5 comments about The Boy Genius and the Mogul: The Untold Story of Television.

1. The Boy Genius and the Mogul: The Untold Story of Television recounts the story of Philo T. Farnsworth, the uncredited but true mastermind of television. A true genius from a young age, Philo encompassed a scientific mind unlike most people of his time and background.Managing to acquire a scientific as well as mechanical knowledge primarily through his own means, Philo toiled and eventually created the first digital image we reocognize as television today. This story, however, details the struggles and theft of the television the inventor faced. RCA mogul, David Sarnoff, would play a fundamental role in destroying Farnsworth's credibility. The book follows the rollercoaster ride of Farnsworth's invention and loss of the television, from the successes to the failures and mishaps with luck. The Boy Genious and the Mogul... provides the great tug of war between the common man and big business of the early twentieth century.
   Daniel Stasworth writes an eloquent novel about the challenges faced by Philo Farnsworth. This exposure of the true workings and toilings of nature provides literally unknown or hidden knowledge of one of mankind's most influential innovations. The conflict and suspense of the heated battles between Farwnsworth and Sarnoff provides a well balanced drama for this biographical sketch. The essense of politics, business, science, and intelligence all combine in this story to provide a great novel about everyone's favorite little black box. It is a story that will amaze, interest, and educate any reader about a true-life story of hardwork, loss, and contentment through the workings of Philo T. Farnsworth. A great read- you should pick it up!



2. Daniel Stashower has written a very important historical book. "The Boy Genius and the Mogul: The Untold Story of Television" is both educational and compelling. It is a remarkable telling of the invention or our most used product. To read about the precocious mind of this young inventor is absolutely magnetic. As a previous owner of one of those embryonic television sets, the information becomes even more personal. It gives life to that old brand, "Philco", stamped on those TV tubes of the late 40's. There is the interesting interplay with his mentors as well, and there is the everpresent dominance of money as the eventual driving force. This book is a two thumbs up, and it should be read by all who have an interest in our most prized electronic gadget.



3. I had an impulse to pick this book up after seeing a documentary on Philo T. Farnsworth on PBS's "the American Experience" about four years ago. The account on the show was somewhat breezy owing to the hour long format. I was hoping to find more detail in Stashower's book. I was both satisifed and maybe just a little disappointed. Part of me wished that more technical detail had been covered in the book, though the other part of me realizes that this is primarily a dramatic story of an individual's struggle to bring a new technology to market while being raced and opposed by a capitalist juggernaut (David Sarnoff and RCA). This book is more of a showcase for drama, not for technology.

   If you're looking for a quick read on the trials and tribulations of one of the key inventors of television, this is a good book. If you're looking for either a primer on early television technology or an extremely detailed account of Farnsworth's battle with Sarnoff, you may be a bit disappointed.




4. The Boy Genius and the Mogul (The Untold Story of Television) is not quite an untold story but it is still one worth repeating and Daniel Stashower does a good job of taking the reader easily through a story that could be much more complicated in other hands (it does after all touch on both science and the legal system, never friendly topics for the casual readers of history). Farnsworth and Sarnoff of the title make interesting protanganists and steep this book in human interest. The story droops at times but it still generally makes for a fascinating read.



5. If you have any interest in the history of radio and television from the lay person to the engineer you will desire to read a copy of "The Boy Genius and the Mogul" by Daniel Stashower. The hero that we root for of course is Philo T. Farnsworth, one of the inventors of Television technology.
   Daniel Stashower, a mystery novelist and biographer of Arthur Conan Doyle, discusses the history and development of Farnsworth's "image dissector." RCA's David Sarnoff (the "mogul" of the title) of course is portrayed as Farnsworth's nemesis. There is a fantastic amount of information on both of these brilliant people and the folk that surrounded them including a good background on Sarnof's TV developers Alexanderson (RCA Mechanical TV system) and Zworykin (Iconoscope ). There is also interesting history on Jenkins(US) and Baird (UK), both being developers of mechanical television fame...

