1 comments about Notable Mathematicians: From Ancient Times to the Present.

1. This book is everything the Booklist review states: excellent selection of individuals, a number of appendicies that provide valuable cross-tabulation information, and the most thorough time-line of mathematics I have seen (35 pages). It is a respectable reference book for students and the general public with reading skills of grade 9 or higher. The mathematics content is accessible to persons with intermediate algebra or higher.
   
   The unfortunate drawback of this book is that the biographies are in alphabetical order. The publishing company missed a valuable opportunity: if instead published in order of mathematical developments (semi-chronological) with some bridging material, the book could be both an "armchair" reading book for the general public and a textbook for courses in liberal arts mathematics, mathematics history, etc. Given the excellent cross-tabulations in the appendices, an electronic edition would also be highly valuable.
   
   A minor issue with the book is that the biographies have been slightly sanitized so as to be palatable with high school libraries in the U.S. At the same time, the authors struck a balance by being very forthcoming about the lives and fates of persons. For example, the entry on Pythagorous is excellent for a high-school reference book.
   
   This book can be found in public libraries throughout the U.S. and at many high-school and college libraries as well.
   
   Other books to consider:
   
   Victor Katz has published A History of Mathematics: An Introduction (2nd Edition) which is suitable for an upper-division mathematics-major course in math history. Highly recommended to teachers and students researching the development of mathematics.
   
   Tobias Dantzig's Number: The Language of Science which would be better subtitled "the vocabulary of measurement", is accessible to any successful college sophomore. It gives a somewhat chronological account of the human development of number concepts. Highly recommended to anyone interested in number concepts.

1 comments about The Einstein Almanac.

1. This fine book is essentially a chronological bibliography of Einstein's writings. While not exhaustive (Calaprice uses the word "selected"), this book provides a good real glimpse into what Einstein actually thought and researched and wrote as a scientist, philosopher and humanist from 1901-1955. Serious fans of Einstein (like myself) who don't have the multi-volume Collected Papers of Albert Einstein at arm's length will find this little book quite useful. Here you find the titles of articles, papers, essays, and even interviews accompanied by the originals in German (where appropriate). Descriptive or explanatory comments follow most of them. Did you know that Einstein studied the meandering of rivers? He wrote some illuminating papers on this geological question. Or that he and Leo Szilard patented home refrigeration by the "Einstein-Szilard pump"? Most standard biographies wouldn't mention these. But an Einstein almanac might. This one does. (The important scientific papers are of course not neglected.)
   
   To place Einstein's life in context, Calaprice includes many historical and scientific events - some of which bear only a remote relevance to Einstein. I personally think these can be replaced by more biographical info. For example, what James Watson and Murray Gell-Mann did, while interesting and important, hardly merit entry into an Einstein Almanac. What Otto Hahn did is more relevant and may be included. There are other books on the history of science in the twentieth century and even more on the history of historical events. My idea of an Einstein almanac would exclude anything not directly related or relevant to Einstein. If it were up to me, any event not directly involving Einstein I would ruthlesssly exclude.
   
   This is my main humble criticism (and my own opinion). One other shortcoming is that few personal letters are included. But this is quite understandable because letters don't usually carry titles. Also, Einstein wrote so many letters in his lifetime that to list them all and summarize them with comments would be a herculean task. For letters, interested students should refer to the CPAE. But I think a separate chapter on the most important letters Einstein wrote might be a good idea for the next edition (if any). Some of Einstein's most incisive thoughts are found in his letters (such as those to Max Born) and a brief overview of these may be useful.
   
   One more suggestion for improvement (bear with me) might be a detailed timeline of Einstein's life. Timelines differ in details. Very extensive and all-inclusive timelines provide a virtually day-by-day chronology. One outstanding example of these would be University of Delaware professor Leo Lemay's Documentary History of Benjamin Franklin, which is an on-going project available on the Web. It gives impressive details of what Franklin was doing and where he was doing it on numerous specific dates. Calaprice's other books about Einstein already have brief timelines. An Einstein Almanac could use a very detailed one. (This book also has a brief timeline of Einstein's early years - but then again not all the details seem to me relevant. A lot of things happened in 1895 for Einstein, but I see no point in mentioning the invention of the Gillette razor, for instance, because this has nothing to do with Einstein, whether or not he used one.) Just listing all of Einstein's personal and scientific activities, rather than non-Einstein events, can be a worthwhile if lengthy task. But an almanac is designed to be full of dates.
   
   Leave out the fat of irrelevant non-Einstein stuff, and build more muscle of Einstein-exclusive matters, and this book could be even better and more useful than it already is. If this book is also an on-going project, then there is room for growth on what is in my view an excellent basis.
   

