5 comments about Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics.

1. This book is a kind of autobiography concentrating in the scientific career of J.A. Wheeler. Wheeler has devoted his scientific life to Quantum Theory,General Relativity (he has a very famous co-authored monograph, Gravitation) and has tried to bridge the gap between these two key physics theories, specially studying black holes, term that he coined.
   
   He also devised the delayed choice experiment that is a refinement of the double slit experiment and shows how quirky is Quantum Mechanics, i.e. Nature, at its fundamental level. In his last years he has also reflected on the big "philosophical" questions:How come existence? How come the quantum? He has ventured that information is the fundamental ingredient of everything: It from bit (or rather It from qubit).
   
   The book starts with the very interesting history of the Manhattan project, although perhaps it is the last chapter that I most enjoyed. Wheeler is a great teacher and he can explain difficult matters in a very clear way. This last chapter deals with time. He sets a sci-fi scenario (fiction only from a technical point of view) in which people travel at near light speed. Of course, when they come back to Earth, parents are younger than children that stayed at home and all the clocks have different hours. Can you image what would the chaos be in a society like ours where universal time is so important in our daily lives? For Wheeler, time is an emergent property, such as temperature or entropy.
   
   Another thing he explains well is the reality of virtual particles. Without them we could not reconcile the predicted and the observed value of the electron's magnetic moment. The book is only outdated in his belief in the Big Crunch.
   
   Wheeler was a student of Bohr and has had a lot of famous students, most notably Dick Feynman.
   
   This highly readable book is a history of XXth century physics full of anecdotes, such as the French not liking the name meson which would be pronounced like "maison" (house)in French.



2. Physicists often compare themselves to blind men feeling an elephant -- each guessing at the nature of the beast by describing the small part that they can touch. If true, then no man has come closer to feeling the Whole Elephant than John Archibald Wheeler. Wheeler's energetic career touched virtually every significant modern physicist -- Bohr, Fermi, Einstein, Teller, Oppenheimer, Feynman and many others -- a dazzling list that includes the most luminous minds of the last century. Wheeler may have missed winning a Nobel prize only because he was willing to sacrifice the best slice of his career to secretly help develop the fission and later fusion bombs for America. After leaving what he calls the "everything is particles" phase of his career, Wheeler entered "everything is fields" -- inventing the term "black hole" and describing the properties of these amazing objects long before anybody else ever took them seriously. Some ideas such as "geons" -- self sustained loops of light held together by their own gravitational attraction -- may still await discovery. Finally, in "everything is information" he explores ways in which information theory may be the most underlying unifying principle of reality. Part biography, part history and part speculation, this rambling story portrays a uniquely American explorer on a voyage through the amazing landscape of 20th century physics. The book is packed with photographs and profiles of the world's smartest men, fascinating anecdotes and meticulous historical details -- and shows that even at the age of 87, John Wheeler can still get excited talking about the unsolved mysteries that pervade our universe.
   
   --Auralgo



3. This is really a wonderful scientific biography. Wheeler has an engaging, easy-going style that doesn't sacrifice detail and scholarly accuracy for readibility. It's almost like having a fireside chat with the great physicist about the entire history of 20th century physics. Wheeler's career spanned almost the entire 20th century and he worked in many areas, from atomic and radiation physics to nuclear physics, quantum theory, black holes and gravitation. He even made a brief foray into sociology when he attended a conference and spoke on "National Survival and Human Development," in which he emphasized the importance of a country developing the full capabilities of all citizens.

   In addition to learning about his own distinguished career, you meet just about every other important physicist and/or mathematician or had anything to do with physics (such as Carson Mark, who I didn't know about before, who Wheeler spoke highly of), and his account is full of interesting personal details about famous and non-famous physicists alike. Wheeler met or knew other great scientists like Einstein, Niels Bohr, Richard Feynman, Hans Bethe, Oppenheimer, Stanislaw Ulam, John von Neumann, Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence, Isidore Rabi, Leo Szilard, Carl Bohm, and many others too numerous to mention.

   In addition to the above famous names, I also learned something about many other names, both famous and not so famous, that I didn't know much about before, and Wheeler often briefly mentions what each scientist's contribution was about, especially when it influenced his own thinking.

   Wheeler provides some important insights about himself. For example, he commented on how much of his own productivity was due to the deadlines and time pressure he was under most of his career. Many of us have the impression that brilliant minds like Wheeler (much of it fostered by the public's stereotype of Einstein) create their amazing intellectual achievements in a world divorced from reality and the mundane aspects of everyday life, but Wheeler says that it was often all the deadlines he had to meet that was responsible for much of his best work. He was always having to meet deadlines for papers, class lectures, various reports, talks he was invited to give, and so on throughout the course of his career, and he said he was often spurred to work harder because of them, and often did his best work under the pressure of having to prepare a lecture or talk at the last minute.

   Overall, this is a very enjoyable, readable, and interesting biography about one of the great scientists of our time.

   By the way, just a personal note here. I'm not a physicist myself (actually, I'm a neurobiologist by training), but I'm the grand-nephew of physicist Ernest Lawrence, who won the 1939 Nobel prize for his invention of the first atom smasher or cyclotron, and who Wheeler met briefly when he was considering a move from Princeton to U.C. Berkeley.




