5 comments about Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence and Edward Teller.

1. In the world of historians, Daniel J. Boorstin stands head and shoulders above all lesser writers in that nonfiction genre, much as Loren Eiseley and, to a lesser extent, Stephen Jay Gould, reign supreme as literary craftsmen in the sciences. This thought was inescapable to me as I read yet another in a prolix series of books about the historic import of scientists. Since the two disciplines- science and history- often intertwine when reading books about the Manhattan Project comparisons of the writers of such books with the aforementioned trinity is inevitable, as well as very productive in the art of criticism. Thus, when I read the 2002 book, Brotherhood Of The Bomb, by Gregg Herken- an atomic bomb junky whose prior works (such as The Winning Weapons: The Atomic Bomb In The Cold War) were soaked in the topic, I had to groan, for Herken has absolutely no grasp of what makes for compelling nor imaginative writing.
   
   When one reads the classics of Boorstin- such as The Discoverers, The Creators, or The Americans, one is engrossed by his novelistic techniques which can make the most well known tales of historical figures and cast them in a patina of freshness. When one reads the essays of Eiseley, gathered in classics like The Night Country or The Immense Journey, one is blown away by the elegant poesy and profundity of his sentences. When one reads the essays of Gould- from books like The Mismeasure Of Man or Bully For Brontosaurus, one is dazzled by his ability to thread together the most seemingly disparate things into a coherent idea. But, in Brotherhood Of The Bomb one is merely bored to nihility by Herken's turgidity and utter lack of insight into his subject matter, as well as the pointless epigraphs for the book's five parts....Herken too often veers from the making of the bomb- the only reason anyone would care of these three intellectual bores, to try to exculpate Oppenheimer, so that the first atomic test is written of only in a few pages. This is like writing of Newton's theory of gravity and focusing on the worm in the legendary apple that was to fall onto the scientist's head. Yet, this is the state most writing- fictive or not, has devolved to in this day and age. The book won many literary awards upon its release, and Herken himself was awarded a hefty MacArthur Genius Grant to write the book. Yet nothing speaks more highly of the absolute lack of depth and insight the book displays than how Herken ends it, by reciting the well known dueling apothegms of Oppenheimer and Teller, where the former declares that `Physicists have known sin,' only to have his rival retort, `I would say that physicists have known power.'
   
   Such summative words show that Herken, far from being an objective researcher, was more a kid in a- groan, please- candy shop, who tossed off this banal book to fulfill a childish obsession. There are no larger ideas nor any penetrating revelations that only this book dared to print. Perhaps such needless space consumption is ok as fodder for the Lowest Common Denominator blogs that choke the internet, but valuable publishing resources should not be wasted on such pap. If you agree, then click over to Herken's book's website Brotherhood Of The Bomb, or shoot him and email at gherken@brotherhoodofthebomb.com, and let him know that the waste of pulp is also a sin that his hero, Oppenheimer, would disavow, and to stay cyber. Do not do it for me, do it for Boorstin, Eiseley, and Gould. Better yet, do it for yourself....or the trees.



2. I love reading well-written books! The Brotherhood of the Bomb is one such book. I've read a fair share of Manhattan Project/Oppenheimer books. Brotherhood does a great job of widening the focus and putting three men (Oppenheimer, Lawrence and Teller) in view, instead of just one. Much of the Oppenheimer material was familiar to me from American Prometheus or The Making of the Atomic Bomb (both excellent), but this book put those events in the context of the ongoing (and often fractious) relationships between these three men. In some ways we're still living in their shadows. Great Book!



3. ...a copy of this belongs in every major library, not necessarily in everyone's library. Excessively detailed and turgid, it is yet another story of the bomb(s) and the major players who developed it.
   
   Better reads would be Richard Rhodes' amazing books on the atomic bomb and hydrogen boms and various biographies of Oppenheimer.
   
   And don't forget the terrific mini-series on Oppenheimer, by the same name, re-released on dvd by the BBC, unfortunately in Region 2 format only. Watch this if you can.



