3 comments about Dignifying Science: Stories About Women Scientists.

1. This well-meant companion volume to the author's _Two Fisted Science_ is, unfortunately, not nearly as successful as graphic fiction. This time, five women artists tell the stories of five women scientists. While trying to focus on lesser-known people, Ottaviani finally broke down and included a fore-and-aft pair of shorts on Marie Curie. If you've read Watson's _The Double Helix,_ you may already have heard of Rosalind Franklin, who came very close to discovering the essential shape of DNA before Crick and Watson -- had she only not moved in the wrong direction on a couple of minor points (and possessed a less abrasive personality). Barbara McClintock picked up a Nobel for her work on the corn genome, you'd really never know what her field was from the badly written story (though the art is okay). Biruté Galdikas has become the world's leading authority on orangutans (yes, she's still out there in the jungles of Borneo) and you'll learn a lot about them -- and her -- from Anne Timmons's nicely done piece. But the story of mathematician Lise Meitner is also pretty indistinct. The best of the collection, actually, is Carl Speed McNeil's very well told and drawn story of the scientific side of Hedy Lamarr, of all people. Hedy (not Heddy) actually held some wartime patents in electronics (which became a crucial part of cell phone technology), but still was treated like a bimbo both by her first husband and by Louis B. Mayer after she escaped to the U.S. This book could have been much, much better.



2. A single writer partnered with 12 different artists in stories about 6 different women scientists. Some stories obviously succeed better than others.

   For young people who like graphic novels and have some interest in science, I recommend it highly. But as a women's history buff and a comic book fan I find it a little disappointing. The comic format is ideal for high drama stories but is not always used at it's full potential here.

   For example, in the life of Barbara McClintock, two pages cover the time period from 1951 to 1983. They show her lecturing to men in business suits with their hands over their ears. The crowd thins out in the 60's and then begins to swell with more casually dressed people, both male and female, who don't have their hands over their ears. Then she gets the Nobel prize. The faces in the crowds are consistently expressionless. I think this misses the real drama of McClintock's life. She was so brilliant that her theory was not understood when she first presented it. She chose to continue her research even when it was not reaching a receptive audience and because she documented it for decades, when other researchers later repeated her experiments and discovered her documentation, she received the recognition she deserved.

   This was seldom the case with earlier women scientists, for example, Rosalind Franklin. Franklin's fascinating story, unfortunately, is difficult to follow through time and four different artists' styles.

   And, in an interesting bit of reverse sexism, Birute Galdikas' story is told without once mentioning (or picturing) her first husband who worked beside her daily for 20 years. OK, so her whole life story had to be told in only 21 pages, but the ghosts of all the women scientists whose husbands' got credit for all their work recognize a kindred spirit when they see one.

   In a format that's known for pounding points home, the drama here is often implied and understated. Perhaps less would be missed if the format was full color instead of black and white. Better yet, read some biographies of these women and discuss with your children how you would tell their stories to preserve the real drama.

   This is a good introduction to some fascinating women for those who like the graphic novel format. Use it as a starting point.




3. Ottaviani's DIGNIFYING SCIENCE is a well illustrated and well written work. It does what a lot of good nonfiction has done recently - it focuses on those often forgotten people and events that were important and influential on the better known ideas and forces that shape our world today. In this instance, Ottaviani has centered his attention on women scientists, inventors and researchers who discovered, researched, and supported major scientific achievements in the last century. He and the women artists who illustrate the book do a superb job of introducing us to the contributions of these people who we never knew or knew little, but to whom we owe a collective, and enormous, debt.

5 comments about Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos: The Story of the Scientific Quest for the Secret of the Universe.

1. The mathematician, Roger Penrose, whose lectures on singularities launched Stephen Hawking toward Black Holes and the birth/death of our universe also collaborated with artist M.C. Escher. (See my review of GODEL, ESCHER, BACH, Vintage Books, 1979) Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that the theorists who explore Event Horizons, Gravitational Collapse and the like are tangled up with drawings of endless waterfalls, hands drawing themselves and swarms of fish/bugs/birds/bison endlessly morphing. This is a minor sidelight in Overbye's story of the astronomical and mathematical search for the origin and future of space/time - but it is a telling one. The author follows individual careers through the post-WWII cosmology quest and manages to give human scale to, literally, the very biggest story of all. Sit with folks who spend fourteen hour, teeth-chattering nights riding the 200 inch Palomar Telescope, years analyzing fuzzy dots on photographic plates and decades feuding over imagined slights and publishing coups. You will leave with a little clearer understanding of Einstein, Bohr, Hawking and Wheeler and a richer sense of wonder.



2. 
   Author Dennis Overbye studied physics at MIT and for years has been Deputy Science Editor of the New York Times. He has been associated with science his entire career and his journalistic style stands apart from the usual writings of scientists. I have yet to find a scientist write something like, "photographic plates whose grains were hysterical for the light that had left some star or galaxy before the human race was born."
   
   Overbye spent some five years attending PhD cosmology seminars and conducting recurrent weeks-long working interviews with world-class scientists. What results is a series of mini-biographical sketches of the important players while new technologies blew this exciting field wide open - and the never-ending fight for who would get credit.
   
   For those interested only in the history, technical and scientific paragraphs are easy enough to skip, but the interspersed science is manageable under Overbye's direction. I learned the easy way - about ages of stars, anthropic principle, antimatter, background radiation, black holes, big bang theory, bottom-up theory of galaxy formation - just a few items selected from the "a's" and "b's" in the index.
   
   Although the book was published in 1991, the science is still almost current. Recent publications suggest there have been no new significant findings in physics in the immediate past decade (although astronomy has been booming). This is a great read, and a valuable kick-start in my on-going efforts to understand particle physics and cosmology.



3. In Overbye's "Lonely Hearts" the reader will find a contemporary history of one of the most exciting fields of science in the 20th century. Told with a personal style that helps the reader understand that the both the scientists and the science exist in a very real sociological frame work, the narrative focuses on the developments in answering, "What is the Earth's place in the cosmos?" and "What is the fate of the universe?"
   
   Overbye centers his story around the life of Allan Sandage, the sometimes hesitant successor to Hubble. In examining his life as well as the lives of numerous other astronomers and physicists he helps the reader see both the high and the lows of a life of pursuing knowledge in a scientific context. He also helps us understand the sometimes rough and tumble world of publication, scientific ego and underlying uncertainty found in such pursuits.
   
   The only drawback is that the book's original edition was written so long ago. While the newer edition seeks to add more information about recent progress in the field, there is a lack of the exploration of the personalities that are doing the science. Additionally, even with the update, the book is once again somewhat behind the latest work in the field.
   
