No comments about Birds, Beasts and a Bike Under the Southern Cross: Two Canadian Naturalists Camping Rough in New Zealand and Australia in the 1950s.

1 comments about Billy's Halo: Love, Science and My Father's Death.

1. Ruth McKernan has written a moving book on the death of her father. She does this both as someone who sees what is happening as a clear-eyed scientist and as a devoted daughter. She has produced a remarkably fine book, we are all in her debt.

No comments about More Letters of Charles Darwin: A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. Volume 1.

5 comments about Unlocking the Sky: Glenn Hammond Curtiss and the Race to Invent the Airplane.

1. History is fascinating and unfortunately, history's short form as provided us in school, does no justice to the real stories. The Notes and bibliography are important AND significant, and Mr. Shulman has done a Wonderful job in providing this window into the real history of early aviation.
   
   You see, all of this is reinforced by the wonderful airplanes that Europe was developing and building (SPAD, Nieuport, Sopwith, Fokker, etc),seemingly without the strictures and lawsuits that Curtiss and others encountered the Wrights in America.
   
   The book is a great read and the real story is quite simply amazing.



2. This book is well researched and lets any objective reader know who really "unlocked the sky" for future generations, and it was not the Wright brothers. They may have flown first (with the help of a major crane machine to get them airborne) but they would rather have put a lock on the sky than share their knowledge. This despite the fact that they asked for and were freely given much knowledge and data by others that enable their success. Glenn Hammond Curtiss kept going, conquering the hurdles the Wright brothers threw his way for years, and in the end was unstoppable. Most veriable firsts are his. And he shared it all. Much of today's aviation success can be traced directly to him. This book was excellent and anyone interested in aviation history should read it. Besides, it is fun to read!



3. Seth Shulman is a writer who specializes in science, technology, and the environment. Orville and Wilbur Wright launched their flying machine in December 1903 and are honored as the inventors of the airplane. There were plenty of rivals at home and abroad. This book provides the reasons to place Glenn Hammond Curtiss of Hammondsport NY as an important inventor in spite of the court decisions that gave rights to the Wright brothers. The 'Prologue' tells of Samuel Pierpont Langley's attempt to launch a flying machine on Dec. 08, 1903. It failed, and the Wright brothers succeeded. Shulman implicitly criticizes Langley's expensive effort.
   
   Chapter 2 explains the reason for a broad patent on airplanes: powerful financiers backed the Wright brothers (p.44). The Wrights had solved the difficult problem of stabilizing the flight of an aircraft ("wing warping"). The Wrights did everything to keep their success secret in order to retain control of their invention (pp.50-51). Sir George Cayley, a British nobleman, was the first to envision a practical airplane design with fixed wings, a tail, and a propulsion system in the early 19th century (pp.95-96). Octave Chanute's 1894 book recorded the state of aviation (p.98). Glenn Curtiss made the first publicly witnessed flight on July 4, 1908 (Chapter 6). Curtiss won the test at Rheims, France (Chapter 7). Politically appointed Judge John Hazel ruled that the Wrights' patent should be "broadly construed" (p.182); this favored the Wall Street investors who owned the Wrights' patent. Curtiss flew from Albany to Manhattan to win a prize (Chapter 9).
   
   Chapter 10 tells of the legal fights between the Wrights' corporation and other pioneers besides Curtiss. Judge Hazel seems to have been in the pocket of the Wrights. Curtiss produced many inventions (p.207). The Curtiss JN was one of the most popular and successful airplanes of that era (p.208). Curtis is credited with 500 aeronautical inventions (p.209), like the aileron (p.210). The 'Epilogue' said Curtiss built the best airplanes of that day (p.224). Curtiss' seaplane 'America' was bought by Britain to patrol the Channel and attack U-boats (p.225).
   
   America could not provide a fighter or pursuit airplane for WW I. The Curtiss company built the P-40 for the Army and the SB2C for the Navy in WW II. The Wrights were first to fly. Langley's mismanagement caused his failure (a defective structure). Langley squandered money on a houseboat for show instead of using flat land (like the Wrights or Curtiss). Curtiss was right to concentrate on a better product (like Henry Ford) rather than legal battles over patents (but patents are important). This book provides an argument against overly broad patent rights. Squashing competition was the aim of the trusts of that day (the Selden patents). This book is well-written and fast paced, but could be better organized. I think this book would be better if it told about the other developers in the early 20th century and did not overemphasize the squabbles over patent rights. It does not cover the decades after WW I.



4. Mr. Shulman's revisionist history presents Glenn Hammond Curtiss, early aviation pioneer and inventor, as a series of opposites. He alternately describes the man as shy, sheepish, and unassuming, and then as a master public relations man, always taking time to entertain the press reporters to keep them hanging around his "shop." He regularly describes him as the beloved son of Hammondsport, NY, while telling how frightened and angered the townsfolk were with his exploits of racing motorcycles around town at breakneck speed or testing noisy contraptions. He describes him as an honest and upstanding citizen who started a commercial company selling airplanes in violation of patent laws for the "greater good" of mankind (ignoring that Curtiss got his information from Augustus Herring, who betrayed the Wrights and first tried unsuccessfully to sell the knowledge to the more ethical Langley). He describes him as an inventor of nearly everything important to modern aviation while explaining that until 1904 he considered anyone attempting flight as a "crank." Yes, the man is a conundrum, a paradox, a riddle.
   
