5 comments about American Dreamer: A Life of Henry A. Wallace.

1. Doesn't anyone here know how pathetically naive this man was? I mean, he wanted to pursue a policy of appeasement with mass-murderer Joseph Stalin - much as Neville Chamberlain had done not a decade earlier with Hitler. Thank God Roosevelt had the sense to remove him from the Vice Presidency; a very scary situation indeed was thus avoided.
   
   Don't waste your time - the man, however "idealistic" (meaning he didn't listen to anyone else), is a historical nonentity.



2. There are many lessons to be learned from the one-of-a-kind individual Henry A. Wallace. Because of his varied interests, people of all walks of life can find aspects of his life and personality they can relate to. This book provides insight into one of the driving forces behind modern agricultural, economic, political and social thought.



3. Henry A Wallace was surely one of the most fascinating men in American Politics in 20th Century--even tho he was, in a sense, only half-in politics. He was too naive and too much in sympathy with the poor of his own world and with the aspirations of other people to fit the American mainstream---FDR managed to achieve a lot of what Wallace dreamed of by being more politically astute.



4. This is a proverbial "long overdue" biography of Henry A. Wallace and his brilliant yet eccentric Scottish-American family. I did a Web search of Wallace a few years ago and was amazed at the scant result. This rectifies that.
   
   Beyond the coverage of his political innocence there is a good recounting of his actual science work. Few politicians actually "do" things beyond speechifying, getting reelected and becoming millionaires at the public trough. Henry, Henry C. and Henry A. Wallace were exceptions. Their philosophic designs for the farmer and state policy were important and Henry A.'s genetic work truly revolutionary.
   
   The world would be a different place without it.
   
   Not much popular press has been written about American agriculture, I guess because building cars, fighting Hitler, dropping atomic bombs and oral sex in the oval office are more exciting.
   
   This book is a good primer in America's great farming history of triumph. To simplify, the American farmer through hard work, good soil and some science grew too much product for his own good...prices essentially fell from 1890 into the 1930's. (World War I was a boom period, but wild fluctuations don't lend themselves to good planning. Under such conditions, planning was about as effective as mule husbandry.) Naturally this hurt most farmers and destroyed more then a few of them. Through government intervention theorized by the Wallace family's agricultural journal and then championed to be public law in Washington by Secretary of Agriculture Henry C. under Harding, then Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. under FDR, this anomaly was reformed.
   
   An obvious and wonderful irony is that Henry A. during this fight for state policy, was genetically engineering hybrid corns (and other crops) which hugely increased acre yield! In other words, American farmers were destroying themselves by being too successful and Wallace made them more successful...and viable.
   
   I was thrilled too with the description of Henry C.'s Washington sojourn in the 1920's. Historians breeze by that period, summarizing it as: womanizer, feckless Warren G. Harding; indolent, pickle puss Calvin Coolidge; and Depression maker, Let-Them-Eat-Cake Herbert C. Hoover. Obviously no administration sets its goal as venality, so it refreshing to see Harding to be portrayed as a sympathetic proponent of Henry C.'s policy goals and Coolidge to be an activist opponent of them. Hoover simply comes off as a lunk-headed player who was wrong and enamored with his personal successes.
   
   Historians have wrongly treated conservative governments as do-nothing when in fact doing nothing often takes as much effort as signing every bill regurgitated by Congress.
   
   And Roosevelt was duplicitous, Henry A. believed in mysticism and was a parlor red who would have ruined the country had FDR croaked a year earlier...but that I knew before I read this book.
   
   This is a good book about a classic American type.



5. I enjoyed this detailed account of the life of Henry Wallace. The book does read like a work by David McCullough, but is enhanced by a deep understanding of the culture of Washington. The book gives valuable insights into the practical political forces that shaped the New Deal and the beginning of the Cold War.

   The underlying premise of this book as that an idealistic dreamer can make a huge difference in the creating and shaping policy in the United States. The co-author of this work is a former Senator from Iowa named John C. Culver. He served one-term in the 1970's. Through Henry Wallace, the authors mount a formidable defense of the ideals of American liberalism.

2 comments about Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon.

1. In Brecht's "1940," the "latest inventions of the professors" probably didn't include the atomic bomb. Poison gas and rockets meant to kill civilians were horrific enough. But one of the surprising things (to me, at least) that P. D. Smith's Doomsday Men shows is how newspapers and popular science writing in Europe and America described atomic bombs and atomic power plants in detail decades before Hiroshima.
   
   Another interesting thing in Doomsday Men is how fiction writers and scientists inspired each other. Roentgen discovered X-rays in 1895 and the next year H. G. Wells used "Roentgen vibrations" as the rationale for the Invisible Man's experiments. (Wells was the first to use the expression "atomic bomb.")
   
   American science fiction magazines published stories about atomic energy years before Pearl Harbor.
   
   In Germany Zukunftsromane ("future novels") and Weltuntergangsromane ("end-of-the-world stories") were popular. These stories influenced German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and Hungarian physicists Leo Szilard and Edward Teller, two of the "Hungarian Quartet" that Doomsday Men is primarily about. Most of the best nuclear scientists in Berlin were Jewish and left Germany in the 1930s for Britain or the United States.
   
   Fritz Haber, was an ultra-patriotic German-Jewish scientist who developed poison gas during World War I without any qualms. (After the Nazis took power, when Haber was a refuge in England, Ernest Rutherford refused to meet Haber, saying " 'he did not want to shake hands with the inventor of poison gas warfare.' ") Many of Haber's family were killed by Zyklon B gas at Auschwitz.
   
   As the truth about the effects of atomic bombs and atomic testing became known, a new kind of story replaced the old pro-technology-at-any-cost stories in American science fiction magazines (where you rarely read about a Faust or a Frankenstein). Actually, it was a return to an older type of story.
   
   Movies like Godzilla, Them!, The Amazing Colossal Man, and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms were a return to the "deadly utopian dream" of turn-of-the-century fiction like H. G. Wells's The World Set Free or The War of the Worlds.
   
