5 comments about Broken Genius: The Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age.

1. The winners write the history, and the history of Silicon Valley is no exception. Until this book William Shockley, if he was known at all, was thought of as the eccentric Nobel Prize winner who became an intellectual outcast because of his eugenics beliefs and as the bad manager whose employees quit and founded Fairchild and Intel.
   
   For those who know a bit more about the history of Silicon Valley technology, William Shockley is known as the founder of the Valley's first semiconductor company. Shockley recruited and assembled the seminal team that was the progenitor of every other semiconductor company in Silicon Valley. His instincts for talent-spotting were phenomenal, but they were matched by a massive lack of judgment about how to build products customers would buy and a complete lack of the insights necessary to motivate and manage an entrepreneurial company.
   
   Joel Shurkin does a good job in telling the story of not just Schokley Semiconductor, but the interesting life surrounding it all- the rise and fall - of William Schockley. A great read.



2. Broken Genius: The Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age
   
   Compliment to the writer who made the life of William Shockley so much more interesting than it really was. Shockley's inventions in technology is profound however, Shockley's life is really not that interesting. In essence, Shockley was a smart man, went to top schools, recruited by top people and top corporations, invented a lot to help our country (during the wars) and invented a lot to help the world (especially in his transistor and silicon invention), married twice, made some babies, toward the later part of his life, he got into study of genes and racial profiling in IQ and then he died at 80. If you are curios about what Shockley's inventions were, you would be fascinated by this documentation and litany of items listed. If you want to know the history of IQ controversy or whether blacks' IQ are truly inferior to whites, you will see lurid details on this. However, if you are like me, reading this book looking for fascinating human stories (ala Huge Hefner of the Playboy enterprise or Rupert Murdoch of the News Corps or even Mao Tze Tung of Communist China), you may be disappointed. In reality, Shockley lived a typical American suburbia life (the most exciting part of his life may be going to Norway to obtain his Nobel). You don't see him hanging out at the Playboy mansion at 70s with the hottest super models like Huge Hefner or flying to China to close a major media deal like Rupert Murdoch. Shockley's life was boring. May be he had bad relations with his kids (but then who does not?) and he was also not good at being nice in dealing with people but most engineers are like that, nothing new here. So, full credit to the writer who successfully made William Shockley's life so much more interesting than it really was - by applying an approach of story telling to add context and flavor - for example, in the story of his first company and the departure of the 11 original scientists Shockley hired, the writer discussed how Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore left and started their own company. This made the whole story more interesting. Now we know Gordon Moore was rated by Shockley's IQ tests as "not a good manager". Making dull topic interesting, one win for the author.
   
   Five Stars to the author for making a dull topic interesting.
   Three Stars to the content (the life of William Shockley - boring stuff). A reminder that we should go out and truly have fun in life. Go to a night club, fool around with some girls, go to a foreign country and do some bumgy jumping. Don't live life like Shockley.



3. William Shockley generated some mild controversy as a co-winner of the Nobel Prize for the transistor, and a firestorm of controversy as an investigator of supposed linkages between race and intelligence. Mr. Shurkin sheds considerable light on both disputes, as well as on those facets of Shockley's personality which occasionally drifted from merely difficult into the scarier modes of overbearing and compulsive. The author's own attitude toward his subject leans, quite understandably, toward an uneasy blend of admiration and exasperation.
   
   The transistor Nobel was awarded in 1954 to Shockley and his Bell Labs colleagues John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. A problematic aspect of the choice to honor all three was that although Shockley nominally led the research group, his direct involvement in the original (point contact) transistor invention was minimal. He did, however, have a legitimate conceptual claim to the later junction-type device, which became the practical transistor we know today. Shurkin's description of the contentious priority issues involved, and the human interactions among the principals, is fascinating.
   
   One might say it's ironically fitting that a self-assured, iconoclastic, socially tone-deaf character like Shockley would blunder into the potential minefield of race/intelligence studies. On top of that, he chose the most politically radioactive combination possible -- white vs. black. The spectrum of opinion on that topic was (and is) bracketed at one end by bigots who just knew there must be an intelligence gap, and at the other end by knee-jerk egalitarians who just knew there couldn't possibly be one. The bigots embarrassed Shockley with unwanted support, and the egalitarians excoriated him for even looking at the question. The most recent and reasonable consensus seems to be that racial differences, genomically speaking, are too trivial to account for intelligence variations beyond the normal and expected spread due to both intra- and interracial gene mixing.
   
   The biography is well-written and consistently interesting, but there are too many glitches to ignore. For example, "Schrodinger's atoms" on page 25 should be electrons, and the claim that Shockley wrote "the first textbook of the electronic age" (p.122) sounds preposterous to anyone who remembers vacuum tubes. Perhaps the author meant solid-state electronic age. For a similar reason, the book's subtitle needs revision. On page 105, the translation of 0.04 centimeter to 0.16 inch is too high by a factor of 10. The name of the strength program a youthful Shockley modeled for is spelled "Trelor" three times on page 18, but the ad reproduced on the same page conspicuously says "Treloar."