   Unfortunately, he remains so after forcing myself to keep reading this book. If you're looking for an interesting and informative biography, this isn't it. If you're looking for criticism that seldom lets up on attacking the Wright brothers (constantly referring to them as "bicycle mechanics"), or that embarrassingly idolizes Glenn Curtiss, this is the book for you! Other reviews here have documented many of the inaccuracies in this book undermining the author's credibility (I took the time to verify only some of them). Shulman downplays the 64 modifications required to get the Langley machine to fly, describing them as "minor" and "inconsequential," in an obvious and shameful attempt to discredit the Wrights (for which the Smithsonian later apologized). He also ignores that the Curtiss engine used on Baldwin's dirigible at the St. Louis World Fair was far inferior to the one constructed by the Wrights, instead trumpeting it as an enormous accomplishment and victory over the Wrights. And the constant name-dropping of Curtiss' list of associates and acquaintances (no matter how remote) is ridiculous. Also, the lack of any logical timeline is annoying, starting out with Langley's failed 1903 attempt, then bouncing to 1914, then 1906, then 1904, then 1907...
   
   There's no doubt that the Wright Brothers were publicly stiff and perhaps even odd, and that their legal attempts to protect their rights were counter-productive to developing an aviation industry in the US. There's also little doubt that Curtiss was a colorful and interesting personality, even if his personal ethics were a bit wanting. But that's the Curtiss that would have been fun to learn about. Instead of trying to present an objective history or biography and his many contributions to aviation, Shulman's addition is little more than a shrill and error-filled condemnation of the Wrights, seemingly taking it as a personal affront that they tried to profit from their labors. There's little to learn from this book, if you can force yourself through it.



5. This version of the 'history' of the battle between the Wright Brothers and Glenn Curtiss can be summarized as follows:
   The Wright Brothers... (boo, hiss...) were mean and spiteful, but OUR HERO Glenn Curtiss was intelligent and kind... (yay, hurray!)
   
   Yes, the tone and writing style are nearly that simplistic and one-sided.
   
   The author shows a surprising lack of understanding of patent law, and makes a mess of the whole affair. He attacks the Wrights for doing what any patent holder normally does -- defend the patent. He implies that the patent would have somehow been invalid since Curtiss and others would soon have discovered the same knowledge anyway. And he argues that if the matter were decided by public opinion, then Curtiss would have won. All of which are irrelevant. The Wrights were first; they demonstrated a powered flying machine that a man could fly; they documented their discovery, built a machine that worked and described the methods for its use; and, they filed a patent with broad enough claims to protect their ideas from copycats like Curtiss.
   
   The author praises Curtiss for patenting over 500 inventions but never prosecuting anyone over patent infringement. Which begs the question, why even bother filing a patent? It would have been cheaper and more 'altruistic' to publish his ideas in magazines and place them in the public domain.
   
   The author states that none of the Wrights' ideas are still in use. The author should have known that the common air-screw propeller, the wind tunnel, the yaw-pitch-roll control method of flying and the basic plan-form of the airplane were all Wright ideas and inventions and remain as key elements of aeronautics a century after the Wrights first flew.

2 comments about Television And Me: The Memoirs of John Logie Baird.

1. This is apparently a semi-autobiographical account of the `inventor' of television or a system of televising moving pictures by wireless that was mechanical and in the end scientifically discredited.
   
   It is a bitty and somewhat incoherent account (finished off by his wife and son) from a man whose methodology was sincerely flawed and who never really recognised the fact. The text is generally meandering and full of irrelevant stories and lacks even basic accounts of the way his cumbersome system of recoding on cine film and then scanning the photographic images by a revolving mechanical disc was never really regarded as instantaneous TV .
   
   In the end he was only the one of many around the world to develop a system to actually send moving pictures by radio - but not as we know it today!



2. Autobiographies are usually full of pretension, self delusion and self importance, with a small measure of reality. Not this book. Read an autobiography by a man who writes his life story within a framework of harsh honesty. Enjoy his dry caustic wit and his amusingly frank assessment of others. Be enlightened to find that JLB was not the mad professor poring over weird and wonderful contraptions, but a sophisticated and cultured man who built a formidable business empire around the television systems he pioneered. Read about a man whose immortality is steadily gaining momentum.

No comments about Sir Francis Bacon's Cipher Story.

No comments about A Hombros De Gigantes: Las Grandes Obras.

No comments about The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: Including an Autobiographical Chapter. Edited by his son. Volume 2.

1 comments about Statisticians of the Centuries.

1. This is a wonderful collection of biographies of the world's leading probabilists and statisticians beginning with Cardano (1501-1576) and ending with Deming (1900-1993). Along the way we learn about the lives and contributions of 103 individuals by 75 experts in the field. For professional statisticians like myself it is interesting to learn about the lives of so many of the famous statisticians whose work we are very familiar with. Included among those that are very well-known are R. A. Fisher, W. S, Gosset (Student), W. E. Deming, W. Shewhart, H. Cramer, H. Hotelling, E. S. Pearson, K. Pearson, G. Cox, F. Wilcoxon, E. Gumbel, A. A. Markov, F. Galton, J. Neyman, G. W. Snedecor, P. C. Mahalanobis, J. W. Lindeberg, C. E. Bonferroni, C. E. Gauss, P. L. Chebyshev, F. Y. Edgeworth, G. Snedecor, R. von Mises, T. Bayes and more. But even more interesting to me are the many names that I had never heard of and was curious to read about including, F. A. Shcherbina, G. H. Knibbs. A. L. Bowley, H. E. Hurst, P. D. En'ko, G. von Mayr, and J. P. Sussmilch. This book is fun to read. Each statistician has a picture or portrait included and there is lots to learn about the men and women and the profession. With any list there are always some that you wonder how they could be excluded. For me, W. Feller and A. Wald are glaring omissions. None of my favorite contemporaries are there but this i sprobably because the list is restricted to those who are deceased.

No comments about Robert Hooke: Tercentennial Studies.