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.

1 comments about A Short History of Western Legal Theory.

1. This is a fabulous book. It begins with early concepts from ancient Greece, lays out the fundamental differences between "natural law" and "the law of the real world," then extends the history of legalistic ideas through the Roman epoc, middle ages, etc. The book identifies the bases of difference between the legal systems of the west and those of communist states, e.g., common law and code law vs. Marxist law. It fully describes the influence of Christianity on western legal thinking. There are "plots" and "sub-plots" in this book that are absolutely fascinating. Finally, it is deliciously written; for those who truely appreciate the english language.

4 comments about Scott of the Antarctic: A Biography (Vintage).

1. David Crane shows how the death of the explorer Captain Scott galvanized the UK on the edge of World War I, but he qualifies British response to the tragedy by pointing up that, despite the weight of popular opinion, the pre-war Edwardian years were not exactly the Golden Age of empire the way they are nowadays painted. Crane's life of Scott is in every way a re-revisionist biography, kicking against what he feels has been the unfair denigration of Scott's life and deeds over the past thirty years.
   
   Sometimes this approach works, sometimes it doesn't. Through meticulous handling of evidence, he tells the story without a hint of strain, and yet sometimes whole paragraphs stop the action to argue that history has shafted Scott once again. A prototypical Englishman in the days when "God was an Englishman," Scott has suffered from unthinking backlhas, or so says Crane, and indeed he says it about four hundred times so that, frankly, I began to sympathize with Scott's attackers a bit, for no one's that perfect.
   
   Indeed Crane admits as much, citing his rivalry with Shackleton and then finally with Amundsen as proof, but in each case, the other man is deeply at fault and Scott was just trying to muddle through on Naval smarts and years of experience leading men. It was a time for heroics, and something in the air (together with a thriving media culture) made heroes out of the most unlikely souls. England expected every man to do his duty, and alas so did Norway and Amundsen came home with the gold, so to speak, whereas the Englishmen after the same glittering prize were all dead by the time Amundsen returned home. "The Englishmen, the goal accompished," bleated the press, "lay quiet in the snows. Through the months since . . . while wives and friends set forth for meetings and counted time, they lay oblivious. All was over for them long ago."
   
   Beyond the heroics of the era, Crane attributes the legend of Captain Scott to his indispitable skill as a prose writer. There is something macabre about the veneration given to his last journal, found by the relief party, but it's a bizarre twist totally understandable in the context, the words that live on after the hand that wrote them has grown cold and still. Without that last journal, its reinscription of subaltern heroics, its narrative of deprivation and memory and love, how else would Scott be remembered? In this regard Crane has an interesting passage about the way in which Westminster Abbey had its own little competition going on with St. Paul's Cathedral about which site had the most pomp and had the most heroes of empire commemmorated there.



2. The book is dreadful. It continually refers to other expeditions that the average reader will not know about. The writing is random and its impossible to follow the thread. There are also many deliberate and irrelevant literary references just inserted to be clever. A great subject that I w\as looking forward to, treated very badly by a pseudo intellectual. Try as I might I could not finish it.



3. I particularily like the subtitle to this book, 'a life of courage and tragedy.'
   
   Scott was undoubtedly courageous. He could not have been otherwise. On the other hand, his courage and drive to get to the South Pole was not exactly balanced by experience or perhaps by common sense. There's an old saying that if you wanted to get somewhere like the South Pole, Scott would have been a good leader to follow, but if you wanted to get back, then other expedition leaders like Shackleton would be your first choice. Shackleton's quotation: 'Better a live donkey than a dead lion.' Consistent with this, Scott got to the South Pole, Shackleton didn't. Scott didn't get back.
   
   In this book, the author is clearly a deep admirer of Scott. And indeed he did great things. Coming from a humble beginning he appeared driven to accomplish things, and he did. He was a complicated man, and Mr. Crane's access to the family papers and Scott's letters give a view that is perhaps more balanced than what we have seen before.
   