1 comments about No Time to be Brief: A Scientific Biography of Wolfgang Pauli.

1. Fans of modern physics are well acquainted with Pauli. A Nobel Laureate (1945), who is best remembered for the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Enz takes us through Pauli's life. Most notably the crucial years at the Gottingen school of quantum mechanics in the 1920s, where quantum mechanics was born.

   The book takes us into his research. But it also conveys some of the intellectual ferment and excitement of those times. And across the pages appear many other august notables in physics. Einstein, Born, Bohr...

   Enz also tries to give some insight into Pauli's personality and his dealings with his family.

   An enjoyable read.

1 comments about Explorations: A Life of Underwater Adventure.

1. An excellent read. This is the life story of one of the Greatest marine geologists and explorers of our time. From top secret navy submarines to luxurious ocean liners to deep sea marine life this man has seen it all, this book helps to explain what wasn't in the other great books he has written, it is a personal account of everything he went through to get where he is now. It was one of the best books I have ever read and a must have for all fans.

No comments about A Passion For Discovery.

2 comments about A Wilderness Within: The Life of Sigurd F. Olson.

1. After reading five books by Sigurd F. Olson I felt it only right to read his biography. A Wilderness Within: The Life of Sigurd F. Olson was an insightful look at an incredible person.

   From the very early days of Sigurds Life he is drawn toward nature. As Olson's life progresses this propensity turns into his lifes calling. Olson accomplishes more than ten people could in one lifetime. Wilderness defender, author, family man, canoeist- If you are entranced by Sigurd Olson's books you owe it to yourself to read his biography.

   The biography describes things about Sigurd F. Olson that one would never guess from reading his books, and elaborates on others.

   I'm particularly enjoy reading how hard it was for Olson to get published. He encountered numerous rejections before his first book The Singing Wilderness way published in the 1950's.

   Perhaps what I like most about this biography is that Olson seems so much like myself. With each page I learned more about myself and my potential. There is a lot we can learn from the life of Sigurd F. Olson. It is best summed up this way: If you have a cause that is worth persuing keep at it, and don't stop until you've achieved your goals.

   Thanks Becks for writing such a wonderful book about a wonderful person.




2. Anyone who has enjoyed the incredible beauty of Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area owes a debt to Sigurd Olson, subject of David Backe's "A Wilderness Within". This well-written book helps us understand Sig and how his intense passion to become a significant writer intertwined with his deep spiritual need for wilderness. The book may go a bit overboard in emphasizing some of his shortcomings: his temper, his need to be important, his occasional mistakes, but it also makes clear how much those close to him loved him. It is painful to consider how much the northern Minnesota wilderness would have been developed and decimated but for his efforts. TH Bracken MD Onamia MN

5 comments about Theremin: ETHER MUSIC AND ESPIONAGE (Music in American Life).

1. Three and one-half stars.
   
   Yes, the author has evidently researched his subject exhaustively, but he doesn't always have the courage to forgo the results of his research when they aren't relevant or, especially, when they're redundant: It isn't necessary to describe in detail each and every single recital on his instrument Theremin gave in the United States, for example; we get the idea.
   
   Because of historical inaccuracies, such as its strong suggestion that Khrushchev directly succeeded Stalin (actually Georgy Malenkov directly succeeded Stalin), and because of its suspect hyperbolic tone, I don't completely trust the book's account.
   
   The prose is generally serviceable, but there are number of annoying solecisms that recur. The author consistently uses the term "enormity" to mean "enormous", for example, whereas in fact an enormity is an atrocity. He uses "hopefully" to mean "I hope", whereas in fact "hopefully" is an adverb meaning "full of hope".
   
   There is almost no insight proffered as to the subject's motivation, which leaves a fairly gaping hole in the work considering the many very odd and fateful choices Leon Theremin makes over the course of his long life.
   
   If you're particularly interested in electronic music or twentieth-century history you should read this--just take it [...] grano salis.