   That having been said, I still strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in astronomy or physics as well as for anyone who is a student in the history of science. I would also recommend this book for students seeking to pursue a career in the sciences. The book does a wonderful job of showing what a person must do to be successful and what obstacles a person faces when following that path.



4. This is one of the best books on physics I have read. Not only doees the author Dennis Overbye present the information about the fascinating personalities in astrophysics, cosmology and astronomy, he will actually explain in laymen's terms some of the scientific formulas they were after and why. Wish I had this in school, would have helped me understand all those calculations a little better



5. Okay, I KNOW I'm a little biased, being an astronogrl and all, but this book is an AMAZING read! It reads like a novel, and yet contains so many interesting astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology concepts, that it will blow you away. Covers everything from the big bang to inflation to black holes to string theory to dark matter... Dennis Overbye (the author) has hob-nobbed with so many big names and been able to glean personal interviews that you begin to feel like you know these people and their astronomy struggles. And don't worry; This book contains no equations. This book makes me excited to do astronomy and it is the best book I have read this year and will always remain one of my favorites.

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

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



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



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



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



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

5 comments about Laser: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War.

1. If you ever had a fantasy about being the first to invent something completely revolutionary, outside of a corporate setting, and then getting a patent and having the industry come to you to get permission to make the invention, you must read this book, which will give you a rude reality check.
   
   Having talked to experts about this book, the book is accurate about the patent process and the book is fair about giving credit to others who Gould used to come up with the laser (principally, Townes, who invented the maser, a predecessor of the laser, which works with microwaves).
   
   The book gives a good scorecard of who are the major players.
   
   The terrors of a Patent Office "interference" practice comes to light, and the bias of bureaucracy when they want to dig in their heels and favor one side over the other, simply because of bureaucratic inertia and spite.
   
   The only downside is the book had one passage that was repeated verbatim, which means it was not carefully proofed, at least the copy I had.
   
   The book makes one factual mistake: it says that under the new law, with the term of a patent being not 17 years from when the patent issues but 20 years from when the patent is filed, would have avoided Gould's problem (he had to wait 30 years to get his patent, with a lot of uncertainty). Actually however, the Patent Office today still has the potential for what Gould's problem was: it's called "interference", when two inventors legally claim to have invented the same thing. This was the heart of Gould's problem, with the Patent Office taking sides with other inventors who filed before Gould even though Gould had invented certain aspects of the laser first (the critical amplifier portion of a laser). Even today the Patent Office has a 'first to invent' not a 'first to file' system, unlike the rest of the world, supposedly to protect the small inventor.



2. Taylor's book attests to the difficulties and perils that individual inventors face, when they have few resources. Of course, rarely is the invention under dispute as pivotal as the laser, which is one of the distinguishing tools of the 20th century.
   
   Several other reviewers have commented that Townes, Maiman,and Schawlow made huge contributions to the field. Yes, but not the invention of the laser. Their contributions came afterwards. Nor were those later contributions under contention by Gould. So when a reviewer makes the above remarks, it is a non-sequiter. Either the reviewer has totally misunderstood the book, or he is deliberately introducing irrelevancies because he can't get around the basic point.
   
   This point was established after long litigation. Gould had clearly conceived of the idea, and had it timestamped. Under longstanding US Patent rules, that idea and its timestamp trumped all others.
   
   Another point mentioned by several reviewers was that Ted Maiman at Hughes Research Labs was the first to reduce it to practice. That is, he was the first to make a functioning laser. But for decades, it has not been a requirement of the US Patent Office that the reduction to practice is necessary in order to be awarded a patent. This wasn't just some rule made up especially for Gould to benefit from. The gist of being awarded a patent is that you have to describe the invention in sufficient detail for someone skilled in the art to construct it. You [the inventor] do NOT have to construct it. Someone ELSE must be able to do so.
   
   Think about it. In general, it is a key property of a patent. That not only the inventor, but someone else can produce the invention. A patent is not a secret recipe.



3. This is a fascinating story. It takes the reader on a revealing ride through the sometimes mysterious world of physicists and inventors, patents, and the personal pain of losing "first rights." It doesn't stop there, however, but tells of a remarkable decades-long battle by G. Gould to uphold his 1959 patent and collect his "pot of gold"--the royalties now associated with the use of laser technologies.

   Keep in mind that the story is interesting partly because it favors the viewpoint of "the little guy winning out in the end." In fact, the historical record has revealed many other sides that are not documented in "Laser," perhaps because of space or because the author didn't want to break the tempo of the narrative.

   Some of the information not fully documented in "Laser" includes 1957 conversations between Gould and Townes about patent processes and technology and the fact that Gould has admitted he had access to Townes' and Schawlow's laser designs circulated late in 1958. There are also questions surrounding the claimed "classified" nature of Gould's projects for TRG. All of which would make good reading.

   Hopefully Taylor's book will interest enough readers that the publisher will let the author update the record, showing that there are even more sides to this amazing story--that Gould was an ambitious graduate student partly motivated by a desire for fame and fortune.

   If you're looking for a readable insight into the motivation for invention, the patent system, and mankind's determined quest for the honor to be called first, you will enjoy this book. And, with luck, perhaps there will be an update with the as-yet-undocumented twists and turns that make up "the rest of the story".




4. I had heard intriguing snippets about the strange story of Gordon Gould and the laser, so this book went automatically onto my reading list as soon as I learned that Taylor had written it.

   If the laser were an ordinary device like the phonograph or the sewing machine, its undisputed father would be Theodore Maiman of Hughes Aircraft, who designed and built the first operational example (a strobe-pumped ruby rod) in 1960. In the realm of highly scientific inventions, however, things are not so straightforward. The line of credit, including honors and prizes, tends to favor the people who first publish guiding principles, whether or not they actually get anything to work. In the U.S. this point of view spills over into patents, and the initial winner in the race for a broad laser patent was not Maiman but Charles Townes, a distinguished physicist who had invented the maser (a coherent microwave amplifier) and published ideas for extending the concept to visible frequencies, i.e. creating an optical maser.

   In 1957 a late-blooming Columbia graduate student named Gordon Gould was suddenly struck by an inspiration for solving the optical maser problem. He subsequently made a number of mistakes in judgment, but failing to document his work was not one of them. He carefully recorded his ideas in a signed and witnessed lab notebook. He even anticipated the acronym "LASER" (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). Ironically, one of the professors he occasionally interacted with was Charles Townes.