   If nothing else, Mr. Crane is an excellent writer and the story becomes one of those can't put down books.



4. The history of Arctic exploration is not a subject I've ever had a particular interest in. I picked this book up more or less by chance, was intrigued enough to buy it ... and haven't been able to put it down. The story itself is absolutely gripping from beginning to end, but it's the intelligence and skill of the writing that makes this such a memorable and remarkable book. Wonderful. Six stars.

No comments about I Want to Be a Mathematician: An Automathography in Three Parts (Maa Spectrum Series) (Maa Spectrum Ser.).

5 comments about Halley's Quest.

1. I never knew any details of Edmund Halley's life with the exception of his namesake comet. This book was a terrific education, very interesting and enjoyable to read. Interaction of Halley with other scientists of his time, including Isaac Newton was like extra thick frosting on a perfectly baked cake.



2. Although Edmond Halley is best known for his work in astronomy, mainly the famous Halley's Comet, his other significant work expands beyond that of astronomy. Author Julie Wakefield strives to inform the reader on his other important works that changed the world. In his work in magnetism, he solved the problem between the "true" and magnetic North Pole by mapping the areas of varying magnetism in certain areas of the Atlantic and in turn improved navigation for England's Royal Navy and the rest of the world. His work in geophysics, mainly his theory on how the biblical great flood was achieved by natural and not godly influences, sparked controversy and caused him to be deemed a heretic by the Church of England. He had other geophysics related theories about the interior of the earth and monsoon seasons. He lived during the time of the European Enlightenment, when the "Battle of the Books" (as author Julie Wakefield puts it)-the battle between natural science and secular science-was at a full rage. He had acquaintances of high influence and popularity, such as Queen Mary, Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke, John Flamsteed, and King George II. He himself had helped Newton finish and publish the esteemed Principia Mathematica and helped pass the longitude Act, the world's first scientific legislation. His work led to the development of modern navigational systems, such as the global positioning systems-the GPS.
   All in all, this book opens up the reader's eyes to the true significance of Edmond Halley. The book includes a section of pictures, notes in the back, ordered by chapter, and an index.



3. An interesting story, but terrible writing. Disjointed, jumps around chronologically like a kid with ADD, and generally writes like a modern academic. Interspersed with politically correct garbage projecting 21st century anxieties about Halley's attitude to the poor and everything else. A particularly egregious anachronism is the author's reference to the position of Astronomer Royal as Halley's "dream job" - a grating reminder of the author's inappropriate use of flip modernisms at every opportunity.
   
   Worth plowing through if you are interested in the era - just hold your nose and ignore the clumsy and graceless writing. The author seems to have done the necessary research - unfortunately the facts are sprayed around randomly like the stuff on the walls of a casual restaurant. The editor and the people who read the book before publication should all go into another line of work.



4. Having just returned from my journey into the Enlightenment Period of late 17th and early 18th Century England, much more has to be done in our history classes to ensure that students are aware of the contributions the "natural philosophers" of this period made to today's world.
   
   Halley's Quest is a intricately researched and expertly written account of a man many of us associate only with the Comet that returns to earth every seventy-six years or so. Edmund Halley was much more than that.
   
   Author Julie Wakefield does an excellent job of laying out his wide variety of achievements. A biography of sorts, any reader will find it to be much more.
   
   Edmund Halley, a contemporary of Sir Isaac Newton, was more than the Comet man. (I borrow those words from Wakefield's Legacy chapter.) He was one of the most prolific thinkers of the time.
   
   Wakefield describes him as a generalist, but he was also a premier navigator, scientist, astronomer, and natural philosopher (these men were not called scientists until much later). He was held in the highest regard by the Royal Society and the Monarchy of England. He was the second appointed Royal Astronomer at Greenwich and is still held in the highest esteem by scientists the world over.
   
   It is the lives of people like Edmund Halley's that we should be made aware of and should all venture to emulate. The book also includes reproductions of period paintings and extensive appendixes that are extremely useful in getting a feel for the events of the period.
   