4. I am an engineer with particular interest in William Shockley because I was once barred from hearing him speak. This book presents an excellent recap of Shockley's entire life, concluding with the events that led to his downfall among the general public. I found the coverage to be generally fair and unbiased. Although the book provides the expected analysis of Shockley's later years, ample coverage is provided of his most productive years which, even under close scrutiny, show him to have indeed been a genius in several technical fields.



5. Shockley worked at Bell Labs for many years. I, too, worked there and had no idea why we did what we did, why we had the philosophies we did, etc... Almost 35 years later, I still saw the footprints of Shockley's world. That, to me, was very interesting. His life was extraordinary and a huge lesson in something. I'm not sure what that something is yet but after this all soaks in, maybe I can make heads or tails of it. It was all so strange. A brilliant mind is all so strange and the author did such a superb job of letting us into the secret. Thanks Joel!

2 comments about Downcanyon: A Naturalist Explores the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

1. As was written by the copy editor to introduce the foreword by Ms. Zwinger to my recently published book "Deep Immersion: Thoreau's Engagement with Water" (Green Frigate Books): "Few have ever been so 'haunted by waters' - to use Norman Maclean's wonderful phrase - as has naturalist and 'water logged' nature writer Ann Haymond Zwinger." This particlar book, like all of her works, very much offers a deep well for thirsty minds.



2. Ann Haymond Zwinger has contributed her scientific expertise to subsidized, multi-week inner-canyon environmental impact expeditions, has run each of the Canyon's rapids countless times (in nearly each month of the year), in every sort of water craft. What her scientific eye takes in, her pen transmutes into its own river of irresistible prose, carrying the reader, willing or not, from one chapter to the next. As a hiker, I expected the vision of a "boat person" to suffer from its constricted horizons. A bottom-up myopia. Instead, we find ourselves soaring with eagles. We climb cliffs, clawing our way through a darkness of thorns and pain. We crawl along brushy beaver tunnels. We ponder the local history and lore...and the primeval past. Our journey evokes visions of thousand foot-high lava dams filling the entire Canyon with water, as well as today's horror of a rapid at Lava Falls. While some of her snippets of local human history are rarely mentioned in other books about the Canyon, Zwinger's forte is in the natural sciences. In that arena, she has no peer among Grand Canyon authors. Since this is not a trail manual, it is not easy to restrict one's reading to a single, specific Canyon location. Rather, the chapters are organized by seasons of the year. No matter. If you start at the beginning, its 220 or so pages of narrative will sweep you into their main current and, well... I'll see you below the rapids.

4 comments about Suspended In Language : Niels Bohr's Life, Discoveries, And The Century He Shaped.

1. This is really a good example of tough physics made accessible! I enjoyed reading the book and will definitely recommend it to students and colleagues.



2. To his colleagues, Niels Bohr was the "Pope of Physics." Razor-edged minds like Dirac, Franck, Frisch, Gamow, Klein, Mott, Oppenheimer, Pauli, Planck, Schrödinger, and others -- many of whom would later become Nobel laureates themselves -- to proud to say they had studied with Bohr. He was a poor lecturer because he never knew where his thoughts would take him and would often stop in the middle of an explanation when a new idea occurred to him. Without him, there would be no modern physics, no quantum mechanics, no basic understanding of the atom. And while Bohr sometimes entertained theories that turned out to be wrong -- which he was the first to admit -- even Einstein was wrong in areas where Bohr was right. Ottaviani is a very uneven graphics chronicler of modern science and scientists, but this is a very well thought out book, as successful an attempt as I have seen to explain Bohr's thought (as well as his humane and internationalist personal beliefs) and the basics concepts of quantum physics.



3. Ottaviani's Suspended in Language operates on a number of different levels and is appealing with just the right mixture of intellect and humor. While managing to create a biographical text on the life of Niels Bohr the story also delves into the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics. Ottaviani created a piece that could be solely read as a primer on quantum mechanics while managing to focus on Bohr's life. The facts are elucidated in illustrations that are intentionally reminiscent of a comic-strip. Just when you begin to feel like you're cramming a bit too much information into your brain all at once the book will take a several page detour into the every day dealings of Bohr's life, and having given you the chance to collect your wits, rev back up to an intellectual furor. What truly makes the book remarkable though is the concise yet vivid description of the various other physicists that Bohr interacted with and influenced. Ottaviani obviously felt compelled to tell the story of Bohr's life because he impacted so many different areas of science and revolutionized fields whose true merit has yet to be realized. Everyone should read this book in order to have a basic understanding of how the scientific notions that guide our lives today were first conceived of and then put into widespread implementation. It's a great read and an even better learning experience.



4. Science teachers have a large number of stories - some true, some apocryphal, and some somewhere in between - to regale their students with. We have Einstein's demands of the deity concerning dice, Rutherford's booming voice that trashed lab apparatus, Oppenheimer's Indian verse quoting at Trinity, and Teller's strangelovian life among others, but no good stories from the life of Niels Bohr. Jim Ottaviani, Leland Purvis, et al. have saved us with their intelligent, witty, and spacey cartoon retelling of Niles Bohr's life - Suspended In Language.
   