   By the time of the modern era of ICBMs and hotlines, the tragic figure of Goethe's Faust had become Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, an amalgam of von Braun, Edward Teller, and others, who could only be comprehended as a joke, even though the joke was we're doomed.
   
   
   



2. Doomsday Men is an impressively creative examination of how literature and philosophy influenced the development of superweapons, and how knowledge of their ghastly potential shaped, in turn, the cultural icons of the 20th century. It shows how those involved in the Manhattan Project differed greatly in their temperments and outlooks, and reached drastically different conclusions about the role of nuclear weapons after the Second World War was over. While some scientists, such as Leo Szilard, rallied for arms control, others, such as Herman Kahn, argued that the west should be prepared to accept massive casualties. Kahn's remarks, taken to their terrifying extreme, were incorporated into Kubrick's classic dark comedy, Dr. Strangelove, a film that occupies a central place in this book. Through colorful anecdotes and fascinating connections with popular culture, Smith helps bring the turbulent history of those frightening times to life. Doomsday Men offers a vital and intruging account of the mentality and culture of the Cold War.

5 comments about The Life of Isaac Newton (Canto original series).

1. Westfall's "Life of Isaac Newton" is everything the other reviewers say in regards to it being a good ABRIDGED biography of Newton. True, it is based in thorough scholarship and has served for the basis for many other Newton biographies to follow. But I would strongly caution any historian, whether by hobby or profession, to solely consult this book when referencing or discussing Newton. Westfall's abridged version lacks any mention of references (unless you count the very incomplete bibliographical essay at the end) in either footnotes, endnotes, or a comprehensive bibliography. In order to trace his references, one must consult his much more complete "Never at Rest", which is, altogether, a much more academic book. Don't get me wrong, "The Life of Isaac Newton" is easy to read and a good foundational text but should not serve as an authority on Newton, but rather a companion to a more authoritative text on Newton.
   Aside from the historiographical issues in this book, if it is to serve as an introduction to early modern science, it might also help readers to know that they should read, at some point, some sort of text that deals with British history from the Sixteenth through Eighteenth centuries, as Wesfall provides no historical or political background in which to understand Newton. Based on my own reading of books to suit this purpose I would recommend Simon Schama's "History of Britain, vol. 2"; "Leviathan and the Air-pump" by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer; "Leviathan" by Thomas Hobbes, or "The Scientific Revolution" also by Steven Shapin (which would be less of a cultural or political history but a good introduction to the issues with history of science in the seventeenth century).
   As an alternative to Westfall's abridged version, I would also suggest (though he is not an academic, he is a pretty well-regarded science journalist with a very readable style) James Gleick's "Isaac Newton" which is a little shorter and more in depth in some regards (and does completely cite references).



2. Newton has been a fascinating figure for me, ever since I read a condensed history about him in one of those INTRODUCTION TO series, I think that one was on Quantum Physics. What fascinated me about Newton was his singleness of mind, a genius who devoted himself almost entirely to the pursuit of knowledge.
   
   Westfall's book is a condensation of an earlier book _Never at Rest_ which I have not had the pleasure of reading. Westfall presents the life of Newton warts and all. It describes his rise to prominence in the scientific world of his time and all the events leading to his most significant publication, the Principia.
   
   What was new to me was Newton's arguments with Hooke and his behavior toward Flamsteed which diminish the man's greatness, in my mind at least. What may be interesting to readers of Newton, the man, rather than the Scientist, are his `latter years' in public service at the Mint.
   
   Overall, I think Westfall kept the proper balance between presenting the works and person of the life of Newton. A worthwhile read.



3. The Life of Isaac Newton, by Richard Westfall, addresses the life and work of one of the greatest scientists of all time. Indeed, many consider Isaac Newton to be the greatest scientist of all time, because his work was the culmination of the Scientific Revolution. Westfall covers Newton's unhappy childhood, from which he escaped to Cambridge University where he emerged as a solitary, studious individual. Newton's genius found expression during the anni mirabilis, 1664-1666, when Cambridge was closed due to the plague. During these years, Newton explored a wide range of scientific issues, including mathematical physics, optics, mechanics, and celestial dynamics. He expanded upon Descartes' geometry, to develop the calculus. He conducted experiments with light, concluding that white light is made up of a series of colors. Newton also pursued studies of the movement of objects, following up on the work of Gallileo. Westfall covers Newton's lengthy career at Cambridge, where he devoted his life to his studies, avoiding most relationships and incurring animosity and resentment among many of his fellow scientists, including Robert Hooke. Newton's masterpiece was the Principia, in which he laid out his three laws of motion: inertia; acceleration; and action and reaction. Newton also presented the laws of universal gravitation. Westfall was compelled to write this biography - which is a shortened version of his larger, more technical study - to share the unfolding of the amazing genius who discovered so many of the laws underlying the physical world. This book is worth reading because it provides in an accessible form insights into the discoveries in the fields of mathematics and physics that ushered in the world of modern science.



4. This book tells us Isaac Newton in detail. It tells us about his life as a man, philosopher, theologian, alchemist, scientist and public figure. It tells us how he interact with other scientist and how his ancestors were like. I've learned many things about Newton that I didn't know before. Before I read this book I didn't know that he had involved with alchemy or theology. This book convinces me why Newton is one of the greatest scientists in history



5. This book was very enjoyable and a great source of information. I did not know much about the Jewish Holidays before reading this book. I now have some wonderful insights for their Holidays and the importance they play in their lives and their faith. I am LDS (Mormon) and the Temple, as the House of the Lord, is very important to me. This book help me to understand the importance of the Temple and the role it played from the time of Moses down to the time of Jesus Christ and into our very own time. This book is very good at explaining the ceremonies and the assosicated Holidays. I recommend this book to all.

5 comments about Strange Brains and Genius: The Secret Lives Of Eccentric Scientists And Madmen.