   Taylor's book covers the three-decade saga of Gordon Gould's fight for recognition by the United States Patent Office. In a sense the story pits a classic "loser" (Gould) against a classic "winner" (Townes). In the end, neither of those stereotypes matter. The final outcome is governed only by facts on record, the communication skills of the principals and their lawyers, and the sometimes murky mental processes of patent examiners and judges. The twists and turns that lead to that outcome, as expertly navigated by the author, provide a pretty good primer in practical patent law as well as in the basics of laser technology. The human side of the seemingly luckless Gould is also vividly explored. We see that he is usually underestimated by those who don't know him well, and admired by those who do.

   The author is not neutral, but he is convincing, and also conscientious about providing a good factual basis for the reader to judge whether or not this landmark intellectual property case was justly decided.




5. Legal victory is not always a guarantee of truth. Sure, David going up against Goliath to win millions of dollars makes for a great read. In this case, however, it simply didn't happen that way. Schawlow, Townes, Maiman, et al. have contributed many, many other things to the field (in fact, Schawlow's Nobel was for research primarily in the 1970's). What has Gould done? He spent his time villifying and stealing credit (Schawlow and Townes never received royalty payments on the laser because of contractual obligations to Bell Labs). The best way to read this book is as a biased work of fiction.

5 comments about The Bomb in My Garden: The Secrets of Saddam's Nuclear Mastermind.

1. It is more than a cliche to say that Saddam Hussein was a madman, and in fact, it is an understatement. Mahdi Obeidi spent a major portion of his career as a scientist under the thumb of Saddam and his minions, and the twists and turns this imposed on his life would surely have broken a lesser man. Somehow Mahdi found the strength to persevere the horrific threats, forced isolation from his wife and children, the unbearably stressful, not to mention insane schedules he often had to work under, and much much more.
   
   Throughout the book he offers insights into the mind of Saddam Hussein that only someone who has experienced that brutal regime could truly comprehend. Try as we might, and as chilling as it often is, we can only imagine what it must have been like. As the top man in Saddam's nuclear program, he succeeded in enriching uranium and was well on the way to success in building a nuclear weapon. This fearsome weapon would have been in the hands of one of the world's true madmen, a tyrant whose only obstacle to surpassing Hitler in atrocities committed was his lack of power to do so. What if he had succeeded though in his nuclear ambitions? How does the world disarm someone like that? The prospect is chilling and it CAN happen again. Read this book, you will learn how and get a glimpse of what must be done to prevent it.
   
   Below is a short quote from the CIA website at https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no4/bombs_in_garden.html;
   
   "The Bomb In My Garden is not documented with sources, but the names, dates, and events discussed allow checking of key facts. Moreover, the former head of the UN Iraqi Survey Group, David Kay, and a number of American nuclear specialists find the story largely accurate and compelling as indicated by their comments in the book and on the dust jacket. Mahdi Obeidi concludes that Saddam came close to having an atom bomb in 1991 and probably intended to restart the program given an opportunity. As to the future, Obeidi warns the reader that "illicit nuclear programs share a common weak spot: they need international complicity" to succeed, and there are many unemployed nuclear scientists still in Iraq."
   
   In other words, it is likely in Obeidi's opinion that Saddam had a passion for the bomb that only his deposing and subsequent execution could stop...........



2. This book reads like one of the best spy thrillers, without the ending comfort of knowing it's only fiction.
   
   Obeidi's story puts into perspective the frail protection that exists against the development and use of nuclear weapons in the world today.
   A complex issue often over simplified is illuminated by this factual account of how close Iraq came to the development of weapons grade uranium and the bomb.
   
   This book should be required reading.



3. I just finish reading the book of Mahdi Obeidi.
   I found informative, interesting and entertaining.
   In his book the author manipulate us into being sympathetic and compassionated for his case.
   (just as Albert Speer would have done)
   I certainly do not deny that to work in an oppressive dictatorship is extremely difficult and that most of us one day or the other compromises our integrity for our job security or for the safety or the security of those we love.
   Nevertheless at the end we stand responsible and accountable for our acts, especially if we are men and women of faith.
   One day every one of us will have to give an account for his/her actions or in-actions.
   It will cost us; sometimes a lot or even everything to stand for what we know is right or is true, even our freedom or the live of these we love.
   DC Obeidi took the chance to have thousands or millions killed, thank to his efforts, to protect himself and his immediate family.
   The Nazi engineers did just the same.
   Would Dc Obeidi have had any pride at all if one of the atomic bomb, that he helped to built, had landed on Israel or another county and killed thousand or millions?
   I believe that he would have.
   Would he have turned down the honors and the rewards from the government he served?
   I believe that he would have not.
   Adolf Eichmann was very proud of killing millions of Jews very efficiently as good Nazi bureaucrat.
   Dc Obeidi is not different, he just did not had the chance to go to the end of the experimentation.
   To stand or not to stand is what distinguish a man from a slave.
   If nothing else Dc Obeidi was and still is a slave of his fears.



4. Once you get started you won't be able to put this book down. This oral hisory shows how honorable, intelligent people with the best intentions can be forced to do the work of a corrupt regime. Thank you, Mr. Obeidi, for coming forward with your story revealing the individuals and countries (including our own) that made the acquisition of nuclear-producing components possible, in spite of the nuclear ban. It makes the current situation of nuclear fuel enrichment in Iran and North Korea all the scarier. Thank you, Kurt, for organizing this story so well and making the scientific jargon so easily understood.



5. The Bomb in My Garden was very easy to read and held my interest throughout. Although I did not know Dr. Mahdi as a student at Colo School of Mines, he was in school at the same time as I, graduating three years after me. That added to my interest in the book.
   
   It gives an insight into the kind of goverment Dr. Mahdi had to work under and give in to.

5 comments about Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend.

