Amazon.com
Few writers distinguish themselves by their ability to write about complicated, even obscure topics clearly and engagingly. James Gleick, a former science writer for the New York Times, resides in this exclusive category. In Chaos, he takes on the job of depicting the first years of the study of chaos--the seemingly random patterns that characterize many natural phenomena.
This is not a purely technical book. Instead, it focuses as much on the scientists studying chaos as on the chaos itself. In the pages of Gleick's book, the reader meets dozens of extraordinary and eccentric people. For instance, Mitchell Feigenbaum, who constructed and regulated his life by a 26-hour clock and watched his waking hours come in and out of phase with those of his coworkers at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
As for chaos itself, Gleick does an outstanding job of explaining the thought processes and investigative techniques that researchers bring to bear on chaos problems. Rather than attempt to explain Julia sets, Lorenz attractors, and the Mandelbrot Set with gigantically complicated equations, Chaos relies on sketches, photographs, and Gleick's wonderful descriptive prose.
Customer Reviews:
A "must" if you strive to understand the mystery of the universe.......2007-09-07
No, this book won't change your life or anything, but if you're an enthusiastic reader of lay science books, like me, it's a must read. Gleick's style can get dense and repetitive at times, but the concepts that he is conveying are slippery, at best. It's hard to get an intellectual bead on them. So the repetition is appropriate.
And if you've ever wondered how in the universe order could evolve out of chaos, this book gives us a peak at the best clues there are to what lies behind the kimono.
Brilliant.......2007-06-25
This is another excellent book from Gleick, surely one of the best writers alive right now.
An engaging and readable introduction to Chaos Theory.......2007-03-29
Mathmeticians, physicists, and others that unlike me did not find college level calculus challenging may be slightly disappointed with this book. There are no real equations for the Mandelbrot Set on the cover or any of the other areas of the discipline that are illustrated so well throughout the book. I have to say that the book was extremely interesting and difficult to put down. The visual presentation rather than equations seemed effective to me and Gleick is a very good science writer. There is possibly no other book that has stirred interest in this subject as well as this book for the layman in its 20 years. If you're not disappointed that you won't need a calculator to read this, I think you would appreciate the explanations for this new perspective on physics, meterology, biology, geology and math. I think of this book many times when I see alluvial flow patterns in the sand, the veination of leaves, mammotous clouds. It's an eye opener to part of the world that you may not perceive or begin to understand without reading this book.
A pop-science take on Chaos.......2007-03-12
Is Chaos theory a new title? Or a catchy name tacked on to the science explained by non-linear math? Either way, James Gleick explains the emergence of a new non-mainstream science movement. Like most of his pop science work, Gleick delves into the history, personalities and impacts of the science, as opposed to the in depth mathematics behind it. Taken as that, it's a worthy book that meets it's goals - documenting what might have been the beginning of a great scientific revolution.
Whoa! What happened here?.......2007-02-24
Chaos is as great a science book as it gets outside of some of the better than your average undergrad science textbooks; i'm talking about the good textbooks like "Project Physics Course" or Morris Kline's "Calculus". As noted by some who obviously have pride in knowing the real thing, these types of books are not the real thing; the real question is 'are they worth anything?' Yes! These general science books that are good general science books are philosophy books.
This Chaos theory book has been ranked pretty highly for its philosophizing as far as I can tell. To say the least, this is where my shock at contemporary supposedly 'intellectuals' goes up! James Gliek goes on and on(he even has a whole chapter called "Revolution" in the book) about how Chaos theory is a new science(o.k. it is), and that this new science raises questions about scientific method; to say the least, if chaos theory challenges you on scientific method, then your already dead in the water as far as an understanding of science and its methods are concerned! In fact, humanity takes steps backwards if a book that argues this stance is so popular with the 'intellectual' community. Ernst Casserir and Jacob Bronowski way back in the stone ages of the 1900's had all this figured out. Jacob Bronowski's books were published because his articles were so popular! What happened?
