Kepler

2006-08-09T02:18:41Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=4|readability=5|hermeneutics=5|charisma=4|recommendation=5}}
Kitty Ferguson, ''Tycho & Kepler : The Unlikely Partnership That Forever Changed Our Understanding of the Heavens''.
New York : Walker & Company, 2002. xiv + 402 pages.

Kitty Ferguson, a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music, had a successful career as a musician. In recent years, however, she has devoted herself to writing about science and science issues.

This work, in essence a double biography, not only draws vivid portraits of
two remarkable figures in the history of science but also deftly explains the importance of the discoveries, inventions, and measurements made by Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.

Her writing is lively and quite readable. The positive appreciation for her subjects comes through very clearly, making them not just figures from the murky past, but living, breathing personalities worthy of our attention today.

{{Notesby|SJB}}

[[Category: Book Notes]]

Robinson: Lost Languages

2006-07-09T23:02:48Z

IBorocz:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=4|readability=4|hermeneutics=5|charisma=4|recommendation=4}}
Andrew Robinson ''Lost Languages : The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts". New York : McGraw-Hill, 2002. 352 pages.

Andrew Robinson is literary editor of The Times Higher Education Supplement, London. His writing is engaging, his enthusiasm about his subject is obvious, and his presentation generally well-reasoned and logicly presented.

This work deals with those scripts yet to be deciphered, in short, a treatise on a form of cryptography. After discussing the three ancients scripts which have already been deciphered (Egyptian hieroglphics, Linear B, and Mayan glyphs), he considers those scripts which still await decryption.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, although the size of the physical book wa a bit awkward for casual reading, and the chosen typeface for the text was a bit fine and thus created a bit of strain on these no-longer-young eyes.

'''From the conclusion of the book (pages 322-3:'''

"Archeological decipherment therefore bridges both the sciences and the arts....It involves a range of scientific techniues, from chemical analysis of written materials to sign frequency analysis and comparative linguistics, which are applicable to every undeciphered script -- but at the same time the decipherer needs also to involve subttly, the entire archaeological, historical and cultural evidence, which is unique to a particular script....

So, the decipherment of ancient scripts is a compelling intellectual and imaginative challenge; it makes history; it hanges our perceptions of our place in the world; it casts new light on how we read nad write; and it is sometimes to handmaiden and interpreter of fine art. The urge to decipher is our vital response to our species' urge to express its thoughts and feelings through writing in all its unique diversiy and incredible ingenuity over five millenia. This, surely, is what most makes us human."

[[Category: Book Notes]]