1. In his book `Reason and Culture', Ernest Gellner points his finger at certain philosophers of science for undermining reason. One of the culprits is Paul Feyerabend.
   This autobiography is very revealing indeed. It gives an in depth view of Feyerabend's eventful life, his difficult character, his fierce philosophical battles, his profound (physical and intellectual) loves and his (self-) inflicted deceptions.
   As young soldier, he was physically heavily marked by World War II, but astonishingly his fighting spirit was enhanced. On the other hand, was this experience not a main reason for his deep pessimism: `Me? A family? Children? Not on this planet!' He called himself an `icy egotist'. All his life he had violent outburst of inner rage: `We shall act in a barbaric way. We shall punish, kill, meet violence with violence.'
   During the war, he was lived, as Nietzsche said: `the aims of Nazism - I hardly knew what they were.' Already then for him, `a clean moral vision implies simplifications and acts of cruelty and injustice.'
   After the war, he had to choose between a career as a professional singer (he had a beautiful voice and loved opera) or as a scientist. He became a philosopher of science.
   But now the intellectual caste became the target of his violent attacks: `intellectuals prepare a New Age of ignorance, darkness and slavery.' His main foe was the man he saw as the new POP(p)E(r) of philosophy.
   Overreactions and exaggerations made him even return to animism: `two types of tumors to be removed - philosophy of science and general philosophy (ethics, epistemology etc.) ... Nor is there one way of knowing, science. There are many such ways, and before they were ruined by Western civilization, they were effective in the sense that they kept people alive and made their existence comprehensible.'??
   His anger culminated in his best known book `Against Method', called by his caste `anything goes'. Already the title is a provocation. It provoked an avalanche of devastating reviews which traumatized him deeply. He defends himself: `I never denigrated reason, only some petrified and tyrannical versions of it.'
   After meeting the love of his life, the rebel (sometimes without a cause) became less caustic, and even wanted children.
   
   All in all, this book is a fascinating read.



2. One of the most moving, insightful, and honest autobiographies I've ever read. Unduly influenced by the standard ignorant rap on Against Method, I was also very surprised. Get it, especially if you have a background in math, physics, philosophy, or even music.



3. This is a slim volume, barely 200 pages, but it charts an awesome spiritual odyssee. Paul Feyerabend - enfant terrible of late 20th century philosophy - looked ruthlessly in the mirror and painted an unadorned picture of himself. At the end of his life, he painfully recognised that its course had been shaped by absences, rather than by specific events or, for that matter, ideas: absence of purpose, of content, of a focused interest, absence of moral character, absence of warmth and of social relationships.

   Only when Feyerabend approached the final fifteen years of his life and settled as a professor in the philosophy of science in Zürich - after having lectured four decades at Anglo-American universities - he started to relax. And eventually, a woman came and set things right. In 1983 he met the Italian physicist Grazia Borrini for the first time. Five years later they married. His relationship with Mrs. Borrini must have been the single most important event in Feyerabend's life. Reading his autobiography is an experience akin to listening to Sibelius' tone-poem 'Nightride and Sunrise': after 1983 the colours change dramatically and his prose is infused with warmth and immense gratefulness. It is a delight to read his rapt eulogies on the companion of the last decade of his life, on his most fortunate discovery of true love and friendship. Indeed, although Feyerabend is not interested in 'spoiling' his autobiography with an extensive reiteration of his philosophical positions, there are a few messages he clearly wants to drive home. The central role in life of love and friendship is one of them. Without these "even the noblest achievements and the most fundamental principles remain pale, empty and dangerous" (p. 173). Yet, Feyerabend clearly wants us to see that this love "is a gift, not an achievement" (p. 173). It is something which is subjected neither to the intellect, nor to the will, but is the result of a fortunate constellation of circumstances.

   The same applies to the acquisition of 'moral character'. This too "cannot be created by argument, 'education' or an act of will." (p.174). Yet, it is only in the context of a moral character - something which Feyerabend confesses to having only acquired a trace of after a long life and the good fortune of having met Grazia - that ethical categories such as guilt, responsibility and obligation acquire a meaning. "They are empty words, even obstacles, when it is lacking." (p.174) (Consequently, he did not think himself responsible for his behavior during the Nazi period).

   Contrary to someone like Karl Kraus, Feyerabend seems to think that men, at least as long as they have not acquired moral character, are morally neutral, whilst ideas are not. A question which remains, of course, is who is to be held responsible for intellectual aberrations and intentional obfuscation if this character is only to be acquired by an act of grace, an accidental constellation of circumstances.

   There is an enigmatic passage in the autobiography which may shed light on this important problem. After having seen a performance of Shakespeare's Richard II, in which the protagonist undoes himself of all his royal insigna, thereby relinquishing not just "a social role but his very individuality, those features of his character that separated him from other", Feyerabend notes that the "dark, unwieldy, clumsy, helpless creature that appeared seemed freer and safer, despite prison and death, than what he had left behind." (p. 172) It prompts him to the insight that "the sum of our works and/or deeds does not constitute a life. These . . . are like debris on an ocean . . . They may even form a solid platform, thus creating an illusion of universality, security, and permanence. Yet the security and the permanence can be swept away by the powers that permitted them to arise." (p. 172) These ideas do not exactly solve the question about moral responsibility, but they do suggest a tragic 'Lebensgefühl' - an acknowledgment of the fact that the spheres of reason, order and justice are terribly limited and that no progress in our science and technical resources will change their relevance - which seems to underpin Feyerabends very earthbound philosophy.




4. Typical Feyerabend arrogance, spiced with unbearable charm. Brimming with intimate details of his sexual experiences, fighting with the Nazi Army on the Western Front, his lifelong (almost) apathy toward academic philosophy, and his real passion: opera singing. Philosophy, it turns out, was "just a job." I had *no* idea that Paul Feyerabend once possessed a "world voice" for opera. It was opera he loved. About 1/3 of the story is about operas he'd seen worldwide, who sang the roles, his critical opinion of the singing!

   Also includes his bookish, only-child upbringing; his horribly depressed mother and her suicide in his teens; his adult depressions; his affairs and marriages; and finally, his mature love for the beautiful Graziana, which allowed him some actual truth in this life. It ends with Graziana's reminder that most of Feyerabend's life was spent in chronic pain, the result of a gunshot to his groin during the Nazi retreat from Russia. That was the injury which rendered him sexually impotent at 20 - a recurring theme in the story.

   By the last page, I was in tears. Imagine tears of compassion after reading the words of that anarchist maniac who wrote "Against Method"!! But tears there were. It's a very good book.




5. This is one of the most touching autobiography I have read. Paul Feyerabend was not only an important thinker or philosopher, I was also an interesting human being. It is not, however, so much his story that is intriguing as it is the moral we can draw from his experiences that is illuminating. Perhaps the most valuable counsel he gives us in this book is the following:"If you want to achieve something, if you want to write a book, paint a picture, be sure that the center of your existence is somewhere else and that it's solidly grounded; only then will you be able to keep your cool and laugh at the attacks that are bound to come"(147). I think any student of philosophy, literature and the arts should take this advice to heart. Feyerabend is one of the rare philosophers who realized that, after all, a worthwile life is not one devoted to abstract thinking but one devoted to love. As he says," There are strong inclinations after all;...they are not about abstract things such as solitude or intellectual achievements but about a live human being"(169). I cannot but recommend you to read this very enlightening autobiography. Vladimir Pintro, student of philosophy at S.U.N.Y.

