This is a very interesting and stimulating book. The most interesting is the part on phantom limbs and neglect syndromes. He, like Sacks, listens to the stories of his patients. He has interesting ideas but they are curiously incomplete, that is, incompletely investigated.
The part of the book about the Charles Bonnet syndrome was especially interesting.
Monday, August 27, 2007
The Coming Islamic Invasion of Israel by Mark Hitchcock (Multnomah)
Premillenial exploration of present middle east drift toward final confrontation, short, fairly good in its small niche.
A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live by Richard Baxter
A wonderful if archaic tract with a real heart for the lost. Long, repetitive, emotional, it is nonetheless biblical and sound. (ebook Palm)
Genome by Matt Ridley
This is a clever book about the genome, taking each chromosome and using it as a tag to discuss a genetic topic. The writing is very interesting. The topics are very good. The most interesting was Instinct, which had a lot of linguistics. He also disposes of Marxism, Leninism, Freudianism, and other -isms in one page. The prion chapter is somewhat alarming. The evolutionary gymnastics to explain the X and Y chromosomes is amusing.
Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction by John Polkinghorne
Very good, concise, well-written. What limited math it has is less accessible to me because of typography or symbols that either are beyond me or different than what I have studied. He gives care to state that drawing philosophical conclusions from physics is not warranted - he calls this Quantum Hype. "...random subatomic uncertainty is very different indeed from the exercise of the free will of an agent."
Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins
Interesting, fairly well done, but the main question remains, is there a second chance?
Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks
I wish I would have read this as a chem major in college. It evokes the wonder of nature often seen in biologists it seems but not in chemists. A biography of a child chemist recapitulating the history of chemistry, a little too neatly perhaps but engagingly. Metals, the periodic table, explosions (where were the parents?!). Humphry Davy seems to be interesting as is Boyle. I enjoyed this book.
Memory: A Guide for Professionals by Alan Parkin
A simple, well-organized discussion of memory and the brain. The sections on the fallibility of memory and false memory are quite interesting.
Memory: A Guide for Professionals by Alan Parkin
A simple, well-organized discussion of memory and the brain. The sections on the fallibility of memory and false memory are quite interesting.
Boltzmann's Atom by David Lindley
The story of an idea and a man who defended and proved the idea but suffered greatly for fighting against the old ideas. His nemesis Mach was a thorn in his side. His idol Maxwell understood him then found a serious flaw evoking Maxwell's Demon. Lucretius, Clausius, Hertz, Helmholtz, Planck, Gibbs, all played roles. The clarification of the second "Law" of thermodynamics as probabilistic is interesting. Josiah Willard Gibbs emerges as almost as interesting as the hero of the tale.
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
This is a short book about an incredible adventure. Hardship, cold, resignation to misfortune, but no despair, just perseverance of almost unimaginable extent. Not to mention navigation and seamanship with almost nothing but knowledge and crude tools. The IMAX movie was beautiful and yet the book is so much more evocative of how hard it really was.
Venus in Transit by Eli Maor
This is a delightful, interesting book that excited and challenged me till I read that the transit won't be visible from the U.S.! It is well-written, understandable, and enjoyable. A short, well-executed book. June 8, 2004
Chandra by Kameshwar C. Wali
A good book about Chandrasekhar, the greatest Indian astronomer and Nobel prize winner in physics. Coming from India, he went eventually to the University of Chicago and was mainly at Williams Bay. His love-hate relationship with Eddington severely hampered and delayed the recognition of his work. His story is reminiscent of that of Ramanujan, though with a happier ending.
The Defeat of the Spanish Armada by Garrett Mattingly (1959)
A definitive account from primary sources of the greatest military battle to that time. From my reading it seems that the weather was not the deciding factor, but the superior performance of the English ships. The Spanish had the harder task and were poorly supplied and had many inferior ships. The book goes into excruciating detail about the political context. King Philip of Spain seems a most interesting character as does of course Drake.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe
Very good till the end with a realistic unsatisfying ending, great characters. About manhood in all its forms, strength and weakness, fear, courage.
Skunk Works by Ben R. Rich
An interesting book about stealth technology and high altitude high speed recon. The SR-71 and the B1 and B2 and the Stealth fighter and the pressures and joys of top secret high stakes gambling with the fickle U.S. government as an unequal partner. The basic thesis is that if the bean-counters and bureaucrats let the engineers alone, anything is possible!
The Los Alamos Primer by Robert Serber
This is a reconstruction of the lectures which were given to the scientists when they came to Los Alamos for the Manhattan Project. The lecture notes are given and explained in a different type face in the light of more recent knowledge. It is a great little book. What is striking is that the science was rather well known from the outset and it was the execution and engineering that was the monumental feat. This is a unique glimpse by one who was there, and source documents open to view, inaccuracies and brilliance on display in the best tradition of American science.
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard P. Feynman
Interesting and some historic and seminal ideas, molecular computing, h istory of Los Alamos, the Challenger inquiry. I find his philosophizing shallow and naive. His view of science is so overconfident and naive (again, it seems the best word; uncritical might be even more accurate). He seems not to see that all statements about science are philosophical and not scientific. He seems to claim that when a scientist looks at science and culture he is looking at both scientifically. As opposed to non-scientists, who look at science ignorantly and the world unscientifically.
The Rise of the Greeks by Michael Grant
I read most of this. Reminds me of the fossil record, deciding about cultures from pieces of clay pots but most of it is quite plausible. I'm sure it is careers of research distilled and well-written.
The Lotus and the Cross by Ravi Zacharias
Interesting, but didn't really clarify the issues. It raised problems for Buddhism well but because of the style, was ethereal. This made it enjoyable to read. A certain artfulness of writing.
Friday, August 3, 2007
The Summons by John Grisham
A good story with more cleverness than it seems. Clues are freely offered and easily ignored. About jumping to conclusions and being comfortable and overconfident and being afraid of the wrong things.
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
Well-written story with some subtlety and a Canadian view. Exotic characters and psychological insight. Deals with family dysfunction, home and community love, ambition, guilt, identity. A good if not great book.
The Lady Tasting Tea by David Salsburg
A really great book about statistics, very interesting, raised many fundamental questions. A tour de force, I think. Unique.
Acid Tongues and Tranquil Dreamers by Michael White
The usual Leibnitz-Newton stories and many others. The Darwin ones were to me slanted and tedious. Not particularly interesting, though a lot of research is apparent.
E = mc2 by David Bodanis
A really neat book about a great subject, well-written, well-executed. Discusses Einstein and many other people involved. Explains the elements of the equation in an engaging way. Is full of interesting asides, such as why WWI ships have their metal used on moon probes (low background radiation in pre-Hiroshima steel). That 1.8 billion years ago, some natural uranium deposits had gone critical because a natural aquifer had slowed neutrons and caused a reaction in Gabon near the Oklo river. It talks about the destruction of the Norway heavy water plant stopping the German A-bomb effort. Numerous excellent references. A very good book - a delight.
Big Red by Douglas C. Waller
A good submarine book about the Nebraska, a Trident missile sub and its captain and crew. Mostly about people and the mission and some about the boat. About living on board, stress on family, and the jobs and aspirations. Amazingly complex, quite dangerous, constant drills keep things on edge. Even the skipper is constantly being tested. A sub travels thousands of miles blind, just listening to avoid colliding with something. A scary thought.
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