5 comments about Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma.

1. From Oppenheimer's childhood days at the Ethical Culture School and the professors that influenced him to his time spent at the Institute towards the end of his life, Bernstein gives an enjoyable and easily readable overview of the physicist's life. Not only focusing on the trial and keeping a good balance between the darker and lighter sides of Oppenheimer personality, Bernstein never truly explores Oppenheimer's psychological problems or attempts to render an explanation for his unusual behavior. Although this might have brought the reader closer to the subject of the book it could be the effect that Bernstein intended as throughout the book Oppenheimer appears to be more than just a man and more of an enigma. The book is also clearly a work of passion from Bernstein who was an acquaintance and intellectual admirer of Oppenheimer's, thus his reason for wanting to write the biography, which makes the book seem biased, although the author does do a good job of distinguishing the biases of his sources. Overall the book was very enjoyable and I actually looked forward to reading it. Considering my limited knowledge of the physics behind the atomic bomb project I could understand and learn what happened relatively easy. This book is perfect for anyone wanting to know more about the contributions to the Los Alamos project and Oppenheimer's life with some understanding of physics and chemistry.



2. Not knowing anything about Oppenheimer, I thought I'd dive in with Jeremy Bernstein's short bio. With Bernstein's credentials as a long time writer for the New Yorker, and as a physicist who knew Oppenheimer, this looked like a great intro.
   
   I couldn't be more wrong. Sadly, this is a poorly written, poorly edited book. Bernstein's credentials intrude embarassingly often as he frequently inserts inconsequential and irrelevant asides with anecdotes about when he perchance met someone in the narrative. He comes across as self-aggrandizing (and without merit - ouch!).
   
   That aside, he also writes poorly, not knowing how to organize his story, when to provide details, etc. I can't imagine I've ever read a book (especially a short 200 page essay) with so many awkward forward references: "I will come back to the matter ..." occurs far too many times for readibility. On the other hand, he will detour into a technical explanation of Plutonium-239 v Plutonium-240, then not use the information for any apparent purpose.
   
   All that said, I can imagine that real students of Oppenheimer might find this interesting precisely for the odd tidbits he may offer that aren't in any other bios or narratives of the time. Such students also will find it easier to navigate through his disorganized narrative of the hearing and so forth. More general readers should look elsewhere. I myself will be trying Brotherhood of the Bomb next.



3. It has seemed to me for a long time that Oppenheimer's life story, what little we know of it, would be an excellent resource - a lumberyard of plots and characters -- for a spy novelist of great talent and deep knowledge of real espionage, like John LeCarré.
   
   It is easy to guess what LeCarré would do with this material: He would write a novel about a double agent.
   
   This spare, succinct biographical essay about Oppenheimer is not as compelling as Bernstein's wonderful book about Albert Einstein. But then, Oppenheimer seems to have been much less interesting than Einstein -- as a physicist.
   
   The fascination with Oppenheimer arises, not from his physics, but from his technological and administrative accomplishment in creating the atomic bomb; from his leftist politics; from his love affair; and from his apparent victimization by communist hunters and by Edward Teller. It is a story with a lot of conflict, betrayal of and by old friends, a lot of sneaking around, and a lot of pomping around, too.
   
   Oppenheimer worked in great secrecy during the war, so there is a huge hole in his life from the standpoint of writing biography. You get glimpses, and a before-and-after picture of who he was. A man seen through prisms. In general he seems to have been a curious sort of fellow - a golden boy all his life.
   
   I do think that biography is simply the wrong form for a book about Oppenheimer. He led a substantially secret life, and he led it a long time ago. Only a novelist would have the freedom to fill in the many and enormous blanks.
   
   This book is a good read and it pares down a lot of the story to details that might indeed be useful - even crucial -- to a novelist who might be penning the story of a double agent. Given the sudden tide of new books about Oppenheimer, perhaps one of these days we'll get just such a novel.
   
   On page 1 you would find the strange scene of the lover's suicide but in the novel, of course, it would not be a suicide but an assassination accomplished, in wartime, by an agent or agents of a nation at war -- but which nation?
   
   And so forth.
   
   Highly recommended. Just understand that story doesn't cohere. This is just because it is perforce restricted to the knowable facts.
   



4. Robert Oppenheimer's life ties into three enormous dramas of the 20th century: the ascendancy of particle physics as a huge, thrilling new area of human knowledge . . . the creation of the atomic bomb . . . and the McCarthy-era struggles over Communist threats both real and imagined. As a result, Oppenheimer's life story appears most often in the midst of hugely detailed, panoramic books that go on for 600 pages or more. The best of these are great reading, but sometimes they're overwhelming.
   
   Jeremy Bernstein has inadvertently (see below) created something very different. His book is a slim 240 pages that takes us through Oppenheimer's life and times very briskly. Oppenheimer's status as a child prodigy? Noted for a paragraph or two, and then WHOOSH!, we're off to something new. Oppenheimer's doomed romance with Communist-minded Jean Tatlock? Discussed directly for a few pages and alluded to periodically, but hardly dissected hour by hour.
   
   Sometimes that brevity is very welcome. Bernstein writes lucidly about the culture of Berkeley and Los Alamos, making a few words count for a lot. He provides deft primers on the necessary physics, aiming at the lay reader who had at least a smattering of physics in high school or college but who doesn't subscribe to (or get published in!) Physics Today. In those sections, he shows the sure hand of a long-time New Yorker staff writer known for his science profiles.
   
   But in other areas, Bernstein either says too little or isn't sure what he's saying. He presents Oppenheimer as a "leftwandering" intellectual in the 1930s, accidentally dabbling in Communist circles -- without really saying anything persuasive about why Oppenheimer would do this, or how much/how little it affected him. He also writes about the controversies over early H-bomb development in a way that is so stridently anti-Teller that it made me wonder: "What's the other half of this story?"
   