   If you choose to dip into this very cool science biography, prepare to learn some physics along with the story of Bohr's life. The authors have supplied a generous number of footnotes and endnotes [done as cartoons] to explain the harder points. The book is indexed and referenced to the extreme. This is not some casual cartoon compilation, but a serious piece of graphic scholarship.
   
   I highly recommend Suspended In Language to anyone interested in physics, scientists, or the history of the 20th Century. I also recommend the other books about scientists from G.T. Labs, including Safecracker [Richard Feynman] and Fallout [Oppenheimer, Szilard, and the Bomb].

4 comments about Alexander von Humboldt: A Metabiography.

1. This is not another conventional biography of Alexander von Humboldt but a "life of lives", a metabiography. In a fascinating way it demonstrates how Humboldt's life was configured and reconfigured according to the prepossessions of successive generations of German biographers. As Harvard's Steven Shapin has commented in his review in Nature (18 May 2006, p. 286) the book draws attention to the fact that shifting biographical traditions make one person have many lives. The book was a pleasure to read.



2. This is an important work of historiography. It demonstrates that we make and remake past lives to suit our present purposes. Rupke's metabiography helps us appreciate the instability of any scientific life, not just Humboldt's, but also Darwin's and many others'. The story is effectively organized and flows naturally from epoch to epoch. With this book on the market, Humboldt studies will not be the same again.



3. This is an exceptional and pioneering book, showing where historical scholarship is (or should be) headed. Rupke has succeeded in condensing an enormous amount of material into a short and readable account and as such his "Humboldt Metabiography" is rather British. In another way, the book is not British at all, in the sense that it undercuts the empiricist belief in the "definitive biography" and in fact destabilizes biography as a genre by convincingly showing that all biographical portraits of Humboldt are attributable to collectives of authors, each of which was part of the memory culture of a particular period of German political history. To have produced this cultural chiasma is an intellectual accomplishment that can only delight and impress the reader. Striking to me are the very different "Humboldts" of the Third Reich and of the GDR. The end of the book is also strong, where Rupke historicizes his own approach. This is what Germans call "souverän" and reminds of the "Souveränität" of a Max Weber who always did this, too. The book is an intellectual tour de force that calls for similar metabiographical studies of Darwin and other "greats" of the history of science.



4. This is a detailed, well-researched and organized review of previous biographies of Alexander von Humboldt. However, despite the somewhat grandiose title the book presents little new or thought-provoking material. Granted, every period high-lights different aspects of complex personalities, but this we did know already, and examples abound. What is lacking in this book is the new methodological approach and without that it remains a somewhat tedious review of other people's work.

5 comments about Curious Minds: How a Child Becomes a Scientist.

1. I have enjoyed this book so much. After reading the New York Times Tuesday Science Section for years, I wished that those writers would gather the stories in the "Scientists" series and put them in a book. In CURIOUS MINDS the personal reiminiscences include surprises such as a woman who loved Nancy Drew and her sleuthing. Richard Dawkins, often in the news now,
   loved the Dr. Doolittle books. A good number of women scientists are included. Some of the scientists are from "scientific" families, others from good ole blue collar roots.



2. Although the subtitle uses the terms, Child and Scientist, I think the real topic is how a person develops into a successful, creative adult. I found the book fascinating as I looked for patterns to validate how I raised my own children, or how I was raised, or how anyone should mentor younger people. What I learned was that becoming a scientist or any thinking adult is a mixture of luck, genetics, family influence, peer influence, and social setting. There is no recipe, but there may be patterns for our children and ourselves.
   
   While this was not a well constructed statistical survey, it was a well conceived set of informative essays from interesting, successful folks. Excellent book, great to discuss. Also, the format of many short essays made it easy to read in pieces and reflect.



3. As the parent of two school-age children, I loved this book. For all of the current passion for loading our children up with the "best" and "the latest", the best approach is perhaps to simply get out of the way. What struck me about this book was that so many of the scientists profiled made do with very little as children--it wasn't all chemistry sets and parents with advanced degrees. My favorite was the primatologist who was inspired by the Bronx Zoo down the block AND the theme-song from Gilligan's Island ("...the professor and Mary-Ann" convinced him that brains might attract women). There was the woman whose parents wanted her to be a nightclub singer, but the Nancy Drew books she read led her to love investigations. A brain surgeon grew up searching for bullets in the brains of cows that his cowboy-butcher father processed. Indeed some of the scientists don't even find their focus until adulthood (in other words, if your high-schooler doesn't win the Intel science prize, there's still hope). This book made me realize that inspiration is all around my children and the wisest thing I can do is just be supportive.



4. Memory is faulty. "Even when we remember events accurately, we are apt to misidentify their places in the casual tapestry of our lives." It wasn't anything in childhood which influenced psychologist Steven Pinkier to pursue his dreams or career, or take a certain path. I think that fate has some place in what we become and do at a particular phase in our lives. It was in grad school when his interest in language became the focus for his career in vocabulary and grammar, my special interests, too.
   