What happened is a new generation was born every fifteen to twenty years, and they just learned what they needed to.
Getting back to James Gliek's 'Chaos', he talks about how Chaos theory blows up the 'reductionist' views of science. Chaos theory is somehow more holistic than previous sciences. Never mind how he never mentions how Maxwell's electromagnetism 'combines' light with electricity; quantum mechanics derives chemistry, and General Relativity derives newtonian mechanics, he never even mentions how the abstract nature of mathematics works. Mathematics is an abstraction(not the popular notions of empty and vagueness); abstraction is the common form that any set of similar structures can take on; the famous example is how a couple of oranges and apples are two concrete examples of the common form of the number two. Abstraction is a unification; all of mathematics and science concepts are such unifications at one time or another. A strange attractor does not break this scientific methodology; it is as much an abstraction as any scientific concept.
Scientists seem to have lost track of all this including all these transhumanists who just happen to be nanotechnologists
Amazon.com
If the first 270 pages of this book had been published separately, they would have made up a lively, insightful, beautifully written history of theoretical physics and the men and women who plumbed the mysteries of the atom. Along with the following 600 pages, they become a sweeping epic, filled with terror and pity, of the ultimate scientific quest: the development of the ultimate weapon. Rhodes is a peerless explainer of difficult concepts; he is even better at chronicling the personalities who made the discoveries that led to the Bomb. Niels Bohr dominates the first half of the book as J. Robert Oppenheimer does the second; both men were gifted philosophers of science as well as brilliant physicists. The central irony of this book, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award, is that the greatest minds of the century contributed to the greatest destructive force in history.
Book Description
Here for the first time, in rich, human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan.
Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly -- or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity there was a span of hardly more than twenty-five years. What began as merely an interesting speculative problem in physics grew into the Manhattan Project, and then into the Bomb with frightening rapidity, while scientists known only to their peers -- Szilard, Teller, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Meitner, Fermi, Lawrence, and yon Neumann -- stepped from their ivory towers into the limelight.
Richard Rhodes takes us on that journey step by step, minute by minute, and gives us the definitive story of man's most awesome discovery and invention. The Making of the Atomic Bomb has been compared in its sweep and importance to William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It is at once a narrative tour de force and a document as powerful as its subject.
Customer Reviews:
Is this the best non-fiction book ever written?.......2007-08-03
Read this one. It has that wonderful and rare convergence of a fantastic story, great science, and distinguished writing and storytelling. Richard Rhodes learned a lot for this, then distilled it down, synthesized the information, and made it fascinating. I don't have a single complaint, it's just great. Just read it again for the first time in twenty years. Only "tickling the dragon's tail" came back, which is dropping a slug of U235 thru a hole in another similar mass, an early experiment.
From soup to nuts.......2007-04-21
I had been looking for a complete history of the making of the atomic bomb for many years. Imagine my pleasure at discovering this Pulitzer Prize winning tome on the budget rack at my local book store. Most books on this subject focus on only one aspect, the scientists, the science, Groves but this book brilliantly covers all aspects of the making of the bomb. Even more fascinating was the development of the theories and discoveries which led the leading scientists of the day to the understanding that the splitting of the atom and the awesome release of power that this would engender, was even possible. At over 900 pages you might think that this read would be tedious, but it is impossible to put this book down.
How do you define "Making"?.......2007-03-21
It's not what I thought it would be but I'm struggling to come up with a suitable title. "Fusion - Epiphany to Actuality - The Lead-Up to the Atomic Bomb" is about the best I can do. It should have stopped at the first critical mass.
The actual 'Making' happened after the theory/experimentation, which is this book's primary focus. The actual 'making' was what I was primarily interested in learning about - Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, etc., where the gadget was actually 'made'. Incredibly very short-shrift is given to this despite the length of the book.