4. The physics is fine but this is an autobiography. What kind of a man is Wheeler? I got the impression he spent as much time avoiding offending anybody important as he did on physics. He sounds like an amiable sycophant.



5. Having noticed over the years that Prof. John Archibald Wheeler's name turns up in an amazing variety of physics-related articles and anecdotes, I was particularly primed to read his autobiography. The book doesn't follow a simple from-birth chronology, but rather begins with Wheeler teaching at Princeton and volunteering to meet the ship carrying his mentor, Niels Bohr, at a New York City dock in January of 1939. From that pivotal moment at the brink of World War II, Wheeler fills out his story by reaching back to childhood and forward to his long career in teaching, research, and national service. We learn of his brother Joe, whose body lay in a foxhole on an Italian hillside until it was reduced to bones. Wheeler reminds us that if the Manhattan Project had geared up one year earlier, the lives of his brother and many others might have been spared.

   Wheeler's remarkable character pervades the book and helps make it unique and interesting. In a profession legendary for strong intellects and egos, he has achieved and maintained a pomposity coefficient of zero. His judgments of other people are unfailingly generous, but also astute enough to be interesting and revealing. He provides candid firsthand impressions of legendary figures such as Bohr, Einstein, Oppenheimer, Teller, Ulam, Heisenberg, Fermi, Szilard and Feynman . We also learn about many less well-known colleagues, friends and students whom he finds memorable for various reasons. In contrast to the eminent-scientist stereotype, Wheeler has always enjoyed teaching undergraduates and is genuinely interested in the problems and aspirations of the young people entrusted to his care.

   Like the brilliant George Gamow, Wheeler has a talent for explaining difficult concepts and illustrating them with whimsically inventive diagrams. The book's autobiographical threads are interwoven with a rich tapestry of subtle but plainly-spoken physical insights on dozens of topics, some arcane enough to leave even the author slightly bemused. I believe anyone interested in physics will find a personal revelation or two among Wheeler's lucid, informal scientific explanations. There are touches of Gamowesque humor too, such as his theory that the fates somehow conspired to entangle him with a string of Hungarian emigres.

   The title concepts of the book -- Geons, Black Holes and Quantum Foam -- were all named by Wheeler himself. He began his career at the minute scale of particle physics, moved on to the grand sweep of relativistic cosmology, and finally circled back to the hyperminuteness of quantum foam. Of course there is nothing really disjointed about such a journey, since connections among the nested scales of nature constitute one of the grand unifying themes of physics.

5 comments about The Essential John Nash.

1. If you have an interest in John Nash AND know mathematics, this is an interesting collection. The main body of the book consists of eight papers in mathematics and his Phd Thesis in uncut form, accompanied by a small introduction. Apart from that there is a general introduction from his friend Kuhn, a short biography from his biographer Nasar, a 7-page autobiography, the statement of the Nobel-prize committee, a collection of photos of Nash in various phases of his career, and a short explanation to the game of Hex that Nash invented when he arrived in Princeton.
   
   Being an economist I was only interested in the thesis with the existence proof of the Nash equilibrium, and I am sure I would not have understood an alpha of any of the other papers. You really need to be a mathematician to appreciate this bundle. For those who want to know about Nash the man, I would recommend his autobiography "A beautiful mind" or the film with the same title.



2. 
   In case you have been captivated by "A beautiful mind", and be disposed to know more about the controversial existence of John Nash, pick up this book, that surely will catch your entire attention.



3. I only rate books that I really enjoy reading. While this one has some techy chapters, readers without a strong math background can still enjoy it.

   Professor Nash's story was brought to life by the movie, this book shows why. One day his manifold theory will rule! ;)




4. Personally, I found this book to be very interestring. The proofs and ideas are presented in clear and non-rigomorphic fashion. One is able to read the works of Nash in the way he himself presented them, and hopefully appropriate some mental strategies used by this genius. There is much that goes on behind the scene of creation of proofs. I think mathematicians of today would greatly benefit from availability of larger number of books which would contain the mathematical works in the way they were originally presented. This is certainly a major step in that direction.



5. I can't begin to express how deeply satisfying it was to peruse these papers by John Nash. You almost felt you were right there at his side, as he penned them.

   There is even something in the book for non-mathematical types: Sylvia Nasar's Introduction and the autobiographical essay (Chapter Two). But for me the greatest interest resided in the remaining chapters: 4-11.

   Of these, I particularly enjoyed reading the original presentation of Nash's Thesis on 'Non-Cooperative Games' (Chapter 6), and was fascinated not only with the air-tight logic of his proofs, but the use of hand written-in symbols.

   Of course, Chapter 7 is just the re-hashing of Ch. 6, but in proper type-set form, rather than Nash's original script. But - give me the former any day! Reading the original form and format almost made me feel like Nash's Thesis aupervisor, including the same excitement of a new discovery!

   Chapter 8 'Two person Cooperative Games' nicely extends the mathematical basis to cover this species of interaction.(And in many ways, people will find the cooperative game model easier to understand than the non-cooperative).

   Chapter 9 is important because it delves into the issue of parallel control, and logical functions such as used in high speed digital computers. This chapter was of much interest to me since particular aspects of parallel control figured in my own model of consciousness - recently presented in Chapter Five of my book, 'The Atheist's Handbook to Modern Materialism'. Astute readers who read both books will quickly see the analog between the Schematic of Logical Unit Function (p. 122) and my own Figure 5-13 ('Development of Neural Assemblies', p. 156).