   Just like a man, when he is confronted with a question or situation he isn't expecting, he just nods -- therefore, no real "thinking" takes place. For a psychology professor, he has a strange way of thinking about truth, changing his viewpoint as the whim hits him. He feels that childhood influences don't steer a "curious mind" in a certain direction. Usually we find our niche in life quite acccidentally.
   
   Most of us don't know what we will become (when suffering through childhood) nor any way to deflect what the future has in store for us. Happenstance has a way of steering us in a direction we might not want to go. We never know when life will throw us a curve ball.
   
   The old hometown is full of transplants and aliens interested only with making big money, not in promoting "curious minds" of children to become scientists. Thomas Wolfe was right, "You can't go home again." Because home is where you are, not the place you were born. That's a myth -- an illusion. Nothing is ever the same. No one is ever there to greet you or welcome you "home."
   
   These essays include stories by Howard Gardner on making a social scientist, Doyne Farmer (physics), Steven Strogatz (math), V. S. Ramachandran (science), no big names, no one I've heard of, but they have been successful enough in their diverse fields to be included in a social science assortment.
   
   John Brockman's books include SPECULATIONS, CREATIVITY, and HOW THINGS ARE, all of which decide who we are as individuals and what we become as adults. He's been busy writing, editing and co-editing. He owns a software agency in New York City. What I am wondering is why he didn't become a scientist with his "curious mind."



5. Anyone buying this book as a gift or for insight on how a typical child becomes a scientist will be very disappointed. Do scientists work in industry? Not in this book. Is your child a female? She would be a distinct minority if she becomes a scientist, to judge by this book. Will your child have a Ph.D. by age 21? No? How disappointing. The scientist profiled in the first chapter, Nicholas Humphrey, descendent of famous scientists who grew up an acquaintance of, among others, young Stephen Hawking, captures why this book misses the mark in its selection of role models for aspiring scientists. He "wonders if having been born to be a scientist has not undercut my right to call myself a scientist at all." That is too harsh. It's not his fault that such a good idea for a book and a promising title were wasted.

5 comments about Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think: Reflections by Scientists, Writers, and Philosophers.

1. I can't help but feel that the reviews thus far for this book have only been favorable due to the contributions that Dawkins himself has made to the field of evolutionary biology.
   
   What was most troubling about this book was the contradictions which the editors themselves (Grafen and Ridley) managed to incorporate. They say that Dawkins uses "impeccable logic" and yet they also claim that he's "often misunderstood". Grafen claims that The Selfish Gene caused an "immediate revolution in biology". Yet, Andrew Read, one of the contributors, said he didn't encounter the book until after he completed his four year zoology degree (and yes, it had been published before that time). One also gets to read about, from the accounts of several scientists, how The Selfish Gene "taught me to think" (from Read's essay, but this is only an example). Grafen then tells us that it is noteworthy that Dawkins was elected to the Royal Society for his "contributions to the public understanding of science, not for his contribution to science itself."
   
   The Selfish Gene is a masterful book and it's certainly worthy of praise, but 283 pages of praise with intercalary superfluous biographic accounts by the authors makes this book one for the trash bin.
   
   It is nothing but an academic circle jerk. Very disappointing.



2. If you have read Richard's books over the years, you will enjoy reading some other prominent peoples' opinions. I am now re-reading "The selfish gene"



3. The subtitle, after the title naming the subject of the tributes, says: "HOW A SCIENTIST CHANGED THE WAY WE THINK". Who is "WE"? Certainly not anyone. Rather, it may apply to the contributors to the book, and more widely to Darwinians. My drift is that if that scientist, Richard Dawkins, indeed changed the way someone thinks, it concerns those who accept Darwinism as axiomatic, the change concerning how they think Darwinism can be detailed.
   
   To me this is like thinking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Despite the authors' absolute certainty that Darwinism is true, it is, as I have tried to show elsewhere, not only a theory, but a false one. Its refutation is in fact quite simple, but it resides in what has been a blind spot on both sides of the dispute for or against the theory.
   
   One of the authors in the book quotes Dawkins in matters that highlight the essence of the dispute (p.233): "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (As an aside: What about spiritually, emotionally, fulfilled?) And "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference."
   
   Ironically, the just spoken "blind" indicates the blind spot mentioned above. The dire views expressed in the preceding quotations are belied by an overwhelming phenomenon completely overlooked. It is the activities characterizing every live organism. Their directions toward its preservation display the opposite of "blind pitiless indifference", of "no good", of "no purpose".
   
   I shall not go further here into the questions of theism or atheism; it should, however, be clear from the aforesaid that the presence of directedness in nature, contrary to the claim of its absence, is, in the functionings of organisms, very much part of science, as exemplified by medicine.
   
   It is instead Darwinian aimlessness which contradicts these observations. In this respect one may take a look at a prevalent theme in the reviewed book, regarding what "changed the way we think". Dawkins proposed (p.55) that the gene, "defined as any portion of chromosomal material that potentially lasts for enough generations to serve as a unit of natural selection", must be recognized as "the fundamental unit of natural selection, and therefore the fundamental unit of self-interest."
   