   Bernstein also doesn't show a sure hand in writing about the McCarthy-era hearings that led to the loss of Oppenheimer's security clearance. He quotes at length from hearing transcripts. But he has a hard time explaining persuasively why each character chose the path he or she did. At times, Bernstein reduces Oppenheimer's opponents to ridiculous caricatures, making fun of their clothes, their educations and their diction. We learn too much about the author's prejudices, and not enough about what America was like in 1954.
   
   Jeremy Bernstein was just coming of age as a scientist in the 1950s, and the book includes at least a dozen fleeting anecdotes of his encounters with key players in the story. Sadly, almost all of them are inconsequential. They distract rather than illuminate.
   
   In some introductory remarks, Bernstein explains that he had wanted to write something substantial about Oppenheimer for many years, but felt stymied again and again. As the book's subtitle itself suggests, the author's greatest problems lay in figuring out Oppenheimer's motivations, fears and dreams.
   
   Those challenges remain largely unsolved in this biography. Yet for anyone wanting the essentials of Oppenheimer's life in a very readable, slim book -- this passes the test.



5. What I found as an "enigma" after reading this book is how
   other people thought that this was a good book! There is nothing
   here that has not been discussed elsewhere. I would recommend "Brotherhood of the Bomb" to learn about Oppenheimer and his contemporaries.

5 comments about John Glenn: A Memoir.

1. Excellent biography of a space pioneer. You will enjoy this book, even though the author went to the "dark side" later in life. At least he interjects very little of his liberal bias into the book.



2. Absolutely my hero. I was (-1) when he flew his first flight, and love all of the Mercury Astronauts. John Glenn is the finest example of the GOOD that this country can produce. If there were more men like him, we would be weaned off of oil, and would have maintained our preeminence in the world as a respected country- instead of living off of the labors of our fathers without much contribution. It is interesting that John Glenn is the oldest of the Mercury 7, yet has managed to outlive almost all of them (as of Jan 19, 2008) except for Scott Carpenter!
   
   Please read this book, and discover the possibilities that a disciplined life and an honest-to-goodness sincere human being can give.



3. * There is a great story to be told about John's life and this book does a decent, straightforward job.
   * The writing isn't perfect, but it works...especially in audiobook format, where the author presents the material
   * There are no revalations here. It seems like a Disney version of his life at times, but it is an enjoyable read.



4. A great story and I am glad that I read it. However, my admiration for Glenn would have been far higher had I stopped a hundred or so pages from the end. Getting reacquainted with Glen as a young man, Marine fighter pilot and then astronaut was to see the very best. In addition to all his accomplishments his relationship with his wife was a great tribute to those left behind.
   
   Glenn's story of becoming a Marine fighter pilot through sheer resolve was enlightening. His flying in the Pacific during and after WW2 was an interesting look at the era, as was the description of their flying in China when Stilwell was attempting to get the communists to live up to their agreements. Finally the Vietnam like escape from China by train with Glen and his fellow Marine pilots providing low air cover.
   
   Too soon after the end of WW2 we were back in Korea and Glenn is in the front seat, flying both Marine ground attack aircraft and USAF Sabres. Again Glenn does his tour of duty with the Marines and then arranges to fly Sabres against the Migs.
   
   Within a few years after Korea the Russians were overhead with Sputnik and the world changed again. Glenn's description of the initial testing of the astronauts adds some interesting insights.
   
   Although the book was presumably written in its entirety after his return from space, the man changes with his election to the Senate. Perhaps the changes are even appearing in his post mortem on his campaigns. Most of the blame is shifted away from the leader.
   
   Later as the book covers his years in the Senate the change continues. While he literally demanded that his fellow astronauts give up their road romances because they were both wrong and threatened the public's support of the program. However a few years after hanging out with Bill Clinton the book suddenly offers the standard Clintonian spin that what people do behind their bedroom doors is not public. What is even more amazing is that Glenn seems to gloss over his critical role in protecting Clinton from being removed from office after he was impeached.
   
   Glenn does off the tidbit that while he and John McCain were deemed to not be involved with the Keating scandal, his fellow democrats would not acknowledge that because to release Glenn they would have to release McCain and then they would have only democrats ( Cranston et al) left. Having been advised that Keating was under criminal investigation Glenn ( unlike McCain) maintains a relationship and even hosts a private lunch for Keating in his office. All of this is covered in the book with a little too much self serving cover to earn the respect of the reader.
   
   Glenn the Marine officer would have been outraged if the generals had summoned his career enlisted personnel and asked them why they were complaining about the performance of an airplane made by a friend. Yet Glenn sees none of the destructive impact of 5 senators demanding that a civil servant appear to explain why a major donor is being investigated. A sad transition.
   
   Glenn blames his campaign organization for failing him in his run for the presidency after he was a leading contender among the democrats. If you can't run your own campaign staff how are you going to run the nation?
   
   I agree with the prior writer that Glenn's return to space was a pure and simple reward by Clinton for his having taken the heat. A sad ending to an otherwise heroic life of great accomplishments.
   
   Recommended but be prepared for a letdown at the end.



5. After seeing "The Right Stuff" I became intrigued with the Mercury Seven astronauts and wanted to read everything I could about them and when I saw John Glenn's autobiography I immediately snatched it up and pored through the pages! What a great and exciting life John lived! Poring through the pages I hung on every word and lived his experiences vicariously as he described them...I can only imagine how he felt when he was picked to be one of the 7 Mercury astronauts...He was in a elite group that was beginning to embark on a major adventure into a new frontier...How exciting that must have been! John's book to me was better than the movie..He talks bout his childhood days and test pilot years and ends with a wonderful passage on flying back into space again at the ripe old age of 77..What an inspiring book! If you are looking for inspiration..pick this book up and read about ambition and hard work and focus ande see what all these things can do for your life! John...thanks for being a great role model!