   I enjoyed Chapter 10, 'Real Algebraic Manifolds' because of my ongoing interest in Algebraic Topology, and especially homology and homotopy theory. In his chapter, Nash presents a cornucopia of methods for representation, which I am still playing with for different manifolds.

   Chapter 11, 'The Imbedding Problem for Riemannian Manifolds', is a delight for anyone familiar with Einstein's General Relativity, or even differential geometry. When you read through this chapter, you also will understand why Nash is still very interested (and involved) in research to do with general relativity and cosmology. Particularly fun for me was his section on 'Smoothing of Tensors' (p. 163) and 'Derivative Size Concept for Tensors' (p. 164).

   Chapter 12, 'Continuity of Solutions of Parabolic and Elliptic Equations' is like 'dessert' for anyone who is intensely interested (as I am) in modular functions, which themselves are related intimately to elliptic equations.

   In short, I think this book has something for both mathematicians and non-math types alike. Obviously, the former are likely to get more out of it, so the question the latter group must ask is whether the purchase is worth satiating their curiosity about Nash.

   I know how I would answer, even if I couldn't tell a derivative from a differential. However, this book can be read on all kinds of levels, and that's the beauty of it.

4 comments about Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature.

1. An absolutely fabulous book on an environmental pioneer, "Witness for Nature" offers up three very important reminders: (1) We must never forget the prophetic contribution of Rachel Carson; (2) we must carry on her bold and visionary mission, never backing down from, as the book described them, the "powerful adversaries" of the chemical industry, corporate agriculture and others that seek to impose their technological will on the rest of us; and (3) we must treasure every day we have left and take the time to cherish our gifts in the natural world. I only wish Rachel Carson had lived to be 100 so she could have carried on her ecological vision for many more decades.



2. How many people today remember Rachel Carson? When you see an eagle or a falcon or a hawk, you can than k Rachel Carson. Her book "Silent Spring" incited action almost immediately against irresponsible pesticide use, including DDT, and launched an ecology movement that led to the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. This is quite an accomplishment for an author of natural history books; Rachel Carson must have been larger than life, practically immortal, in order to have pulled this off.
   
   But...as Linda Lear documents in extraordinary detail, Rachel Carson was entirely mortal, and all too human, and was not lacking in the faults most of us possess. Success came to Carson late (almost too late), but Carson's love of nature and her dogged determination allowed her to complete what is, perhaps, the most important book of the 20th Century before she succumbed to breast cancer. Lear's detail is incredibly deep; over and again she recounts instances from Carson's life that seem trivial and mundane until the reader feels bogged down in the excess of it. But this detail is critical, because Carson's life itself seemed mundane and trivial, that is until the last decade of it. Carson was a regular person-she was no superstar-and Lear's depth of detail is necessary in order to explain Carson's journey from a less-than-middle-class upbringing to government functionary to the preeminent nature writer of her time. Carson's life evolves slowly and ends tragically; she never married and she never had children-it is almost as if she was born to deliver "Silent Spring" at exactly the right moment in history, when it was needed the most, and then pass on.
   
   In "Witness for Nature", Linda Lear does not allow Rachel Carson to become a cardboard icon of an earlier time; Lear recreates Carson as a complete person with loves and fears and faults. Carson's greatness rises on its own from Lear's writing.



3. The first reviewer, Shari Just, has captured perfectly the quality, scope and value of Lear's biography. If you have ever wondered "can one person make a difference" this is the proof. A readable blend of history, place, people and events describing a modest scientist that loved to communicate scientific findings to a wider audience.



4. Lear's detailed biography offers an unmatched look at Carson's personal and professional life. This book takes the reader behind the scenes of Rachel Carson's brilliant works in order to demonstrate the difficulties that dogged her every day existance. Lear chronicles Carson's personal perservance and dedication to the environmental cause in an immensely readable format. A wonderful and inspiring book to read!

5 comments about Dr. Space: The Life of Wernher von Braun.

1. I found this to be a very interesting book to read. Wernher von Braun is one amazing man and and lived a very different and amazing life. This books gives you a bit of a look inside the man, what made him tick. There are a lot of interviews with people who worked with him or new him. The book is well written and is a must read if you are into the history of the NASA space program.



2. I really enjoyed this book. I worked at ABMA and later NASA during the late 1950's and early 1960's as a student trainee and it was pretty heady stuff for a young guy from South Georgia to be involved with members of Dr. Von Braun's team. Ward provides excellent insights into Dr. von Braun as an individual and his role in the nation's "space race". While at times it comes across as a little " promotional" it's an excellent story and makes one wonder what our space efforts would be like today if had he been chosen as head of NASA



3. Many rocket history buffs will review this book very closely, and be very critical if it doesn't treat every aspect of their personal interests completely. This book will fall short for many, depending on an individual's particular interest niche'. Criticizing this book in such a way is crazy.....it's a fine historical read. If you want in-depth technical descriptions of his works, then research those specifically. Similarly, if you want to dwell on the moral aspects of being a Nazi rocket researcher, then research that on its own. But, on balance, if you want to read about a man who rose to prominance "on the wrong side of the tracks," where his brilliance thrived, and how that transformed the modern era into the space age, then read this book. It's a great book about a great mind.