1. This is a fun book.It is a worthy companion to the scores of books written about genius-eccentrics -- savants who listen to very different drummers. I don't recommend it as a cover-to-cover read unless your OC switch is on; it should be left somewhere like a night stand, bathroom shelf, or by the computer where one has a few free minutes. Judging from the many other books Pickover has written, this appears to be a syncretic collection of research notes assembled in a fairly logical collection of mini-biographies. And, contrary to other reviews, there are enough references and citations for further readings about a particular person. I also suspect he was researching information relating to himself -- as a multi-talented genius (and not a madman). If so, I would support that he qualifies for this distinction.
   Well worth the price.



2. I liked this book in the beginning but some of the chapters were longer than others, and the facts were interesting but it was also very disturbing in some parts. I lost interest in it after awhile. Definitely a different book. I would rate it 2.5 to 3 stars. I think that each of the scientists deserved the same amount of recognition. There was only one madman in there Ted Kaczynski who shouldn't have been in there. The book would have been better if it was just about scientists.



3. Pickover's book is "stuffed" with fascinating facts and information regarding the bizzarre personal lives of history's most prominent intellectual thinkers. Like a modern day Mesmer, Pickover leaves the reader spellbound with his unique gift of captivating the mind by illuminating THE MIND itself. This book a gem, the Mona Lisa of mental profiles. What's more, Pickover reveals that OCD isn't a disability ITS A SUPERPOWER! As a certified Obsessive Compulsive myself, I found new life and strength in Pickover's work. Knowing that OCD has plagued the greatest thinkers in history makes the burden that much easier to bear. I recommend this book to all Obsessive Compulsives. It should be recommended reading for all "MONKISH PEOPLES" everywhere. I will forever be indebted to Dr. Pickover. For he has given me an exciting new angle on this dreadful disability.



4. Excellent book on the frailties of some great scientists and price paid for genius. I couldn't put this book down until its completion. This book will keep your interests from start to finish.



5. There is little reason beneath the popularity of reality as it is presented or portrayed to humans except that it is the concoction of the accumulation of data that has been filtered through the conscience of other humans in a position to use it for the benefit of themselves, or the institutions for whom they work. All of current perception is subject to this filtration mechanism that results from the tunnel vision of public and private protocols that created it. Every human is the ongoing creation of the information flow surrounding him or her, and the victim of it, as well as the creator of it.
   
   There is nothing written in stone that forms the human protocol of mankind except what humans are taught to preference - for its good effects, or occasionally, for its bad effects upon societies in which they reside during their lifetime. Interpretation is 100% of that ballgame.
   
   What humans make of alternate realities is tied to their willingness to both question and evaluate alternate realities, their significance and the manner in which they appreciate the introduction of such conflict, or whether their aim is to oppress it. Spiritual and intellectual freedom to examine alternate realities is the provine of freedom, itself, and serves to protect and preserve it, or to further encroach upon its potential to compromise the physical and pscyhological mobility that is the result of such entertainment. A public unwilling to entertain alternate realities is, therefore, a captive of its own purview, and strength lies only in the ability to examine alternate realities and come to logical and beneficial conclusions for the greater good, not to be hoarded for the benefit of a few fortunate souls. Mental capture is the equivalent of physical capture, and reveals much about the predators who would use the force and perception of tradition to deny not only the existence but the potential of human freedom by molding it into a sealed box like that of Pandora's, never to be opened for view or scrutiny. If humanity depends upon that process of capture and seal, it lives only a simulation of existence, not a real existence.

5 comments about Alfred Tarski: Life and Logic (Cambridge Concise Histories).

1. Fabulous! Alfred Tarski was one of the two greatest mathematical logicians of the twentieth century. (The other was Kurt Gödel.) Solomon Feferman, a student of Tarki's in the early fifties and a friend for over twenty years throughout the rest of Tarski's life, is himself one of most outstanding logicians of our day. Anita Feferman, Solomon Feferman's wife, is the author of the tremendously exciting biography of the logician and bodyguard to Leon Trotsky, Jean van Heijenoort: "From Trotsky to Gödel". (I know it's difficult to believe that a logician could also have been Trotsky's bodyguard; her book must be read to be believed!)
   Clearly, this Tarski biography is a labor of love. I completely agree with those reviewers who have explained in detail why this book reads in places more like an exciting novel than a mere biography. What I found very impressive was the beautiful, delicate balance of the book between Tarski's mathematical accomplishments on the one hand and the daily features of his personal life on the other. He was not just a mathematician but rather a force of nature, a tornado, who swept everyone around him in his wake. Students, other mathematicians, university administrators, friends, colleagues, and especially women were all pulled into his mathematical and personal whirlwind.
   No praise would be excessive for this outstanding book!



2. To be honest, I started reading this book with some suspicion. In the first place, I was neither a fan of Tarski nor of S.Feferman. Though I did regard Tarski as one of the intellectual giants in the 20th century, I still frowned at the book's opening description of him as one of the "greatest" logicians of all time - on a par with my own hero Godel. My feeling towards S.Feferman was similarly ambivalent. In spite of his substantial contribution as the editor-in-chief of Godel's Collected Works and the universal praise he has received for that project, its end-result (the project was abandoned for running out of supports in 2005) is seriously lacking. For one thing, after almost 30 years' work the huge bulk of Godel's Nachlass in Gabelsberger (an almost extinct German shorthand) has been left unpublished (although approximately half of it has already been transcripted). It seems that more emphasis had been given by the editors and their colleague commentators on INTERPRETING Godel rather than making the inaccessible original material available to the wider public. I have always doubted the wisdom of Feferman's chief-editorship on this and other issues
   
   Nevertheless, Feferman turns out to be a much more successful co-biographer of Tarski than an editor of Godel. The Tarski book goes far beyond my expectation. I simply couldn't put it down and went without sleeps for several nights until my eyes could no longer tolerate my indulgence. The reading has made Tarski an immensely more interesting figure to me - almost as interesting and intriguing as the enigmatic Godel. This aftermath is something which I could never have anticipated in my wildest dreams beforehand.
   