5 comments about Five Quarts: A Personal and Natural History of Blood.

1. Bill Hayes does a wonderful job of exploring our concepts of blood and sharing his experiences. I feel this book should be required reading for phlebotomists - I am one and found the book on my own and loved it!



2. Rarely have I encountered so unflinchingly honest a book. Mr. Hayes has an exceptionally complex relationship with blood; his partner of fourteen years is HIV positive while Mr. Hayes remains HIV free. Therefore, the book falls squarely into its own unique category--it is a journal of discoveries both personal and scientific. Its power is found in the author's candor as he shares his journey of discovery.
   
   The personal dimension of this book is surprisingly vast. Though it does treat the science to the degree one would expect, the scientific and historical discussion is but the lesser portion. The true context lies in the author's expressed need to know what blood is all about and his discovery of how blood-related knowledge has shaped his life. The intensely personal nature of the work gives a depth to the discussion not present in the expected general science genre.
   
   Though the author's frank treatment of his sexual orientation and personal history were startling, it can safely be said that Five Quarts is much more than a memoir and certainly more than the typical general science/history offering. Five Quarts was truly a rare and welcome find.



3. We could be corny and tout this as the kind of book you'll sink your teeth into, but that seems so bloody obvious. Instead we'll say that Five Quarts is a damn good read. Author Bill Hayes uses his HIV-positive status to springboard into a pulsating exploration --- as fascinating as it is frightening, as humorous as it is harrowing --- of the cultural, historical, spiritual and medical myths, misconceptions and marvels of blood. From the legend of Dracula to the scared saga of the Eucharist, from a heart-warming bedside visit with a woman suffering from hemophilia to a look inside a blood bank ... there's lots of interesting and informative on this plate(let).



4. Author Hayes mixes science, philosophy and a lot of personal intimacy in this interesting book on blood. A strange subject (though not the strangest around--a recent bestseller is about cadavers.) We have five quarts of the red stuff--hence the title.
   
   The book starts with Bill getting a cut. But then we go on a journey about hemophila and history (the royal house of Great Britain) and we learn about bloodletting, blood banks, and ultimately the AIDS epidemic.
   
   While I would prefer more science and less personal information in a treatise on a scientific subject, that's just me (I studied biology and immunology for quite some years.) But for a non-science-steeped reader, this is a fascinating look at the stuff of life. Recommended, though not for the squeamish.



5. This is a very well written book. If you are looking for an intelligent, but entertainng read...This is the book.

5 comments about Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution.

1. This book is a great introduction to Charles Darwin, the human being.
   
   So often we think of Darwin as a thinker, a philosopher, a scientist, a villain, a hero, and associate him only with the theory of evolution that we don't think at all about him as a real person. We never bother comtemplating who Darwin was or where he was coing from.
   
   This book explores the life, lifestyle and personality of Charles Darwin and looks at the forces that shaped him and his writings. His love for his children, his grief over the loss of his beloved daughter from a painful chronic disease, his struggle with the idea of faith in God, his doubts about the meaning of life, all come together to introduce us to Darwin like no other books before has done.
   
   Anyone at all interested in Charles Darwin, his writings or evolution must read this book. The reader will stop thinking of him as a caricature and start seeing him as a human man.
   
   Superbly done!



2. Currently, there is a lot of talk about as well as charges being hurled at the theory of evolution. There are people who are evolutionists pure and simple. There are the doubters who go along with the theory because nobody has a better explanation. And, there is the intelligent design crowd. "Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution" written by a descendant of Charles Darwin does a great service to the humanization of the misunderstood gentleman scientist. It also brings to light the social climate of Victorian England. But most of all it shows Darwin as a family man with the fears and self-doubt that all parents experience especially when confronted with illness of a child. You will learn more about the process of a genius at work as well as get to know a truly gentle man.



3. Not long ago I reviewed a book on Alfred Russell Wallace, In Darwin's Shadow, where I suggested that Wallace's life had probably been a happier one. A reader of that review suggested that this was not necessarily the case, and suggested that I do further research on Darwin's personal life. When I discovered the book Darwin, his Daughter, and Human Evolution by Randal Keynes, a descendant of both Charles Darwin (who was his great-great grandfather) and the economist John Maynard Keynes, I felt that I had found a gold mine. Privileged to the access to family documents and memoirs, Keynes was able to do a very thorough work on the private life of the Darwin family, and a creditable discussion of the effect of Darwin's experiences as a husband and father on his theory of evolution.

   Above all the book is a charming visit to the Victorian era and a lovely story of a devoted family of that time. The more tragic events that occurred in the Darwin household were not unknown to many families up and down the social scale. The loss of their second child shortly after birth, the death of the ten year old Annie, the birth and death of a Downe's syndrome child later in their life, were all events that occurred in other households as well. Probably more unusual was the closeness of the husband and wife, and the involvement of Darwin with the upbringing of his children, although these aspects are similar to those of the lives of Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert. One wonders if these situations were just unusual or if one has a skewed sense of family in the Victorian age.

   Above all, the intense observations Darwin made of his growing children and the sometimes painful conclusions with respect to evolutionary theory that these studies reinforced were surprising to me. I would tend to agree with the author that his family did have a profound impact on Darwin's theories.

   I thank the individual who suggested further research on Darwin and his personal history.