"The Making of the Atomic Bomb" is remarkable in it's own right. But while we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover I thought we might at least have a reasonable chance at judging the topic by its title. Apparently not.
atomic bomb.......2007-01-17
The Atomic Bomb
By Dakota Moxon
Why did Japan surrender? If you guessed that it was when the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Japan you are right. Do you know why we decided to drop the atomic bombs on Japan? I chose the atomic bomb because it brought the biggest war to an end.
I think World War 2 was the biggest war in the world. I thought this was the scariest war when the United States dropped the atomic bombs. World War 2 had claimed many lives on both sides before Germany surrendered. President Truman now wanted to end the war in Japan. Before the start of World War 2 Albert Einstein contacted President Franklin D. Roosevelt and made him aware that a great bomb could be made. After much thought and prayer, President Truman made the decision to use an atomic bomb instead of invading. President Truman knew that many more Americans and Japanese would die if we invaded. American war planners thought that about one million Japanese soldiers and people would be killed and about 500,000 Americans would be killed.
President Truman had airplanes drop little pieces of paper warning the people to get out of the city. He contacted the Japanese and asked them to surrender so we would not have to drop the atomic bomb. They did not surrender. On August 2nd, 1945 the first atomic bomb named "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima. The Japanese would still not surrender so we dropped the second atomic bomb named "Fat Man" on Nagasaki on August 9th. Finally, on August 14th, Japan announced its surrender.
I think it was sad because many people died when we dropped the atomic bombs. Even though many people died, many people were saved because we did not invade. Many more people would have died if we did. I hope we do not have to drop another atomic bomb again. If I had to be in war I would hope that it would be the last war in history.
interesting, thorough history.......2007-01-12
awesome read! though it is many pages long, it is pretty easy to read, and it is very detailed. the pictures in the book do an excellent job showing the damage. the personal accounts of the survivors of the bombs are so moving and really make you think.
Book Description
A user's manual for our everyday world!
"Whether a curious layperson, a trained physicist, or a beginning physics student, most everyone will find this book an interesting and enlightening read and will go away comforted in that the world is not so strange and inexplicable after all."
--From the Foreword by Carl Wieman, Nobel Laureate in Physics 2001, and CASE/Carnegie US University Professor of the Year 2004
If you didn't know better, you might think the world was filled with magic--from the household appliances that make our lives easier to the CDs and DVDs that fill our world with sounds and images. Even a simple light bulb can seem mysterious when you stop to think about it.
Now in How Everything Works, Louis Bloomfield explains the physics behind the ordinary objects and natural phenomena all around us, and unravels the mysteries of how things work. Inside, you'll find easy-to-understand answers to scores of fascinating questions, including:
* How do microwave ovens cook food, and why does metal sometimes cause sparks in a microwave?
* How does an iPod use numbers to represent music?
* How do CDs and DVDs use light to convey information, and why are they so colorful?
* How can a CT or MRI image show a cross-sectional view of a person without actually entering the body?
* Why do golf balls have dimples?
* How does a pitcher make a curveball curve and knuckleball jitter about in an erratic manner?
* Why is the sun red at sunrise and sunset?
* How does a fluorescent lamp produce visible light?
You don't need a science or engineering background to understand How Everything Works, all you need is an active curiosity about the extraordinary world all around you.
Customer Reviews:
Not what I expected.......2007-06-13
I imagined that this would be a richly illustrated book showing how Physics plays a role in some of the everyday things I encounter. Instead, it seemed to me to read like another monochrome textbook by some professor at an Ivory League college. I was frankly disappointed and certainly not at all entertained. Fortunely I've arleady completed a few graduate degrees.
Great Service. I will be back for more........2007-06-09
Quick service and very good price. I am 100 % happy.
Saved from a costly mistake........2007-01-13
Some books are crammed full of info, but don't teach the subject matter very well. This book fortunatly does a fine teaching job.