   Since I agree with much of the praises from the Amazon Editorial and Customer Reviews of the book, I don't think it desirable to re-enumerate the book's various merits which others have already done. Needless to say, the book is not perfect and leaves much that is desired unaccounted. For one thing, although the book does present an interesting picture of the development of logic in the last century, it is presented from the Fefermans' highly personalized viewpoint and very one-sided. For example, from the book the reader will only get a very uninformed idea of the development of set theory which happens to be both Tarski's lifelong "hobby" and a source of intellectual uneasiness since he had a certain (though ambivalent perhaps, for he sometimes spoke in a Platonist tone) nominalist temperament while set theory is prima facie concerned with highly transfinite objects and often pursued by pronounced "realists" like Cantor, Zermelo, Godel (who was in effect described insane when Tarski declared himself as "the greatest living sane logician" ) et al. It is arguable that similar tension should also occur in Model Theory where Tarski reigned. But there is no discussion on this issue. It will also be interesting to know how Tarski reacted towards the epoch-making invention of forcing by P.Cohen in 1963, when the former was still an active researcher. The Fefermans say almost nothing on this either, although S.Feferman himself was one of the earliest developers of forcing immediately after Cohen. My own conjecture is that, like Godel, Tarski did not take forcing to be FUNDAMENTAL. Godel almost had a proof of the independence of the axiom of choice in the 1940s, but he abandoned the project partly because he did not want to encourage other logicians to plunge into a pursuit of independence proofs instead of trying to discover and develop new, further TRUE axioms of mathematics. Presumably the nominalist (by lips?) Tarski will perceive the issue very differently from the Platonist Godel. Yet the book gives us little clues about such and various other issues.
   
   Paradoxically, it is precisely from the frankly personalized and unsystematic viewpoints of the Fefermans and other intimates of Tarski that we find much that is valuable. Moreover, unlike the Godel case, the authors did not forget to let the protagonist to present himself. And in spite of its moderate length and lack of comprehensiveness the book does manage to weave abundant insights into their captivating story of this intriguing man who is, given all his unconventional acts and deeds notwithstanding, first and foremost "powered by his ideas" (as Peter Hoffman puts it) with an extraordinary self-confidence throughout his life. It is amidst this web of insights that we are granted some of those very rare glimpses into the mind of a genius that so few biographers have ever accomplished.



3. unlike all the previous praises this book seems to have gotten, i was not impressed by it. the book is an account of tarski the academician as seen/experienced by his phd students one of whom is the co-author himself.
   
   the book is an account of tarski's academic life which is apparently believed to be best reflected through his students' eyes. this account fails to put in anything else. even what his son and daughter have to say is missing for the most part. there are many things which go unexplained or unquestioned:
   1. why was tarski so much into nature?
   2. why was he obsessed with rigor and formality? just stating an observation and looking for the reasons of that observation makes the difference between a fact telling book on the verge of being a mere factoid and an intriguing/enriching one. this book is unfortunately as shallow as can be when it comes to some psychological assessments.
   3. why was tarski a womanizer? was he really that or did he like portraying himself as one?
   4. was he a tyrant and if so, why?
   
   the authors make a huge deal out of the fact that he was a jew. can it be that this whole emphasis on his religious and ethnic origin is anachronic in nature? maybe he just did not care, really. why did he choose catholicism? just because? or was he so ambitious that he did not really have any ground rules at all? in the end, these questions all go unanswered.
   
   giving 5 stars for such a shallow book is unwarranted and is an unjust blow to some successful biographies such as the enigma (about alan turing) crafted by andrew hodges.



4. Feferman made a great work in this book to show another facet of Tarski's logic. Usually, Tarski is associated with set theory, notwithstanding his main interest was algebraic. He didn't trust to the set-theoretic concept of individual; as a matter of fact, in boolean algebras where's no individuals at all. It's a mereological point of view, according to which what it's given aren't the parts, but the whole. An atom is what we obtain, as a limit concept, dividing endlessy a corp. One of the first papers by Tarski was on the foundation of geometry assuming as a primitive entity that of sphere (i.e. the whole). And his latest book was again on the relational algebra. We must thank the polish logician for his research on this aresa: relational algebras, boolean algebras with operators, cylindric algebras, etc.
   
   I don't agree with Feferman only on a point: this way to approach logic come to Tarski from Lesniewski and not from Kotarbinski. This is not the place, unfortunately, to discuss this matter.
   
   At any rate, the book is delightful, precise but very easy to read.



5. Here is an unlikely great read. An important slice of the intellectual history of the 20th century, a human tale of immigrant success in America, fascinating gossip about famous philosophers and logicians, and required reading for anybody seriously considering graduate work in mathematics or any other highly abstract discipline.
   
   This book creates a very realistic picture of academic life in which high intellectual achievement and ordinary human (mis) behavior are strangely intermixed. The way scholarly communities form and disperse around ideas, historical circumstances and personalities came across in a way I found to be very gripping.
   
   Tarski, a tiny Polish professor who meticulously fussed over precision and complete adherence to the rules of highly abstract "Formal Systems" was actually a boozer, abuser, drug user and schmoozer. He didn't live a Formal life. Married to a Polish Resistance fighter but even so himself a serial adulterer, he flourished and eventually died in Berkeley carried there by historical currents of violence and anti-Semitism.
   
   The book introduces us to most of his colleagues and PhD students, a rare collection of brilliant eccentrics for the most part. Consider his PhD student Richard Montague: a respected Mathematician and Philosophy Professor, but also a real estate speculator, epicure, fixture in the Gay LA Noir scene and, ultimately, murder victim. A common theme in all this is that in logic the character of the work and the character of the workers do not harmonize in a way that most people would find to be intuitive or even plausible. These logicians are not logical. Bertrand Russell is another case in point. Godel, who appears in the book in cameo, is perhaps the exception. An alternative way to say the same thing: these scholars display perfect intellectual integrity and only average human moral and social integrity. So much for the heroic Attic view of philosophers. Nevertheless, they all come off as admirable in the sympathetic but still somewhat ambivalent treatment by the authors, who were social and professional associates of Tarski's.
   