   For THOSE WRITING PAPERS: in biography, history, evolution studies, sociology. Compare some of the other biographies of Victorian era individuals. Can one create a sense of the character of a society by studying individuals? How might the fact that they were unique enough to rate a biography at all prejudice ones view of society by doing this? Were Darwin, Wallace, Victoria and Albert, and other famous individuals "characteristic" of their age? Look at biographies like In Darwin's Shadow, Victoria's Daughters, and Darwin, his Daughter, and Human Evolution and suggest how family has an impact on scientific discovery, politics, philosophy, or other aspects of the human endeavor. Do you think that the theory of evolution would have been the same had Darwin and Russell switched places socially?




4. Having no real knowledge of Charles Darwin beyond myths and some sketchy memories of high school science, I was eager to read this book and finally become acquainted with the Charles Darwin, the man.

   Randal Keynes did not disappoint. His access to a veritable treasure trove of family journals, letters, and records allows Keynes to develop a fully dimensional, complex individual who far exceeds the simple titles of "Evolutionist", "atheist," or any other ordinary label. Far from being a simple scientist (one of the myths dispelled in the book) or a once devout minister-in-training-turned-atheist (another myth), Darwin here is presented as a man of great warmth, devotion, and intellect.

   Especially appealing to me was the emphasis Keynes places on Darwin's family life, as opposed to a lengthy discussion of his evolutionary theory. Darwin comes across as a fun, playful, adoring father whose very real grief over the death of his daughter may well have been a turning point in his thinking about God and the nature of the human condition.

   Anyone who dismisses out of hand Darwin's theories as mere instruments by which to bring about the fall of Christianity must read this book. Darwin's struggles with the deepest philosophical issues, i.e. human suffering, the nature of evil, God, and redemption, are all discussed with sincerety even as they are backed up with evidence from Darwin's journals and letters. Those who insist on tagging Mr. Darwin with simple labels will be surprised by this revealing look at the real man.

   The writing is clear, clever, and refrains from striking a tone either too sentimental or one inclined toward evolutionary apologetics. Definitely a worthwhile read.




5. My own ideas about Charles Darwin and his contributions to science were quite frankly limited to a week of study in high school natural sciences, long since forgotten. The ideas I had of him came from popular culture rather than my own investigations. Unsure whether to brand him a revolutionary atheist plotting to bring down Christianity or a zealous naturalist merely satisfying his own curiousity, I was eager to read what Keynes, a well pedigreed descendant of Darwin, had to say.

   Privy to notes, letters, journals, and other information heretofor unseen, Keynes casts the familiar image of Charles Darwin in a new light. The man who emerges from this portrait is unexpected in many ways. A singularly devoted father and husband, Darwin's greatest joys came from ordinary family life. Romping with his large brood, noting details small and grand in their development and children, tenderly corresponding with his beloved wife Emma during their few seperations, Darwin was no cold and ruthless scientist out to cripple the faith of the believers. Keynes portrays him as a man brimming with affection, kindness, and love. Annie, the daughter alluded to in the book's title, remains mysterious in many ways; but what is entirely evident is that grief over her untimely death haunted Darwin until the end of his days.

   Keynes so sensitively discusses Darwin's struggles with faith, God, and the human condition that he manages to obliterate the undeserved assumptions I carried with me to the biography. Darwin did not, as many assume, dismiss out of hand the notion of God. Quite to the contrary, he struggled with profound questions about God and lived out his life with a healthy respect for his wife and family's religious ideology even after he could no longer conscientiously participate in it. Darwin's struggles with the Christian faith were based on the central issue of human suffering, and its meaning. His firsthand knowledge of pain and suffering made him acutely aware of the human condition and indeed, of suffering of "all sentient beings... What advantage can there be in the sufferings of the millions of lower animals...?" Even at the end of life, Darwin remained uncertain about the existence and nature of God. Unwilling to use the framework that Neitzsche embraced by pronouncing "God is dead", Darwin instead admitted that he simply did not know and perhaps could not understand.

   Keynes' portrayal of Charles Darwin is a welcome addition to any biography shelf, if only for the incredible amount of personal writings he is able to include.

5 comments about The First Scientist: A Life of Roger Bacon.

1. So little is known about the real life of Friar Bacon that the author is obliged to make up many details of his life, based on speculation and inference. The stories feel like they could be credible, but one is reminded that the subtitle of this book is "A Life of Roger Bacon" not "THE Life of Roger Bacon."
   
   In order to fill out a scanty bushel of facts the author delves into Medieval politics, alchemy, early church struggles et cetera, giving the reader a fairly good grounding in the times of Roger Bacon. Nevertheless, I think it would have been very possible to delve deeper into Bacon's five known works to dissect where he anticipated Renaissance science, where he hewed to Bible-based orthodoxy, and where he went off on flights of fancy. The analysis of his works -- which ARE known -- is a bit light in the loafers.



2. I really wanted to like this book: Mr. Clegg obviously has a deep respect for his subject and is eager to share it with the reader. Unfortunately, a combination of sometimes sloppy writing skills and a dearth of information add up to a mostly mediocre biography. When I say information is scarce, I mean it: very, very little is known about the specifics of Bacon's life; the vast majority of this book is conjecture. We know Bacon went from A to B to A to C, and that's more or less it--Clegg sees fit to fill in the details again and again. This would be okay if it weren't pure guesswork most of the time. On top of this, particularly toward the end, the writing style becomes strained and stretched out like a college term-paper. It's as if the author is grabbing at straws to convince you that Bacon was indeed the first scientist. It's a shame that these problems overshadow what is otherwise a very interesting book on a very interesting subject from a very interesting time period. I hope one day we'll see a major biography of this strange, precocious man with the proper research to back it up. Until then, The First Scientist will do, if you keep in mind its flaws.
   
   Although I really do love the book design.



3. This is an excellent work for historians and science buffs.
   It describes a friar who lived in the 13th century. Roger Bacon
   predicted horseless carriages and telescopes. He is one of the
   first scientists to link science with the experimental method.
   Early in life, he studied astronomy, grammar, mathematics,
   music, logic and rhetoric. He presented a fairly detailed
   earth map. The work describes his incarceration for teachings
   contrary to the orthodoxy of the day. This work would make
   a perfect class project for students in grammar or high school.