   This has to do with the microscopic unit transmitting hereditary characters and which Dawkins for the preceding reason called "the selfish gene". Of interest now is of course that the gene or anything else in organisms is called without hesitation a unit of, aimless, "natural selection". As seen above, organismic parts do act with aims and are correspondingly replicated through generations with aims.
   
   Dawkins called the gene "the fundamental unit of self-interest" because it is so replicated, and as known, "natural selection" is to favor that which survives, and the gene appears to survive longer than other units of organisms. But in the organism's activities aimed at its survival the genes are merely instruments by which organisms propagate for that survival. In other words, genes do not act in self-interest but in the interest of organisms.
   
   More importantly, as here again called attention to, the living do not adapt as a result of undirected effects of natural selection, but as a result of their directed activities toward self-preservation.



4. Richard Dawkins is brilliant. Because he writes so clearly, his colleagues and students learn from him with ease; because he writes so entertainingly, they thoroughly enjoy the learning process. In Grafen and Ridley's compendium, other scientists who have benefited from Dawkins' brilliance build on his work, and provide important commentary and instruction on how to think and reason.



5. As usual I found myself wondering around the science section of a local bookstore. I tried to convince myself that I should finish reading one of the seven books by my bed before spending anymore of my, rent, money. After browsing the covers of numerous books, I was just `looking', one caught my eye. A very visible font read: "Richard Dawkins". I picked it up assuming, wrongly so, that this was Dawkins biography. I usually have a habit of reading the preface of the book I have my eye on, this time I went straight to the register. I started reading the book in the car when I walked out of the bookstore. Two days after, of non-stop reading, I have just put it down.
   
   The book is a collection of essays from a wide range of fields including biologists, writers and philosophers. They all describe the ways in which Dawkins has affected their academic life, field of study or the effects of his books, mostly the selfish gene, on the way we think of evolution. The first section, titled `Biology', is a collection of essays describing how the genes eye view of evolution is sculpturing their research and how Dawkins's explanation had shed a new light on evolution that continues to this day.
   The sections titled `The Selfish Gene" addresses this now infamous book and its impact on humanity, the view of culture (through Memes) and arguments for a reductionism approach when dealing with human behavior. The next three sections (Logic, Antiphonal Voices and Humans) contain essays that continue the Selfish gene theme and address the impact of Dawkins writing on some fundamental human questions. The sections titled `Controversy' reviews the most controversial side of Dawkins, the Dawkins that is never afraid to be straight forward when attacking religious dogma and promoting atheism. Finally the section on `Writing' sums up this book perfectly. In the midst of all the controversy and scientific arguments it is not difficult to forget that Dawkins is truly mesmerizing with words. The two essays in this section sum up his writing technique and perhaps clarify why even those who don't agree with his views are so captivated by his books.
   
   If you are a fan of Dawkins, or even if you are not, this is a must have.

2 comments about The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian.

1. Due to the loss of most of James Smithson's papers in a fire in 1865, the man who gave his name (and fortune) to The Smithsonian Institution has long been shrouded in myth as an eccentric dilettante who inexplicably left all his money to a place he'd never even visited. Heather P. Ewing's scholarly gamble was that, by recreating the society, intellectual milieu, people and places that defined Smithson, the man at the center would emerge from the shadows. It was a gamble that paid off brilliantly. Not only does the author successfully redefine Smithson as an important scientific figure in a crucial time in the history of science, but as a tormented and fascinating character, driven by ambition to gain acknowledgement from his aristocratic, quasi-secret, father. Smithson's pathologically litigious and improvident mother is an especially colorful character, who would seem right at home in a novel by Fielding or an engraving by Hogarth. In the quest for Smithson as an individual, Ewing creates a remarkably accessible "inside" account of the Scientific Revolution, its characters, controversies and practices, as Smithson crosses paths with a Who's Who of historical characters ranging from scientists Humphrey Davy and Lavoisier to the notorious Emma Hamilton, Dr. William Thornton (future architect of the U.S. capitol) and Napoleon. In this remarkable achievement of scholarship and engaging literary style, Ewing's book offers the reader a glimpse of a flawed and complicated individual at the center of the Scientific Revolution and, in so doing, vividly depicts the opportune historical moment that made possible (after nearly a decade of Congressional debate) the creation of world's largest museum and most sophisticated research complex in the still-rustic capital of the United States.



2. Excellent biography, piecing together what is known about the guy who provided a huge gift to found the Smithsonian, without ever having set foot in the USA. The Smithsonian had originally collected all of Smithson's papers, but they were destroyed in a fire before any serious scholarship. The author traveled through Europe collecting what could be found in original sources elsewhere, and paints a compelling portrait of an eccentric with a love of science and some unusual ideas. If you like 17th century types and the whole revolutionary milieu, this is a good read.

4 comments about Lightning Man: The Accursed Life Of Samuel F.b. Morse.