4. Thunderous clouds, brilliant purple and multicolor radioactive plumes jettisoning what were once precious sought after kilograms of chemistry's beyond bizzare materials. Such is the ballad that was played one mid-July morning, 1945, at Trinity Test Site, some 20 miles east south east of San Antonio, NM, after years of ingenius experimental and theoretical work, computation, sweating, rivalry, and finally utterly destructive convergeancey into one of modern science's most awe inspiring gadgets. 'The gadget' as it would come to be called, set off much else than meagerly its own wired and machined self - in the process of self-detonation, the world's first atom bomb brought about, unexpectedly and unforseen, a world's first feat, an end to a world conflict, - Pacific front - a murky arms race with juxtaposed cold war, and, in the end one of mankinds most thrilling achievements. Insofar as today's youth can but arbitrarily surmount such things as 'shock waves' or 'nonlinear implosionary ballistics dynamics,' fresh-faced prodigys, physics phenoms, and other human wonder-brains pulled off not only calculations of destiny, but together made Los Alamos into the 'biggest collection of eggheads ever assembled.' The conflict-laden tale of Robert Oppenheimer (head of Project Manhatten, razor-sharp intellect, lead bomb scientist), Ernest Lawrence (brilliant, charismatic, enthusiastic, well-liked Rad Lad originator and Nobel Laureate for his cyclotron radiation experiments), and 'the only monomaniac to suffer from multiple manias, Beethoven piano playing in nothing but fortissimo, Hungarian figurehead, H-bomb creator (sort of)' Edward Teller. Three characters starkly in contrast to each other's standout, signature diacritics: Oppenheimer as excessively learned linguist and rapid assimilator; Lawrence as driven lab leader with a taste for breaking particle accelerator barriers; Teller as European half-scientist, half-artist idea maker. What was to be born in each of these men's dreams - however much in contrast those drifting epiphanies may have been - manifested themselves first on paper as drawing or formulae, then as physical device or working instrument. Brotherhood of the Bomb is indeed a story of the tangled correspondances and relationships forged and endured throughout the war, but it is more than that. It delves deep into personal convictions, dilemmas, creativity, mystifying outcomes of the scientific method and journey, and controversial until-now-unspoken tid bits from an era of Top Secrecy. Remembering such times is difficult to say the very least even for the men, and women, directly involved. This is perhaps so because the people at the fore, engrossed in whatever field of research, were themselves in every way imaginable enigmas - contradictions in motion in several instances. Loyalties would become circumspect, motives would held under microscope, but inevitably the real impact of a product of incomprehensible physics is to be realized most dismayingly. Costs and benefits aside, a history of an odyssey only meant for storybooks is casually uncovered via the recorded conversations and testimonies of some of America's cleverest progenitors of atomic energy and its later fabrications (i.e. Three Mile Island incident frenzy). If anything, the clueless sees an open door into the realm of nuclear technology's immemorial upbringing(s) and drama(s). Even six decades later, the actual underpinnings of the bomb are little understood except in major institutions and classified memos/docs. This title's innards unearth a memoir so shockingly abstract, it has to be reread repeatedly in order to grasp any certain feel for what occured, what prompted its occurence, and what eventuated beyond zero hour in New Mexicos vaguely populated regions - similar to spotting a haystack enveloping a needle, you pick the size.
   In a land of enchantment, one may yet find green-hued intense-heat-fused silicates of that moment in history when thermodynamicist, hydrodynamicisit, theoretist in general all let out a gargantuan 'Yahoo!' predating Google's punching bag companion of a search engine.
   Echoes no longer may be detected in now and then restricted spaces, but on that morning just following a timely (to them painstakingly unwelcomed) foreshadowing thunderstorm of nature's ever present wrath, the genie was unleashed...never to be resealed. Loose for purposes unknown and grandiose. Rustically elegant though the desert may be, a flash of a thousand suns was never intentionally in store, or until it became apparent by sight and sound... as well as indetectible rays of near cosmic intensity and proportion.
   This book is so well written I don't dare try to emulate or mimic its prose. Intimate details of the three protagonists nearest the atom bomb's core are intriguingly lurid, stunning in places, still somehow comforting to those who care about science and its indisputable power and constant legacy. One physicist I would like to have seen mentioned more is John Von Neumann, who essentially single-handedly - by rigorously furthering the conceptual drafts of Neddermeyer through mathematical construct and logical proof - theorized implosion, amongst a vast array of other topics and subjects only a rare but true polymath could conjure (Claude Shannon is another). Without Von Neumann there is no Super, no computer architecture, no game theory, no quantum mechanics (or at least its 'Group Theory' aspects) and no non-fictional inspiration for generations succeeding.
   Also, of due notoriety is the background and determined leadership of General Leslie R. Groves - lead construction planner of the Pentagon and Project Manhatten organizer possessing immense profundity of temperance and sensibilty.



5. The overwhelming egos which worked together on the bomb and became a part of the fallout after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

4 comments about Tesla: Master of Lightning.

1. This book about Tesla does not offer a very definitive overview about the man and the scientist.I thought this particular biography on the life of Tesla was rather weak.There are much better ones around.The best one being,'The Wizard'.The pictures are quite interesting,showing many of his inventions and social situations concerning the work and exhibits by Nikola Tesla.Yet,from a scientific technical point-of-view this book is light-weight on formulas and construction.Die-hard fans of the Tesla genre,would all agree,that this book could be better.Maybe the authors wanted to attract more readers ,by not scaring them off with too much scientific jargon. I would still recommend this Tesla book.



2. Fascinating. Tesla was born Serbian Orthodox in what is now Croatia (formerly part of Yugoslavia). Came to New York as a young man and lived and worked in the U.S. from the 1890s into the 1930s. He is often described as being "ahead of his time": He envisioned, designed, and even patented electronic devices some of which are only today being practically realized. The supporting technology or scientific knowledge did not yet exist for many of them, though he accurately theorized that they would be possible.
   
   Various circumstances contributed to his being little known in America today (and not credited, even by scholars, with all that he accomplished). These include his unwillingness to work with wealthy corporate sponsors (as did Edison and Marconi) and the fact that much of his later work dealt with weaponry and thus was classified after his death. Also, his papers were returned to his native land and the ensuing Cold War prevented Western researchers from accessing them until recently. Many of his inventions-such as radio, AC electrical power, and radar-have long been credited to others. He foresaw-and his work contributed to the invention of-telephones, television, X-rays, satellite transmission, and directed energy weapons. He was also eccentric, probably suffered from OCD, and lived much of his life in poverty. This book downplays his eccentricities and paints him with an honest but very admiring brush.