I was concerned about whether to buy this book, thinking it might not be a smart way to spend my money. But,I found some info in it that prevented me from wasting my time on a tech project I was working on. If I hadn't gone ahead and spent the money on this book, I might have spent some serious money on my tech project...only to discover it was flawed in its design.
Although I won't spend a fortune on future book purchases, I will be more inclined to buy books like this one that help increase my basic knowledge of how things work.
Best though-provoker since Brief History of Time.......2006-05-26
I've read a number of science books over the years, some under duress, and others for the pleasurable bending of the brain that it provokes. This book ranks right alongside Hawkings' Brief History of time in terms of perspective-altering clout. Bloomfield's style is clear and concise, never lost me in the mumbo-jumbo, and is radiating with his own voice, a voice that is clearly ecstatic over the physics of microwaving metals, the curveball, and every other type of everyday physics you can imagine. He even made P-N junctions hilarious, if you dont know what that is, just look for the section about theatre patrons being hurled around by gorillas...
For days after reading this book I found myself wondering about the physics of things going on around me, and often able to come up with some realistic, (at least to my mind!) explanations for them based on the principles in How Eevrything Works.
If I'm sounding a bit like a big cheerleader for this book, that's good, I would encourage anyone to pick it up and read it through, if for no other reason than a few trippy days afterwards, staring at elevators and water pipes in awe.
Book Description
Power, Speed, and Form is the first accessible account of the engineering behind eight breakthrough innovations that transformed American life from 1876 to 1939--the telephone, electric power, oil refining, the automobile, the airplane, radio, the long-span steel bridge, and building with reinforced concrete. Beginning with Thomas Edison's system to generate and distribute electric power, the authors explain the Bell telephone, the oil refining processes of William Burton and Eugene Houdry, Henry Ford's Model T car and the response by General Motors, the Wright brothers' airplane, radio innovations from Marconi to Armstrong, Othmar Ammann's George Washington Bridge, the reinforced concrete structures of John Eastwood and Anton Tedesko, and in the 1930s, the Chrysler Airflow car and the Douglas DC-3 airplane.
These innovations used simple numerical ideas, which the Billingtons integrate with short narrative accounts of each breakthrough--a unique and effective way to introduce engineering and how engineers think. The book shows how the best engineering exemplifies efficiency, economy and, where possible, elegance. With Power, Speed, and Form, educators, first-year engineering students, liberal arts students, and general readers now have, for the first time in one volume, an accessible and readable history of engineering achievements that were vital to America's development and that are still the foundations of modern life.
Customer Reviews:
Discussion of key 20th century engineering breakthroughs.......2007-05-07
In this case, you can judge a book by its cover, or at least its title. Billington takes a look at the technologies (created just before or after 1900) which shaped the 20th century. For each he identifies the engineers who made the key innovations that made the technologies successful.
The book is partially a history lesson, with mini-biographies of the people involved and a discussion of what the technology meant in the context of the time. But it also partially a simplified discussion of the engineering concepts, with useful sidebars and appendices that give about the same level of detail that you might find in a first year engineering lecture.
It is interesting to see how some of the technologies interconnect, such as the telephone being a necessary precursor to the radio (for an understanding of how to carry a human voice over an electromagnetic signal).
As an aeronautical engineer, I was mostly familiar with the history of the Wright brothers. Billington did a great job with that chapter, which gives me confidence that the other chapters are just as accurate and complete.
The text is not dry and academic, but it does assume at least a practical familiarity with physics and engineering. You don't need to be an engineer to understand the book, but it does help.
By the way, this book is not about computers or other things that we think of as "high tech" today. It's about the technologies that are so fundamental to our lives that we don't think of them, like the electrical power grid and the automobile. These had the same relationship to the world of 1900 that the internet has to the world of 2000.