1. Basically I agree with the reviews of Deborah Taylor, Charles De Fanti, Jr. and Matthew Wall. I had no idea that Morse was an accomplished painter and introduced daguerreotype photography to the USA and taught Matthew Brady. Thanks to Hollywood, I had no idea that one of the best features of the Morse telegraph system was automatic recording of the dot and dash signals, so no operator had to be present when they arrived. Or that he was involved with the trans-Atlantic cables. Or that he finally threw himself on the mercy of European governments in which the Morse telegraph system was being used and asked for an indemnity, one-time, saying he would be satisfied with whatever it was ($2 million in today's money).
   
   We were never exposed to Morse's pro-slavery bible-based views, or his campaign support for General George McClellan in 1864 against Lincoln. The idea that English abolitionists were planted or encouraged to go to the USA to weaken us was there.
   
   Silverman has provided a good index and astounding documentation of sources. Those of you who have looked at my other reviews and seen lists of errors will be impressed that I did not find a single one in this wonderfully readable book. My only wish is that there were a few more details of the telegraph devices. And why no table of the Morse code? No matter: this is one of the best books I have ever read on any topic.



2. I picked up this book on a whim, and found myself agog at Morse's veritable precognition about the telecommunication industry. I was quite unable to put the book down. This man may be long dead, but his ideas about leasing the right to use his telegraph, rather than opting to sell telegraph devices one-by-one, was a brilliant marketing decision on a par with today's great master's of business. The book is well-written and full of surprises, including what business decisions NOT to make. This is a great read for anyone who a)is in marketing; b) is in telecommunication; or c)mistrusts the Patent Office!



3. SFB Morse is hardly a forgotten figure in history, but neither does he have the stature of an Edison in terms of the industrial development. As Lightning Man ably describes, the telegraph itself was more an invention of an amalgamation of a variety of predecessor developments in science and technology. Morse deserves ample credit for putting the pieces together and, more importantly, having the drive and acumen to evolve the invention into a successful business model, which was the key for its transformative effect on world technology. Yet his life, before the appearance of this excellent biography, seems shrouded in the myth of the lone inventor.
   
   What's truly fascinating about his story and this book is the tale of the transition from the idea of the lone individual genius to the research lab, the difference between a great idea and a useful product, the move from progress being measured by the fevered work of a single man to the joint efforts of the company and the corporation. The story is one of a transformation of a culture, but which stays firmly focussed on its subject, Mr. Morse, in telling the tale.
   
   Morse's "early" years as a painter are covered extremely well, and while the transition between his career as a painter to one as an inventor may seem bizarre and abrupt to the modern conception, Silverman illuminates this strange career change in the light of the times. Morse himself was a bridge between early American puritanism and a more modern philosophy that was to come. His philosophy of human nature and of himself had all the prejudice, bravado, arrogance, hypocrisy, idealism, greed, and Calvinist self-loathing that made the first half of the 19th century such a dynamic period. That Morse had to travel abroad to study fine art painting, a field considered by many Americans of the time to be vile and barely a craft, and sought the approval of the Academy of the day in Europe also neatly encapsulates the love-hate relationship of the period with European culture and learning. (Morse's own tortured schizophrenia on European political institutions is a subtheme: he is quick to criticize the European political systems of the day in his younger years, and all too eager to accept the emoluments and honors of royalty in his later ones.) The treatment of Morse's early years and his relationship with his then-even-more famous geographer father is done very deftly, without resorting to facile Freudian psychobabble, as we see Morse attempting to simultaneously win parental approval, find his own way in the world, make a name for himself, and try to see his own importance.
   
   There's an American tragedy within Morse's life story as well, in the way he bitterly fought -- perhaps too hard in some ways -- to get the sole credit for inventing the telegraph that he is popularly (and inaccurately) given in the one-line biographical entries of modern histories. This fight was done partly for ego and celebrity, and partly to protect his patents and late fortune. It's a sad and cautionary tale how Morse was never able to settle into any kind of self-satisfaction as he became obsessed with his own legacy.
   
   Morse was an American original, and there's a fascinating pull to the story of a man never happy with himself despite having reached conventional success in two quite different professions.



4. As he did with Houdini, Poe and Cotton Mather, Silverman peels away the tired skin of his subjects and reveals a person hitherto unknown to history. Never one to catalog facts, Silverman redefines not only the person but the era in which he lived. Morse's Calvinism, his passionate pro-slavery views, and his profound frustrations can be comprehended only in the context of his age, which Silverman portrays through dazzling research and exquisite prose. Harrowing Nineteenth Century sea voyages and the Puritan's love/hate relationship with Rome provide two of the many fascinating vignettes that invigorate this portrait.
   Once again, Kenneth Silverman has proven himself the Dean of American biographers.

5 comments about The Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television.

1. This is THE book on Philo Farnsworth, well-written, fascinating, with drama and lessons that hit home today. You've got a garage inventor, venture capitalists, the ultimate disrupting technology, D.C. power brokers, a high-stakes trial, patent fights, and of course the all-powerful adversary, in RCA tycoon David Sarnoff, who is also vividly brought to life. This is a must-read companion to The Farnsworth Invention play. Kudos, Mr. Schwartz, to a book that I could not put down.