2. Glinsky has done a great job of compiling the factual story of Leon Theremin and electronic music, particularly the Theremin instrument through the years.
   I have several reservations. First, the writing style is pedestrian and not terribly stylish or interesting. Second, it would have been nice to have a bit more detail on how the instrument actually works. And last but most serious, Glinsky is obsessed with the evils of communism and spends far too much time sneering at Americans fooled by Stalin and on wallowing in the grotesque history of communism in the USSR than is justified given that the book is about Leon Theremin, not Stalin, Lenin, Beria, Kruschev, etc. etc. He gives us several pages on Beria and his fate, for example, when Beria actually had only an indirect link to Theremin. The point seems to be to portray Beria as an evil man. Fine, but this book is about Leon Theremin, right?
   My last reservation is that in the end, I still did not feel we ever got to know Theremin. Why he did what he did, what he thought of events in his life, remains a mystery. It may well be that Theremin, a committed communist, was too alien to Glinsky's own imagination for him to be able to write about him with any insight or sympathy. We get, generally, a pretty clinical detachment.
   This is a fine book for the facts. I cherish it as a solid resource. But Leon Theremin himself remains unknown to us on a personal level, and so as a biography this book falls short.



3. Dr. Glinsky managed to write a complete factual book and yet have all the action and suspense that you would commonly find in an espionage novel!



4. After seeing "Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey" for the second time last year I was motivated to seek a more thorough biography of this fascinating life. Luckily Glinsky's book was hot off the press. This book is amazing.

   Theremin's life is so interesting, and the narrative is so engrossing, that it reads like a thriller. Only one that covers a nearly hundred year life. The setting covers revolutionary Russia, roaring twenties NY, depression era NY, Stalinist Russia, the Gulag, the cold war, the sixties, and on and on.

   The research Glinsky put in is astounding. You get the feeling that there exists no document of this life that he didn't catalog. Yet he writes beautifully and does a wonderful job of bringing the subject to brilliant life. There are so many details I'd love to mention but I wouldn't want to spoil a thing. Anyone who was intrigued by the documentary (which barely scratches the surface) should buy this book and read it. For me, the book has awakened an entire fascination with twentieth century Russia and I'm already reading other non-fiction on the topic.

   Mr. Glinsky is to be congratulated on a stunning piece of work.




5. Mr. Glinsky has done superb research. He writes beautifully. This book is equally important for the cognoscenti as for those who know nothing about Theremin, electronic instruments and the Soviet Union. It is difficult to imagine such a life but it characterizes the 20th century and Glinsky brings it alive in every respect. Theremin was a genius and a private man. Those who knew him in later life (as did I) have no conception of his personality. But Glinsky found those in his early years who make his person come alive. Certainly the best music biography I have ever read......

5 comments about Apollo EECOM: Journey of a Lifetime (Apogee Books Space Series).

1. The chapters about his direct involvement in Apollo as EECOM were fascinating. He accomplished his goal of adding to the historical record from his perspective. Liebergot actually had several critical moments related to Apollo 13. From memory: The failed simulation that started the concept of the LEM as a lifeboat, the cryo stir, the first recognition of there being a problem, his repeated rebuffment of seemingly ridiculous recommendations from a specific controller, and the critical decision to shut down the fuel cells and the realization that brought to others.
   
   I found his writing style to be grittier (that is a positive comment), highlighted by the italicized side comments. I found this to be intriguing especially since he then retrospectively judged the key moments in his life. This would be similar to a person's writing in a journal to help them make sense of the world. I also took the opportunity to read Gene Kranz's book after I read Apollo EECOM and found that book to be an excellent companion and contrast. First, he is also talking about same events from within the same room, just with a different perspective. He also writes (I am sure with his coauthor's assistance), in a grammatically technical writer's way. I liked both writing styles (Liebergot's and Kranz's) very much. He also brings in Sy's involvements, again from his perspective, which dovetails nicely with the recollections in this book. Not that it was needed, it also validates Sy's version of the time. The fact that Kranz mentioned the song included on the CD-ROM made me chuckle (and I hope he gets to hear it again to make him cringe).
   
   The sequence of his life's story is a fascinating portrayal of excelling in the face of adversity. He and his siblings had a horrible family life compounded by the economics of the times. I suspect it was the resultant aversion that pushed him all the way to California away from family and onto a path that lead to his involvement with one of the greatest endeavors man has achieved so far. While he may not be happy with individual moments in his life, as a sum, possibly with the help of the book, I believe he realizes that it has been a good life. The zenith of the human experience is when man takes tragedy and is able to look past it to convert it into something positive and fulfilling. That is the essence of Sy Liebergot's life. He chose to rise above his predicament. There are many, many people who would do well to learn from his example. In looking at his life and story, I am reminded of another book and movie, namely "Rocket Boys"/"October Sky". The difference is the extreme dysfunctionality of his home life and degree of poverty.
   