Book Description
he biography of a medical maverick who is challenging scientific convention with his astounding approach to achieving and maintaining health Dr. Irving Dardik's radical notions about how all matter moves in interconnected waves has drawn deep skepticism from physicists, and his early attempts to put his theory into practice in the field of health care got him banned from practicing medicine in the 1990s. But now, after a decade's worth of rigorous research that seems to support Dardik's SuperWave theory, scientists at such esteemed institutions as MIT, Harvard, and Stanford Research International are signing on with Dardik's team to probe the possibilities. For example, Dardik's unique approach to physical exercise, based on his Principle, has achieved some remarkable successes in reversing symptoms of chronic disease.
Customer Reviews:
nice story, no details re: how to do it.......2007-09-30
I really liked the book, on a literary level. It was well written, engaging, and thought provoking. However, it really fails, and fails badly at giving the how to's. I'd love to try the protocol the Dradik has developed and the book describes, but there just isn't enough detail about how to institute it. i feel like I was shown a menu and then told I couldn't ordewr the food. From what I undersatnd, Dardi charges $5,ooo a month to enroll in his program! That leaves out most of the planet. So much for sharing usable information.
Just because..........2007-06-23
The only reason I decided to buy this book was because of the "John Doe" and "jubjub" below, who both use the term viral marketers to describe some honest people reviewing the book, and then pretending to feel bad about wasting fifteen bucks to the author's grubby capitalist pockets; I'm sure they haven't even held the book in their hands. They mentioned no details about the book they didn't like, why they didn't like it, and gave it the lowest score possible. Get a life.
Dan Winter already has an incredible amount of information online at his Golden Mean site for free. I was fascinated by the incredible life-like symmetries in the graphs and charts, even though he has a ton of crazy ideas... which seem to make sense under this universal paradigm. Can't wait to read the book.
Promising approach to health, an intriguing view of life.......2007-05-17
Dardik's work is, IMO, profound and still in its infancy. He offers a model of how both life and the physical world 'work'. Most immediately and as a doctor, Dardik focused initially on how our Western life-style works against human performance, and produces chronic disease -- and what may be done to reverse this by strengthening the body's natural ability to create health.
Lewin's book is an excellent introduction for both lay people and subject experts. Lewin describes well the important first practical applications in health and physics of Dardik's concept of SuperWaves. It is clear that applications will continue to be discovered as others in other fields, such as politics, sociology and psychology, consider the implications of Superwaves.
Lewin's book is a handy entry into this model of how both life and the physical world work, and a good launching point for people who find traditional models inadequate.
At the same time, Lewin's book offers a fascinating look into the world of creative people who tackle areas in which a prevailing wisdom is (too) well-entrenched. It is a world of joyous intellectual breakthroughs and of numbing institutional defeats, of lasting friendships and loyal support and of belligerent personal attacks.
This world requires perseverance, sacrifice, enduring curiosity and open-mindedness, and as with all the great pioneers of history, it is fortunate that Dardik has these aplenty, and that the benefits of his insights are thus entering into our lives.
Lewin's book is a great help in furthering this tendentious, difficult, important and rewarding process.
Lawrence de Bivort
Shame on you Lewin!.......2006-07-12
Corrupting the integrity of the amazon review system with viral marketers is a distasteful annoyance but it pales in comparison to preying on the hopes of the ill.
I love books that are on the fringe of science--they are often thought-provoking and entertaining even if they report on findings that are ultimately flawed. However, seeing how the grandiose claims of this book ultimately led to the defrauding of the elderly and chronically sick makes me ashamed that a fraction of the money I paid for this book went into the pocket of the author.
Author's response.......2006-06-15
In his/her short "review," "jubjub" makes the extremely serious accusation that either I, as author, or Irving Dardik, as the subject of the book, must have "paid" some of the reviewers, because of their positive comments. ("Jubjub" uses the derogatory term "infomercial language.") While I refrain from stooping to respond to such a base claim, I would ask why "jubjub" would seek to hide behind a mask of anonymity while making such a claim about me in such a public arena? Does she/he not have the decency or courage to simply identify themselves? What does she/he have to hide, if anything? (In entering this "review," I was asked to select a rating; as author, I simply entered its current rating, not wishing to skew the rate either way.)