   Their kind of mathematical work seems to have been a kind of creative art conducted in a difficult and technically demanding medium. By people with "artistic" temperaments. Several anecdotes and characters in the Polish part of the story seem to reinforce this impression. The handsome and seemingly idealized painted portraits on the dust jacket painted by a contemporary Polish logician-artist emphasize this aspect of the tale.
   
   Their subject, mathematical logic, may seem recondite and obscure, of no interest to the general reader. In fact, its development by such men as Godel, Turing and Tarski may well be one of the great intellectual triumphs of the last century. Among other things it was essential to the development of computers. And perhaps to the systems of control and thought which keep the current huge social and economic system intact. This is an ironic legacy for such a wonderful collection of mathematical bohemians (should I say Warsovians?) and free spirits.

2 comments about For the Love of Enzymes: The Odyssey of a Biochemist.

1. I read this book when I was in graduate school working in a lab studying yeast replication proteins. Before the genes were cloned to allow overexpression of our proteins we had to purify the endogenous versions from large cultures. Reading this book really made me appreciate the enormous effort that went into designing a purification protocol that worked. Is it glamorous? No. Do you get really cold standing in the cold room? Of course. If you have ever purified proteins and wondered how long it took to develop the protocol, this book will give you an idea (and make you appreciate how good you have it).



2. This is a nice, well-written scientific autobiography.
   It has some quite entertaining anecdotes, some social message, and a lot biology from the forefront of enzyme-research that should not be forgotten.
   It also has a couple of verbatim repetitions withing the book, which are a bit odd.
   
   On the other hand, it has managed to convince me of something that I have already suspected - that purifying and studying enzymes must be one of the most boring lines of research on the face of this planet. Kronberg makes a very valiant effort trying to show the opposite, and it's obvious that he loves his research with passion, something that I truly admire.
   I recommend this book to anyone who is thinking of entering enzymology - I believe it will give them a reasonably realistic estimate on whether they will like the work or not (in my case the answer was no, but it's personal taste).

5 comments about The Jasons: The Secret History of Science's Postwar Elite.

1. This is a pretty impressive history of the Jasons, an advisory group to the US government on largely defense matters composed of elite scientists that has operated since 1960. Considering the highly classified nature of their work, the exclusiveness of this club, and tight-lipped attitude of many of their members, it's quite an accomplishment simply to write a readable, cohesive history of the Jasons. Many Jasons themselves told Finkbeiner they doubted anyone would want to read her book.
   
   Thankfully, these incredibly brilliant minds were wrong on that count. The early chapters of this book are quite fascinating. Finkbeiner has a skill for clearly describing the various scientific projects, and more importantly, explaining why the Jasons would be consulted on them. It was fascinating to read that the Jasons actually considered using nuclear weapons in the Vietnam war, and concluded that it was unpracticle for the United States to use tactical nuclear weapons with any effect without basically incinerating all of Northern Vietnam. More importantly from the US point of view, the US forces were quite vulnerable to nuclear retaliation, so using tactical nuclear weapons could very easily backfire in a terrible defeat for the US. The Jason authors of this report also had a hidden agenda, to discourage the use of nuclear weapons in the Vietnam War, and while held themselves to rigorous scientific analysis and let the facts speak for themselves, hoped their report would discourage the use of nuclear weapons that some military leaders were contemplating at the time.
   
   And this leads to the second triumph of the book, in that many of the Jasons are not the Dr. Strangeloves one might expect, but a very diverse and complicated group of people that cannot be easily type-casted. We learn how the various members became Jasons, the unwritten rules within the group, and what they think about their work. Finkbeiner has done a good job of earning the trust of many of the Jason members to speak rather candidly about their work and their motivations for being Jasons.
   
   The latter chapters delve more into issues of scientific policy and the role of scientific advisory groups, and therefore, are of less general interest. Not to say they aren't interesting to read, but just don't hold the appeal of the earlier chapters.



2. Although this book sticks fairly steadily to the Jasons and their work, it offers the best characterization I have ever seen of the choices and dilemmas faced by those who work with the Defense Department on topics everyone would rather not think about. As the book indicates, these days a profusion of outside experts advise the government on all sorts of technical matters, and the Defense Department is notable for the extent to which it seeks outside advice. I have never been a Jason, although I do know a few of the folks mentioned or quoted in this book, but I was involved off and on for more than 40 years working with and for the Defense Department as a techie and scientist. It isn't easy, and that is perhaps the most important message conveyed by this book. The objectivity required to give good technical advice is often at odds with one's personal feelings as a citizen. And it can be discouraging to be one of a group that's asked to advise on something, and puts a lot of effort into coming up with a clear, well-reasoned answer, to see it completely ignored, which does happen. So why do it? And here I would make two points that the book doesn't make clear.
   
   First, occasionally one can make a big difference. Not often, but occasionally. I've had that happen. But for it to happen, one must "pay one's dues"; one has to have earned the respect of the policy-makers by putting in lots of effort over the years to help them make decisions. One person who has that respect can make more difference in certain cases than any number of noisy demonstrators, and this is as true of Congress as it is of Administration officials. That makes the disappointments worth while.
   
   Second, the book fails to note that a large fraction of senior US military officers are themselves brilliant and technically well-educated, with advanced degrees in engineering or science, so they are good people to work with, as interesting to work with as one's colleagues in the civilian community. For example, Gen. Alfred Dodd Starbird, mentioned in this book, was among the most impressive people I have ever met, hard-driving, utterly tireless, and with a strong enough technical background so that I never had to tell him anything more than once, or go into elaborate detail; he soaked up technical information like a sponge.
   
   This book isn't exciting, but I consider it mandatory reading for anyone with a technical or scientific background who is asked to advise the Defense Department on anything. Before saying yes or no, one should use this book as a collection of "case studies", and ask, "Am I willing to go through that". If you are, you can make a big difference.