2. I loved this book, the story of yet another unsung hero, the lone wolf pioneer, oblivious to the world's thieves, fighting to realize a dream, then getting ripped off for it at the moment of success. Ask yourself: who invented the lightbulb, the telephone, the radio, the airplane? You know the answer. (It might not actually be fully correct, but you can certainly come up with an appropriate name.) Now, who invented television? That is, the means of converting a moving image into a stream of electrons. Stumped? Some people know the names of Vladimir Zworykin and Philo Farnsworth, but not many. This book is the extremely fascinating story of Philo T. Farnsworth (what a name!) and how one man, David Sarnoff, succeeded in placing in the mind of the public the idea that television was created by him, as the leader of RCA/NBC. Zworykin worked for Sarnoff, and between the two totally ripped off the ideas and even the patents behind the creation of TV. While Farnsworth did receive a minimal amount of credit and some money during his life, in the end his name was buried as far as the public was concerned.

   Unfortunately, the author seems oblivious to the fact of similar rip-offs occurring right amongst some of the minor characters of the story, in particular Edison AND Marconi stealing, and trying to keep Tesla from receiving, the credit he deserved for lighting and radio discoveries. Everyone has their own axe to grind, but the fact is if you dig deep enough, there are probably stories like this surrounding every great technological advance.

   Anyway, if you at all like the genre, this book is bound to become a classic for you. It's also a great cautionary tale regarding the weaknesses of the patent system as practiced in the USA.




3. More party conversation facts that you can expect to collect from 99/100 other books. A great story, well told. Professionally and rigorously researched. Fun to read.



4. Evan Schwartz has done an excellent job in creating a fast read without the depth of A Beautiful Mind, but interesting nonetheless. His subject is after all a more straightforward individual than John Nash, although Schwartz, like Sylvia Nasar, does explore some of the darker corners of Farnsworth's personality.

   Schwartz refreshingly does not engage in positivistic technological whoop-de-doo about the possibility of reviving the status of the lone inventor. During the dot.com boom there was some loose talk about the possibility of the better mousetrap but it is clear that the administered world, that Farnsworth's nemesis in the book (David Sarnoff of RCA) helped to install in the 1920s, makes technological innovation, by the lone inventor, the exception and not the rule.

   Schwartz also does an excellent job of balancing the two very different (yet strangely alike) personalities of Philo T. Farnsworth versus "General" Sarnoff, who more or less browbeat Dwight Eisenhower into making him a General for Sarnoff's admirable war record.

   For Philo T. Farnsworth belonged more to the 1890s than the administered, corporate world of the 1920s. His name is somewhat odd in that (like Edward G. Nilges) it confesses an unbroken attachment to a family-of-origin, and a need to at one and the same time identify with a clan, yet precisely identify oneself as an individual within the clan.

   Sarnoff's name is cooler-sounding and more down-to-business to the modern and indeed the administered ear, and far more than old Philo, Sarnoff was "skilled" (if that is indeed the word) in manipulating, not technical and scientific realities but his relations with his fellow men.

   Farnsworth was of course no slouch in the PR department, but Sarnoff was more aware that the effect of illusion could be self-reinforcing, and that Sarnoff could USE the technology (and let others tinker with the technology), as in Schwartz' example of Sarnoff's dog and pony show at the 1939 World's Fair.

   Technicians may cry foul, but the unavoidable fact that one technology builds upon another MEANS that the administered world (in Farnsworth's time, of cheap radio buff magazines, in ours, of cheap personal computers) was brought into being by social engineers *malgre lui* like Sarnoff.

   But one cannot give old-fashioned credit to the Sarnoffs and the Gates when one admits this fact, and the reason for this is the inseperability of the social illusion they created, and the feeling the rest of us that we have been subtly horn-swoggled.

   At the 1939 World's Fair, young David Gerlenter was very impressed by what in fact had little relationship to reality but the illusion created by the Fair urged him not only to participate in the creation of the world of "tomorrow", it also made them enthusiastically not question its ideological presumptions.

   Missing, of necessity, in Evan Schwartz' quick read is another (indirect) employee of David Sarnoff, and this is my cherubic but rather gloomy old pal Theodore Adorno.

   [The frequency of mention of Adorno may indicate to the unwashed a stalker-like obsession although Adorno died in 1970, or it may indicate that I am on to something Big.]

   Adorno was indirectly retained at the Princeton Radio Research project in the 1930s by an RCA funded group that was charged, by Sarnoff, with making radio more high-class, and Schwartz describes Sarnoff's own tastes, which were in the lingo of the day, high-brow.

   Walter Damrosch, not "Damrouch" as it is in the book, was a popular classical conductor of the 1930s and performed, as Schwartz recounts, at an RCA celebration. Sarnoff hoped that Adorno, et al., would show him how to market, over radio and possibly television, "quality" programming.

   Being an intellectual cousin of Farnsworth in the very different but in fact equally demanding field of sociology, Adorno seems to have disruptively wanted to first theorize the impact of Edison's, Marconi's, and Farnsworth's creations on the listener. Adorno, in a truly pragmatic spirit, wanted to take the material basis into account, but was forestalled from doing so.