3. I found this book to be an excellent overview of Tesla's work and life. It's also a quick read. The book successfully conveys the image of Tesla as a remarkable inventor whose work and ideas were at the very forefront of the practical application of electromagnetic theory.
   
   The book plays along uncritically, however, with Tesla's apparently self cultivated image of being a Wizard / Scientist. Many of Tesla's more controversial ideas and clams that were never, and have never been substantiated through experiment, can be dismissed as poppycock. By contrast all of Tesla's successful ideas rest on very firm scientic foundations. The Author makes no attempt to discriminate one from the other. Instead, unsubstantiated claims are sprinkled liberally with vague references to missing documents and political intrigue.
   
   One excellent example of Tesla's tendancy for hyperbole is his claim of having built and tested an oscillator cable of creating earthquakes. Such a claim would have elicited knowing smirks even from 19th century scientists. Anyone doubting the foolishness of such a claim would do well to stay away from earth compactors and jackhammers, lest the Earth itself split in two! The Author(s)' failure to address Tesla's penchant for embellishment and hyperbole, and other odd aspects of Tesla's character (Other than frequent idle speculation on his sexual orientation) makes for a rather flat and onesided presentation.



4. How could Margaret Cheney (Tesla : Man Out Of Time) and Robert Uth (Tesla : Master Of Lightning) improve upon their past individual works (a book and documentary video, respectively)? By combining their efforts to produce this wonderful book, that's how. The informative text is interspersed with 250 b&w and duotone images that show Tesla and the era in which he excelled (truly a man out of time). Also included are 36 sidebars that explain some of the technical aspects of Tesla's works. After reading several other books on Tesla, I thought I knew it all. I'm happy to say that this one proved me wrong. Not to be missed by true Tesla fans.

5 comments about Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio.

1. i found the first chapter of this book quite boring, full of uninteresting detail, but it got better later, though it may be that i just got used to it. as it is, it still wasn't a particularly good book.
   
   one of my complaints is how kluger completely idealizes Salk. for instance, at one point he refuses to tell his rival details about his work because "it seemed somehow wrong to share what he knew with one scientist before revealing it to all the others." come on. it was proffessional rivalry.
   
   another thing that annoyed me was kluger over-analyzing various details that didn't seem to mean anything. he ascribed intentions to various unimportant acts that for one thing, he has no proof of, and for another, are boring to listen to. and we never really get any idea of Salk's personality, which makes the book rather boring, as salk is, after all, the main character. in his acknowledgements, Kluger calls him "a tectonic force in scientific history." bull. all he did was develop a vaccine with already-created methods.
   
   and the details. the book would probably have been way too short if kluger hadn't put in all the details, but still. he spends pages talking about trivial things like how someone decided on the specific date for a conference. sometimes it's interesting details that make a book come alive... but these aren't interesting details.
   
   so i guess the whole problem with the book was that it wasn't alive. the man it's about is a flat, unknown character, and the plot is too long-drawn out and not interesting enough. it wasn't *so* boring, i got through it easily enough, but when i was done i couldn't help thinking what a waste of my time.



2. Oh...I was so disappointed when I got near the end of the book and realized that the ending would be based on the susquent gearing up of the corporate making of the immense quantities of this vaccine, to bring it into control world-wide. Yet, I came to unerstand that was the right ending to this story...everthing after that was useless detail, even if I wanted to know more about the people involved.
   
   The continuing fight between the arrogant Sabin and Salk has been told elsewhere.and since I wandered around the hallways where Salk and his group did his work. I would hear bits and pieces of the rest of the story, including Salk's mistake of neglecting to mention all of his immediate collegues who spent so much time for so little recognition. I wonder is he ever offered a simple apology...or did he know that would never gain him total forgiveness.
   
   The book is all the more exciting because of my being in and around the places where they worked, and my husband worked for the newspaper, same as Troan...so the book gained the feeling of a movie to me. Kliger is an outstanding scince writer, so that means a lont time between books. Sigh...
   
   At least this is one virus they can truly claim a victory over, and how glad I am as a mother of the 1980's that my children were spared this horrific disease.
   
   Karen Sadler
   Science Education



3. This tale of science, competition, personalities and politics provides one a splendid base for understanding of processes of the past in order to help in understanding the present.
   With my knowledge of viruses as a health care professional, I found the intersection of science with egos and policy somewhat disturbing but not surprising. According to Kluger, Dr. Salk was a selfless scientist who prioritized work above family. The book nearly slanders Dr. Sabin. I have no basis for judgment other than this book, however. This is only one side of the story.
   One may find himself extrapolating to the current threat of pandemic Avian Influenza. Splendid Solution provides insight into the process, which according to NIH officials may take up to five years, whereby we may have an Avian Flu vaccine.
   Drs. Salk and Sabin (with their assistants) did more than protect us from Polio. In the end, it was the combination of their discoveries that conquered Polio. The book implies that Salk's vaccine may have conquered it alone or more quickly had politics not intervened. But we will never know. We do know that the combination worked.
   They laid the groundwork for our protection from threats yet unknown. They are both true American heroes.



