2 comments about Life on Air: Memoirs of a Broadcaster.

1. I love this book. As a kid I used to sit glued to the TV watching Attenborough's programmes, such as the series 'Life on Earth' and countless others, bringing exotic places and the wonders of natural world into our living rooms. This book is an autobiography focused on David Attenborough's long and unparalleled BBC career starting from the birth of the TV medium in the 40's and 50's up untill today. What shines through in this book is vintage Attenborough: A true passion for his vocation, and an indefatigable desire to bring the most fascinating aspects of natural history to our TV screens. In a time when a lot of TV is hopelessly pre-digested and bland, Attenborough stands out more than ever, and so does this book. Read it an enjoy.



2. I have watched David Attenboroughs TV documentaries for years and have consistently found them to be unrivalled in their ability to bring the subject matter to life in a way no other presenter can. This book maintains that tradition. As you read the book you travel with the author and what a trip it is. He is an immensely likable person who has led a fascinating life. The book is also well constructed, highly readable and offers a host of insights into both the author and the natural world. I would strongly recommend it to you.

No comments about Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution.

1 comments about Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer Among the American Romantics.

1. This book tells the improbable but true story of a woman--Maria Mitchell--who grew up in a poor family of 9 children in Nantucket to become one of America's most notable astronomers and scientists of the 19th century. Mitchell's big break comes when one night in October 1847 she peers through a telescope on her roof to discover a comet (the kind that will visit us once and never again return to our solar system). Despite unsought fame resulting from her discovery, she continues to live in Nantucket working as a librarian at a classic "athenaeum" for learning and accepting a post as official navigational "computer" of the movements of Venus, before eventually traveling to meet other great intellects in Europe and serving her later years as a professor at the newly created Vassar College (where she lived spartanly for years on a cot in the observatory). Renee Bergland seamlessly stitches an intriguing account of life in old Nantucket, the emergence of astronomy as a true scientific and mathematic discipline, and the daunting challenge facing Mitchell--and women in general--to gain acceptance as scientific inquest increasingly professionalized from the "parlor" to more formal academic settings. Mitchell herself reflects in her diary on the character it takes to maintain intellectual independence against the pressures of indolence and social conformity: "When we consider ... how short is life and how much shorter are the petty vexation of life, it seems strange that we should not act up to our convictions of duty and disregard what may be said of us by our fellow men. For what is my neighbor more than that I should succumb to his view in preference to my own? And what possible good can come to me from such submission? I cannot please him for very possibly his expressed opinion is not his own but that of some other neighbor of whom he stands in awe. ... And so we have a chain of ignoble submission reaching perhaps around the world. I cannot suppose it comes from cowardice and I therefore suppose it comes from a still more despicable weakness--that of indolence. Thinking is hard work." I was transported to a bygone era by this provocative and enlightening book!

5 comments about Nikola Tesla's Earthquake Machine: With Tesla's Original Patents Plus New Blueprints to Build Your Own Working Model.

1. The book has loads of theory. The plans for an oscillator are fair and will give you a place to start. A mention is made that it resembles a modern control solenoid, agreed, but perhaps should include salvaging parts from other such items to build up one. Im sure it could be done, and once again this book gives a start. In any case it does show how to use a commercially available air vortex unit for heat and cooling, in conjunction with the oscillating device.



2. Well...I have the book, I'm an aerospace engineer, I've made a living over the past several years reverse-engineering the Tesla Turbine and Pump, and, I must say - I personally like this book.
   The mechanical drawings are well worth the measly price of the book, alone. Drawing from lack of true patent info regarding the amazing "Earth Quake Machine" (which we KNOW Tesla did, in fact, invent), the authors do a very nice job at interpretation. Now...I would believe if someone took these drawings and input the CAD info, we could go from there and find out how accurate they are. A true working mechanical oscillator would quite literally "shake" things up a bit.
   Anyway...again, I did like this book. Take it for what it is - an attempt to explain an invention of probably one of the greatest inventors of all time - Nikola Tesla...Tesla's mechanical oscillator.



3. I was hoping that this book would shed some light on the concept of creating artificial earthquakes. Instead, it was loaded with ideas and inventions that had NOTHING to do with Tesla's Earthquake machine. There is one little chapter, and they should seriously change the name of the book.