4. The great thing about this book is it's not over-academic like practically everything else I've seen about Bacon, but rather gives a real insight into the man and his times. If you are at all interested in science, where it comes from and the people who made it happen this book should be on your have-to-buy list!



5. I found Brian Clegg's biography of Roger Bacon to be a good introduction for anyone wishing to understand the great man's life and work, and the times in which he lived. However, this book seemed to me to be too focused on Bacon as a precursor of the Scientific Revolution, and at times I would question the depth (although not necessarilly the breadth) of Clegg's understanding of ancient and medieval science. Whilst the author has obviously done a lot of research, and his admiration for his subject shines through at every page, this is not a truly scholarly life of Bacon that would be of great use to academics. But, having said this, I would still recommend this book for anyone coming at Bacon for the first time.

5 comments about Hilbert.

1. Constance Reid is a non-mathematician author, so she is the best person who can explain the 'abstract' modern math to the curious non-mathematicians. By following the book on the Greatest mathematician in 20th AD, the readers can understand the major development of Modern Math evolved around Hilbert and all the world's top mathematicians gathered in Gottingen before WWII.
   Most of us learn abstract math without knowing the background from which these abstract concepts were derived. In this book (chapter VI: Changes) I learn from Reid the simple yet revealing explanation of 'Ideals' being born out of conflict of 'Algebraic Number Field' with the 'Fundamental Law of Arithmetics', and Kummer's Ideal Number, Kronecker and Dedekind's complicated 'Ideal Primes', and finaly David Hilbert's great contribution in the 'Ideal Primes' theory.



2. A excellent biography of the German mathematician David Hilbert. Particularly poignant is the loss of Minknowski and the decline of mathematics at Gottingen following the Nazi prosecutions.



3. David Hilbert was arguably one of the greatest mathematicians
   ever!. He contributed to several branches of mathematics,
   including functional analysis, mathematical physics,
   calculus of variations, and algebraic number theory.
   (Everyone knows what a Hilbert space is right!)

   At the turn of the 20th century, Hilbert enumerated
   23 unsolved problems of mathematics that he considered worthy
   of further investigation. To this day, very few of these, including
   the 10th problem, on the finite solvability of Diophantine
   equations, have been resolved! (thanks to
   Yuri Matiyasevich, Martin Davis and Julia Robinson!).
   Besides, Hilbert was also a character (read the section
   when Norbert Weiner of cybernetics fame, came to give
   a talk at Gottingen, and .... :-)).

   Incidentally the author Constance Reid is the sister of
   Julia Robinson (of Hilbert's 10th problem fame!),
   hence there can no one better to write about
   Hilbert!. Besides Constance Reid is a well known chronicler
   of mathematicians lives (this one is a tour de force and
   her best!).

   No one can can call himself/herself a mathematician without
   having Reid's book on his/her bookshelf. Strongly
   recommended!




4. David Hilbert was arguably one of the greatest mathematicians
   ever!. He contributed to several branches of mathematics,
   including functional analysis, mathematical physics,
   calculus of variations, and algebraic number theory.
   (Everyone knows what a Hilbert space is right!)

   At the turn of the 20th century, Hilbert enumerated
   23 unsolved problems of mathematics that he considered worthy
   of further investigation. To this day, very few of these, including
   the 10th problem, on the finite solvability of Diophantine
   equations, have been resolved! (thanks to
   Yuri Matiyasevich, Martin Davis and Julia Robinson!).
   Besides, Hilbert was also a character (read the section
   when Norbert Weiner of cybernetics fame, came to give
   a talk at Gottingen, and .... :-)).

   Incidentally the author Constance Reid is the sister of
   Julia Robinson (of Hilbert's 10th problem fame!),
   hence there can no one better to write about
   Hilbert!. Besides Constance Reid is a well known chronicler
   of mathematicians lives (this one is a tour de force and
   her best!).

   No one can can call himself/herself a mathematician without
   having Reid's book on his/her bookshelf. Strongly
   recommended!




5. "Hilbert" is justly famous as one of the best mathematical biographies around. Constance Reid, who also wrote a biography of Hilbert's student Courant, initially ran into some resistance from Hilbert's associates when she started work on this book. Max Born was not keen on the idea of a woman, who was neither German nor a mathematician, writing a study of Hilbert's life. Born was enthusiastic about the final product, however, and it has become a classic.

   Hilbert took over from Poincare the title of the most famous mathematician in the world. His mathematical achievements are numerous and varied; Reid does a good job of providing an overview of the impact Hilbert had on many different fields, and of his style; his strengths and weaknesses. There is a good deal of coverage of the famous twenty-three Hilbert problems, presented to the Second International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900, including a large section of the talk Hilbert gave.

   Reid paints a vivid picture of the mathematical circle at Gottingen, a luminous collection of talents. Minkowski and Hilbert were close friends; Klein was the director of the institute there; Emmy Noether was there; Hurwitz; Zermelo; Landau; the list is long and impressive. It's all the more sad to read about the way the Institute was destroyed by the Nazis in the name of racial purity. Almost without exception the leading mathematicians emigrated, one by one, to America. Hilbert, who had retired in 1930 (retirement at age 68 was mandatory) was forced to watch as the work of decades was dismantled. The last years, of age, fading memory and the privations of war, are mercifully given less than a dozen pages.

   Hilbert's life leads from the great days of the mid-nineteenth century to the Nazis and the atomic bomb. Reid has done a wonderful job of capturing the feel of Germany over his long life, and the mathematic impact and importance of his work. A compulsory book for those interested in modern mathematical history.