   Armchair Interviews says: We highly recommend Halley's Quest for those that want to fill in the blanks left in any public education.
   



5. Julie Wakefield's Halley's Quest: A Selfless Genius And His Troubled Paramore tells of a man better known for his accuracy in predicting the periodic appearance of a comet, but who should be renowned for his solving the riddle of accurate navigation for seagoing vessels. Halley was branded a church heretic and he changed science, producing accurate sea charts and documenting geophysical phenomena. His sea voyages were controversial and difficult and make for lively insights into the life of a multi-faceted scientist and early thinker.

3 comments about The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis.

1. Subtitled: "The more you know, the more you know you don't know."
   Coming across "The Merchant Of Power" by John Wasik, I was intrigued by the title and book jacket, but I half expected this book to be a clever spoof, like a book-bound Zelig. It was hard to believe that one person could have had such an effect on the history of the United States, indeed living a substantial part of his life in New York City, but had been almost erased from history less than a century later. In fact, I Googled Mr. Insull, and found that yes, he did exist, and yes, he was that influential in the modern industrialized America of the late 19th- and early 20th-century.
   Insull was the business "brain" behind the eccentric tinkerer, Thomas Edison, who comes across as something of an old fool, and in the New York years, Insull was deeply involved in the Edison/Westinghouse/Tesla/AC/DC controversy, and the bitter J.P. Morgan takeover of Edison Electric (which became General Electric). Getting the heck out of Dodge before things got too dicey, he headed west to a primitive outpost on the edge of the American frontier, Chicago. Finally he was able to work his magic without running up against adversaries like Morgan or George Westinghouse; he bought and consolidated several small electric companies that were serving the city and created the complex electric grid that we know today.
   Part biography, part history, part science (or, electrical engineering, at least) and part gossip, the book illuminates a forgotten man, and a never-to-be-forgotten period of the American story.



2. Everyone knows the inspired inventor Thomas Edison. Edison was a classic rumpled genius, driven in his eagerness to invent but sloppy in his other habits. He was devoted to the technical aspects of his gadgets, but he had little head for business or making those gadgets pay. The business of his endeavors was as unkempt as his clothing, but lucky for him, he had a young ally to help get his books in order. Samuel Insull, in contrast to Edison, is barely remembered today, but he had a huge role in making the modern world through the electrical inventions that Edison churned out. He was driven to make electricity pay, and he did so in millions of dollars, using all the dubious financial levers through the 1920's until it all went wrong. In _The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis_ (Palgrave), John F. Wasik, a journalist in business and finance, has told Insull's story, one full of ambition and financial spectacle, and leading to the sort of ruin contemporary readers will recognize in, say, the Enron scandal.
   
   Insull was born in London in 1859. He scrambled to improve himself as ever any Horatio Alger hero did, and won his way to New York as Edison's private secretary. His ability to work right through the night and get by on catnaps ingratiated himself to his new boss. As Insull took a firmer grasp of Edison's technological advances, he centered on one in particular, the distribution of electricity that could power the lights and other inventions that Edison had produced. He went on literally to electrify Chicago, using huge generators never imagined before. He initiated the metering of power and other financial innovations, not all of them strictly on the up and up. He actually fled America when the bust of the Depression came, tooling around Europe to avoid extradition. Eventually, he could not avoid coming back and facing trial for fraud. A brilliant defense expounded on his rags-to-riches life story and made credible the idea that although he had brought down thousands of investors, no one had fallen as low as he had himself, and that his financial machinations had been for the purpose of preserving his stockholders' fortunes, failing merely because everything was failing. He was acquitted, but he remained a useful enemy for Franklin Delano Roosevelt's campaign against "big power".
   