4. Upon discovering there was actually a book on this subject, Tesla's famous earthquake machine; I was amazed. Tesla is my favorite inventor and I have been interested in building his device for years. But I was sadly disappointed when I read this book. The stories and information are repeated multiple times throughout the book, the instructions are only really a set of diagrams, and overall - this book was a complete letdown. Hopefully someone will someday redeem this poor account for Tesla's technology.



5. The first part of the book covers Tesla's mechanical oscillator (principle of operation, etc.). Later, a series of blueprints are presented to detail the construction of a small oscillator. A knowledgable person with access to machining equipment should be able to construct one with the information provided. It will not, however, guide you through the proccess! It simply presents the "bare bones" info. After that, the book strays from its title. There is some rather strange talk about alternative religion and some Zen philosophy stuff. Then, were shown text and construction info for some other neat devices (heat pump, motors, etc.). Anyone who enjoys science or wants to build an "Earthquake Machine" will probably be satisfied with the content. Be prepared for some of the off topic discussion though.

   Adam Parker

5 comments about The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley.

1. Robert Noyce had all of the significant traits of ADD. Any parent devastated by their child's diagnosis should read this to see what one can accomplish when one uses one's strengths. This book shows the positive side of ADD.
   
   The book gets a bit detailed in some spots, and is overly repetitive in others, but overall is an interesting read.



2. The author uses a lot of first hand material still available from people close to Bob Noyce. You will eat it fast, because you can get the "life mood" from well synthesized private life and public life smartly chosen events. The story of a guy that did put the moral value driven face of America high, from the cubicle to the world stage. The explanations around the new "silicon valley" management style are also very didactic, and has more value in it than most of expensive seminars. You can get the essence of it.
   ... In some places , it is close to hagiography, probably the beyond the grave aura of Bob Noyce ...and you can get contaminated...



3. The book has a fascinating subject and is well written. It fully captures and holds your attention. The author is very deft in handling arguments or controversies Noyce was involved in, presenting facts without bias. The book is even-handed and intelligent.
   
   From a literary point of view, I think the book raises the bar in terms of biograpical research. I've read a lot of biographies, and I've never seen one as well documented as this. Almost every sentenced can be traced back to its source. In addition, it has original research. I believe the author is responsible for discovering that Noyce's NDR diode was at least coincident with Esaki's Noble-prize winning work. Overall, an excellent read.



4. I've spent 30 plus years in this and related industries. As a partial introduction to IC's and their "market successful" agents, it is OK. As entertainment it is good, just don't forget you are being entertained! As a biography of Noyce it is only partial. That the rest of the story with Jack Kilby, Texas Instuments, and non-Noyce IC industry and players is missing makes it very bad history. That the patent fight history and the rules for patents, mainly that continuous work on ideas must be shown or it's "abandoned", are not covered makes it very much a dis-eduational offering. The big truth, stated deep in the book, that "Credit floats up.", almost makes the reading good, but not quite!



5. Berlin has performed an amazing amount of detailed research into Noyce's life. She takes us back to the years when the semiconductor industry was born, and shows us how Noyce helped make it flourish in Silicon Valley.
   
   A striking passage describes how Noyce anticipated the observation of negative differential resistance in a tunnel diode. Some 18 months before Leo Esaki in Tokyo discovered it. Esaki would win the Nobel in Physics for his work. In one of these what-ifs, Noyce could easily have taken that for himself.
   
   By the way, the book's explanation of negative resistance is a trifle awkward. The quantum mechanical phenomenon cannot be easily explained to a general audience. (As a grad student, I had the same problem of discussing this about my research, to laymen.) But if it puzzles you, remember that it also eluded a lot of people in the 1950s.
   
   You might already be familiar with the broad outlines of how Noyce, Moore and others worked for Robert Shockley, and then left en masse in disgust at his management style. But Berlin furnishes here far more detail than is commonly known. About how Noyce agonised and reluctantly left Shockley.
   
   Likewise, with the later tale of Fairchild Semiconductor and how Noyce and Moore would in turn leave that. This time to found Intel (with Grove). Berlin gives much more detail on this broad outline, that explains the motivations of Noyce and his associates.
   
   Some readers might be amused to see that the CEO of Fairchild resisted handing out stock options to employees, in the grounds that this was "creeping socialism". Which played no small part in the exodus of its best people.
   
   The book describes a Silicon Valley that has vanished.

5 comments about John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, and Much More.