3 comments about The Forgotten Genius: Biography of Robert Hooke 1635-1703.

1. A thoroughly readable and enjoyable book about the intellectual colleague and contemporary of Christopher Wren and Isaac Newton in 17th century London. The writing is witty and engaging and provides a vivid look at the social, scientific and physical structure of London after the Great Fire. I especially enjoyed the author's humorous descriptions of the machinations behind the scenes of the Royal Society and the often dangerous and bizarre experiments that Hooke and others would perform for the Society. A great peep into the development of many engineering, physics, astronomical chemistry and architectural discoveries.



2. This book provides a great deal of information about Robert Hooke not only as a contributor to modern science, but as a person during his lifetime. The issue of Newton being an antagonistic force in Hooke's life is emphasized greatly, and helps the reader understand how much power Hooke had to exert in order to make his ideas and discoveries known.
   
   The book is enjoyable due to the fact that it does not solely focus on the science related aspect of Hooke's career. Having known little about him before I opened the book, I was surprised to find that he had a great deal of influence on structural architecture during the seventeenth century. The book provided me with a substantial amount of knowledge regarding Hooke's inventions and discoveries, as well as his personal feelings and reactions to certain people or occurrences, through the many quotations of his present throughout the reading.
   
   This book is a fantastic source for one who is interested in learning about every aspect of Hooke's life, from the contributions to science as a general subject to his contributions to architecture and his involvement in technology during his time period. Not only was I able to gain a better understanding of the scientist and inventor within Hooke, but I was also able to understand him as a person and his life as well.



3. As a physics teacher, I had been well aware of Robert Hooke. Every year I teach Hooke's Law of elasticity to my students. Additionally, I had been aware of the importance of his book Micrographia and, since I consider myself a bit of a student on Isaac Newton, I had known something of his conflict with Newton over the Principia. However, I admit my knowledge of Hooke was sketchy. As a student of scientific history, I wanted that rectified so I turned to this book. It was certainly a rewarding experience.
   
   Without a doubt, I learned much more than I ever knew about Robert Hooke and I gained a new respect for the man. Hooke's areas of interest were wide and his curiosity unbounded. I was completely unaware of his work with Christopher Wren and his own contributions to architecture and the reconstruction of London after the Great Fire. Additionally, I came to admire his willingness to stand behind the virtues of science (as in his prescient speculations on evolution) in the face of religious prejudice. And, apart from learning about Hooke, this book gives a deeper understanding of what it was like to be a working scientist in the early years of scientific exploration. It is certainly an excellent example of scientific biography.
   
   There are a couple weaknesses with the book that kept coming back to me as I read, however. The first has to do with style; particularly, the style that I've noticed most often in British histories of science. Namely, the overabundance of information. This book is packed with detail. Much more detail than is really necessary in telling Hooke's story. Inwood often used Hooke's diary to make excellent points about the man often with respect to his day-to-day life, relationships and personalities but he also used it to excess in describing the myriad details of Hooke's work and investigations. Fortunately, I'm used to this style of writing and even enjoy it to an extent but even I found some of the lists of Hooke's doings and travels tedious going.
   
   Still, it is the second flaw I find to be much more serious. One of Inwood's main goals seems to be to rehabilitate Hooke and give him his rightful place among history's great scientists. In this, I feel Inwood failed. In England this book was published as The Man Who Knew Too Much and this seems to me to be about right. But in America we say "a jack of all trades and a master of none." Hooke never comes across to me as a genius. Extraordinarily energetic and technically brilliant, he didn't seem to me to have the kind of mind that Newton and Huygens had. Perhaps if he had focused his abilities more he would have had their kind of triumphs but I doubt it.
   
   And Inwood did nothing to dispel the image of Hooke as a bitter man who tried to claim the better work of others as his own. The repetition of Hooke's own claims to priority in his diary, letters and in the Royal Society records are probably only a fraction of the claims he made in his life and these alone are tedious. Inwood tries to make the point that the bitter man history describes could not have maintained the kind of friendships Hooke did in his life but I find that to be an argument without merit. Even the worst men have friends and Hooke was by no means a bad man. Inwood's book gives a picture of a lower class man trying throughout his life to gain the respect of the upper class and basically failing. We can sympathize with Hooke's struggles but that does not change the fact that, though often unfairly treated, many of his problems were of his own making.
   
   In the final analysis, however, this is a very worthwhile book for anyone interested in the history of science. Hooke was, in his own way, an amazing man and it is fascinating to see this revolutionary time in science through the eyes of one of its most important supporters. In Hooke we see the forerunner of every man and woman who puts their all into science and tries tirelessly to make great discoveries. He may not be at the pinnacle but he deserves his place in scientific history.

5 comments about True Genius: The Life and Science of John Bardeen.

1. If asked who were the greatest theoretical physicists of the last hundred years, the interested person on the street would probably come up with these names: Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking. All of these have become popular icons, and all three certainly were (are) geniuses. They have had, and have, followings amoung young people interested in physics, in whom there is a natural tendancy toward hero-worship.
   
   So it may come as a surprise to read, in the book "A Different Universe" by the theoretical physicist Robert Laughlin (who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his theory of the quantum Hall effect), the following passage: "at least in some circles, John Bardeen is considered the greatest theoretical physicist who ever lived."
   
   John Bardeen? The name may be vaguely familiar, something to do with transistors. But... the greatest who ever lived?
   
   If you become curious and want to find out who John Bardeen was, the book "True Genius" will tell you.
   
   What is more, the book will give young physics students ample proof that the icons of the public are not the only icons there are within physics, and that beyond the theories and discoveries that stir the public imagination are others that physicists know the true measure of. It will show just how irrelevant are the popular notions of what a genius is like.
   
   Bardeen's ability was recognized early, and as a student in the 30s he was offered a stipend to work under Einstein himself in Princeton. He turned this opportunity down. Rather than work with the most famous theoretical physicist in the world, he knowingly sought out a less "glamorous" path because it had an abundance of unsolved problems and experimental data.
   
   This was unusual in itself, and it had consequences for him. One can say that the transistor could have been invented by many (and in fact the European team that included Herbert Matare came very close to being the first to invent it). Bardeen was strong enough to have done important work in any field, but it was his early good judgment in choosing a research area that put him on track to his first Nobel Prize.
   