4. Kluger writes a riveting account of the search for an effective immunization for an annual epidemic plaguing society through the first half of the twentieth century. He skillfully weaves the story of Salk's quest within its social background. Reading it brought me back to my childhood in the 1950's and my parents' anxieties each summer as newspapers published counts of local and national polio cases.



5. In 2005 the U.S. celebrates its 50th anniversary of the first national polio vaccination program which helped eradicate the disease in this country: it's hard to believe a generation is growing up without ever having known the ravages of polio. New York Times writer Jeffrey Kluger's Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk And The Conquest Of Polio is both a biography of Dr. Salk and his search for the vaccine and a social history of polio. Chapters based on exclusive interviews with his friends and colleagues and access to his private papers provides new details on Salk's life and career, setting this life in context of both his times and contemporaries.

5 comments about Linnaeus: Nature and Nation.

1. It has become axiomatic that historians of science know little about either. This revisionist treatment of the foibles of 18th century Swedish life paints poor Linnaeus as a whacko. However, he really wasn't too far removed from the contemporary members of the Royal Society of London in credulity, self promotion and ignorance and was certainly typical of Swedish Professors of that and more recent times.
   This is really a silly book first produced under the tuterage of Simon Schama and reissued from HUP. The author does not acknowledge the intellectual ferment of the time when the Enlightenment was being crushed under the heels of van Herder and by the Romantic curse (that we still enjoy as political correctness). The greatest contribution of the Linne's systematics was the "taxonomic key" that allows some order out of biology, not his fatuous attempts to make booze out of lichens or grow pineapples in Bothnia.
   I suppose other historians of "science" will someday mock Aristotle for his ignorance of DNA and not knowing how many teeth women have, but really, this is a silly book.



2. Linnaeus : Nature and Nation
   by Lisbet Koerner
   Reviewed by Thomas Leo Ogren, author of Allergy-Free Gardening, Ten Speed Press.
   Honestly I have mixed feelings about this book. One, I love it and really did enjoy reading it. I learned quite a bit from it too.
   But I do wish it had been written in a more reader-friendly manner. It is a good bit too scholarly for my tastes, a trifle too text-bookishly written.
   One of the important things about Linnaeus himself is that he always tried to reach the common man, tried to make his work popular and easily understood. I feel this book could have emulated some of that flavor.
   But I don't mean to be too critical by any means because I did like this book very much. There is a real wealth of research here, many things about Linnaeus here that I'd never read before. Karl Linnaeus was THE botanist--of his time, and of our own time as well. His system of binomial nomenclature, Genus species, was pretty much right on the money. He was the first to realize that plants' sexual characteristics were what largely either grouped them together or set them apart. His system is often criticized today, but to me it still makes great sense.
   Linnaeus : Nature and Nation, is not for everyone, but serious gardeners will enjoy it, as will historians, especially those with an interest in botany, horticulture, science. Well worth reading.



3. ‘Gazing at a flower by the grass-roofed cottage where he was born [...] Linnaeus was quintessentially a local man.’ (187). But as Lisbet Koerner explains, he also linked the ‘universal with the local [...] nature with nation.’ In this fascinating account, Koerner demonstrates that the father of modern taxonomy was also a political economist. Unlike Adam Smith, his interest was no so much in international trade or colonial conquest, but the substitution of imports (a cameralist program).

   Although Linnaeus had travelled in Holland, France, and Engalnd (1735-48) there were nineteen ‘first-generation’ students who undertook ‘voyages of discover’ between 1745 and 1792. Koerner asserts that their travels ‘were part of their larger strategy to create a miniature mercantile empire within a European state’ (114). Linnaeus sensed that ‘explorers fostered strategies of national improvement based on ecological diversification rather than on territoral expansion.’ (114).

   Linnaeus, it is argued was essentially a civil servant who turned his students into an efffective and efficient support staff. Chapter 3 deals with the Lapland journey. In line with economic and political priorities the area was to be colonized as a kind of Scandinavian “West Indies”. As a committed Lutheran, its is fascinating to deconstruct the theology at work in Linnaeus’s thought. Nature was a prelapsarian Paradise, but it must be exploited within each country. Accordingly, Linnaesus was concerned by the luxury and excess of products that trade supplied from the cornucopia of the New World. As this book notes, ‘He even urged Scandinavians to return to the old “Gothic foods,” such as acorns, pork, and mead.’ (95) At the same time he was keen to cultivate at home (to acclimatize) what was normally cultivated abroad. We even find him thinking, theorizing, and cultivating ‘an art to Make Mussles bring forth pearls.’ (141) He professed an an axiety that the pearl plantaions ‘could not long remain secret before our neighbours in Norway, Russia, and Siberia, who own more stores of Pearl mussels, could thus intirely triumph over us in quantity.’ (143)