1. An outstanding book in all respects. Provides an inside look at what transpired in the making of the A-Bomb. Also includes numerous other contributions made by this mathematical genius.



2. John von Neumann was a prodigy's prodigy, the likes of whom rarely grace the earth. Norman McRae is one of the few intrepid biographers who have dared to take on von Neumann's phenomenally accomplished life. As was to be expected, McRae wasn't equal to his subject, but the book is still extremely worthwhile.
   
   I wished that McRae had put more effort into describing the science of von Neuman's work - Aspray did an excellent job in describing his contributions to computer science - and spared us some his thoughts on the Japanese economy. Nevertheless, this is a good, if imperfect book, and one of the best on John von Neumann.



3. My father wrote this book after retiring from his career long job as The Economist's longest serving staff writer. Here are some comments on what other reviewers have said.

   It's true my father never studied for a phd in economics; if you'd just served in world war 2, got a first in economics in Cambridge and been offered a job at The Economist, you'd probably not have seen any practical point in that either. ( If you want to go into who knows what about 21st C futures, internetworking,intangible assets and new economics, I'm sure we can link you to that at http://www.normanmacrae.com )

   It may be that some of my father's admiration for Von Neumann also got blended with his world views. But Von Neumann's family -whom my father worked closely with - didn't want any of that blend diluted.

   My father was aiming primarily to explain to everyone why Von Neumann was one of the 2 great mathematicians of the 20th century and what background great mathematicians grow up in. In trying to make that accessible to everyone, he clearly doesn't go into the depth of mathematics theory that might stimulate today's hundred greatest living mathematicians. Everyone else will probably find the mathematical content suitable for a biography which they want to learn from.

   Moreover, Von Neumann was the first mathematician to insist that the subject's future lay mainly in teamwork facilitated by computing rather than individual mathematical power. Not every academic has understood that point the way Johy would have hoped.

   chris macrae, wcbn007@easynet.co.uk Marketing Electronic Learning NETwork http://www.egroups.com/group/melnet2




4. This biography of one of the most impressive scientists of this century is both interesting and well written. The author gives a precise and thoughtful account of vN's life. I especially liked the fact that he does not dwell too much on the usual stories (such as von Neumann's memory power, or his famous Princeton parties) but tries to go beyond the public image. The best part of the book, to my opinion, is the section that describes Hungary -and especially its high school system- at the beginning of this century. My main criticism is that the book is rather shallow when explaining the scientific contributions of vN. The author is a journalist and not a mathematician/physicists, and he does not do a terrible job at explaining science. This is especially true for the economics contributions of vN. It is very clear to me that the author does not understand very well the progresses made by modern economic theory thanks to vN contributions (utility theory and game theory).The author, obsessed with Japan and competition, has comments with respect to the academic economics profession (whom I belong to...) that can probably be best explained by the fact that he is a PhD dropout. Anyway, this is very interesting book that I recommend to those interested in the evolution of mathematics, physics and technical warfare (but NOT economics!) in the XXth century.



5. It seems that as time passes and nuclear secrets are gradually declassified, we get longer and longer biographies of John von Neumann. MacRae's biography is helpful, partly because it is fairly recent, and partly because MacRae gives us a glimpse of the worldly side of John von Neumann. The book captures his social style, his special expertise at bluffing, his sense of academic showmanship, his political power -- and shows how adroitly he used that power and his own mystique to push through his technical insights and decisions.

   Von Neumann was a trained chemical engineer. Although chemistry is usually remarked as the slightest of his credentials, he knew it and used it. This book includes the story of how he applied mathematics and chemistry to the development, delivery and control of explosive weapons - first chemical, and then nuclear.

   Von Neumann's work on explosives is a common thread that runs through his work and pulls together many of his interests that - seen in isolation - seem amazingly disparate. His interests in computers, aerodynamics, parlour game theory and even meteorology were all rooted in or entrained by his fascination with explosive weapons. (For a thermonuclear weapon, for example, the weather is a delivery system for fallout.)

   In 1938, von Neumann first became a consultant to the United States military, working at the Aberdeen proving grounds in Maryland. He began by improving the aim of very large guns with explosive shells. It was a surprisingly complicated business because it involved winds aloft, turbulent flow, impacts, and expanding shock fronts of explosive charges. It was on one of his frequent trips to Aberdeen that he encountered one of the University of Pennsylvania engineers working on ENIAC. Von Neumann was unsatisfied with the analog computers then used for weapons work, and plunged into the problem of improving the nascent digital machine. Ultimately he created a digital computer at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. His purpose in building this particular machine was to use it to complete the design of the hydrogen bomb.