3. I do not regret buying or reading this book, but I am greatly disappointed by both the lack of detail and the lack of visualization that I was hoping for.
   
   The JASONS (according to the author, this stands for the months from July through November when individual stars did most of their consulting) were a spin-off from the Manhattan Project. There were two branches: the JASONS were hired by government sparked by the Sputnik scare and funded by the Advanced Projects Research Agency of DoD (the same one that funded the Internet); and those that feared nuclear power founded the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) which exists to this day to expose unnecessary secrecy.
   
   The original group met in 1958, 22 scientists meeting for 2 weeks at the National Defense University. On page 33, early on, the author denotes the importance of this group with the phrase "distinterested advice comes best from independent scientists."
   
   There was a major financial incentive: the summer consulting could double their 9-month academic salaries.
   
   JASON became official on 1 January 1960, at first housed under the Institute of Defense Analysis (IDA), then under the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), and finally under MITRE, all in theory Federally Funded Research & Development Centers, but in the case of MITRE, often in real competition with legitimate businesses.
   
   Missile defense is not new to the Bush-Cheney regime. It has been a mainstay of ARPA and the JASONS going back to Sputnik days, and generally consumed 50% of ARPA's budget (elsewhere we have speculated on the gains for mankind of having an ARPA for peace).
   
   Early on the JASONS are described as "slightly flakey and almost bizarre," but supremely intelligent with the arrogance to match it. Their task was partly to shoot down stupid ideas with high-ranking supporters, and partly to think out of the box on really touch problems, almost always, but not always, at a classified level.
   
   DARPA fired the JASONS in 2000 when they refused to take on some of the lame scientists that DARPA recommended, but the happy result was their promotion to work directly for DARPA's boss, the Director of Defense Research & Development.
   
   The author discusses throughout the book the conflict between the scientific imperative to discuss hypotheses and findings opening, and the demands for secrecy imposed on these brilliant minds.
   
   Among the projects credited to the JASONS, with all too little detail, are missile defense, directed energy weapons, extremely low frequency (ELF) communications to reach submerged submarines, nuclear event detection, sensors and night vision for Viet-Nam.
   
   The JASONS could not handle the sociology of insurgency. I find this fascinating. Technocrats simply cannot "compute" real world anger.
   
   The Pentagon Papers outed the JASONS. Over time they added the Navy, Department of Energy, and the Intelligence Community as clients, but the also changed in fundamental ways, moving from an elite of physicists to a melange of all disciplines, including many members without clearances.
   
   The JASONS did well with adaptive optics and STAR WARS.
   
   Putting down the book I thought to myself:
   
   1) The Defense Science Board (DSB) is probably the public adaptation of the JASON concept, and does very very good work that is also capable of being shared with the public on most occasions (see for instance, their superb reports on "Strategic Communication" and on "Transition to and from Hostilities").
   
   2) Is this all there is? I give the author good marks for investigation and diplomacy and elicitation, but very candidly, I could have done better with simple citation analysis from the Science Citation Index, and some dramatic visualizations of how the JASONs did or did not stand out from the crowd. It is possible today to detect secret programs as they black out, and overall I felt that what this book provided was one person's good efforts, without ANY of the modern tools of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT).



4. It took about a week for me to read The Jasons. Maybe less. I enjoyed the book, especially the details about the individual scientists and their quirky personalities. In fact, the author seemed a bit overly attentive to this stereotype: an ivory tower academic out of place in the "real world" but too arrogant to notice. That got kind of old after a while, especially when there seemed to be notable exceptions (MacDonald and Drell spring to mind).
   
   I think another reviewer at amazon mentioned the overly familiar writing style. I agree with that statement. I was hoping for something a bit more...objective sounding. Perhaps this could just be the authors chosen style. And it wasn't bad. It was light and quick paced. Just not very objective sounding, which, of course, should always be heavy and slow.
   
   Overall, I would recommend this book to those with an interest in the relationship between scientists and the government (particularly DOD), as well as those looking for an easy read.



5. I used to work in one of the New Mexico labs mentioned in her book and am familiar with many of the cast of characters in her book- especially Forrest Agee who liked to be called "Jack", Tony Tether and "Uncle" Rummy.
   
   Sharon Weinberger did a supererb job of characterizing the individuals in the book. Joe Janni from the AFRL in New Mexico was our "best man" and became head of AFOSR and personally selected Agee to head up the Physics and Electronics basic research for the Air Force. OOOH - there are so many more exciting stories to tell...
   
   Sharon Weinberger does a super job explaining how Tether likes to remind everyone "there is no sin in failing at DARPA". However, in my opinion, it is a sin for DARPA to fail the US taxpayer. "High Risk" is important to invest in - DARPA used to have top notch scientists that had a good nose for ferreting out the good stuff to invest in. Nonsense under the guise of "High Risk" is silly and has no chance of going anywhere - much worse than even winning the lottery. Sharon Weinberger does a great service educating the reader about the importance of funding good science and how our country depends on it.
   
   DARPA also points out in their program strategy that good research ideas have to have top notch people and lab facilities to do the research. Sharon does a great job of describing the "barn" where the research took place. The web sites help too - they show pictures of Collins' lab. Perhaps in the second edition of the book Sharon Weinberger can include pictures.
   
   So where did the money go? Sharon Weinberger does a good job of discussing the "renting" the Hafnium sample. Perhaps this is one area Sharon Weinberger could have done a bit better. I'm sure Tony Tether and the AFRL would just love to have another interview with Sharon on that matter. I'm sure the readers and taxpayers would love to hear more about that too.
   
   SDI is often called a "brilliant bluff" - but at least it had science theory behind it and now some of the ideas are actually able to be implemented. This "imaginary weapon" is not pure science - it is just pure nonsense - no science behind it - and it couldn't even be used to bluff. Sharon also does a nice job of explaining what others throughout the world thought of the research in addition to the JASONs.
   