4. The novel Dr. Space: The Life of Wernher von Braun is written as a biography to show the main events in the life of Dr. von Braun. Although the book does not strictly follow a timeline of his life, it does basically follow the course of his life from his early childhood until his death in 1977. The book highlights his early promise as a musician but then shows how he became fascinated by rockets and the stars through small experiments and a telescope. The book then goes on to show his rise from firing rockets with a group of young enthusiasts to heading the German army's rocket development throughout World War II. After the war, von Braun heads to the United States where he and his team work on all kinds of missiles. All the while, von Braun attempts to convince the American government to allow him to develop a space program. The novel then follows his incredible career as a designer for the rockets that launched the first U.S. satellite into space and also carried the first man to the moon. This story is given added credibility by the fact that the author was a newspaper writer in von Braun's adopted hometown of Huntsville and knew the scientist personally. He writes the novel to share his opinions on the life and work of Wernher von Braun. The book is a good read for anyone with an interest in history and especially for anyone who is fascinated by rocketry. Since von Braun is the father of the American space program and a pioneer in the field of rocketry, this work is a great read for anyone with an interest in science.



5. The old admonish about never judging a book by its cover is very apropos to Dr. Space. The book's jacket touts this biography as a "...rare, balanced study..." of Von Braun's life. Sadly, that isn't the case. Ward clearly states that he had met Von Braun more than once. Those interactions obviously left Ward with favorable impressions of the man, which end up shaping the portrayal of his subject. Von Braun is depicted as an almost super-human being that was loved by most, but despised by a jealous, inferior few who made the end of his life miserable. Even Von Braun's faults, toward which a chapter is dedicated, are depicted not as flaws in character but as mild eccentricities and naughtiness. Yet, Von Braun's career strongly hints that he was a firm believer that (at least professionally) the ends justified the means. A more balanced biography would have the explored this aspect of Von Braun's personality further.
   
   The reader is especially shortchanged in the depiction of Von Braun's technical skills. Von Braun is primarily shown in the workplace as a cheerleader type manager who got the best from his staff. Virtually none of his technical accomplishments are mentioned, leaving the reader to wonder why a good manager would be awarded the National Medal of Science and ranked second on the list of the 100 "Stars of Aerospace". While detailed technical descriptions might be over the head of some readers (after all, most of us aren't rocket scientists), some illustration would have been helpful to appreciate Von Braun's creativity.
   
   With the atrophying of the U.S. space program and the time that's passed since his death, the general public's knowledge and appreciation of Von Braun is sadly fading from memory. A good biography of this rocketry giant would restore the widespread respect that he deserves. Unfortunately, Dr. Space is just a warm up to that more definitive biography which has yet to be written.

5 comments about Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World.

1. I understand everyone has his or her own definition of great writing and a great book. I thought this book was quite well-written and I enjoyed that it was not limited to merely a biography of William Perkin or the chronological format. As far as explaining my definition of a well-written book, I would say that this qualifies mostly because it captures interest quickly and maintains it. It is a non-fiction page-turner! Additionally, the author does not make grammatical errors or use language or style which is difficult to understand. In my opinion, that is a well-written book.
   
   As far as content is concerned, there is so much that can be gleaned from reading this quite fun as well as informative book. I especially liked the parts on Germany and WWII. As a graduate student, I would almost certainly assign this to a History of Science class. It would be great for a topics class focusing on discoveries/inventions or chemistry. I read this purely for pleasure and as such would recommend it to any general reader interested in the history of science, invention or world history.



2. I found this book often interesting and often confusing. People entered and exited frequently, and the insertion of some modern information about color broke the continuity of the author's message. I wished for more descriptions of the chemistry involved, what the various chemical reactions did, and how other chemists adapted Perkin's synthetic route to create new dyes. But the most descriptive information comes from Perkin's patent application, which sounds so general as to provide little useful information. So, this book gets three stars because it provided an easy summer read, but it lacked in scientific substance.



3. It could have been a great book. I'm always looking for good books about chemistry and chemists so I had high hopes for this one. The story of William Perkin discovering mauve as an 18-year-old student and then starting the synthetic dye industry in Britain is inspirational for chemistry students everywhere. However, the author races through the biography of Perkin in the first half of the book, barely hinting at his family or other aspects of the young man's life and personality. The second half of the book is all jumbled together: Perkin, fashion, natural dyes, World War II, malaria, etc. The author attempts to show that many different fields were affected by the synthesis of mauve from coal tar, but he really doesn't make a clear case for any of them, and the reader is left with a pile of disjointed factoids and unrelated characters. I was disappointed. It is still worth reading, for someone interested in the chemistry of color, but don't expect to be wowed.



4. I really wanted to like this book. And, yes, it has a fascinating tale to tell. But there was something lacking in the writing that me entirely unable to 'get' what the writer was trying to say. It IS an interesting story about the origins of dyes, about the effect of dyes on other industries, the industrial surge of technology of the age, and so on. But I couldn't ever quite figure out what made the chemical composition about this particular mauve so unique and important, and what about it was pushing the world into the future. I'm not usually this lost when I read, so, officially, I'm blaming the author! Sorry Simon.