   After the war began, von Neumann was sent to England to study the damage inflicted by German bombs during the blitz. He noticed the German bombs were not completely effective because they buried themselves before exploding. Von Neumann used this insight to invent the "air burst" explosive. Thereafter, allied bombs worldwide were fused to go off before they hit the ground. The technique vastly improved their destructive power. Hiroshima was an air burst. At Nagasaki, the bomb was an implosion weapon characterized at Los Alamos as "von Neumann's bomb" because of the implosive detonator he helped develop for it.

   MacRae evidently admires von Neumann's accomplishments as a weaponeer, and as a political advocate of weapons development, but he does not quite convey von Neumann's personal sophistication and sense of scientific inquiry.

   For example, in developing the digital computer von Neumann talked to a number of neurobiologists. For the most part he believed what they told him and adapted whatever he found useful. His Silliman lectures, reprinted as his book on The Computer and The Brain, includes his credulous precis on the neurobiology of the early 1950s. But von Neumann also noticed and questioned something few neurophysiologists bother themselves about - then or now - which is the fact that the retinal cells of the eye look backward. They are pointed toward the back wall of the eye, and not out at the world. Perhaps these cells see there a thin film diffraction pattern, and not the literal visual picture our brain shows us as an image of the world. Also, in a book by the editor of The Economist, one might expect a bit more on von Neumanns contributions to economics.

   Withal, it is difficult to understand why such a civilized, curious, well spoken, socially adroit and erudite man was so intrigued by explosives. To try to make sense of von Neumann you can also read several other books - there exists no single coherent biography. Find "von Neumann and Weiner," two half-biographies in one volume by Heims; The superb Prisoner's Dilemma, by Poundstone; and for historical context, the Rhodes books on the making of the Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs.

   After von Neumann's death, his concepts of strategic games were highly elaborated at the RAND corporation, and ultimately became U.S. nuclear policy. MacRae touches on this legacy, but the best book on this great chunk of obscured American history is The Wizards of Armageddon, by Kaplan. It would be interesting to know if von Neumann's theory of parlour games was also used to formulate strategic policy for the Viet Nam disaster. It would not be surprising.

2 comments about Fallout.

1. This graphic novel, subtitled "J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and the Political Science of the Atomic Bomb", is a good quick read. It's hard for my generation, raised with the fall of the Soviet Union, to appreciate how stupendous the atomic bomb really was. But this book does a great job of making the history of that period accessible. The book is not that short-around 200 pages-but, due to its graphic nature, is very easy to read.
   
   Fallout is really divided into two major sections. The first is concerned with the idea and creation of the atomic bomb, starting from Szilard's ideas in the 1930s and ending with the Trinity test in 1945. The second is concerned with the inquiry into Oppenheimer's advisory position to the Atomic Energy Commission, which occured in the political climate of the 1950s. Both these are worth reading, but the second one, which has much more text-portions of letters are printed along with the graphics-is a chilling reminder of the craziness of that time.
   
   With 6 different authors listed on the cover (and more in the back pages), the illustrations change often enough that you do have to pay attention to know who is speaking. Additional difficulties arise because there are so many characters. I think the book would be stronger if one author had been responsible for all of the graphic content because the characters would be easier to keep track of.
   
   One very nice aspect of this book is the end notes. At the back of the book, extensive text outlines what parts are true and what parts are surmise. As the front of the book saysm "many of the quotes and incidents that you'll think most likely to be made up are the best documented facts." For example, Teller, one of the scientists, denies his similarity to Dr Strangelove, and another, Szilard, devises his own cancer treatment using radiation.
   
   All in all, if you're in for a light introduction to the history of one of the heaviest subjects, Fallout is a good choice.



2. Although Fallout is in a comic book format it is serious history. The portraits are accurate. The events leading up to the bomb are covered in depth.

   The account of the government's digraceful treatment of Oppenheimer is chilling, reminding us of how the people at the top here were much like the leaders in the USSR.

1 comments about Clyde Tombaugh: Discoverer of Planet Pluto (Sky & Telescope Observer's Guides).

