No comments about Nightmare Uncovering the Strange 56 Personalities of Nancy Lynn Gooch.

No comments about Fundamental Analysis, Value Investing and Growth Investing (Secrets of the Great Investors).

No comments about George Miksch Sutton: Artist, Scientist, and Teacher.

1 comments about Henry Norris Russell.

1. This is an exceptionally important work on the history of astronomy written by one of the top historians of modern astronomy in the United States. David H. DeVorkin, a friend and colleague of mine at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, has written a path breaking book that deals with one of the most important astronomers of the twentieth century. Henry Norris Russell (1857-1957) was a member of the astronomy department at Princeton University and an expert on binary stars and solar evolution. He was a leading astrophysical theorist. Russell also wrote a column for Scientific American that brought an understanding of astronomy to the public and served as a mentor to a generation of astronomers. He also gained a reputation as a public intellectual, commenting in a variety of settings on science, religion, and society.
   
   DeVorkin's important scholarly biography is the first work of its type on Russell, and a benchmark in the historiography of American astronomy. It was warmly received by historians of science. Joann Eisberg, reviewing the book for Isis, led her review thus: "David DeVorkin's volume is surely the definitive biography of one of America's most important astronomers. It is a must-read for historians of astronomy, and it is more than that" (Isis 92, No. 3 (2001): 625-26). Other reviewers made similar comments. One cannot hope to understand the development of astronomy in the United States during the twentieth century without reading DeVorkin's Henry Norris Russell biography, and it is standard fare on every graduate reading list on the subject.

No comments about Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival: The Remaking of American Environmentalism (Urban and Industrial Environments).

3 comments about William Dunbar: Scientific Pioneer of the Old Southwest.

1. Finally a history book that is more than a never ending sequence of historical facts. I was pleasantly surprised by the way DeRosier was able to weave together historical facts into a delightful novel about a facinating, historically important figure. I felt history come alive as I read Dunbar. Thank you.



2. William Dunbar was a talented man whose accomplishments have long been in need of professional assessment. Arthur DeRosier has responded to this need in the first full-scale investigation of available sources, beginning in Scotland, where Dunbar was born. The author's effort has cleared up numerous misunderstandings--such as whether William Dunbar inherited his father's title--and has detailed some of William Dunbar's accomplishments in the New World, the best known of which was his 1804-05 expedition with George Hunter to explore the land drained by the Red and Ouachita Rivers as far as the Hot Springs in what became central Arkansas. This exploration was followed by another Red River expedition in 1806, which Dunbar ably coordinated. Eclipsed in public interest by the 1804-06 Lewis and Clark expedition whose route lay to the north, Dunbar's first attempt to ascertain what the nation had gained by the Louisiana Purchase has now been given the attention it deserves.
   
   Among other national contributions was Dunbar's collaboration with the astronomer Andrew Ellicott to survey the boundary between Spanish West Florida and the United States. Through Ellicott he became known to prominent members of the American Philosophical Society, who welcomed for publication his astronomical and meteorological observations. These in turn had been made possible by the scientific instruments he was able to import as a result of his financial success in growing indigo and cotton. He contributed to the rise of cotton culture in the South by experimenting with improved seeds and by improvements on the cotton gin and on methods of baling cotton for shipment.
   
   Despite the book's subtitle it scants Dunbar's scientific work, however, and has little to say about such pioneering investigations as his study of Indian sign language, his attempt to solve the problem of finding longitude by astronomical methods, his contributions to meteorological record-keeping at a time when the nation lacked a weather bureau, his use of chemical analysis in geology, his good fortune in being the southernmost observer to study the 1806 solar eclipse, etc. These shortcomings may result from the author's heavy reliance on the printed Dunbar letters and papers edited by Eron Rowland and published in 1930--a book notorious for the editor's misreading of the manuscripts and an editor having little understanding of things scientific.
   
   DeRosier says that he hopes his book will "challenge" other scholars to take up aspects of Dunbar's career "that deserve further study and reflection." Perhaps it will.



3. Without DeRosier's work Dunbar would have been lost. This is a most engaging and remarkable book about a fascinating figure in American history. Highly recommend this text!

No comments about The Leakeys: A Biography (Greenwood Biographies).