   Equally fascinating was the accompanying CD-ROM with Mission Control voice loops from the Apollo 13 explosion timeframe. These alone would justify an interested person's purchase of the book. First, I related to the working of the problem. I get very ill, very complicated patients in my emergency department. The underlying problem is unknown. I start taking a series of actions lead by priorities and try to gain more information to better define the problem altering actions as the situation evolves. This can take anywhere from one to three hours. Sometimes the patients don't make it. Most of the time I get them stabilized and out of the department. It was this same process that I "witnessed" through the voice loops. The other perspective was that of the actual time of the unfolding crisis. Other writings, and the movie, give the impression that it was a very short time (15 minutes or so) before the lifesaving critical move to the LEM. The voice loops show that it was well over an hour.
   
   Even though the Apollo program was 30 plus years ago, the fact that we haven't even gone back continues the weight of its accomplishments. I feel that the loss of continuity and the perspective of history and experience will severely impact the strides that we have yet to make. Works such as this one should be mandatory reading for our future space pioneers so that they will gain that needed perspective. Hopefully, it won't take an Armageddon level event to spawn the next great space engineering race.



2. If you want to know exactly how it felt to be in mission control during the Apollo 13 mission, this is the book to get. The CD ROM has the actual recording of the mission control audio loop, just before the Apollo 13 explosion, and several hours of recording after. You can hear how fast the controllers summed up the state of the spacecraft, and how they quickly sorted through their narrowing options.
   
   Sy provides history as to how he became a flight controller, and how his fellow controllers lived during the Apollo program days.
   
   If you want to know what it's like to get to and be inside mission control, and actually hear what the mission control audio loops sounds like, this is a must-get book and CD package.



3. This book is a little short (200 pages) and Sy spends almost a third of that on his troubled childhood. But is a worthwhile read for someone interested in Apollo Era NASA. Sy gives a more low level view of the operation than we have gotten from the many astronaut biographies and flight director biographies (Kraft and Kranz). I enjoyed the "extra's" that he included on the CD, particularly a humorous song from a post-Apollo 13 roast. I would not make it the first book I read about the moon program, but it is a nice collection to my NASA book collection.



4. In a subject that has been charted from boundless angles in thousands of chronicles, Sy's memoir emerges as a truly brilliant account of his role in perhaps one of the most significant endeavors of humankind. Sy's book is much-much more than simply a personal account of his life and role in the space program, it is an extremely well written and compulsively honest tour de force of this history. He teaches us that the story of Apollo was not wholly isolated to the confines of the spacecraft, and that many of the real mavericks worked quietly behind complex consoles inside Mission Control, solving some of the most intricate and sometimes life threatening problems that these men faced in our quest to explore the moon.
   
   Sy's book is in my opinion is a sobering and paramount account of the early manned space flight program from an important and vital perspective. It is a true archive of history that is told not only through narrative, illustrations, and photographs; but rather a historical archive containing audio (which is included on a wonderful CD-ROM), personal artifacts, and technical examples (brilliant panel displays) that bring this history to life. Having spent decades reading every account I can get my hands on, I can safely state that Sy's memoir will remain a solid bookend to one of America's greatest chapters in history.



5. This book isn't one of those thick, literary historical tomes that we have seen a good many of in the last few years from former NASA managers. Rather, this feels like you have been personally invited into Sy's living room to sit on the sofa and look over his memorabilia while he tells you about it over your shoulder. It's a surprisingly frank and honest look at his life. Rather than trying to build himself up to be an historical figure, he pulls no punches with an account of a difficult, scrappy early life where he had to learn to survive his family, then work out how to leave and make something of himself. He tells this compelling story so well that I would have read it even if he had not gone on to join NASA - something I also felt when reading Scott Carpenter's account of his difficult upbringing in his recent memoir. When Liebergot moves on to his years at NASA, we get a refreshingly different account of how things worked there. Most other books on this era have been written by those in the upper echelons of management, but Liebergot here shows us what it was like for the footsoldier in the trenches, with a few little accounts of tempers lost in mission control and other disagreements that the official histories try and gloss over. Rather than do this as a tell-all, Liebergot includes his own failings in the mix - he doesn't hide the fact that he is now on his third marriage, nor the reasons. Liebergot was there for some of NASA's finest undertakings, and this book tells you what it was like from a human perspective - the weariness, the shortcomings, the oversights - that round out the picture very well.

   In short, this is not a polished history of NASA at its finest hour. Rather it is a very loose, informal journey through one man's difficult life, and how he managed to wash up in the right place at the right time.

5 comments about Einstein Defiant: Genius versus Genius in the Quantum Revolution.

1. This book attempts to place Einstein's work during the 1920s in a social-political and scientific context. I do not have a strong background in physics and I found most of the scientific explanations and descriptions to be confusing, if not completely unintelligible. On the other hand, I found his analyses and description of historical and cultural events in post-WWI Germany to be superficial. Perhaps someone who has a stronger background in physics might get more out of it, but I warn you - don't place too much faith in Bolles' views on history and politics!