1. When this book was first published by the University of Arizona Press back in 1991, I happened to be in a small bookstore when in walked Eugene Shoemaker. This was before the names of Shoemaker and Levy had been publicly linked in the name of a famous comet. Shoemaker spotted this book on the shelf and exclaimed happily: "Look! They've got David Levy's book on Clyde Tombaugh!" I vaguely recall that he even picked up the book and eagerly showed it to a friend. No doubt Shoemaker would be pleased that Sky and Telescope Books has now 'got' this book back into print.
   
   While David Levy may be better known as an astronomer than as a biographer, he has a couple of stronger-than-usual qualifications to write Tombaugh's biography: he knew Tombaugh over many years and got Tombaugh's cooperation for this book, and he appreciates better than anyone what an extraordinary task it was for Tombaugh to search through a large portion of the sky, both before and after the Pluto discovery.
   
   Clyde Tombaugh took a unique arc through the world of astronomy. Lowell Observatory hired him precisely because he was a Kansas farm boy without academic qualifications and would be thrilled to work for peanuts on a task that most astronomers considered futile. Tombaugh was indeed thrilled by the chance to observe the sky full-time. He was motivated by a basic deep love of astronomy that never left him amidst all the twists and frustrations of his further career. There are few biographies of astromoners in which the sheer joy of astronomy speaks so clearly. Levy also does justice to the scientific challenges involved in searching for Pluto. But Tombaugh's systematic sky survey had larger, cosmological implications: he was seeing the clumpy distribution of galaxies and challenged Edwin Hubble's opinion that the galaxies were distributed more uniformly. Tombaugh also had an adventure in pioneer rocketry, spending several years at White Sands in the 1950s, helping Von Braun's team develop some basic techniques that would become familiar to the public watching the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo programs.
   
   I put Levy's biography to a unique, tough test. I read it after visiting the small town in Kansas from which Tombaugh came. I spoke with Tombaugh's nephew and with locals who had known the Tombaugh family. I went through the local newspaper file and and visited the school Tombaugh attended (and I even showed the latest issue of Sky and Telescope, with its cover story on Pluto, to Mrs. Miller's third grade class). I visited the now-abandoned Tombaugh farmstead and found the weed-hidden cement telescope mount Tombaugh had built for the telescope he used to make the drawings for which Lowell Observatory hired him. After such a personal exposure, there's a danger that a biography will fall short, ringing false in emphasis or slipping up on various details. But it's clear that Levy got to know Tombaugh pretty well. More importantly, he turns Tombaugh into an Everyman Hero for anyone who finds astronomy to be an adventure.

No comments about Newton: Texts Backgrounds Commentaries (Norton Critical Editions).

5 comments about Coming of Age With Elephants: A Memoir.

1. I just finished the book and thoroughly enjoyed it. Joyce Poole blends delightful anecdotes of her interactions with elephants, her scientific findings, and her work to stem the tide of elephant poaching with the joys, heartbreaks, sacrifices, and harrowing experiences of a single woman living and working in Africa.



2. This book is mostly about Joyce Poole & her personal trials & tribulations. I did not learn anything new about elephants, but rather more about the lengths to which the author was driven to gain a prominent position in conservation bureaucracy;
   for example, deeply resenting exclusion from all the globe-trotting conferencing going on around the plight of the elephant, & stung by the reason given that her research into elephant communications was irrelevant to conservation, she abandons the research, "betrays" her mentor -- Cynthia Moss -- & goes to count elephants in order to prove that the widespread slaughter of adults for their tusks leads to an overall decline in the group's reproductive rate. Wow. She provides a very good example of how money spent with good intentions is usually wasted on the recipients.



3. When I finished reading this book, it made me burst into tears...for such a long time, I've never read a book that was so touching and unforgettable. I love elephants so much and after reading this book. It bring me more courage to boycott those merchants who sell ivory......very impressive work and worthy of reading again and again...



4. I enjoyed this book very much! I learned alot about elephants and their habitat. I feel I got to know the elephants personally from the info and stories that Joyce gave on all of them. I feel this book will give a reader insight on the elephants,lives,loves and servival.



5. This is a well-written and wonderfully insightful glance into the lives of elephants. If you are interesting in learning more about the hidden lives of elephants this is the book. Her story was both enthralling and insightful. I salute her for her work in getting the elephant listed on the endangered list; trying to prevent the slide of elephants into possible extinction. I cried when the elephants gave her a welcoming ceremony when she returned from a long departure. Thanks. A must read for all!