5. This is a fantastic accounting of a too little glorified period in the development of organic chemistry. The story will be inspiring to anyone who has an interest in chemistry and/or business. The latter because the story demonstrates the importance of recognizing and capitalizing on an unexpected invention (vs. more target-oriented discovery).

   Unlike, most other popular science-related books that this is likely to be lumped with, it is enjoyably written, well researched and full of fascinating facts.

5 comments about Martians of Science: Five Physicists Who Changed the Twentieth Century.

1. "The Martians of Science: Five Physicists Who Changed the Twentieth Century", by Istavan Hargittai, Oxford Univ. Press, NY 2006. ISBN 13 978-0-19-517845-6. HC 314/240 pages includes Preface, Contents, Intro., Appendix 12 pgs., Notes 36 pgs., Biblio. 6 pgs., Chronologies 7 pgs., & Index 12 pgs. 9.5" x 6.5"
   
   A cleverly devised treatise details five of the Worlds' most notable theoretical physicists - all began as Jewish Hungarian citizens of Budapest who, in time, migrated to the U.S., toiled collectively and separately to develop strategic defense systems including the atomic & hydrogen bombs, computers, modernized Airforce, and establishing or working at the AEC, NASA, JPL, Manhattan Project, Livermore, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, etc.
   
   Convenient attribute of this writing is its apportionment into six chapters to reveal their progressive transition from early childhood into figures of greatness and thence onto their waning years. It reflects their family influences, societal environs, politico-economic conditions, scholastic opportunities, and acceptance into American cultural institutions as Princeton, Harvard, Berkeley, Caltech and the U.S. military.
   
   The plethora of B & W photographs contributes enormously to the book's value as does appendix of "Sampler of Quotable Martians". Perhaps most importantly are descriptors of personal interactions amongst the Martians themselves. This book embraces exciting history, racism, psychological ploys of embattled nations & bureaucracies, and the search for peace amidst glorious and sometimes inglorious purlieus. That the author is an acclaimed writer, recognized scientist, Professor of chemistry, authored several dozen books and is personally acquainted with and interviewed several of the 'Martians' is a plus. Its a good read and the price is right.



2. The above for me was the trust of the book with the historical perspective of early 1900 thru early 1980. As we start, we see what a great education can do as the five (5) did receive early intensive training in their outstanding "gymnasiums" of Hungary. Even though the education was so very good and produced many great students, these five still stood out to the point as if they were from Mars as the title depicts. As their academic reputations started to grow and the difficulties of the 1st war, they all had some experience of working or immigrating away from Hungary. As the 2nd war approached, all could see the writing on the wall and it was easier to immigrate a second time of which the US was the lucky recipient.
   
   Upon arrival to the US, it did not take too long as they started to display their political influence since they saw or knew what was going on in Europe and that war was coming and felt that the US needed to wake up and be prepared. This persistance took time but paid off as all were involved in some way with the development of the 1st atomic bomb both technically and politically. This continued on for some time for all of their collective careers, as after WWII, the cold war commenced and new problems were present with the atomic age upon us.
   
   The interactions between each of the Martians and between the people they met makes for some interesting side points which makes for some very good historical and political persectives if your interested in any of the above.



3. As the daughter of the book's author, I bring an unusual perspective to this piece, one that will give you some background on how this book came about and why you will be in for a treat when reading it.
   
   My father knew two of the five Martians discussed in this volume (Wigner and Teller) and had expressed a great interest in the work and lives of all five (Szilard, von Neumann, von Karman in addition to the above two) throughout his life. Curiously, however, despite having written numerous books about scientists, he never intended to write a book about these five until Oxford University Press approached him about it. When he finally took up this project, he threw himself into it with zest. When the book was near completion, he met with almost all of the surviving children of the Martians, not to change anything but to get an additional impression of their personalities. A byproduct of the book was a play he wrote about Teller, which surprised even me despite being used to his occasional unusual ideas.
   
   Looking back, the Martians were always on my father's mind, and he cherished his long-lasting personal acquaintance with Eugene P. Wigner. (Even as a child, I remember seeing the picture of the two of them taken upon their encounter at the University of Texas at Austin in 1969.) The family legend had it that we might be distant relatives, but there was never any hard evidence for that. My father started correspondence with Wigner when he was still a student, well before I was born. Actually, Wigner wrote him first after my father had published an article in a Hungarian literary magazine soon after Wigner's Nobel Prize. My father's acquaintance with Teller came much later, when he and my mother visited the Tellers in their home in Stanford in 1996.
   
   Having read The Martians of Science, I feel as if I had become personally acquainted with all five of the people discussed in the volume. It is fascinating to see that such incredible people emerge from just one country to contribute so much to science and to the defense of the United States. It is sad that they were forced out of Hungary, where even today - while their achievements are being recognized - the reasons of their departures are often covered up. This book puts these things into proper perspective.
   
   For an engaging, detailed, and passionate account of the lives of five incredibly important figures (regarding both science and history), I highly recommend this book.



4. What a great gem for those of us interested in 20th century history and the history of science.
   
   The Jewish-Hungarian Martians represented a well-defined group from turn-of-the-century Budapest who became top scientists in Germany of the 1920s, and made decisive contributions to the defense of the Free World from the menace of totalitarian powers during World War II and the Cold War. The book succeeds admirably in presenting their complex characters and their single-minded determination to achieve their stated goals on the background of the turbulent twentieth century.
   