2. I abandoned the book after the fourth chapter. I am not a physicist, but I have read quite a lot about quantum theory and philosophy and Einstein's life, so I was very interested in the topic of the book. I found the author's style, however, very annoying. He does not keep to a timeline, but meanders off in five different directions page after page, and digresses left and right before telling what happened. The book reads more like a chat with a slightly tipsy gossip, who has to bring in every little bit of juicy information about the neighbors and their cats before relaying the main story. I finally gave up when the author tried to explain quantum theory by the properties of springs in the mattress where Einstein is supposedly making love to an actress! (Page 43 for those with prurient interests! ;)



3. I found this book to be a little too slow in developing the theme but it is well researched. In the first part, the author tries to describe the post-war Germany and give the reader a sense of the social setting of the time. This is interesting, but I feel that it sometimes also overshadows the main theme -- which should be about the quantum revolution. Had the author been a little more judicious in weighing the materials, it could have been a more absorbing book.
   
   Also, the last famous Einstein-Bohr debate (regarding the "black body emmission on a scale" experiment, in which Bohr defended Heisenberg Principle by using Eisten's own General Relativity) is, in my opinion, one of the most profound and fascinating examples of "thought (or theoretical) experiments" in the history of Physics (others include Einstein's chasing a light beam and Galileo's free fall of two objects with different weights), yet it only appears in the second-to-last chapter and does not get the detailed analysis that it deserves (the author does describe it in detail and has some, but in my opinion not sufficient, commentary).
   
   Despite these flaws, I enjoyed the book and it is well grounded on thorough research.



4. This is one of those books, for which one thinks, that I wish I had read this book years ago! The book clearly shows that how Quantum Mechanics, is NOT a theory. While going through undergraduate Physics program, I used to be bewildered by Quantum. Countering your Profs did not help at all, since you were faced with the canned responses, that "it works"! This book has put me at the highest mountain, that my personal objections to the "theory" were being echoed by Einstien himself!
   
   A very good book which just cracks open the entire Modern Physics revolution in a very concise and simple way in front of all to understand, in the spirit of Einstien himself, who was against the notion of incomprehesibility, even when it came to expalining the laws of the Universe at large. The book puts the reader right next to the Physics gaints of the century, in a very personal way. The picture comes vividly. It's a must have and a must read.
   
   However at some junctures, the book reveals some information, which makes one think about the sources. For instance, the tram ride in Berlin (Einstien & Bohr), while trying to go back home, but keep missing their stops, since they are busy arguing over light quanta. The author regrets, that no passanger heard/witnessed the talk or seeing how pathetically they have been missing thier stops..if there is no account from witnesses, what is the source of our esteemed author? Makes one think. Besides, the editor should pay close attention to typos.



5. Einstein Defiant by Edmund Blair Bolles is a great book that recounts the conflicts between some of the greatest Geniuses of our time. The book explains how Einstein believes that there is order in the universe and you can apply a law and therefore an explanation to everything. Bohr on the other hand believes that there is a form of randomness that takes over and that laws may no longer apply when dealing with quantum. The author obviously has a great love for physics and the scientists that expand the frontiers of physics, because only a person with such passion for physics could write a 300 page biography dealing with physics that has a lot of technical information and keep the reader entertained at the same time. I thought it was a great book and was exceptional in comparison with similar books as it did a great job of explaining some confusing concepts and ideas. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone as it is interesting to see into the minds and achievements of geniuses and it is very entertaining. I really enjoyed this book.

2 comments about Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason (Swedenborg Studies, No. 14).

1. Swedenborg is thoroughly worth studying, especially if you have interest in mystical Christianity, or mystic visionaries, such as Ibn Arabi, William Blake, Rudolph Steiner, Paramsahamsa Yogananda, and Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi. His Life story is amazing and inspiring and he is one of the "biggies". Buy this book, you won't regret it!



2. Researched and written by Ernst Benz, and translated into English by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Savant In The Age Of Reason is a thoroughly documented autobiography of the scientist Emanual Swedenborg, a great and influential mind of the 18th century. Swedenborg underwent a profound spiritual transformation in 1744 and thereafter devoted himself to extensively documenting his visions of the world of the afterlife. A profound, amazing, and detailed account of a revolutionary scientific and spiritual thinker, Emanual Swedenborg: Visionary Savant In The Age Of Reason is critically important reading for all serious students of Swedenborg's life, work, philosophy, and metaphysical teachings.