   Only our high level government officials like Agee, Tether and Rumsfeld couldn't seem to tell the difference between real science and "fringe" science - even when they paid the JASONs to look into it and they shot down the idea. This is one of the things the JASONs apparently claim they are good for - according to Ann Finkbeiner's book - which is also a quite a good read.
   
   It is so sad that even a lay person like Sharon Weinberger can get to the bottom of this issue, after two years of looking into it, where the high level Government Scientists could not (would not). Although she did not go into the technical details - Sharon Weinberger left a trail of publications easy for me to obtain and read for myself. I thought this was reasonable level of detail for her book. The book did a nice job explaining the jelly donut - a great explanation for both the physicist and the layperson to enjoy.

5 comments about Dr. Folkman's War: Angiogenesis and the Struggle to Defeat Cancer.

1. Spectacular, but not a quick read! If you or someone you know has cancer, then this is a must read. The author did a marvelous job of chronicaling the research path to great discoveries for cancer. Unfortunately, Dr. Folkman passed away last month but after reading this book you will have a better understanding of the legacy of important research he left behind and how it is continuing by the minute



2. This book is great gives a good understanding of the research community and the search to understand angiogenisis.



3. This book is a very well done documentary of the trials Dr. Folkman went through to have his ideas on cancer treatment considered. His ideas are now becoming the new approach, offering much needed hope for patients and their families. For anyone interested in cancer, this book is worthwhile.



4. This book by Robert Cooke is incredible! Mr. Cooke is able to explain to the average layperson the medical concepts of angeiogeneis conceived by the most under-valued person of our time: Dr. Judah Folkman. Dr. Folkman is to cancer what Salk was to Polio! Personally, Dr. Judah Folkman is my hero! A real hero, deserving of the Nobel Prize....and I don't speak lightly. I am a cancer patient that has recently learned that my cancer (thought was beat) has advanced to my lungs. The ONLY therapy for me is in an ANGIOGENESIS drug therapy program for a drug currently in study and labeled as "PI-88." I am just so confident this drug will work. I am the only patient with my type of cancer cell (adenoid cystic carninoma), so I am a little bit more of a lab rat for this program.

   God Bless Dr. Folkman and h is incredible perserverance! His story should be a movie----a tale better than SeaBiscuit! He is my SeaBiscuit!

   LHH




5. Chances are someone close to you has succumbed to the ravages of cancer, while you and the medical establishment could only sit by and watch the process reach its inevitable conclusion. The good news is, for nearly 40 years, Dr. Judah Folkman has been pursuing a cure for cancer -- or at least a way to fight tumors more effectively than chemotherapy or radiation -- that only until very recently has garnered serious attention. Dr. Folkman's theory is called angiogenesis, the process by which cancer cells emit an agent which triggers the growth of blood vessels to feed the growth of the cancer itself. For years Dr. Folkman's idea was basically scoffed at as the flailings of an amateur researcher, but Cooke shows how Dr. Folkman has perservered -- while maintaining his brilliant career as a physician -- and eventually, through a slow accumulation of experimental evidence, as well as the discovery of several antiangionesis agents, turned opinion around. Throughout this engaging and fascinating retelling of Folkman's journey, Cooke also provides an eye-opening account of the workings of academia, medical research, and their relationships to those Orwellian biotech companies you keep hearing about. The science is clear and vivid, the battle to defeat cancer inspiring, and the promise of victory -- thankfully, finally -- just around the corner.

2 comments about Africa in My Blood: An Autobiography in Letters: The Early Years.

1. The letters in this collection date from Ms. Goodall's youth through 1966, when her stature as a scientist was well established based on her pioneering research in Africa.

   Books of letters are normally associated with great female authors of novels, such as Virginia Woolf. In those wonderful volumes, beautiful style and playful use of words adds joy to one's appreciation of the literary works themselves.

   So, I did not know what to expect from a book of Jane Goodall's letters. What I found was a most pleasant surprise. The letters provide a deep perspective into the personality of Ms. Goodall and how that contributed to the development of the research methods she used. I found the letters fascinating and very rewarding, despite the fact that they are the opposite of high literary style.

   If you are like me, you may primarily know Jane Goodall from her National Geographic television specials. Those were very accessible and enjoyable. But I did not know the background concerning how her pioneering research with chimpanzees was initiated and developed. This book wonderfully filled in that background. Also, I did not know how an attractive young Englishwoman came to become a field scientist in Africa in the first place. Also, the shows made it all seem rather natural and easy.

   First, you will come away impressed with what a devoted correspondent she was. Over 16,000 letters were found by the editor to draw from. Now, how many letters have you written in your life? Also, these are mostly long, newsy letters to family, friends, and professional colleagues. If she had been a book reviewer, no one would have believed her production. Remember that she had no computer to help her draft the letters. In fact, she had the balkiest manual typewriters imaginable.

   What was even more remarkable to me was that so many of her early letters had been saved. How many letters have you saved from people under the age of 15? That these letters are available is quite a testimony to her relationships with these people, and the impact of her personality.

   Then, I did not know that she was a secretarial school graduate when she went to Africa. A few jobs quickly convinced her that she was not cut out for indoor work. She was eventually accepted into a Ph.D. program without ever having attended college! In fact, she had done most of her breakthrough field work before her Ph.D. was even granted. So much for formal education as a way to create new scholarly methods.

   Ms. Goodall has a wonderful love of humans and animals that makes no significant distinction between them. I was overwhelmed to read her descriptions of her pets and the chimpanzees and baboons she studied. It is remarkable to read page after page as she gossips with people about the animals by name in more detail and with more sympathy than in much of what she writes about people who were not close to her. This perspective is a fairly unique one, and led to her finding ways to relate to the animals throughout her early years.

   There is great humor throughout the letters. Her many descriptions of men becoming interested in her and how she handled them are echoed in her descriptions of the female chimpanzees eluded the hovering males. Humor and laughter came easily to her. You will laugh too at the descriptions of the chimpanzees tickling each other.

