Book Reviews July 2007

INTRODUCING Fractal Geometry Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon ,Will Rood and Ralph Edney Icon books, 2006 ISBN: 1840467134 I was a bit doubtful when I picked up INTRODUCING Fractal Geometry as to whether such a book could contain anything of use. Its quirky pictures make it look more like a comic strip than a book on mathematics. But surprisingly the format seems to work very well. Much of the useful information about a subject can be summarised in short pieces of text, but on its own such text would be excessively terse. The pictures in the book help to make a book that is easy to skim through, but still gives the reader a helpful introduction to the subject. Continued..

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Seven Million Years Douglas Palmer Weidenfield & Nicholson, 2005 ISBN: 0297844024 Seven Million Years by Douglas Palmer is packed full of information about the evolution of humans. As well as describing the many of the discoveries of fossil humans, Palmer explains the techniques used to make sense of these fossils, such as radioactive dating. He also looks at our similarity with other primates, especially chimpanzees, and sees what this can tell us about our origins. Later in the book Palmer examines how we came to use tools, and looks at the development of human language and society, as well as showing what genetic tests on present day humans can tell us about how we spread around the planet. Continued..

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Into the Cool Eric D Schneider and Dorion Sagan University of Chicago press, 2005 ISBN: 0226739368 You might not think of thermodynamics as the most interesting of subjects, but if you read Into the Cool then perhaps you'll change your mind. In it Eric D. Scheider and Dorion Sagan show how non-equilibrium thermodynamics can be applied to a wide variety of situations. Starting from the idea that 'nature abhors a gradient', they show how such thermodynamic gradients lead to systems organising themselves to use the energy available. I'm usually pretty skeptical of one-size-fits-all theories, but the application of this idea to the origin and evolution of life, to trees and forests, to human health, and to cities and the world economy, did seem pretty convincing. Continued..

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Mathematics, The loss of certainty Morris Kline Oxford University Press, 1980 ISBN: 0195030850 Mentioned in Excluded muddle fermat undecidable Mathematics has an air of being the most secure form of knowledge. In Mathematics, The Loss of Certainty, however, Morris Kline shows that this is not necessarily deserved. He shows how, rather than mathematics being an obvious progression of knowledge, in fact many ideas in the subject were strongly resisted when first introduced, and even when accepted often rested on insecure foundations. He explains how Euclidean geometry turned out not be as 'obviously true' as people thought, how calculus was based on the shaky ground of infinitesimals, and how grudgingly imaginary numbers came to be accepted as a valid way to do calculations. Continued..

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Contesting the Crusades Norman Housley Blackwell, 2006 ISBN: 1405111895 To understand the motivations of those who see religious considerations as a justification for conflict it is useful to have a clear view of the Crusades, when such considerations were a significant part of European life. Contesting the Crusades by Norman Housley offers such a view. He considers what might be classified as a crusade, looking at the importance of Jerusalem to medieval Europeans, and at how wars on other fronts were put into the form of crusades. There's a lot of information in this short book, and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the relationship between war and religion or in the history of medieval Europe. Continued..

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Teleportation David Darling Wiley, 2005 ISBN: 0471470953 Most people will be familiar with the idea of teleportation from science fiction films, an such a device would be extremely useful but how likely is it that it will ever be created? In Teleportation: The impossible leap David Darling explains some of the discoveries which may eventually lead to a teleportation device. The book starts with a chapter looking at teleportation in science fiction, and then introduces the reader to the physics of teleportation and in particular to quantum theory. Darling then describes how recent experiments have brought quantum teleportation closer to reality. Continued..

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The last man who knew everything Andrew Robinson Oneworld, 2006 ISBN: 1851684948 In today's world of specialisation, it's virtually impossible to contribute to more than one area of study. Even two centuries ago this was very difficult, but in The last man who knew everything Andrew Robinson tells the story of Thomas Young, who was a prime example of such a polymath. We hear of how Young was an expert in many areas, in particular overthrowing Newton's ideas of light corpuscules with his wave based theory, and deciphering Egyptian heiroglyphics from the Rosetta stone. Young also contributed articles to the Encyclopedia Britannica on a wide range of subjects, and all the while had to spend most of his time on his 'day job' as a doctor. Continued..

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Perfect Symmetry Jim Baggott Oxford University Press ISBN: 0198557906 In Perfect Symmetry Jim Baggott looks at the surprising discovery of buckminsterfullerine. Starting from some mysterious bands in some astronomical spectra, he goes on to explain how scientists experimenting with arcs between graphite rods began to notice strange forms of carbon. There was plenty of speculation as to its nature, but at first the idea of a sphere - or buckyball, named after the geodesic domes designed by Buckmisnter Fuller - seemed to be too far out to be true - but it was. And then, after patents had been obtained on intricate methods of producing this strange substance, it was found that it was often present in ordinary soot. Continued..

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The Triumph of Numbers I B Cohen Norton, 2006 ISBN: 0393328708 The modern state keeps track of a great deal of information about its people - how many there are, what illnesses they suffer from and what goods they produce. In The Triumph of Numbers I.B. Cohen traces how this massive use of statistics came about. It starts with a discussion of the building of the pyramids, but most of the book is concerned with the widespread adoption of statistical methods in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The history of statistics may not seem like a particularly interesting subject, but Cohen's book is surprisingly readable even if it's unlikely to make the bestseller lists. Continued..

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The First Chimpanzee John Gribbin and Jeremy Cherfas Penguin, 2001 ISBN: 0140294813 The descent of humans from the apes is well known, but in The First Chimpanzee:In search of Human Origins the authors claim that the established view needs considerable modification. Firstly, they find the evidence for a split from chimpanzees and gorillas less than 5 million years ago so overwhelming that they wonder why anyone still argues for an earlier split of up to 20 million years ago. More speculatively, they claim that the last common ancestor might have had many human characteristics, such as walking upright, which the other apes have lost. Continued..

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Silicon Eye George Gilder Norton, 2005 ISBN: 0393057631 Bringing a new technology to market against established competition is never easy, and often results in much frustration. In Silicon Eye tells the story of the Foveon imager, and how it promises to make imaging cheap enough to become ubiquitous - if it can deal with the competion in the form of CCD digital cameras that is. More generally the book shows how brilliant ideas for analogue devices based on the brain and other biological systems have struggled when they have had to compete with the relentless - Moore's law - march of the more established digital devices. Continued..

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Introduction to mathematical logic Elliot Mendelson Chapman and Hall, 1997 ISBN: 0412808307 Mentioned in Gdel's incompleteness theorem My main reason for recommending Elliot Mendelson's Introduction to mathematical logic to someone wishing to study mathematical logic is the start of the third chapter (of 5). This chapter is on formal number theory, and starts off with a list of axioms and then some proofs. That's what mathematical logic is all about isn't it? Well maybe it's more about metaproofs - that is proofs about what you can prove, and certainly that is the main content of this book. However, I feel that having a few pages of the proofs you are dealing with is vital to give the student a foothold in this difficult subject, but, somewhat surprisingly, its difficult to find such proofs in books at this level. Continued..

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Predictions Sian Griffiths Oxford University Press, 1999 ISBN: 0192862103 Knowing someone's view of possible futures gives a deep insight into the way they think, and so a book containing essays on the future by well known thinkers would be very important indeed. Predictions: 30 great minds on the future is not such a book. Certainly they have contributions from eminent thinkers, but these are often only a page in length, which is only enough to repeat what we already know. Most of the space for each person is given to a biographical introduction written by a journalist who interviewed them. Continued..

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