   Yet as Linnaeus’s stock rose in Europe among the Romantics, at home it fell as he failed to deliver economic adavantage and superiority through import substitution. Ernst Moritz Arndt attacked Linnaeus’s cameralist projects in 1783, wondering how ‘On e was supposed to believe that Sweden suddenly had become Asia Minor and Sicily.’ (168) His enterprising schemes turned out to be ‘fantastic and chimerical’; it was left to his taxonomic system to enrich the world. Nonetheless, in light of recent global protests and persistent underdevelopment, the larger issues which the book eloquently discusses, seem to me as relevant now as then. ‘Linnaeus: Nature and Nation’ concludes by stating that it ‘memorializes a local attempt at a local modernity, a now-forgotten future of the past’ (193), but the other issue it raises is timely:

   ‘Or can native subjects, using only local means of production, build a complex and complete local economy, incorporating contemporary technologies, and functioning as a microcosm of the global economy.’ (192)




4. A fascinating account of what a strange place the 18th century was. The age of confusion more than the age of reason. Who would have thought that Linnaeus had so much in common with today's new age cranks.



5. A biography filled with wonderful detail, even though centering on Linnaeus' economic program. At times the author appears to be making fun of Linnaeus' odder ideas rather than attempting serious historical analysis, but in all a good job and an interesting argument.

5 comments about Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent: The Importance of Everything and Other Lessons from Darwin's Lost Notebooks.

1. This is a tale of Darwin's becoming a true naturalist. Haupt believes that this happened sometime during the five years he spent with the survey ship Beagle, mostly ashore. Darwin was intent on absorbing and recording everything as the ship ranged up and down both sides of South America. He wanted to learn the geology, the fossils, the animals and the plants wherever he went. Occasionally, Darwin even looked up from his studies and described the human inhabitants.
   
   By "true naturalist" Haupt means something more than a mere busybody, recording observations and collecting samples. She has used Darwin's notebooks of the Voyage (rather than his polished published account) to follow the changes in his attitudes from dutiful outside observer to a state that sometimes seemed to be a mind-meld with his subjects -- or really, by now, his fellow participants in life. Nothing was too small or ordinary to catch and hold Darwin's fascinated gaze. Perhaps, even as a young man still steeped in the traditional Chain of Being and the Christian doctrine of special creation, he tacitly believed that everything was important, everything held a clue to...what? Later, when he came to reflect philosophically on the Species Question, this great mass of detail, lightly and lovingly held, indeed served him well.
   
   Haupt is an excellent writer and, herself a bird expert, uses Darwin's awakening to the birds of South America to locate his transformation to Naturalist. This is a book of natural history, biography, and philosophical observation that makes no pretense to be definitive. Our author is really using Darwin as an exemplar of a certain type that she admires: someone who loves Nature in all her messy particularity. As a result we get to read more about that endlessly charming man and about nature, and we get Haupt's interesting and often pointed reflections on it all. I was afraid, at the start, that my rather low level of natural history ability would hamper my understanding. Not so: anyone who cares about nature or is just curious about Darwin can enjoy this book.



2. Both casual readers and high school to college level students of natural history and science will relish the beautifully written PILGRIM ON THE GREAT BIRD CONTINENT: THE IMPORTANCE OF EVERYTHING AND OTHER LESSONS FROM DARWIN'S LOST NOTEBOOKS. It's a different portrait which covers not just his works but the image of a naturalist who trusted his observations more than the political influences of his times or the research before him. Darwin was a bumbling amateur naturalist when he boarded the Beagle in 1831 to journey through the Galapagos. The young Darwin and his observations come to life in a survey rich with first-person reflections by the author, on her own wildlife observations.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



3. This is an amazing book. I am a biologist and a follower of Darwin, so I ordered this book right away when I saw it reviewed in the paper. Whether your interest is in Darwin or in science and nature more generally, this book is a stand-out. The author has a solid background in philosophy of science, but she's a creative nonfiction writer. Her prose and use of language are definitely a cut above the norm for these subjects. Haupt's focus on birds and her knowledge of ornithology will please any bird-lover. In addition to offering a unique, and endearing portrait of Darwin, this book is really about a way of seeing and understanding the human relationship to the natural world. It is a reminder, as Haupt says, that "we too are animals,connected to life, past and present...that nothing in the natural world is beneath our notice." A beautiful book that will give you fresh eyes.



4. A short review of this book in the 4-8-06 issue of `Science News' prompted me to order it. I'm interested in the genesis of radical new ways of viewing our world to see how it might apply to my book's proto-theism concept.
   
   Haupt, by studying Darwin's lesser known writings, surmises his growth as a rich-kid college drop-out from both medicine and the clergy in favor of dabbling with bugs. For an adventure, he signed on to the `Beagle' as the expedition's amateur naturalist for a two-year voyage which lasted nearly five-years. Haupt pictures him gradually finding his own style of observing, collecting and pondering as he gains confidence and learns to respect and love his subjects and nature. She focuses mostly on his birds perhaps more than necessary but that's her field. She debunks the legend that, toward the end of the voyage while in the Galapagos, Darwin's seminal insight flashed on him. Instead, it slowly dawned of him back in London with the help of a skilled taxonomist and in spite of his sloppy labeling of the Galapagos' specimens.
   