No comments about The Rules of the Game: Scraps (Leiris, Michel, Regle Du Jeu. 2.).

5 comments about Alfred Tarski: Life and Logic (Cambridge Concise Histories).

1. This book demolishes absurd myths about mathematicians, that they are dull in personality, possess mechanistic minds and exhibit little in the manner of emotion. Alfred Tarski was one of the greatest mathematical minds of the twentieth century and in many ways he was also a demanding scoundrel. He openly had extra-marital affairs, even to the point where he would bring the women home to meet his wife Maria. She had to have been one of the most tolerant and understanding of souls. When Maria finally left him, it had as much to do with his domestic demands as to his sexual (mis)adventures.
   Not only was Tarski fortunate in his choice of mate, he was also very lucky to have lived when he did. In the modern academic world, his constant sexual advances to his female students would have gotten him fired very quickly, which brings up another irony. In the middle of the twentieth century, the expression of homosexuality was grounds for termination and ridicule, the authors are very clear about the activities of some of the gay friends of Tarski. One was even robbed once and then murdered later as a consequence of being gay. Yet, Tarski was free to seduce females with impunity, as he made no secret of his actions. At the start of the twenty-first century, expressing homosexuality is accepted and any sexual activity between a professor and student is grounds for termination.
   The authors have used an effective structure in creating this book. The passages containing the heavy mathematics have chapter headings called interludes and the biographical sections are given specific titles. This allows the reader with little experience in logic to avoid the heavy mental lifting.
   Alfred Tarski was a genius and very lucky in many ways, most specifically in his choice of wife. He also lived at a time when sex with your students was at least a tolerated perk of being a professor. Arrogant, cranky, opinionated and adored, he cut a swath through the mathematical community that will keep him remembered as long as mathematics is practiced and studied. A blunt and accurate biography, this book depicts Tarski as thoroughly Polish, brilliant, an egomaniac, a lifelong drug user, tolerant of "alternative" lifestyles and as both a positive and negative role model. It is the most entertaining biography of a mathematician that I have ever read.



2. Fabulous! Alfred Tarski was one of the two greatest mathematical logicians of the twentieth century. (The other was Kurt Gödel.) Solomon Feferman, a student of Tarki's in the early fifties and a friend for over twenty years throughout the rest of Tarski's life, is himself one of most outstanding logicians of our day. Anita Feferman, Solomon Feferman's wife, is the author of the tremendously exciting biography of the logician and bodyguard to Leon Trotsky, Jean van Heijenoort: "From Trotsky to Gödel". (I know it's difficult to believe that a logician could also have been Trotsky's bodyguard; her book must be read to be believed!)
   Clearly, this Tarski biography is a labor of love. I completely agree with those reviewers who have explained in detail why this book reads in places more like an exciting novel than a mere biography. What I found very impressive was the beautiful, delicate balance of the book between Tarski's mathematical accomplishments on the one hand and the daily features of his personal life on the other. He was not just a mathematician but rather a force of nature, a tornado, who swept everyone around him in his wake. Students, other mathematicians, university administrators, friends, colleagues, and especially women were all pulled into his mathematical and personal whirlwind.
   No praise would be excessive for this outstanding book!



3. To be honest, I started reading this book with some suspicion. In the first place, I was neither a fan of Tarski nor of S.Feferman. Though I did regard Tarski as one of the intellectual giants in the 20th century, I still frowned at the book's opening description of him as one of the "greatest" logicians of all time - on a par with my own hero Godel. My feeling towards S.Feferman was similarly ambivalent. In spite of his substantial contribution as the editor-in-chief of Godel's Collected Works and the universal praise he has received for that project, its end-result (the project was abandoned for running out of supports in 2005) is seriously lacking. For one thing, after almost 30 years' work the huge bulk of Godel's Nachlass in Gabelsberger (an almost extinct German shorthand) has been left unpublished (although approximately half of it has already been transcripted). It seems that more emphasis had been given by the editors and their colleague commentators on INTERPRETING Godel rather than making the inaccessible original material available to the wider public. I have always doubted the wisdom of Feferman's chief-editorship on this and other issues
   
   Nevertheless, Feferman turns out to be a much more successful co-biographer of Tarski than an editor of Godel. The Tarski book goes far beyond my expectation. I simply couldn't put it down and went without sleeps for several nights until my eyes could no longer tolerate my indulgence. The reading has made Tarski an immensely more interesting figure to me - almost as interesting and intriguing as the enigmatic Godel. This aftermath is something which I could never have anticipated in my wildest dreams beforehand.
   
   Since I agree with much of the praises from the Amazon Editorial and Customer Reviews of the book, I don't think it desirable to re-enumerate the book's various merits which others have already done. Needless to say, the book is not perfect and leaves much that is desired unaccounted. For one thing, although the book does present an interesting picture of the development of logic in the last century, it is presented from the Fefermans' highly personalized viewpoint and very one-sided. For example, from the book the reader will only get a very uninformed idea of the development of set theory which happens to be both Tarski's lifelong "hobby" and a source of intellectual uneasiness since he had a certain (though ambivalent perhaps, for he sometimes spoke in a Platonist tone) nominalist temperament while set theory is prima facie concerned with highly transfinite objects and often pursued by pronounced "realists" like Cantor, Zermelo, Godel (who was in effect described insane when Tarski declared himself as "the greatest living sane logician" ) et al. It is arguable that similar tension should also occur in Model Theory where Tarski reigned. But there is no discussion on this issue. It will also be interesting to know how Tarski reacted towards the epoch-making invention of forcing by P.Cohen in 1963, when the former was still an active researcher. The Fefermans say almost nothing on this either, although S.Feferman himself was one of the earliest developers of forcing immediately after Cohen. My own conjecture is that, like Godel, Tarski did not take forcing to be FUNDAMENTAL. Godel almost had a proof of the independence of the axiom of choice in the 1940s, but he abandoned the project partly because he did not want to encourage other logicians to plunge into a pursuit of independence proofs instead of trying to discover and develop new, further TRUE axioms of mathematics. Presumably the nominalist (by lips?) Tarski will perceive the issue very differently from the Platonist Godel. Yet the book gives us little clues about such and various other issues.
   