No comments about On Harper's Trail: Roland McMillan Harper, Pioneering Botanist of the Southern Coastal Plain.

5 comments about Stephen Hawking: A Quest For The Theory Of Everything.

1. 
   I felt that Ferguson achieved a nice balance by intermingling Hawking's biography with introduction to his theories. It allows your brain to alternate between working on science and returning "back to earth" to meet an interesting human being with all his problems and victories. The science part is very layman-friendly, and at the same time is not too slow for the scientifically-minded (just a bit too politically correct, but it's understandable). The biography part is tactful, and with just the right amount of detail. The book is clear and inspiring, and she convinced me to read Hawking's "A brief history of time".
   
   Strangely enough, Hawking's book turned out to be not as clear and inspiring as Ferguson's book. She painted him as the king of clarity, conciseness, and humor, but I don't get such an impression at all from reading his book. So now I have mixed feelings: I respect Ferguson for being good at writing and teaching (better than Hawking at both), but I'm annoyed with her for the false advertisement.



2. After reading A Brief History of Time I decided that I wanted to learn more about Stephen Hawkings himself and how he became who he is today. I picked up this book written by Kitty Ferguson, which is claimed to be a biography and started reading it. After about twenty pages she was done talking about his life and started talking about his theories. This was disappointing to me because I thought the book was a biography.
   
   As I continued reading I became somewhat confused while she told about Hawkings discoveries. The explanations were little or none in trying to get the reader to understand the ideas. It did not help that there were very few small illustrations that were in the book to go along with her explanations. If there were highly detailed color illustrations such as those in A Brief History In Time, it might have been much easier to understand.
   
   I did enjoy the beginning of the book where Kitty goes into detail about the beginning of Hawkings life but I feel like it was just an overview of how he became who he is today. I would not recommend this book, instead I would recommend A Brief History In Time because it is much easier to understand because it has great illustrations and is not so mathematical.



3. I really liked this book at times, but found Kitty tries to hard to explain Hawking's theories. If you are not one of the Mensa crowd then it gets a little meaningless like similar to reading Greek, can you speak or read Greek? not me! Some of Hawking's theories are explained well and are pretty straight forward, such as the singularity theory and how many believe the universe has expanded and then retracted back to a singularity and then expanded and retracted over and over. Also it goes into detail about his belief that particles can escape black holes, once it reaches the event horizon it splits the negative may fall directly into the black hole past the even horizon and the positive falls away from the event horizon freeing it.This aside what I really wanted to read more about was the man Hawking himself. I mean come on, I've already read "A brief history of time". In short this book is short on explaining much about Stephen and tries to hard to explain some of his many theories.



4. Kitty Ferguson gives a lot of info on Stephen Hawking's life and works, being a small book in size it is full of interesting theories on Universe and Black Holes. It is purely scientific book thus it tries to explain everything scientifically, eventhough Stephen Hawking sometimes accepts that science cannot prove some things that are beyond our reach, nevertheless he does not accept that the whole universe is a God's creation.

   "The Creation of the Universe" by Hârun Yahya is an excellent book which explains scientifically how God has created the Universe.




5. After reading "A Brief History Of Time" by Stephen Hawking, I was absolutely taken with astrophysics. Now, I'm no professional, but I could understand Hawking's book even if I had to learn to concentrate on what I was reading completely and reread some places. Hawking attempted to explain even the most complicated things - and succeeded. I thought I could pick up Kitty Ferguson's book for some easy reading on Hawking's discoveries - boy, was I wrong!

   Kitty Ferguson makes absolutely no attempt to explain the things she's talking about. None! She simply gives you facts that are impossible to accept without explanations. For the most part, I did know what she was talking about - and even then I was astounded by how confusing she had managed to make it all seem, and how imprecise a few of her facts and analogies were.

   If you understand the things she's talking about (and you probably do understand most of the things if you know at least something about Hawking's discoveries), you have no need to read this book. It's not even that good of a biography. If you don't know a thing about astrophysics, but would like to learn and, what's much more important, understand these things, pick up another book - and I myself would suggest the aforementioned "A Brief History Of Time" by Stephen Hawking.

No comments about Inventor of the Disposable Culture: King Camp Gillette 1855-1932 (Short Lives).