   Insull may be forgotten, but the foresight of his role in the electrification of America deserves recognition. He was a major influence in the arts, too, but not in the way he would have wanted in promoting the Grand Opera that was fashionable for patronage in his day. Insull did promote the dramatic career of his wife, well beyond her years or capacity. Herman Mankiewicz had started a venomous review of one of her performances in New York, got drunk, passed out on his typewriter, and couldn't finish the review. When it came time to write the script of _Citizen Kane_, Mankiewicz included the incident as part of Kane's sad advocacy for his wife's opera career. Insull served physically as well, as one of the models for Kane; Orson Welles handed his makeup man a picture of Insull, with his brush mustache, and wanted to look as much like him as possible. It's quite the legacy, but Wasik's book presents a memorable picture of the original, as well as the technological and social life of Chicago in his times.



3. This is a rags-to-riches-to-rags story. Sam Insull came to the US with $200, got a job with Thomas Edison. Then he basically designed and set up the electric power grid as we know it today.
   
   Then through a series of misadventures that he couldn't have forseen he was wiped out. He was tried in court because there was at least a hint of fraud. He was found not-guilty on all charges.
   
   Why do we care about such a man -- two reasons:
   
   First, he is the one that made it possible that when we turn on the light switch, the overhead light comes on. This convenience is a major part of the reasons for the advances in the world. Not only light, but medical equipment, tools, motors of all types.
   
   Second, the collapse of his company attracted the attention of the Federal Government. Because of the way his company collapsed the Government passed all kinds of laws forming the Securities and Exchance Commission, requiring quarterly reports of the financial condition of the company and so on.
   
   It's also interesting that this book came out now in the aftermath of all the recent corporate scandals. I guess that there is little that changes in the world.

1 comments about Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics in Biology.

1. Unfortunately, the Kimura section doesn't reflect new work in the history of mathematics, so it cannot explain the neutral theory as a piece of constructivist mathematics, which it is. The lineage is pretty straightforward: Kimura back to Malecot, back to Borel, the latter of whom was one of the early twentieth-century responders to issues raised by Cantorian set theory.
   
   In other words, Kimura was a constructivist and we need to answer the question posed to all constructivist arguments: where is Kimura's constructivist intervention in his argument? Crow can't begin to answer this, because he's an old man, out of touch. He's still living in his memories. Wake up!
   
   
   
   
   SRN-Paradox, Natural Mathematics, Relativity and Twentieth ...
   Apr 18, 2006 ... Ryskamp, John Henry, "Paradox, Natural Mathematics, Relativity and Twentieth-Century Ideas" . Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract= ...
   papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=897085 - Similar pages
   by J RYSKAMP - All 2 versions

5 comments about From X-rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries (Dover Classics of Science & Mathematics).

1. What this book is not:
   A text book
   Written to explain some controversial theory
   Promoting a world view or pseudo religious belief
   An artful work of literature
   Written for a general audience
   
   What this book is:
   A chronological narrative of the development of modern physics
   A series of stories about scientist and the nature of their experiments
   A tome that covers the most important physics discoveries for the era it covers
   
   Why read this book?
   I would recommend this book to anyone who studies the hard sciences
   This book would nicely augment a modern physics course
   Because knowing the history of science promotes real understanding



2. This is a wonderful book. I'm glad it's back in print again. Highly recommended, together with "From Falling Bodies to Radio Waves".



3. Segre` has written two excellect histories for the educated non-scientist. These are not "light" reads, but they are informative and entertaining. This is the second part of the pair (the first, "From Falling Bodies to Radio Waves") and is just exciting as the first. One could almost call this work, "The Story Continues". It tells of scientists working for years on end in attempts to understand the universe and its workings. Of course, we meet those geniuses that discovered a new aspect of reality or a long-sought explanation.

   What is remarkable is how these great men and women used the work of each other to further their own endeavors. The practice of documenting new find and publishing scientific journals began during this era. Exquisite writine with diagrams, photographs and illustrations.




4. This is a great book on the history of quantum mechanics. I highly reccomend it. Unfortunately the book is out of print and one needs to hunt down a used book.