   Bardeen was not an exuberant performer like Feynman, but instead possessed an uncanny composure. His pastime was, of all ordinary things, golf. He was a devoted family man. (It may help, in reading this book, to be a Midwesterner.) He was not a "theorist's theorist" (a term of disparagement in his vocabulary) but valued commercial applications of physics and maintained strong ties with industrial research.
   
   Some are scornful of pure science and seek "relevance" to the real world. Others have an attitude of "noblesse" in which only the highest peaks of pure scientific achievement count, all else being the domain of ordinary people. Neither view is right or wrong.
   
   An amazing thing about Bardeen is that in his person he spanned both extremes. The discovery of the transistor was as big a deal as there is. Semiconductors have changed the world about as much as electricity itself has. Superconductivity was the number-one theoretical challenge in solid-state physics and had resisted the efforts of the world's greatest theorists for half a century.
   
   People interested in the psychology of discovery will profit from this book. Clearly Bardeen was in some way a completely integrated personality. What fascinated me most was the way he assembled his research team. He attacked superconductivity like a general organizing a military siege rather than a solo mountain climber. Bardeen sought out theorists who would complement his own abilities, and as always insisted on bringing experimentalists into his team. He had the insight to see the right way to subdivide the problem and parcel it out to his team, and reassemble their work. "It is said that Cooper found the mechanism, Schrieffer found the solution, and Bardeen realized why the solution was right. Of the three, the last was clearly the most important," writes Laughlin. Probably another book could be written about the fine details of this collaboration.
   
   It's also interesting to compare Bardeen to Shockley, who was (lest we forget) also brilliant, but was torn by contradictory desires and ambitions, and who eventually alienated everyone he worked with and ended up not too impressively. His life was fruitful in some sense despite his efforts rather than because of them.
   
   Bardeen was by temperament the last person to draw attention to himself, but his colleagues knew his gifts and they revered him. This book introduces him to anyone who is curious.



2. John Bardeen was one of nature's prodigies. After an academic career at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, Princeton and Harvard he wound up at Bell Labs where he co-invented the transistor, for which he eventually received a Nobel Prize. Having to deal with a notorious egomaniac of a boss at Bell Labs, who was intent on keeping him from making further discoveries, he fled to the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, where he found a life-long sinecure, and explained superconductivity, and eventually earned another Nobel Prize. Incidentally, the authors of this book both were or are affiliated with UIUC.
   
   The authors do a good job of describing a taciturn scientist and golfer who was much-loved and greatly respected as a person. Unfortunately, as with all biographies of prodigies, it generally is a foregone conclusion that the authors are not equal to the accomplishments of their subject. Even bearing this caveat in mind, I found the book to be a disappointment.
   
   I understood as much of Bardeen's seminal work explaining superconductivity after reading the book as I had before, and this was not for lack of attentive reading. This cannot have been because it is inordinately complicated; Bardeen had been wary of publishing his explanation of superconductivity because it was so simple that he felt he must be missing something.
   
   Similarly, the relevance of the transistor - the other discovery for which Dr. Bardeen won a Nobel Prize - is explained as the invention of a smaller vacuum tube which is of use in consumer electronics and hearing aids. That transistors could be, were and are, connected in such a way as to allow logical circuits, microchips and the internet to exist, doesn't get the mention it merits. On the other hand, there are ample references to the sociology of Nobel Laureates, Thomas Kuhn's theories about scientific advances, and even a 17 page epilogue or bonus material concerning theories about how prodigies come to be. On top all this, the dye used to color the hardcover version of this book rubbed off onto my fingertips.
   
   I enjoyed reading parts of this book, and hope that eventually other authors will write a more complete and informative book about a most interesting scientist.



3. I should really write two reviews. One with a rating of four stars, and one with five. Then the average will be 4.5, which I feel is the right rating. I have only two complaints. First, the discussion of minority carrier injection was not clear to me. I went back to the April 1992 issue of "Physics Today." There, the discussion is done just right,the importance of holes is clear. Second, the issue of "genius" and it's identification and cultivation in chapter 17 did not appeal to me. In my opinion, if we were to conclude with a jumping off point from Bardeen's life, it would be to address the question "why is he so unknown today?" That would have been a good epilogue. It's a good question. In W. H. Cropper's book "Great Physicists: etc." Bardeen is not mentioned. A real shame. Bardeen easily ranks with the physicists in that book.

   But there really is so much to enjoy in this book. Although born in Wisconsin, and not Minnesota, Bardeen would have been so comfortable in Garrison Keillor's world. Bardeen seems straight out of Lake Wobegone and names like Clarence Bunsen and Florian Krebsbach kept coming to mind. Here was a loyal, moral, dedicated man, focused on his life and work, but needing few words to talk about it. Together with Brattain and Schockley (sort of), Bardeen invents the transistor, comes home to his wife, who is cooking dinner, and says to her, "we discovered something today." Wife Jane says, "that's great." After unraveling one of the greatest puzzles in all of physics, Bardeen says to Charles Slichter, "well, I think we've figured out superconductivity." Wonderful, News from Lake Wobegone stuff. (Hoddeson and Daitch's discussion of superconductivity is quite good, by the way.)

   But that's the fun part. In the physics world, there are so few Bardeens. Not just in terms of intellect, but also in terms of generosity, humility, broad and inclusive vision, and overall respect and like for colleagues. I particularly liked the relationship between Bardeen and Brattain. Some physicists can only work alone, but for those who prefer collaboration, finding a partner like Brattain makes every workday fun and exciting.

   Chapter 15 on Bardeen's work with charge density waves was also interesting, if dark. This chapter is an important lesson to those who believe science is the absolute collection of truths and facts. In reality, science is filled with that we do not understand and, as a result, consists of differing opinions and views, just like any other field. It was disheartening, but realistic, I feel, to read that disagreement can also include hurtful disrespect from colleagues/competitors, but Bardeen always maintained the highest levels of professionalism.

   It was also disheartening to read in the acknowledgements that Betsy Bardeen Greytak had passed away. ...P>Other than physicsits, I'm not sure what audience will appreciate this book. But it will be interesting for all those, like myself, who have read, enjoyed, and mostly understood the "popular" Richard Feynman books and biographies.




4. John Bardeen was one of the most important and prolific physicists of the twentieth century, on par with the likes of Niels Bohr and Richard Feynman, but the general public hardly knows his name. In this eloquent and entertaining biography, Lillian Hoddeson and Vicki Daitch capture the true essence of this quiet, gentle genius. They bring forth aspects of the warm, genuiune man behind the science that gave humanity the transistor and solved the almost intractable problem of superconductivity. Bardeen was a giant of 20th century science, and "True Genius" is the definitive story of his life.