   She also depicts the two decades after the voyage as he cautiously built his arguments for the "Origin of Species", then she goes on to describe his later years ensconced at Down House. Perhaps she does a little too much of her own philosophizing but I wasn't put-off by it. I'd give her book five stars except for the omission of an index (altho' Amazon's `Search inside the book' is an alternative). All in all, it's a pleasant and enlightening, well-made little book.



5. I greatly enjoyed Haupt's first book "Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds" and ordered this one not knowing much about it. It was wonderful too! Haupt's warm, lyrical prose is well matched to her topic, which is to mine Darwin's little-known pocket notebooks for new insights. She paints a compelling story of him circumnavigating South America as a humble and patient observer, though as she puts it, "This book is not in any way meant to pose as a biography; it is a gleaning of those instances in Darwin's life and work that inspire a renewed vision of the relationship between the human and natural worlds." So... what meaning does Darwin's vision hold for us today? Haupt reminds us that there are lessons in Darwin's story, and especially in his approach, to inspire all of us - even those of us who had never read anything about him before!

No comments about Bill Gates - Software Billionaire (Biography).

3 comments about Richter's Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man.

1. I had such high hopes for this book. The author states that she had unprecedented access to Richter's private and professional papers and that this would give the reader an in-depth view of Richter's life. Sadly, nine chapters in the author told me we were finally going to address his professional life after chapter upon chapter of vignettes of women in his life and their relationship and impact on the development of seismology. I guess I missed the subtitle that stated this was an attempt to place women in a scientific context with respect to the development of earthquake science.
   But far more disturbing was the author's use of supposition. She presents a whole chapter on her case for Asperger's syndrome as an explaination of Richter's quirks. However, carefully examination of her evidence shows a number of areas where she contradicts herself. Moreover, she spends an enormous amount of time discussing what may or may not have been Richter's ample sex life, including repeated references to an insestous relationship with his sister, which may or may not have occurred.
   Ratheer than coming away from this book with a better understanding of the meshing of the personal and professional life of one of seismology's best known names, we are left with the National Enquirer report on Richter's life.
   The only area in which this book shines is it's final chapter. In it, the author clearly expresses her love and passion for seismology. As an earthquke scientist and educator she has a long and illustrious future ahead of her, that much is clear. However, as a scientist she should have realized how much supposition, in place of fact, might rankle other scientists consuming her product.



2. In "Richter's Scale" seismologist and author Susan Hough presents the first comprehensive biography of Charles Richter, famous for developing the earthquake scale that bears his name. Hough's scholarship is thorough and well-documented, and it seems she has carefully waded through every scrap of paper Richter ever wrote (and he was a compulsive diarist). Richter was a pivotal figure at a pivotal time in the science of seismology, and no historian of 20th century science can afford to ignore this book.
   
   For the general reader, however, "Richter's Scale" may prove tough going. Like Richter himself, the book suffers from a split personality. In part it's a straightforward biography of Richter, and in part a history of the development of major ideas in seismology (at least those that touched on Richter's career). Hough presents extensive evidence to suggest that Richter suffered from some sort of neurological disorder, possibly Asperger's Syndrome (a mild form of autism), and that his interests swung back and forth from science to poetry with manic instensity. If you're primarily interested in the science, be warned that there is an awful lot of poetry in this book!
   
   On the flip side, the book comes up short on some technical background information. Although the book includes numerous photographs, there are no illustrations of seismograms (the squiggles that record earth movements following an earthquake). Chapter nine in particular attempts to describe the importance of the development of a consistent system for measuring earthquakes without maps, seismograms or even data tables. Unless you already have a basic understanding of earthquake science, this chapter might stop you dead in your tracks.
   
   Most of the science in the book is centered around the seismology lab at Cal Tech where Richter spent his entire scientific career. Hough considers at length (although somewhat circumspectly) the jealousy surrounding Richter and his extensive public name recognition. Although Hough provides personal background information about several of Richter's colleagues (particularly Beno Gutenberg), more general descriptions of their scientific contributions could have provided better context. Beno Gutenberg may not be a household name like Charles Richter, but the core-mantle boundary is called the Gutenberg Discontinuity by seismologists. Hugo Benioff is immortalized by Wadati-Benioff Zones, the descending seismic belts that mark subduction zones, and even make their way into freshman textbooks! These guys were hardly obscure.
   
   Books on the history of science that make a great read are either driven by a central idea (Dava Sobel's "Longitude," or David Lindley's "Uncertainty") or by a strong and colorful personality ("Degrees Kelvin", also by David Lindley). In terms of style, Hough has fallen between these two stools. It's as if Richter's intense and divided personality imposed itself on the book.
   
   You won't regret having "Richter's Scale" on your bookshelf, but you may not read the whole thing.



3. Charles Richter is virtually the only seismologist that most of us have heard of, but almost all of us know the name. What, however, was it he did, exactly? And even if it was important, why should we care about his personal life?
   
   Well, his personal life was strange, so the idly curious might be titillated by it. The first question, though, is more directly relevant: Until somebody devised a method of quantifying earthquakes, there was no way to approach any estimate of danger.
   