   It begins with the discovery of X-rays in 1895 and ends with events around the early 70's. It is interesting how the technological advances of today have come about after a sudden chain of discoverires starting with just 2 discoveries that acted as sparks: xrays and radioactivity (both of which thanks to some photpgraphic film that developed without the intention of the scientist). The chronological developments are nicely intertwined.

   I enjoyed how the author has written of the rigorous development of quantrum mechanics from 3 different viewpoints of schrodinger, heisenberg and dirac and how they later proved that all 3 were the same. There are great photographs of the scientists of the time also. Overall very well written with lots of stories about the featured scientists. Can finish the book in one day, it was that incaptivating (to serve as a reference, am a chemistry student).




5. Segre's style on physics is straight forward and non-intimidating. But what make this book is his stories. Emilio met and worked with many of these men. He describes their personalities attitudes and politics, and they come alive in his book. This is history the way it ought to be taught. Squisito! Bravo! Bravisimo!

5 comments about MY BRAIN IS OPEN: The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos.

1. Shurik, a friend of mine I used to share student dorm with, was a mathematician. Algebraist, to be precise. We talked a lot discussing multitude of topics, not necessarily mathematical ones. In those days hot water was customarily shut off across campus during summer season so students could prepare for exams without such a distraction as hot showers. That fact prompted me to comment that our lifestyle, while notably different, still somewhat resembles what a lifestyle in Upper Paleolithic might look like. Shurik was digesting my remark for a few moments with the stamp of intense thinking on his face (his Calculus test was next day), then said excitedly:
   
   - Dude, you know why there was no hot water in Upper Paleolithic? That's because the water pressure was not strong enough in the Lower Paleolithic!
   
   That insignificant episode from my student years characterizes true mathematicians very eloquently. They are quite unusual breed of humankind with extraordinary abilities to locate not very obvious properties and relations in seemingly regular objects and notions. Having been exposed to interaction with mathematicians for sometime I, by the time the book of Mr. Schechter was read through, felt I knew Paul Erdos almost personally. Very light and elegant writing style of the author was a contributing factor as well.
   
   Mathematicians rarely can be aggressive. Usually, they are very sensitive and kind people. In this regard the portrait of Paul Erdos by Mr. Schechter goes along quite naturally with my experience of dealing with them. At the same time that portrait leaves a very sad impression of the true inner nature of Erdos - depressingly lonely person, with no family and no home. The deep tragedy of the Erdos family with Paul's siblings gone by disease, father's suffering in Russian exile, terrible WWII ordeals - all that makes you wonder how Paul and his parents can continue "to prove and conjecture" so successfully under such horrendous circumstances? Author partly explains this phenomenon very brightly describing the scientific and especially educational traditions in Hungary before the war. Indeed, the density of incredible talents generated in this small central European country somewhat shocking. It underscores how important the role of truly good teacher in elementary school can be. Taking into account all that and also the fact that both parents of Erdos were superior math teachers in high school themselves a reader can see the roots of the enormous productivity of Erdos, who published more math papers in multiple branches of it than any other scientist in history. But it also can be a city of Budapest whose streets, as per Mr. Schechter, are very inviting for any kind or scientific reasoning - although not a scientist myself, I did experience the same when I was roaming with friends along Duna shores in Buda one summer.
   
   The mathematical content of the book is very engaging for non-mathematicians. It is explained almost with no formulas but Mr. Schechter manages to convey the depth of the mathematical ideas very well without them. It is especially applicable to the chapter about prime numbers. The primes, although endless in the set of integers, do have very strange properties. Take the theorem proved by Chebychev first and re-proved by Erdos by elementary means - between N and 2N there is always a prime. At the same time we know that the intervals without primes can be as long as one would wish. At first glance two facts seems to contradict to each other but they do not. Facts like that are abundant in the Numbers Theory with most enigmatic one as a problem of primes distribution and Riemann function. Mr. Schechter does a good job providing historical background of the Numbers Theory, its evolution, contributions of Paul Erdos and controversy of Erdos and Selberg.
   