5. I read the brief "Publishers Weekly" review for True Genius, as well as the more cryptic but more positive comments of others. From the very first sentence I knew that the "Publishers Weekly" review would be superficial, and maybe even wrong, which then is of what help to a reader and potential book customer? Living in the U.S. democracy, how can we not be curious and not read about the Founders? Similarly, how can we be immersed in all the new electronics (computers, cell phones, DVD and CD machines, MRI's, digital machinery---in fact, Si here, Si there, Si everywhere) and not be curious about how all this happened, what sort of ingenious mind, or minds, might be at the beginning of it all? Imagine the calamity on the planet if the transistor vanished for a day. Does that help in understanding the scale of a Bardeen, of "True Genius"! I knew John Bardeen for 40 years (as my teacher, friend, colleague) and still I learned something further from Hoddeson and Daitch and the material they unearthed for "True Genius", a fascinating biography (a different kind of story). Hoddeson and Daitch do not disappoint in their biography of Bardeen and in elucidating over many chapters his kind of genius, which "Publishers Weekly" doesn't seem to appreciate. Genius is a diamond of many facets, and Hoddeson and Daitch reveal a Bardeen facet. It isn't the last chapter of "True Genius" that matters. It's the whole book, all the chapters, that reveal an American hero---if you will, a genius.

   Nick Holonyak, Jr.
   John Bardeen Chair Professor of
   Electrical and Computer
   Engineering and Physics, and
   Center for Advanced Study
   Professor of Electrical and
   Computer Engineering
   University of Illinois
   Urbana, IL

5 comments about Einstein: The Life and Times.

1. As a biography, this book is almost perfect. Every aspect of Einstein's life is covered with marvelous proportion and balance. If you want to understand the best-known scientist of modern times, you must read this book.
   
   Perhaps most important of all, Clark does not write as if he were describing a saint. He recognizes that brilliance in one field doesn't always translate into brilliance in others. Politically, Einstein was often naive and sometimes silly. G. K. Chesterton noted that in May of 1931, shortly after Einstein had claimed, "If you can get two per cent of the population to assert in times of peace that they will not fight, you can end war." Chesterton replied, "But here the theorist asks us to believe, not merely that two men could fight a hundred men, but that a hundred men could not fight at all because two men were not fighting."
   
   As the 1930s progressed, Einstein moved closer to Chesterton's views about war and particularly about the danger Germany posed to European peace. In the 1920s Einstein was one of the most famous pacifists in the world. In the 1930s, disturbed by Nazism, he abandoned his pacifism to advocate containment. The reason for his change was quite human. His loyalty to his own people, the Jews, triumphed over his intellectual dalliance with pacifism. Chesterton was no doubt delighted. He believe that healthy patriotism was the surest road to peace. Each people living on its own land and willing to defend it while respecting similar feelings among their neighbors recognized the human desire for attachments without avoiding the reality of evil. That's why the pacifist/internationalist solution, the League of Nations, failed to stop Nazism, while Chesterton's solution, a NATO-like military alliance, worked quite well to contain the even greater menace of Communism.
   
   Unfortunately, while Chesterton, a popular English writer, would sometimes comment on the much better known Einstein, and somewhere Einstein may have mentioned Chesterton, a fellow Zionist, I can find no evidence the two every met. Given that both had a marvelous, self-effacing sense of humor, that's unfortunate.
   
   --Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II



2. As a biography, this book is almost perfect. Every aspect of Einstein's life is covered with marvelous proportion and balance. If you want to understand the best-known scientist of modern times, you must read this book.
   
   Perhaps most important of all, Clark does not write as if he were describing a saint. He recognizes that brilliance in one field doesn't always translate into brilliance in others. Politically, Einstein was often naive and sometimes silly. G. K. Chesterton noted that in May of 1931, shortly after Einstein had claimed, "If you can get two per cent of the population to assert in times of peace that they will not fight, you can end war." Chesterton replied, "But here the theorist asks us to believe, not merely that two men could fight a hundred men, but that a hundred men could not fight at all because two men were not fighting."
   
   As the 1930s progressed, Einstein moved closer to Chesterton's views about war and particularly about the danger Germany posed to European peace. In the 1920s Einstein was one of the most famous pacifists in the world. In the 1930s, disturbed by Nazism, he abandoned his pacifism to advocate containment. The reason for his change was quite human. His loyalty to his own people, the Jews, triumphed over his intellectual dalliance with pacifism. Chesterton was no doubt delighted. He believe that healthy patriotism was the surest road to peace. Each people living on its own land and willing to defend it while respecting similar feelings among their neighbors recognized the human desire for attachments without avoiding the reality of evil. That's why the pacifist/internationalist solution, the League of Nations, failed to stop Nazism, while Chesterton's solution, a NATO-like military alliance, worked quite well to contain the even greater menace of Communism.
   
   Unfortunately, while Chesterton, a popular English writer, would sometimes comment on the much better known Einstein, and somewhere Einstein may have mentioned Chesterton, a fellow Zionist, I can find no evidence the two every met. Given that both had a marvelous, self-effacing sense of humor, that's unfortunate.
   
   --Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II



3. Prepare to feel time slow down if you approach this black hole of a book.
   
   The thesis of Einstein: The Life and Times is that Albert Einstein was both the preeminent physicist of our age and a saint.
   
   The first claim - Einstein's genius - is manifestly true. Einstein single-handedly established four of the foundational principles of modern physics (statistical mechanics, space-time equivalence, photon quantization, and the covariant formulation of gravitation). But Ronald Clark fails to make the case for genius, preferring in every case to document contemporary opinions rather than share the scientific excitement of the discoveries themselves. In this sense, Clark was intellectually incompetent to be Einstein's biographer.
   
   The second claim, sainthood, is manifestly false. Einstein is consistently described by his friends as inconsiderate, socially inept, and self-centered. His life after 1920 was a scientific wasteland - because of his self-imposed isolation. Outside of physics, his opinions were inconsistent, shallow, and readily manipulated. This biographer, with his frequent Socialist and anti-American embellishments, is just another in a long line of Einstein manipulators.
   
   In spite of Clark's incessant emphasis on Einstein as sui generis, the most consistent theme that emerges from the documentation of his life is the saintliness of other scientists. His fellow physicists deserve credit for recognizing, promulgating, proving, developing, and rewarding Einstein's ideas - and protecting him personally - in spite of the impediments of his personality. It's no wonder that Einstein could maintain such rose-colored pacifism when he lived off of the emotional and financial largess of the international scientific community.