   This is a book that was hard to put down. I have also returned to it from time to time.



5. This is a very interesting and informative book that I heartily recommend. I was inspired to buy it after reading a review of it in Nature magazine where the reviewer ended on the following helpful note: "This is an important story that needs to be told, and Hargittai tells it well", an assessment with which I concur.
   
   The book is about the lives of five Hungarian Jewish scientists whose work changed the world, not just the world of science, but the world of politics as well due to the circumstances and period in which they lived and thrived.
   
   The author does a very thorough job tracing the history of these important men. We are shown the uniqueness and diversity of the five Martians (Theodore von Karman, John von Neumann, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner) in addition to considering what bound them together. It is interesting to follow their parallel lives throughout exciting periods of the 20th century. Hargittai conveys the flavor of turn-of-the-century Budapest that yielded not only important scientists but also famous and important contributors to other realms of life (e.g. composers such as Bartok).
   
   The author does a very good job of communicating how circumstances and situations evolved. For example, we see a change from the peaceful coexistence and cooperation of Jews and the rest of Hungary's population to a horribly anti-Semitic society. We are also told about transitions such as how the Martians turned from dedicated students into top players in world science; how the initially Ivory-tower scientists became the most practical contributors to the American military might; how esoteric physics became a source of lethal weaponry within a mere few years; and how quiet immigrants became esteemed citizens with a strong political voice.
   
   In addition to telling us about events that happened, an intriguing feature of the book is that Hargittai tries to imagine what might have become of the Martians had they stayed in Hungary or had they lived in the Soviet Union rather than in the United States.
   
   Overall, this is an extremely engaging and informative read. I agree with the Nature reviewer's assessment that this book needed to be written and Hargittai did an excellent job doing so. You will both enjoy this reading and learn a lot from it.

2 comments about Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era.

1. "That's some catch, that Catch-22," Yossarian observed.
   "It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
   
   That is the famous line from Joseph Heller's 1961 novel, Catch 22.
   
   Authoritas is the autobiography of Aaron Greenspan's adventures growing up in Shaker Heights, then attending Harvard, and then finding himself in Harvard's 21st-century version of Heller's Catch 22.
   
   Authoritas is an interesting, fast paced and a times humorous read.
   
   While at Harvard, Greenspan develops by all accounts the very first version of what is now the international website "Facebook."
   
   Aaron Greenspan writes very well and really knows computing. With that combination I think we will be hearing a lot from Mr. Greenspan in the future.
   
   Heller's John Yossarian would have loved reading Authoritas.



2. At some levels, the book is just an absolutely engaging story. At other levels, it shines a harsh light on uncaring, uncreative, and unimaginative people involved at administrative levels of education. At times, you'll be astounded at the depths educational administrators go to squash creativity, deny entrepreneurship, and cover themselves at the expense of providing service to education.
   
   Aaron Greenspan graduated from Harvard. And although he is a successful CEO of his own company (Think Computer), his success came despite his Harvard education. In Authoritas you'll find Aaron struggle to avoid the crushing of the human spirit and the crushing of the innate desire to learn and his determination to provide compassionate assistance to his autistic brother.
   
   Aaron's story is personal, engaging, and important.

5 comments about Five Quarts: A Personal and Natural History of Blood.

1. Bill Hayes does a wonderful job of exploring our concepts of blood and sharing his experiences. I feel this book should be required reading for phlebotomists - I am one and found the book on my own and loved it!



2. Rarely have I encountered so unflinchingly honest a book. Mr. Hayes has an exceptionally complex relationship with blood; his partner of fourteen years is HIV positive while Mr. Hayes remains HIV free. Therefore, the book falls squarely into its own unique category--it is a journal of discoveries both personal and scientific. Its power is found in the author's candor as he shares his journey of discovery.
   
   The personal dimension of this book is surprisingly vast. Though it does treat the science to the degree one would expect, the scientific and historical discussion is but the lesser portion. The true context lies in the author's expressed need to know what blood is all about and his discovery of how blood-related knowledge has shaped his life. The intensely personal nature of the work gives a depth to the discussion not present in the expected general science genre.
   
   Though the author's frank treatment of his sexual orientation and personal history were startling, it can safely be said that Five Quarts is much more than a memoir and certainly more than the typical general science/history offering. Five Quarts was truly a rare and welcome find.



3. We could be corny and tout this as the kind of book you'll sink your teeth into, but that seems so bloody obvious. Instead we'll say that Five Quarts is a damn good read. Author Bill Hayes uses his HIV-positive status to springboard into a pulsating exploration --- as fascinating as it is frightening, as humorous as it is harrowing --- of the cultural, historical, spiritual and medical myths, misconceptions and marvels of blood. From the legend of Dracula to the scared saga of the Eucharist, from a heart-warming bedside visit with a woman suffering from hemophilia to a look inside a blood bank ... there's lots of interesting and informative on this plate(let).



4. Author Hayes mixes science, philosophy and a lot of personal intimacy in this interesting book on blood. A strange subject (though not the strangest around--a recent bestseller is about cadavers.) We have five quarts of the red stuff--hence the title.
   
   The book starts with Bill getting a cut. But then we go on a journey about hemophila and history (the royal house of Great Britain) and we learn about bloodletting, blood banks, and ultimately the AIDS epidemic.
   