   Buildings (including not just houses and schools but bridges, highways, dams and power plants) could have been designed to be earthquake-safe without Richter. But the cost can be high, so it would be wasteful to overbuild where the hazard is slight. Underbuilding can be catastrophic. The Tangshan earthquake, as recent as 1976, may have killed 750,000 people. The Chinese government has suppressed the real cost. The 2004 Sumatran quake, on the other hand, which killed close to 200,000, was not so much a matter of building design as of monitoring and evacuation warnings.
   
   So Richter's Scale is a fundamental tool by which to manage our lives. He announced it in 1935. Amazingly, according to geologist turned biographer Susan Elizabeth Hough, many people think it is a machine, like a butcher's scale. It is not a thing but a concept to organize a database.
   
   It took an unusual sort of mind to work out the scale, one capable of holding vast amounts of (at the time) diffuse data, while also having the insight to pick out the relevant relationships among the facts and the application to grind out the numbers. The last was no easy task before the digital computer.
   
   Hough speculates, at great length, that the kind of mind needed is the sort of oddly-wired mechanism found in persons born with Asperger's syndrome. This is speculative, but Richter left all his personal papers to his alma mater, California Institute of Technology, so a great more about Richter's personal demons is known than for most famous people.
   
   Much of it is in the form of poetry -- real poems, with rhymes, regular meter and punctuation. Hough finds his poems somewhat lacking in artistry. That's a matter of taste. I would rate his poetry above almost any winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in the past generation.
   
   If Richter had Asperger's, and if it helped him to do significant science, it also caused him lifelong misery in his personal relationships. Although he wrote much, what he meant was not transparent. Hough has to make many speculative judgments, which she does with skill. Still, it is kind of creepy to probe that deeply into anybody else's mind -- if that, in fact, is what we're doing.
   
   Hough speculates that Richter wanted it done, otherwise he would not have left such intimate data in a public archive. Along with a collection of science fiction magazines going back to earliest days of "Amazing Stories."
   
   "Richter's Scale" is definitely what we stupidly call an "adult" book, but Richter himself, despite an "adult" lifestyle, was in some ways a Peter Pan of seismology.

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

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



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

3 comments about The Third Man of the Double Helix: The Autobiography of Maurice Wilkins.

1. +++++
   
   There is a joke by a famous comedian that asks who the three tenors are. Most people know two of them and the third man is known as "what's his name." The same situation occurs when you ask people who shared the 1962 Noble Prize (in physiology or medicine) for their discovery of the structure of DNA (and other nucleic acid achievements). Most people say, "(Dr.) Watson, (Dr.) Crick, and what's his name."
   
   What's his name is Dr. Maurice Wilkins (1916 to 2004). Most people are unaware that Wilkins was a brilliant physicist (he worked on the Manhattan or Atomic Bomb Project during World War Two) and later on was a biophysicist whose contribution was essential for discovering DNA's structure. Wilkins states this more eloquently: "[My] team of researchers at King's [College, a division of the University of London in the UK] laid the foundations for the double helix structure that Watson and Crick [both of whom worked together in a different UK laboratory] demonstrated so peruasively with their model in 1953."
   
   Wilkins ten chapter autobiography is divided into three parts: those days before, during, and after the discovery of DNA's structure. This book contains almost forty black-and-white photographs. Wilkins' aim in writing this book was to tell his life story (that begins before he was born) and, perhaps more importantly, clear up "the tensions, accusations, confusions, and controversies that have attended the telling and retelling of the DNA story."
   
   I felt that Wilkins was totally honest (and at times naive) throughout this book. Some of the reasons I say he was honest are as follows:
   
   (1) He was an octogenarian when this book was published and thus I feel he had nothing to hide at this advanced age.
   
   (2) He reveals many aspects of his personal life that many people would be reticent to reveal, especially in print. For example, he tells us he "felt a bit suicidal at times."
   
   (3) He says many times that in retrospect "he should of" or "he could of" done things differently. I got the impression that at times he was a bit hard on himself.
   
   (4) Finally, he tells us that both he and Crick found Watson's book "The Double Helix" (1968) "distasteful." They both protested to Watson's publisher. (Wilkins said Watson's book was "badly written, juvenile, and in bad taste.") As a result the book was not published. (However, another publisher published it, and the rest is history.)
   
   Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Wilkins' book (at least for me) was the controversey surrounding Rosalind Franklin (1920 to 1958), an "x-ray [diffraction] specialist" who worked in the same lab as Wilkins. He gives us detailed information of what occurred. From other books (particularly the 1975 book by Ann Sayre), I learned that two major things occurred:
   
   (1) There was tension between Frankin and Wilkins. I got the impression from these other books that this tension was due to personality and gender differences. Not true. Wilkins explains why this tension really arose and gives proof of his assertion.
   
   (2) Wilkins gave a critical X-ray photograph (a reproduction of it is included in Wilkins' book) taken by Franklin to Watson without her permission. This photo gave Watson the concrete evidence for DNA's structure. Again, this is not entirely accurate according to Wilkins.
   
   This critical X-ray photo brings up the question of the recognition Franklin should have received. For example, would she have been a contender for the Nobel Prize? I would say yes if this prize was only for determining the structure of DNA. But, as Wilkins explains, he, Crick, and Watson DID NOT receive the prize for this! I checked this out at the offical Nobel Prize internet site. (Note that the inside front and back flaps of Wilkins' book incorrectly says they were awarded the prize for discovering DNA's structure.)
   