   I have to admit the author did a brilliant homework researching all kinds of details pertinent to mathematics and its origins. I did enjoy pages about clay table Plimpton 322 with its incredible content of Pythagorean triplets as well as multitude of other stories like most bizarre "application" of Numbers Theory when close collaborator of Erdos avoided deportation to Gulag just because he happened to have his publication on the subject in Russian mathematical magazine with him. In this regard, the book of Mr. Schechter can be considered as not so much as biography of Paul Erdos but as biography of mathematics as a scientific discipline. Humor, albeit sometimes very dark (for example, about math students, who were "studying" Jordan theorem being confined to "inner area", id est being imprisoned) sparking the text regularly and appropriately.
   
   Mathematics is somewhat similar to soccer. While everybody can perceive the beauty of ball handling by say Riquelme or Robinho, very few of us can do the same on the soccer field. In math, formulation of the conjecture can be deceptively simple and elegant, and most of us can understand it well. At the same time, it is very different story once you start thinking about trying to prove that conjecture. In many cases it might require years of learning and tons of exercises. But even that no guarantee to success. The inclination to a special way of thinking is required. In this regard, magic of Riquelme on the stadium is direct equivalent of wizardry of Erdos in Numbers Theory. The books similar to Mr. Schechter facilitate our comprehension of the conjecture beyond mere formulation, opening the curtain after which the proof is hidden.
   
   On the other note, I can't stop thinking of what kind of future European science might have should its development was not brutally aborted by sad realities of Second World War. True, many of bright Hungarian (and other) minds escaped from the inferno of warfare and extermination campaigns; true, many of them intensified their research in military related directions and achieved significant results. Still so many perished needlessly making a good number of famous European scientific centers empty and forgotten for a very long time. It seems incredible that one person's paranoia can mercilessly terminate so much in such a short period of time. Let's us hope the future Erdoses will never be forced to travel so intensively against their wills even with theirs brains open so widely.



2. If one has to define a perfect man of knowledge, one would come up with someone who is a genius, has done pioneering work in several areas of his domain, is friendly and sociable towards all (especially 'epsilons' or children), finds material possessions as a hassle and spends all his time doing what he loves best. In other words, someone just like Paul Erdos.
   
   In this short and engaging biography, the author manages to inform and entertain at the same time. Apart from the life-story of Erdos himself which is fascinating, what I also enjoyed are the anecdotes on other greats like Gauss and Ramanujan. And there is just enough math in the book (explained very well) to interest us so that we get a glimpse of what lies at the heart of it all.
   
   I cannot think of a better gift than this book to be given to any child to provide inspiration as well as a 'cool' introduction to mathematics. Highly recommended.



3. +++++
   
   The four-word title of this book is "My Brain Is Open." If you keep the first word and form a word from the first letter of the three remaining words, you get "My BIO." And that's exactly what this book is. This ten chapter book, by Dr. Bruce Schechter, is a BIOgraphy of Dr. Paul Erdos (pronounced "Air-dish").
   
   Erdos (1913 to 1996) is said to have been one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century (especially in number theory, the branch of math concerned with the properties of integers) as well as the most eccentric. Throughout this book, we also learn of the many others who collaborated with Erdos on his many published mathematical papers. (He wrote or collaborated on more than 1500 papers with over 450 collaborators.)
   
   This book is also filled with the sorts of mathematical puzzles that intrigued Erdos and continue to fascinate mathematicians today. Schechter does a good job of explaining these puzzles (with the aid of diagrams, tables, and graphs) so the reader does not have to worry that these problems will be too difficult to understand.
   
   The reader is also taken on a tour of mathematics. We are introduced to such people as Pythagoras and his famous theorem, Karl Gauss who, when ten years old, was able to add up the numbers from 1 to 100 in less than half a minute, and Bernhard Reimann and his work on prime numbers.
   
   Erdos was born in Hungry. By age seventeen he had gained international recognition as a prodigy. He eventually left Hungry and went to the Institute of Advanced Study at Princton in the United States. (Einstein was the institutes most famous resident then.) Because of his politics, he was exiled from the U.S. for a decade. From this point beginning in the 1950s, he became "the Bob Hope of mathematics" or "the travelling mathematician."
   
