Books November 2006

Book Reviews November 2006

In search of Schrodinger's cat John Gribbin	Black Swan, 1984	ISBN: 0552125555
Nowadays there are plenty of books to choose from if you want a simple introduction to quantum theory, but back in 1984 John Gribbin's In search of Schrödinger's cat was one of only a handful of such books. The question is whether it is worth reading a book which was written that long ago, when the subject has certainly moved on. Well, there's plenty of information here but the book takes a more historical viewpoint than most. If you want to find out about how the subject came about then you should take a look at this easy to read book. Continued..

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Black holes and time warps Kip Thorne

Picador, 1994

ISBN: 0330331620

Mentioned in

Wormholes

Black holes are well known objects, but their study using general relativity requires some difficult mathematics. In Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's outrageous legacy Kip Thorne manages to put over some highly theoretical notions without needing any mathematical details - the excellent drawings by Matt Zimet are a great help. Although it is a large book it has a very readable style. It might also serve as a source book for further study, as its biographical details of the main people in the field give a starting point to investigate their work. Its a valuable addition to the bookshelf of anyone who is interested in the development of modern ideas about space and time. Continued..

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The Candle revisited Peter Day	Oxford University Press, 1994	ISBN: 019855835X
In 1860 Michael Faraday gaves the Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution on 'The chemical history of a candle. The Candle revisited is a collection of articles, edited by Peter Day, which are based on recent talks at the Royal Institution starting with one by P.W. Atkins taking another look at the candle. The book is well illustrated and aimed at the non-specialist. If you're the sort of person who likes to read a short scientific article in your lunch hour then then you should take a look at this book. Continued..

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Mysticism and the New Physics Michael Talbot	Arkana, 1981	ISBN: 0140193286
I have to say that while I was reading Mysticism and the new physics I didn't feel that it was a particularly well written book. There are several errors in the physics - this isn't where Michael Talbot is being speculative, it's just wrong. Also I felt that he had a tendency just to report on what people have said, rather than putting it together into a consistent narrative. When I got to the end of the book there was a chapter added in the second edition explaining that Talbot originally wrote the book in his early 20's. I felt that this explained a lot - at that age I feel that he didn't have the critical abilities to do the subject justice. However you might find it useful for its reporting on the views of various scientists on the links between mysticism and physics. Continued..

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Relativity, thermodynamics and cosmology R C Tolman	Clarendon Press, 1934	ISBN: 0486653838
In the early 1930's general relativity was a fairly new subject, and must have seemed like the domain of just a few. With its clear presentation of the subject Relativity, thermodynamics and cosmology by Richard C Tolman would have made the field accessible to a much larger number of students. At the time it was written the expansion of the universe had just been discovered. A closed universe was the favoured model, but Tolman warns against choices based on wishful thinking. This book will provide a valuable resource for those interested in the development of the early stages of today's cosmology. Continued..

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Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks Mark Buchanan	Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002	ISBN: 0297607421
The version I read was entitled Small World: uncovering nature's hidden networks. You've probably heard that no-one is more than six handshakes away fromt the President of the USA, due to what is known as the small-world effect. In Small Worlds Mark Buchanan illustrates this effect with plenty of examples. In an easy to read book he shows how the connections in typical networks makes such an effect pretty much inevitable, and he goes on to look at some of the consequences of this effect - how systems often have a 'tipping point'. If you want to find out about the small world effect, I would say that this book is an excellent place to start. Continued..

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The music of life Denis Noble	Oxford University Press, 2006	ISBN: 0199295735
In The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins argued that the gene was the most important part of living things. In The music of life:biology beyond the genome Denis Noble argues against such a reductionist viewpoint. He uses the metaphor of music, saying that just as a printed score or the data on a CD don't represent the emotional effect of a musical piece, so our genes don't code for the full complexity of a living organism. Others have made a similar claim, but in this case it is made by someone who has done significant work in computational biology and certainly knows what he is talking about. Continued..