   Even so, was Franklin recognized for her achievements and contributions at this time? Watson and Crick did not recognize her for her achievements in their Nobel Prize lectures. However, Wilkins did recognize her (as well as others who made major contributions) in his lecture. (Their actual lectures can also be found at the official Nobel Prize internet site.)
   
   Finally, I still have a few minor questions regarding Wilkins' story. However, my major question is as follows: "Why did he wait half a century after the discovery of DNA's structure to tell his side of the story?"
   
   In conclusion, this autobiography shows that Wilkins was a decent, honest, and brilliant scientist. He also clears up any misconceptions regarding the discovery of the structure of DNA. Be sure to read this book so as to learn the true story of Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins and the true story of the discovery of the structure of DNA!!
   
   +++++



2. The Third Man--The Autobiography of Maurice Wilkins
   by Maurice Wilkins
   Reviewed by Donald Siano

   Wilkins was involved in one of the watershed scientific events of the twentieth century--the discovery of the double helical structure of DNA. He was the guy who really got the study of the x-ray diffraction studies going, and showed that the features seen were universal to a variety of different organisms, and therefore that it was an important scientific problem. He showed that the structure was probably helical, got Rosilind Franklin started on the problem, and was the link from her to Watson and Crick, who finally made the famous model that shook the world.

   This book, published fifty years after, fills in some of the details of the event, correcting and contesting some claims made by others who have written on it. Some of his corrections are quite convincing. For example, a claim was made in one of the books on this affair that his research group contained only one other female, implying that he was something of a misogynist, while a picture of his laboratory coworkers in the book is about half female.

   The tension between him and Franklin is made much of in historical accounts, and Wilkins unflinchingly covers this, and is pretty hard on himself too. The incident graphically shows how people from very different cultures (Franklin was a rich, pushy Jew) who are ostensibly working on a common goal can fail. Diversity in a laboratory group is not always the asset that the universal dogma asserts. His regrets and "could'a shoulda's" are revealing and even moving at times.

   Another revelation in the book was his involvement in the Communist party, and his flirtation with Freudian psychology. A scientific education unfortunately appears not to immunize one completely from quackery.

   The thing I took away from the book is how the simple stories generated and perpetuated in the mass media and in historical accounts are almost always wrong in important ways. Scientific discoveries and important inventions are almost always complicated events, only part of which is even known and understood by any single writer or even the actors involved. But more than that, practically every writer has his prejudices and angles to massage. Autobiographers are no exception to this, but Wilkins has added to our understanding, and should only be applauded for it.




3. Maurice Wilkins was a first-rate scientist who was deeply involved in the most important scientific discovery of the 20th century- the discovery of the structure of DNA.

   His story needs to be told, since he has been written about often by authors such as Watson, Crick, Anne Sayre, Brenda Maddox and others.

   He was a central figure in the continuing saga of Rosalind

   Franklin and her "Photograph 51", recently the subject of a televison documentary of the same title, and a previous BBC

   special produced by Peter Goodchild some ten years ago.

   He was clearly not the equal of Rosalind Franklin in
   experimental ability, nor of Watson and Crick in their aggressive utilization of the work of others.

   Perhaps the key story of this book was Wilkins' graciously declining co-authorship of the basic DNA Publication in Nature, which also, much to the relief of Watson and Crick, avoided having to acknowledge how they obtained Photograph 51.

   As Sir John Maddox said recently, "If all these publications had arrived at Nature when I was Editor, I would have smelled a rat"

   In any case, Wilkins comes off as a thoroughly decent person, although one wonders why he permitted the consistent publication
   of articles representing Rosalind Franklin as one of his subordinates- which she never was.

2 comments about If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth.

1. All thinking persons now recognize that the deepening crisis of climate change requires urgent action to transform the global economy to a condition whereby most energy is supplied without carbon. All serious energy analysts, including the International Agency Agency (in the public sector) and the World Energy Council (in the private sector) recognize that this clean-energy revolution cannot conceivably be accomplished without nuclear power as a leading and expanding source of such clean energy. All around the world, governments representing some 80% of humankind are comprehending and acting on this reality. Indeed, Ms. Caldicott's own country, Australia, which for decades has been content to burn coal for its electricity, is now moving rapidly to embrace the use of nuclear power. Unfortunately, Ms. Caldicott, long known for her hysterical and myth-ridden anti-nuclear tirades, cannot possibly grasp this truth. Thus, she couples her well-founded concerns about the planet's future to unrealistic prescriptions, which if followed, would propel us into the very catastrophe she fears. This doctor may have diagnosed the disease, but no one should listen to her foolish nostrums concerning the cure. This must be said without qualification: When it comes to climate change, Dr. Caldicott is a quack.



2. You might assume from the title that this book is devoted to environmental issues and solutions. You'd be partially right, but this book is much more. Caldicott also goes into the birth and development of the American corporate machine and of the equally significant public relations industry. Instead of just explaining what's wrong with the planet and what you can do about it, she educates us about how we got where we are, and how our culture of conspicuous consumption came to be.

   This book is a real eye opener and will cause you to question some of your most basic ideas about American society.