   You will come away with a great respect for what she accomplished. The difficulties she overcame were incredible, and the work that she put into her research is beyond imagining. She mostly wrote these letters around midnight, after working from 6:30 in the morning . . . often in the driving rain. This was a 7 day a week effort for her. Frustrations were everwhere. Great sequences would occur, but where no one could photograph them. Or the exposures were set wrong on the camera, and the whole roll of film produced nothing. And the camera problems were just the least of it . . . although they were the most maddening to Ms. Goodall. Malaria, shingles, and mysterious diseases affected her and the others she worked with. But her commitment remained strong.

   Dale Peterson has done a fine job of selecting the letters and summarizing them at the beginning of each section. My only complaint about the editing was that more footnotes would have been helpful. I was regularly lost in trying to understand who some of the people were whom Ms. Goodall refers to.

   I suggest that you give this book to a young person who loves animals. Perhaps something will "click" that will allow that person to see that she or he can live a life devoted to inquiry and closeness with animals.

   Follow your instincts!




2. For those of us who may think we know Jane Goodall as theheroine of National Geographic specials, the champion of primateintelligence and animal rights, one of the great scientists of thetwentieth century, Africa in My Blood comes as a revelation. Here is the young girl and woman discovering life for the first time, having a crush on the local curate, writing to her best friend Sally and her "Darling Family," traveling by slow boat to Africa, and then launching the career that we have never seen through such fresh eyes. Most astonishing of all, it turns out that Jane Goodall is a splendid writer of letters, which are full of comic anecdotes and finely-observed details, capturing in vivid prose the immediate events of her life and much wonderful material not included in her other books. Dale Peterson has done a superb job of editing, organizing, and introducing this monumental collection, showing Goodall as both private and professional woman, in both intimate portrait and dazzling display of her gifts as a writer. One can only hope that a second volume is on its way soon. END

5 comments about Flight My Life in Mission Control.

1. In my humble opinion this book has some very interesting information about the childhood of NASA, and this book and the book of Gene Krantz "Failure is not an option" gives a nice look into the life in the MOCR both at Cape Canaveral/Kennedy and in Houston. Mr. Kraft seems a very humble man and as I see it does not try to play up his own role in the complexity of the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo space adventure



2. At last I found the ideal person to explain the overall trials and successes of the USA space program: Christopher Columbus Kraft, Jr. A bonus was the success story of a small-town boy with no connections to become the most televised flight director in mission control of NASA, then he moved higher in the ranks of NASA.
   Here the politics of our space program, budget cutting as soon as the first moon landing succeeded (if not sooner), according also to the lack of success of the USSR, are all in here. The selection of astronauts, and the surprising problems with a couple of them, and the fights with panicky flight surgeons in approving any spaceflights at all are all in here. The lack of courage of some NASA officials who were so afraid of blame should there be an accident that they almost killed the program is all in here. As it turned out, the Apollo fire did not kill the program, and pols and press were reasonable about it. Bureaucratic overkill got its just desserts.
   The willingness of so many contractors to bid on limited-term projects was an inspiration, as was their desire to innovate and make the space program go ahead was an inspiration, but the tales of shoddy workmanship and design flaws even late in the program was not.
   The antipathy of some old NASA personnel, Kraft included, toward the Germans under Wernher von Braun was revealed, which slowly diminished. Kraft seemed to acknowledge that without the German effort in the USA to produce the big Saturn V and other boosters, the Apollo program could not have been accomplished in any reasonable period. And to this day, nobody has made such powerful boosters.
   This book was the most inspiring I have ever read on the moon landing program, with all its interim steps, and the reason for each flight. Very well written, fast reading, much thanks to James Schefter. Thankfully, much less sanitized than the early astronauts' efforts. Has index. I could not recommend it more.



3. Very few books on this period, biographical or not, are quite like this one. The information and personal details give a very complete view of NASA from the very beginning, and give some detail to the management evolution of the organization. It also gives some interesting insights into how development of mission-critical / real-time organizations and management should function.



4. What a great book. Chris Kraft has really catured those glorious years when man ventured out into the unknown whilst competing with the Russians. Really easy to read and understand. The book took me back to those early years of the space program and Chris lets you experience the development of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions as if it is happening real time. What a great read



5. This book fills in quite a few holes in my knowledge and curiousity of how a lot of things evolved. Many books spend so much time on Apollo especially 11 and 13. I always wanted to know more about how the size and shape of the Mercury capsule evolved and it's good to hear stories about the guys that originally concieved these ideas. Guys like Max Faget. Also, without telecommunication satellites- putting together a worldwide ground tracking system to track Mercury was an amazing feat, in and of itself, and to do it with such a tight deadline. These guys were good. Sure that stuff is pure engineering and probably pretty boring to the layperson. But those are the dotted i's and crossed t's that made it happen. Kraft was in on conception and implementation of this, and the evolution to Gemini and then Apollo. He is definitly has a no "B.S." management style and is the kind of boss that won't tolerate ineptness.
   
   His critism of Scott Carpenter was the harshest I've read yet, and matched Gene Kranz's version. I know a lot of folks are in Scott's court that it couldn't have been that bad, but if you put yourself into the chair of "Flight" where every small glitch can cascade into a catastrophy, you can understand why Kraft takes the hard line. It's obvious that Carpenter wasn't in sync with mission control, and ignored critical requests for information that could have positioned his spacecraft in the correct attitude for reentry with fuel to spare. No wonder Kraft went balistic. If Carpenter had burned up on reentry, the impact to the program at that point would have been catastophic, and human error in flight is harder to stomach than hardware failure (although equally as devastating, but more avoidable). Kranz and Kraft were happiest when the communications were crisp and direct to the other controllers and the astronauts themselves, and this wasn't what happened with Carpenter, hence the heartburn.
   
   I wish I'd been around back then to be a part of the building years of NASA. This is as close as I can get to that.