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The New New Thing Michael Lewis	Coronet, 1999	ISBN: 0340766999
In 1979 Jim Clark was a 38 year old professor of computer science at Stanford University and was wondering where his life was leading to. In The New New thing describes how he then went on to found not one but three multibillion dollar companies in succession. A university project led to Silicon Graphics. Clark only had a small stake in this, so in the early '90s he founded Netscape, and this was followed by Healtheon. By the end of the book we see him thinking about another business. Clark is at the centre of high-tech innovation in Silicon Valley, just as Silicon Valley is such a centre for the rest of the world, so he's an important figure. It's also a fun book to read, so if you're interested in technology in today's world then you might like to give it a try. Continued..

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The Calculus Wars Jason Bardi	High Stakes, 2006	ISBN: 184344030X
Calculus is a word that brings trepidation to many students , and they may wonder who is responsible for this branch of mathematics. In The Calculus wars Jason Bardi shows how two great thinkers claimed to have invented it. At first Newton and Leibniz were willing to grant that they invented the subject independently, and that each provided a useful part. But somehow, in their later lives, it turned nasty and each accused the other of plagiarism. Bardi is a skilled writer, putting together a interesting story from the historical data and I would recommend the book to anyone with an interest in the history of mathematics or more generally in how the modern approach to science came about. Continued..

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How Invention Begins John H Lienhard	Oxford University Press, 2006	ISBN: 019530599X
We like to have a clear picture of who invented what - the Wright brothers for the aeroplane, Edison for the light bulb and so on. In How invention begins John H Lienhard shows that this picture is often a myth. He looks at inventions such as the steam engine and the printing press, and shows how they proceeded through various stages, with the accepted inventor playing an important, but not overwhelming part. Lienhard also looks at 'the invention of invention' - how sometime around 1840 inventions stopped being a one-off thing, and became an accepted part of industry. If you're interested in how our modern world came about then you should give this book a try. Continued..

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The Chemistry of conscious states
J Allan Hobson

Little, Brown & co, 1994

ISBN: 0316367540

Mentioned in

Consciousness

The relationship between consciousness and the brain is something which has been pondered upon by a great many people. In The chemistry of conscious states J Allen Hobson looks at how the question relates to dealing with mental illness. Hobson is an expert on the effects of sleep disorders, and has several interesting case studies in the book. He makes the point that whatever your philosophy, you should treat mental illness by dealing with both the mind and the brain. Hence rather than a having a deep divide between treatment with drugs and with psychoanalysis, it shoudl be recognised that drug treatments are useful in some circumstances, but it's more important to know about a patient's lifestyle. Continued..

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The rivers of Mars Piers Bizony	Aurum press, 1997	ISBN: 1854104950
For a long time people have wondered about the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe, and in particular on Mars. In The rivers of Mars Piers Bizony surveys some of the evidence for such life. The first part of the book looks at what was found by the Viking landers, followed by what we have learnt from meteorites from Mars such a ALH84001. The later part of the book considers the more general questions about life in the universe. I've a feeling that the book might not be detailed enough for some readers - at times it seemed a bit rough and ready - but there's a list of further reading for those wishing to study the subject further. Continued..

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Understanding Consciousness Max Velmans	Routledge, 2000	ISBN: 0415224926
There are four main philosophical ideas of consciousness, physicalism/materialism, dualism, parallism/epiphenomenalism and mentalism/idealism. The idealist view often goes with a mystical viewpoint, but in Understanding consciousness Max Velmans puts forward a scientifically rigorous version of idealism, which he calls reflexive monism. The first part of the book is an overview of ideas on consciousness. Velmans then goes on to describe his analysis in the second and third parts. I found the book to be easier to read than many books on consciousness and so you might like to give it a try. Continued..