   Since Erdos was constantly travelling, he had no home or job but still managed to meet with math colleagues all over the world. He had all his belongings in a suitcase and his mathematical papers in a bag when he arrived at their homes. Erdos also depended on the generosity of colleagues to sustain him.
   
   The reader is introduced to Erdos' eccentricities throughout the book. For example, he invented a vocabulary where the U.S. was "Sam" or "Samland" (after Uncle Sam) and the Soviet Union was "Joe" or "Joedom" (after Josef Stalin).
   
   There are more than fifteen black and white photographs found in the middle of this book. These photos span a period from 1916 to 1993.
   
   To get the information needed to write this book, Schechter relied "on the memories of the many people" who met Erdos -- his hundreds of collaborators and friends. That is, he "primarily relied on interviews with many of the people who knew Erdos best." Schechter also "drew heavily" from biographical essays as well as magazine articles about Erdos. He also used the information from the over ninety sources listed in this book's bibliography.
   
   Finally, as I said above, this book does contain mathematical puzzles that intrigued Erdos. Personally, I found these interesting but some readers may find that they interfere with the flow of the book. As well, mathematicians who read this book may question the accuracy of a few of the mathematical concepts that are introduced.
   
   In conclusion, this book invites the reader into the wacky world of mathematical genius Paul Erdos. If you're like me, you'll find this book both comical and enlightening!!
   
   +++++



4. Bruce Schechter's book is exceptional. In telling this fascinating story of the eccentric mathematician Paul Erdos, the author manages to convey the recent history of math and capture the magic of this unique art/science. Quite an accomplishment for a book that is so enjoyable to read!



5. Paul Erdos was a unique individual. He never had a permanent residence; instead, he traveled from one mathematics conference to another with his few earthly belongings in two suitcases, one which held a few changes of clothes, the other a treasure of mathematics papers. He collaborated with mathematicians everywhere; the extent of these collaborations is so immense it gave rise to the Erdos number, which is this: You have an Erdos number of 1 if you co-authored a paper with Erdos, your Erdos number is 2 if you co-authored a paper with someone who jointly wrote a paper with Erdos, etc. About 500 people have an Erdos number of 1 and well over 5000 hold the Erdos number of 2. Erdos numbers go as high as 16 and the number of people with an Erdos number is said to be well above 100,000.

   Stories about Erdos abound. It is rumored that he walked into a classroom, saw some writing on a chalkboard and asked if this was mathematics. Upon receiving an affirmative answer, he then asked what the various symbols were. Immediately after the explanations were given, Erdos took chalk in hand and in two lines proved the hypothesis that had baffled other mathematicians for some time, and this was in a field of mathematics that Erdos was largely unfamiliar with! Another story had Erdos taking a train fron Boston to New York; across the aisle sat a beautiful female who said "hello" to him. One thing led to another; by the time the train arrived the two of them had written a paper!

   This book covered much of the life and mathematics of Paul Erdos; much of the mathematics in the book is number theory because it is a topic that is easy for anyone to understand yet difficult to prove. A typical example is Goldbach's conjecture, which says: "Any even number greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two prime numbers." Sounds simple enough and logical; 4=2+2, 6=3+3, 8=3+5,10=5+5 or 3+7,... The problem has been around for about 300 years but as yet lacks a proof. Other mathematics topics touched upon include Ramsey theory, the division of a square into unequal squares, and Godel's Incompleteness Theory. The book also shows the strange language of Erdos, in which women were 'bosses', men were 'slaves', the United States was 'Sam' (from Uncle Sam), and the Soviet Union was 'Joe' (Stalin), to list a few of his own variations of English.

   This book is easy to read, even if the reader has only a high-school background in mathematics. If you are curious about mathematics and/or human nature, you will find this book of great interest. I highly recommend this book.