   Paradoxically, it is precisely from the frankly personalized and unsystematic viewpoints of the Fefermans and other intimates of Tarski that we find much that is valuable. Moreover, unlike the Godel case, the authors did not forget to let the protagonist to present himself. And in spite of its moderate length and lack of comprehensiveness the book does manage to weave abundant insights into their captivating story of this intriguing man who is, given all his unconventional acts and deeds notwithstanding, first and foremost "powered by his ideas" (as Peter Hoffman puts it) with an extraordinary self-confidence throughout his life. It is amidst this web of insights that we are granted some of those very rare glimpses into the mind of a genius that so few biographers have ever accomplished.



4. unlike all the previous praises this book seems to have gotten, i was not impressed by it. the book is an account of tarski the academician as seen/experienced by his phd students one of whom is the co-author himself.
   
   the book is an account of tarski's academic life which is apparently believed to be best reflected through his students' eyes. this account fails to put in anything else. even what his son and daughter have to say is missing for the most part. there are many things which go unexplained or unquestioned:
   1. why was tarski so much into nature?
   2. why was he obsessed with rigor and formality? just stating an observation and looking for the reasons of that observation makes the difference between a fact telling book on the verge of being a mere factoid and an intriguing/enriching one. this book is unfortunately as shallow as can be when it comes to some psychological assessments.
   3. why was tarski a womanizer? was he really that or did he like portraying himself as one?
   4. was he a tyrant and if so, why?
   
   the authors make a huge deal out of the fact that he was a jew. can it be that this whole emphasis on his religious and ethnic origin is anachronic in nature? maybe he just did not care, really. why did he choose catholicism? just because? or was he so ambitious that he did not really have any ground rules at all? in the end, these questions all go unanswered.
   
   giving 5 stars for such a shallow book is unwarranted and is an unjust blow to some successful biographies such as the enigma (about alan turing) crafted by andrew hodges.



5. Feferman made a great work in this book to show another facet of Tarski's logic. Usually, Tarski is associated with set theory, notwithstanding his main interest was algebraic. He didn't trust to the set-theoretic concept of individual; as a matter of fact, in boolean algebras where's no individuals at all. It's a mereological point of view, according to which what it's given aren't the parts, but the whole. An atom is what we obtain, as a limit concept, dividing endlessy a corp. One of the first papers by Tarski was on the foundation of geometry assuming as a primitive entity that of sphere (i.e. the whole). And his latest book was again on the relational algebra. We must thank the polish logician for his research on this aresa: relational algebras, boolean algebras with operators, cylindric algebras, etc.
   
   I don't agree with Feferman only on a point: this way to approach logic come to Tarski from Lesniewski and not from Kotarbinski. This is not the place, unfortunately, to discuss this matter.
   
   At any rate, the book is delightful, precise but very easy to read.

5 comments about The Queen's Conjurer: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Adviser to Queen Elizabeth I.

1. For 25 years I have read & collected everything on John Dee I could find, even to the point of ordering the Sloan MSS fron the British museum. My only complaint about this effort is that it wasn't longer. It reads like a novel. This is the daily life of one of the most fascinating people in British history. Occultists will get clarity on the nature of the Angelic workings, Alchemists get a glimpse of the nature of the craft, students of history are drawn into the gritty reality of fifteenth century Europe. This book carried me through from beginning to end in only two sittings. I couldn't put it down. Well done Woolley!



2. I have always found Dr. John Dee to be one of the most intriguing characters of Elizabethan times. Yet, there seemed to be so little information available about him, only bits and pieces and rumors- often spread by his enemies. Here is a most satisfying biography that not only gives you a complete look at the Doctor's life, but is also supplemented with a wealth of associated detail and historical background. This book turns Dee from a shadowy character to a real man, a great man.

   What comes across is the amazing breadth and depth of Dee's interests and scholarship. He was already famed for his remarkable intellect and ability as a student at Cambridge. At a time when most scholars barely processed a reading knowledge of bad Latin, he mastered classical Greek to be able to read the forgotten works of Plato and Pythagoras. He was a personal friend and correspondent to the great men of the age such as Tycho Brahe and Mercator. Dee himself was famed as a great mathematician in Europe (at a time when simple trigonometry was almost unknown in England.) He was offered high positions at the great courts of Europe, but turned these offers down out of a deep seated desire to raise up his country of birth to be their eventual global equal (at this time England was a poor, backward, weak backwater.) Indeed, the first conception of a British Empire, founded upon a strong Royal Navy, was first expounded by Dee.

   John Dee was as close to modern scientist as existed in the 16th century. He independently came to the conclusion that bodies of unequal weight fall at the same rate- before Galileo. He was recognized as England's top expert on optics and lenses. He was recognized as one of the top experts on navigation and chart making of his day. He kept detailed astronomical observations that even Tycho Brahe admired. He based his astrological work upon the heliocentric "heresy" of Copernicus. He was an expert in geology and ores and leased his own tin mine. He also collected the biggest research library of the age in Mortlake, which was a gathering place of the greatest minds of England and the continent. In short- Dee was a competent expert in several areas of natural philosophy and applied technology. He believed in detailed observation and record keeping- in both natural, and supernatural, phenomena.