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The philosopher at the end of the universe Mark Rowlands	Ebury Press, 2003	ISBN: 0091889219
I believe that science fiction has a lot to offer in making philosophical ideas more easily understood. The philosopher at the end of the universe is based on this idea. Mark Rowlands uses science fiction films to illustrate various ideas in philosophy, for instance The Matrix for Descartes thoughts about what is real. Some of it is a bit stretched, for instance the chapter on Nietzshe seems to suggest that Darth Vader should have subsumed his evil and written poetry instead. However, if you like watching sci-fi films then the book provides a useful link to ideas from philosophy . Continued..

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The measure of the universe John D North	Dover Publications, 1965	ISBN: 0486665178
When trying to push forward the boundaries of a subject of study its important to know something of its history, both to avoid pitfalls which have been made before, and to re-evaluate old ideas, to see if they might be of use. The measure of the universe by John D. North provides a useful historical resource for the subject of cosmology, in particular that of the first half of the twentieth century. The book was written over 40 years ago, but I feel that this is a plus, as it meant it was closer to the action. Today we talk of the FLRW cosmological model, and this book looks at the contributions of each of these four scientists, as well as the Einstein- de Sitter model, the ideas of Milne and the later ideas of a steady-state universe. To get the most out of the book it is important to work through the mathematics in it, but this is generally fairly straightforward. Continued..

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Walking on Eggs Luis Chiappe and Lowell Dingus	Little, Brown, 2001	ISBN: 0316854891
Many people must have dreamed of having a career as a palaeontologist - going to exotic places and discovering new dinosaur fossils. Walking on Eggs, by Luis Chiappe and Lowell Dingus, is the story of a group of scientists who did just that. It tells the story of the discovery in 1997 of a large number of dinosaur egg fossils in Patagonia. There are plenty of details about the trials and tribulations of travel in a remote area, and of excavating the eggs for further research. It's well worth reading if you want an insight into how such discoveries are actually made. Continued..

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The Subtle Knife Philip Pullman	Scholastic, 1997	ISBN: 0590112899
The Subtle Knife is the second book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. In this book Lyra crosses into another world, and meets Will a boy from yet another world - our own. One thing to note is that this book needs to be read as part of the trilogy. The first book (The Golden Compass) can just about be read on its own - although there are a few loose ends - but I would advise that to read the second book you need to have read the first and go on to read the third. Continued..

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A history of the circle Ernest Zebrowski	Free Association Books, 1999	ISBN: 1853434612
Mathematics is very good at giving precise answers, but many people have wondered just how useful this is in practice. In A history of the circle Ernest Zebrowski takes a look at this question, using the circle as an example. He dicusses how meaningful it is to calculate pi to billions of decimals when we can only measure circumference of a circle to few decimal places. He goes on to look at the invention of the wheel, at the occurence of circles in astronomy and at waves and the work of Fourier. In the last couple of chapters he looks further at the theoretical/practical dichotomy. Continued..

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The Golem:What you should know about science Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch	Cambridge University Press, 1993	ISBN: 0521356016
I first read The Golem by Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch some years ago, and at the time I thought of it as a useful warning against dogmatism in science. However, on re-reading it, knowing more about the issues involved, I'm not so sure - it's Collins and Pinch who seem to be dogmatic. They set up a strawman version of science composed of certainty, which they then proceed to knock down. This book is certainly an interesting read - cold fusion, spontaneous generation and solar neutrinos are just three of the subjects looked at. However I would advise caution against taking the authors' claims too seriously. Continued..

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Hydrogen, the essential element John S Rigden	Harvard University Press, 2002	ISBN: 0674007387
Hydrogen is the simplest of the elements, and is also the most abundant in the universe. Hence it is often studied by physicists and cosmologists. The stories of some of these investigations form the basis for John Rigden's book Hydrogen, the essential element. Each chapter looks at the work of one scientist, or a small group, and explains how the work they did relates to this element. Thus we are taken through the development of quantum mechanics and see the technologies which this lead to such as nuclear magnetic resonance and atomic clocks. The last few chapters look at recent developments, such as Bose-Einstein condensates, antihydrogen and exotic hydrogen-like atoms. Continued..

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