   Adorno was aware, ten years before the appearance of McLuhan, that the medium, in particular its necessary limitations, might become the message. He theorized that the limitations might be necessary using, not the Aristotelean or Boolean logic familiar to a Farnsworth, but a 'dialectic' call and response logic in which we might actually demand, in the case of music reproduction, the very experience that denies, excludes, an older, and possibly richer, experience.

   Of course, the engineer then and now is engaged in finding ways to satisfy demands, and not prove their mutual exclusion, which is why theoretical sociologists are scorned by engineers. But Boolean logic's possibility happens to rest on the bare possibility of knowledge, and one of Farnsworth's limitations was that this blinded him to the importance of PR over and above valid patents.

   But rare indeed is the engineer with this range of vision, and as a result, engineers, in reading this book, might be subtly encouraged to POLARIZE the urban and cosmopolite world of Sarnoff versus the more down-to-earth, nuts and bolts, ham and ham sandwich world of an Edison or Farnsworth. With the result that such men grow old without grace, and the ultimate justification of the technology is biased towards destruction.




5. For science and invention-history buffs, this is a no-brainer, but even the non-technoid layperson will find this a fascinating and fast-paced read. The author does an excellent job of presenting the key characters' development and motiviation, interspersing very fluidly the important biographical details of both Farnsworth and Sarnoff with appropriate and necessary background information on the technological evolution that eventually drew their lives together.

   Schwartz achieves an entertaining balance between the social history of television and radio, the scientific minutae of the early growth of these technologies, and the personal lives of the individuals involved. Without becoming self-righteous or dogmatic, he lets the reader know where he stands on the issue of scientific integrity versus commercial exploitation, and succeeds in proving his underlying thesis that Farnsworth was truly one of the last of his breed. Finely researched and tightly written, this is a thoroughly enjoyable book.

5 comments about The Man Who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe.

1. I was given this book by a friend who knew my keen interest in learning about people who lived a great life as an example to others of the potential within us all.
   
   This little 55 page book doesn't go into too much details of the life of Walter Russell, it touches upon his accomplishments and success in all areas of his life and leaves out dwelling on any suffering he went through to accomplish great things but it does talk about HOW he did it.
   
   The best part of this book, besides giving us a glimpse into the life of an extraordinary man, is that it points the way for each of us to find that same measure of greatness within ourselves - if we choose to do so.
   
   Some have reviewed this as "stupidity" but the mans success speaks for itself and "stupidity" and sarcasm will not find you greatness...
   I enjoyed reading this book very much and hope you do to!



2. This little booklet is basically a rehash of the same insane nonsense that L. Ron Hubbard attempted to spew when Hubbard was doped to the gills on illegal narcotics and alcohol. Nothing that the author writes is even remotely scientific, testable, or falsifiable. All the book contains is endless outrageous stupidity and cynical commercial appeals to gullible, ignorant people.
   
   I acquired my copy of the booklet at my local public library where the book had been donated and the library staff rejected it as insane, possibly criminally fraudulent stupidity.



3. This book is inspirational, but lacks spirit connection. Mr. Clark basically wrote a bio about Mr. Russel Walter who was chosen to reveal incredible gifts from God. The book's composition gave me the impression that Mr. Walter's meditations reveal the secrets of the universe - everything stems from lightwaves. His reasoning for his talents (without books) bears witness to the inner self (Universal Intelligence). On a different page, he gives humble references and praise to famous Americans like Mark Twain, Tomas Edison and Henry Ford. I doubt if Mr. Walter really knows these people . . . they really worked hard for their wealth, yet they did not have a formal education; moreover, they all had a dark side.
   
   From a Biblical point of view, Satan did not test this man's faith like Job of the Bible, perhaps because of the deception of wealth lends itself to the evil one. The book makes the universal gifts sound so real without any sacrifice or struggle in Mr. Walter's life. Even Jesus suffered for his glory and power.
   
   As a Christian, I say "beware." You know the saying, "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is a SCAM." One thing I do believe, YOU determine your fate . . . God willing.



4. I've just finished rereading this book for the third time.
   
   I was drawn to it again when challenged to create my "vision" for my business and life.
   
   If you are a results-oriented type person, then you will like this book because: Russell was: musician, professional skater, sculptor, artist, writer, architect (designed several NY buildings), RE developer, philosopher, etc.
   
   If you are a deep-thinker, connected to the Higher Source type of person, then you will like this book because: Ch. 5 shares the 5 laws of success that further connect you to the Source, there are great quotes like, "I believe mediocrity is self-inflicted and genius self-bestowed. Every successful man I have known. . . carries with him the key which unlocks that awareness and lets in the universal power that has made him into a master."
   
   "What is that key?" I asked.
   
   "The key is i-desire-i when it is i-released-i into the great eternal Energy of the Universe." i-italics-i p. 6 and 7
   
   Read it, and then recommend it to others. I had never heard of this man until an author/professor recommended it. Thanks Dr. James Payne!



5. Walter Russell lived a MOST AMAZING life. He knew "The Secret" innately, it appears. He seemed to move effortlessly through life persuing his dreams successfully and unselfconsciously, achieving all that he desired. Inspirational.