   The thing is, Dee believed his accomplishments in the more material and practical sciences to be among his lesser accomplishments. Like Newton after him, his real passion was with the deepest cosmic and spiritual secrets. This led to his fame as an astrologer, and an alchemist, and a cabalist. Dee's passion was to discover the ancient, true, original religion of mankind, the "prisci theology." That is why he could walk easily among both Protestants and Catholics- he ultimately considered both of their dogma's to be equally absurd. Dee had a much more open mind that the "scientists" of later centuries- he studied all unknown forces, natural or supernatural. This was why be studied and practiced natural magic (Agrippa's three books were always open upon his desk for quick reference.) He knew that hidden currents influenced the day-to-day world, and he documented his observations even if he couldn't explain them in terms of material cause and effect. This also led to his interest is scrying and the use of natural sensitives to communicate with spirits. It should be noted, that no one at this time doubted the existence of such spirits- it was as self evident as the existence of God. In fact, many powerful lords of the day employed seers and scryers, including the earls of Leicester, Pembroke, and Northumberland.

   All in all, you come away with a renewed respect for Dee. You realize that his only fault was to be born in a society of petty, ignorant, lesser men. It was they that libeled and slandered his image and painted him as a superstitious conjuror. Indeed, the only real mistake that the good Doctor made was to outlive his beloved queen and protector.




3. Dr. John Dee is now considered to be the English Renaissance man. This was not always the case, however, because his first biographers, as the author of this fine biography points out, were either `hard-headed rationalist or muddle-headed mystics.' In present time, researchers and historians agree that Dee was a true Renaissance man because he sought to connect or reconcile rationalism with magic, science and the supernatural. This was not unusual for the time. Copernicus cited the mystic Hermes Trismegistus in his Magnum Opus, proposing the heliocentric universe. Isaac Newton began his career as an alchemist, before moving on to modern methods of pure science. John Dee was the most important scientists of the Elizabethan age. But this is only a somewhat recent recognition because throughout the ages he was considered a charlatan, crook, blockhead and "companion of hellhounds". Benjamin Woolley's fine biography combines history, science, espionage and common sense and attempts to answer how a man of genius that had such a major influence in mathematics, astronomy, cartography, navigation and science in general, could die a pauper and in obscurity.

   In 1659, a scholar by the name of Meric Casaubon copied and published a collection of Dee's documents, which contained the recordings of spiritual conversations with angels and archangels, and other dialogues, which could be interpreted dubious at best. After the publication Dee's reputation as a credible philosopher went steadily down hill and has taken centuries to recover. Woolley has done some fine research, using Dee's actual diaries, and has painstakingly pieced together his life and career.

   The Elizabethan age was a turning point in Western history. The Reformation was essentially a battle for power and knowledge and a bloody war in the name of religion. But it also set the stage for the Enlightenment, and Dr. John Dee was a precursor to the Age of Reason. He was a man of `science', collecting and studying every ancient text he could get his hands on, (his library is the stuff of legend) but rational knowledge, he truly believed, would only take him so far - he desired heavenly knowledge and wisdom. And it is possible that his spiritual researches into the divine nature could have been the cause of his downfall. Dee did not seek worldly gain, riches and material pleasure; his only desire was to attain the secrets of the Holy. Did he pay the ultimate price for this activity?

   ~The Queen's Conjurer~ is not a dense historical text, but an informative and enlightening piece of research. It casts some light on an intriguing figure, removing him from modern occult history and in to the mainstream.




4. Benjamin Woolley's 'The Queen's Conjurer' is the most recent attempt to present the life of the English Enigma, Dr. John Dee. Dee is an interesting character and one that has sadly been much maligned over the centuries. Since his death in 1608, he has largely been dismissed at best as an sorcerer and black magicican and, at worst, as a credulous old fool dabbling in astrology and necromancy. Today, despite his prominent historical role in Elizabethan politics and his great contibutions to many fields, he is hardly remembered at all. This book tries to alleviate that problem.

   Wolley's work is well-researched and attempts to shed light on Dee's life and his many accomplishments as not only an occultist, but also as an astronomer, mathematician, explorer, and spy. Dee was a product of the Renaissance and devoured knowledge and information. He was an avid bibliophile, a voracious author of various works on astronomy, astrology, mathematics, occult philosophy, and was well-respected by many prominent people at the court of Queen Elizabeth. The Queen herself counted herself one of Dee's benefactors and visited him numerous times at his home at Mortlake, taking a genuine interest in his many magical and mathematical works. Today he is largely remembered for his works concerning "Enochian" or Angel Magic, due to the fact that these are the bulk of his writings that have survived the flames of history. Most of the second half of this book is concerned with Dee's European adventures with the mysterious scryer Edward Kelly, who is largely regarded by history as a charlatan and a rake. Kelly is a shadowy and intriguing figure and we get some insight into his character and motivations but he is never truly revealed to us, perhaps he never will be. In the end, Dee finds that despite a lifetime of great works and accomplishments, he is viewed with mistrust and suspicion by the general public and has lost favor with the new court of King James I. He dies a tired and broken man, and history would continue to tarnish his great name until well into the 20th century.

   The Queen's Conjurer is a very readable account of a great and fascinating man.




5. Woolley's book is good-hearted, an attempt to help modern readers see John Dee not at the fringes but at the heart of much that was going on Elizabethan England.

   But the book's execution leaves *much* to be desired...the thread of the story gets lost along the way (especially amidst some of the sordid details concerning Dee's relationship with Edward Kelly). There are a number of interesting facts and anecdotes, but they never quite come together as a coherent whole. And Woolley displays such an appalling ignorance of Catholicism when he attempts to describe the religious background of the period (and in some instances, ignorance of Christianity in general) that I tend to wonder whether he's gotten his facts about Dee's life wrong too.

   While I'll give the book 3 stars for good intentions, in general, you're better off sticking with Peter French's _John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus_.

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.