4. Whenever they compile the list of the best biographies of the 20th Century, this book will definitely be on the short list. It's a masterpiece. Clark presents a thorough, erudite, and accessible account of Einstein's life and work. He begins by relating Einstein's early struggles and his years at the Swiss Patent Office, where he read and analyzed technical reports. Then came the great relativity theory and the subsequent success and reknown. The flight from Nazi Germany to Princeton, the building of the atomic bomb during WW II (he regretted this association the most in his life), and the myths that developed around his life with the public (he hated the public adulation; when he died he didn't want his house on Mercer Street in Princeton to become a shrine) also get their fair and judicious treatment. Einstein was a great scientist who had developed some of the most complicated theories in physics, and Clark is excellent in trying to explain them for the general reader. But he is best when capturing Einstein the man. Clark writes with the confidence of a master, even majestically. It's a long book and not a fast read, but the time spent with Clark and his magnificent subject is time very well spent. One even wishes for more at the end. A brilliant work.



5. This is a well- written account of the life of Einstein. It also provides explanations for the general reader of Einstein's great and revolutionary contributions to mankind's understanding of the physical world.
   It gives the picture of how one person from relatively humble origins rose to become the very symbol of human genius, and a cultural hero of mankind.
   It presents a picture of a more complicated human being by far than is contained by the popular image. It is the picture of a person of enormous dedication, of a startling power to devise in his own mind ' thought- experiments' that would lead to changing completely mankind's conceptions not only of the world but of its own powers.
   It is the the story of Einstein's reluctant political involvements, his devotion to peace, his great humanism, his Zionism and contribution to the building of Hebrew University, his opposition to Fascism, his famous letter to President Roosevelt that pushed the Chicago project for building the Atom bomb, his torments of conscience over his discoveries having been used in war.
   Most importantly it traces the scientific career of Einstein including the legendary moment of great triumph in 1919 when his general theory of Relativity was experimentally confirmed, and Einstein transformed overnight into a world- famous figure.
   It also tells the story of Einstein's struggle for over thirty- five years throughout the whole latter part of his life to devise a unified field theory . This is the story of a great man's frustration, and too his isolation from the great majority of his colleagues in regard to his position on quantum theory, (The famous," God does not play dice with the world")
   Clark describes Einstein's fundamental attitude toward Nature and God, his closeness to Spinoza in seeing in an impersonal eternal order of nature the source of Beauty and objective scientific truth.
   This is a wonderful book about one of mankind's greatest creative giants.

3 comments about Benjamin Franklin's Numbers: An Unsung Mathematical Odyssey.

1. Benjamin Franklin's Numbers is very facinating, I never knew he more than a founding father. This is a great book for anyone who loves numbers and has a math background, something you won't learn in school.



2. Most geeks admire Ben Franklin, and not only for patriotic reasons. He was a brilliant, vibrant mind who made contributions to several fields. There isn't a lack of biographies about the man. Or even good ones at that. What this short (and sweet) book does though, is to cover Franklin as a mathematician, a side of the genius that is often hidden or disputed. This hardcover focuses on Magic Squares and Franklin's contribution to this field, even though he wrongly considered them as enjoyable, but useless in practice. Benjamin Franklin's Numbers: An Unsung Mathematical Odyssey is filled with mathematical puzzles and will be a pleasure to read for those who can appreciate small challenges and the historical importance of Pasles' research.



3. If I could sit down with anyone from the past, my choice would be easy: Benjamin Franklin. Franklin would have been easy to talk to, even if he might have been a little pedantic. But he was funny, and sociable, and what a résumé he has: diplomat, printer, businessman, scientist, inventor, musician, expert chess player, essayist, autobiographer. It is hard to think of any aspect of this myriad-minded man that has not been covered by previous biographers, but they have always tended to leave out his discoveries in mathematics. Paul C. Pasles, an associate professor of mathematical sciences, has now paid tribute to those discoveries, and has uncovered more of them than any previous biographer has known. _Benjamin Franklin's Numbers: An Unsung Mathematical Odyssey_ will be a delight for Franklin fans like me, and it will provide those who are interested in number puzzles, simple to complex, with much to play with. Pasles has included puzzles in every chapter, and, don't worry, has put all the answers and explanations in an appendix. Franklin's mathematical achievements are chiefly his discoveries in magic squares, and readers will come away not only with an appreciation of his mathematical cleverness, but of the beauty of the remarkable objects he discovered.
   
   Franklin didn't do well in math at his school, but became adept at using numbers for his printing business, and had to be able to calculate for some of the tables in his famous almanacs. He used numbers for predictions of population statistics, but the magic square was his mathematical delight. A magic square is an arrangement of numbers in a square grid, generally starting from one and using each successive number in its box on the grid, so that the rows, columns, diagonals, and other patterns add up to the same sum. Franklin did his initial work on the squares around 1736, when he was bored by debates in the Pennsylvania Assembly, for which he was clerk. His attitude expressed in a letter sounds just like the one he had toward all his endeavors: "Not being content with these [regular properties of magic squares], which I looked on as common and easy things, I had imposed on myself more difficult tasks, and succeeded in making other magic squares, with a variety of properties, and much more curious." There are many of his eight-by-eight squares given here, some with elaborate keys; one shows that not only the rows and bent diagonals sum up properly to 260, but so do bent diagonals parallel to the corner-to-corner version, as do the four corner squares added to the four central squares, as do "knight's move" diagonals; and any 2-by-2 inner block of cells adds up to half of 260. Then there are the 16-by-16 monsters. And then there are the magic circles he invented, with radii and concentric circles adding up to a specific number, as do what Franklin called the "excentric" circles spiraling around the circular pattern.
   
   Franklin knew that some of his magic square inventions were better than any that had ever been made. Of one, he wrote, "...for I make no question you will readily allow this square of 16 to be the most magically magical of any magic square ever made by any magician." And yet they represented Franklin at play, and he remained modest about his magic square efforts, writing later in life that he had amused himself at making magic squares because he had the leisure, leisure which "I still think I might have employed more usefully". Franklin was eventually disappointed in his studies in electricity because (when electrical storage was still primitive) it could not be made practical and beneficial, and maybe he would have felt this way about his magic squares as well. Utility, Pasles reminds us, is not the measure of good mathematics, however. "Our object," he writes, "is not to show that Franklin would have identified himself as a mathematician, only that he was adept at the systematic and creative ways of thinking about numbers, arrangements, and relationships that characterize mathematical thought." Pasles has included many of Franklin's squares, and printed many in colors that show the complicated weave of patterns within them. It is a wonderful introduction to an entirely new way of admiring a great thinker.