   While I would prefer more science and less personal information in a treatise on a scientific subject, that's just me (I studied biology and immunology for quite some years.) But for a non-science-steeped reader, this is a fascinating look at the stuff of life. Recommended, though not for the squeamish.



5. This is a very well written book. If you are looking for an intelligent, but entertainng read...This is the book.

5 comments about Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons.

1. Fascinating man, boring biography--author John Carter's turgid prose style--the man apparently has no sense of humor--and the lengthy quotations from Thelemic rites, etc.--make this read One Big Snooze. Indeed, the sections about Parsons-as-rocket-scientist are much more lively, and they're not why I picked up a copy of the book at all. Carter apparently didn't gain access to a host of source documents, and that may not be a bad thing--he'd have quoted them lengthily.
   
   In the end, one gets little sense of the man nor of what drove him into the metaphorical arms of Aleister Crowley and Black Magic. Carter's sense of proportion is best-represented by his statement toward the end of the book, that Parsons had achieved more in five years as a rocket scientist than Robert Goddard did in a lifetime. Well, of course he did; he stood upon the shoulders of a giant--Goddard.
   
   Few footnotes, no endnotes, flawed index: a hugely important character appearing on many of the book's pages--Wilfred T. Smith--is missing in action. Not that many will want to re-thumb their way through this. If magick is indeed this boring, few will follow The Path.



2. Sex and Rockets is an illuminating and inspiring book that provides a detailed account of the rich and bizarre world of Parsons. The reader takes a mind-bending mystical journey through a dynamic realm of magic and science that reads more like great fiction than reality. Parsons was as interesting as any character in a science fiction novel of the time.
   
   He was a visionary in the world of the occult and an accomplished iconoclastic rocket scientist. The author confidently conveys the humanity behind Parsons and the extent of his influence upon many diverse realms of thought. Additionally, the author uncovers miraculous details.
   
   This penetrating work offers a straightforward portrayal of events and includes a thoroughly entertaining foreword by RAW and extensive photographs. I preferred the elegantly written "Strange Angel," for the language and the insights into the relationships, but this well-researched and enjoyable book was certainly worth the time. The author and his publisher deserve much credit for their accomplishment.
   
   Strongly recommended to science, occult and literary enthusiasts.



3. By day, Jack Parsons was one of the founders of Jet Propulsion Laboratories and basically single-handedly invented the rocket. By night, he was Frater 210, the self-proclaimed Antichrist, a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis, and a follower of Aleister Crowley (rhymes with 'holy'.) Oddly enough, he was a very meticulous, if reckless scientist, but a very sloppy and reckless magician. (Though his death might suggest otherwise. He was killed in an explosion in his home when he was 37.)
   
   The information in the book was great and I drank it up, but Carter's writing is simply bad and uninteresting. His speculations are often spotty and he blindly repeats some untrue myths about Crowley as fact. Otherwise, it was a nice view into the early years of the OTO and Thelema in America. My favorite parts, I think, were the excerpts from Crowley's correspondence. He was intelligent and witty till the very end. (Jack Parsons sent large amount of money to Crowley on a regular basis, supporting Crowley in his last years.) Much of this time period was not covered in Crowley's autobiography, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.
   
   L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, also appears in quite a large chunk of this book as a magical scribe and con man. Parsons and Hubbard performed some powerful rituals that were well beyond their skill levels and there is a whole branch of conspiracies that say they opened a sort of magical portal and that's where UFOs came from. Considering that Aleister Crowley once contacted an entity named LAM who looked much like a modern grey alien, it's an interesting story to delve into, which this book only touches upon. Parsons and Hubbard also had strange connections with John Dee & Edward Kelley. (Hubbard stole a very large sum of money and ran off with Parsons' wife. Kelley did the same to Dee way back in the ye olde 1500s.)
   
   Hopefully further books will be better written. I can see why this is the only book John carter has written.



4. While everyone knows that the early days of rocket science were full of good CHRISTIAN PATRIOTIC MEN like Werner Von Braun, this book lays out the very scary case that one of the pioneers of rocket science, indeed, one of the VERY FOUNDERS of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was NOT a CHRISTIAN at all, and was, in fact, a WORSHIPPER OF SATAN, and, a fanatical follower of one of the wickedest men of the entire 20th century! According to this book, Jack Parsons even tried to create his OWN SCARLET WOMAN (Rotting Goddess: The Origins of the Witch in Classical Antiquity), with whome to conceive a "magical childe" (a supreme BLASPHEME if I ever heard one). He is alledged to have commited SEX ACTS which would shock even the most hardened LIBERAL HOMOSEXUAAL, and then proceded to try to sell AMERICAN GOVERNMENT SECRETS to the ISRAEL Government when the jews were trying to get a leg-up! His sickness was finaly put an end to when he (OR GOD) blew Himself up inside his own home, in a laboratory in his garden shed while handeling rocket fuel. (Talk about the SPARK OF DIVINE JUSTICE.) Altogether a disquieting, disturbing tale of one of the lesser known, but more improtant (if the aurther is to be believed) pioneers of what would become NASA. CHILLING.



5. This was a good read but I get the feeling that the full story of Parsons will never be known. Parsons was a rocket scientist who was one of the pioneers in the field. He was heavily into the occult, a protege of Aleister Crowley as well as L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard later went on to swindle Parsons out of a large sum of money but not before he and Parsons conducted the infamous "Babylon Working" ceremonial magic rituals. Parsons died by blowing himself up at his home labratory which was ruled an accident but considering Parsons was the worlds greatest authority on rocket fuel at the time of his death many believe that he was set up and murdered. Most people really have no clue as to how much overlap there has always been been between the space program, the occult and science fiction. This book is one to dig into if you want to explore those connections.

5 comments about The Starship and the Canoe.

1. I liked the book's story, but not the way it was told. The author interjected his opinion and personal bias too many times for it to be anything biographical. However, it was a neat story.



2. If someone asked me to recommend a book to explain the Sixties this would be it. George Dyson, son of well-known physicist Freeman Dyson, was raised in a rarefied academic atmosphere. He walked away from that life at sixteen, not because of random rebellion but because this truly was what he needed to do.
   In this book author Kenneth Brower alternates the telling of the divergent lives of these two men. As a result he captures the generational tension of an era.
   Freeman Dyson was a product not only of the Fifties but of the flowing optimism of those years that today seems unimaginable. Truly, back then if one could think it then it was possible. One of the ideas Freeman thought possible was project Orion, a huge space vehicle propelled by external nuclear explosions. In the beginning years Freeman actually expected to journey across the solar system in Orion.
   George's life was nearly the diametric opposite of his father's. He wound up on the Canadian Pacific shore, living in a tree house and designing ocean-going canoes. The irony is that he found a universe to explore in his canoes - the coasts and islands of the Canadian Northwest and Alaska.
   In a fractal sense, both physically and culturally, George's universe was as infinite as his father's. And while he continues to explore it to this day, his father never got into his universe more than the cruising altitude of a 737.
   I am nearly the same age as George, long enough into my life to wonder what I've done with it. Frankly, I envy not just George's vision but his ability to follow it.
   I admire his father's pursuit as well. In much of the story there is clear tension between father and son, yet in the end some sort of meeting of minds happens.
   Even though this book was written over twenty-five years ago it offers a still-fresh notion of the gulfs between people, and how our failures in bridging these distances cause us to forsake a real future.



3. The Starship and the Canoe is not a book on kayaking, any more than A Tale of Two Cities is a Victorian travelogue. I felt as though I had to correct that impression created by Amazon's page on the book. Although it is twenty-five years old now, it remains a vital and engrossing tale of a father and son separated not only by the familiar gulf of misunderstanding and culture shock, but by their remarkable journeys, some through the vast and perilous estates of the mind, some through the cold and sparsely settled inlets and bays of the Queen Charlotte Sound and the Pacific shoreline of Alaska and British Columbia.

   The father and son are celebrated physicist (and author in his own right) Freeman Dyson and kayaker, tree-dweller, solo marine traveller (and also an author) George Dyson. In the wild, anarchic 1970s, author Kenneth Brower (who, it turns out, is also a friend of George's) takes us along with George and Freeman as they explore and plan explorations. His book is engrossing and one feels as though one has actually spent time with these fascinating, sometimes incredibly eccentric and singular men.

   Freeman Dyson, an influential theoretical physicist, spent a great deal of time in the optimistic 1950s and 1960s preparing to push the New Frontier outward on nuclear explosion-powered spacecraft. This work, Project Orion, was supported and funded by NASA and the US Air Force until the atmospheric nuclear test ban, competition for funding from Project Apollo and the Vietnam War finally killed the project's funding leaving him and fellow physicist Ted Taylor to develop the concept further.

   Together, the two men pushed the original project's concepts to their ultimate limits, and Project Orion grew to become spacecraft the size of Chicago leaving for nearby stars - so far, however, only in the minds of Dyson, Taylor, and those of us who have become enraptured by the concept of Orion.

   Later, son George Dyson ventures up and down the Pacific Coast from California northwards before finally settling (sort of) in the area between Vancouver and the glaciers of Alaska, sometimes living in a treehouse at the top of a tall and spindly fir, sometimes setting off from southern British Columbia up the Queen Charlotte Strait, meeting people on the islands of the strait in voyages oddly reminiscent of Antoine du Saint-Exupery's Le Petit Prince. Brower narrates these journeys with unobtrusive wryness, allowing the reader to chuckle at the interplay between author and subject as they paddle to and for between Alaska and Canada.

   Buy this book. Read it. Few other books reward their readers as richly as the Starship and the Canoe.




4. The Dyson's, Freeman and George, are father and son. Freeman, a nobel laureat physicist, has his sights set on the stars. George lives in a tree house in British Columbia and has combined modern materials and ancient techniques to build the largest canoe on the inland water way. See what happens when they reunite in the company of a pod of killer whales.

   This is my second read. Not my usual practice.

   My one major disappointment is the exclusion from this paperback edition of a section about Freeman Dyson's work on a "safe" nuclear reactor. I found this section particularly interesting because of the specific subject and because of the learning and work principles illustrated. This was an inappropriate job of editing.

   Read, enjoy and learn about learning and living and relating in our complex and conflicting world.




5. As both an outdoor loving ocean kayaker and an ardent supporter of space exploration, I found this book a synthesis of two different worlds that are difficult to unite in today's political climate. This book was way ahead of its time.