Book Description
Can there be freedom and free will in a deterministic world? Renowned philosopher Daniel Dennett emphatically answers “yes!” Using an array of provocative formulations, Dennett sets out to show how we alone among the animals have evolved minds that give us free will and morality. Weaving a richly detailed narrative, Dennett explains in a series of strikingly original arguments—drawing upon evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, and philosophy—that far from being an enemy of traditional explorations of freedom, morality, and meaning, the evolutionary perspective can be an indispensable ally. In Freedom Evolves, Dennett seeks to place ethics on the foundation it deserves: a realistic, naturalistic, potentially unified vision of our place in nature.
Customer Reviews:
Slightly let down.......2007-08-23
I very recently became enthralled with evolutionary psychology after having enjoyed Pinker's "Blank Slate", Haidt's "Happiness Hypothesis" and Wright's "Moral Animal."
I bought "Freedom Evolves" while on vacation, when the store didn't have a copy of "Darwin's Dangerous Idea."
Given Dennett's sterling reputation, and craving a convincing and well-honed argument to back-up my intuitive sense that a hard determinist world view verges on lunacy, I came away slightly let down (although I enjoyed the book).
(The opening pages recount a very disturbing incident--which Dennett uses masterfully to frame his argument-- that I'd previously assumed to be urban legend. I find myself calling daycare to make sure my wife dropped the kids off safely. And, although I'm not typically characterized as compassionate, I can't help but be subsumed with compassion for this poor man whose tragic story Dennett recounts.)
Hopefully someone will further develop Prof. Dennett's argument for freewill/determinism compatibility, but in the meantime, I'm plenty content to breeze along with my ownintuitive (and admittedly unsophisticated)instinct that a deterministic world view is, from a practical perspective, absurd.
After all, the notion that determinism is the 'correct' stance is meaningless so far as its impact on ethics or our day-to-day lives. If one were to subscribe to determinism, he'd be lumped in with the sniping, whiny leftist lemmings who naively parrot the "more evolved" motto that we have "no right to judge" criminals and madmen (unless, of course, they happen to be baptists from the south).
By "absurd" I mean simply as follows: To argue (as some do) that we can't blame or praise someone's actions or hold him accountable for his deviant or illegal behaviors because his genes and unfortunate upbringing alleviate any moral culpability, is, at its root, to ignore the naked fact that natural selection also endowed me with genes and an upbringing. Only my genes and environmental influences (deterministically)instruct me to seek retribution for the bad guy's "blameless" deviance. If you can't blame him then you can't blame me for my desire to punish him either--neither of us are free to act otherwise.
Free will has price tag.......2007-04-30
If reality is deterministic, then can anyone seriously believe in free will.
In giving an emphatic "yes" Dan Dennett posits a philosophy which attempts to show that -- properly understood -- determinism does indeed reconcile itself with the notion of free will (ostensibly something non deterministic).
In laying out his thesis, Dennett draws from a variety of sources however, amazingly enough, not choas theory.
This isn't surprising because in his earlier Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Dennett confessed that he didn't understand physics.
Regrettably, this lack of knowledge has denied him an important additional method by which to reconcile the two phenomenon he purports to discuss. Though certainly not a panacea, choas theory does posit that in sufficiently choatic systems, periodic patches of order emerge.
The significance of this view is obvious when one is discussing a field so broad a free will.
When properly viewed it emerges that free will isn't free.
Where Dennett took the example of baseball player responding to a pitch, let us take the example of you saying hello to a friend. While it's true that your friend may respond by singing a song or doing a dance, the smart money is on the idea that you will get some type of greeting in response to your greeting. In other words, free will isn't free but rather yields responses that lie within a fairly predictable horizon of responses.
Another good case in point is an individual choosing a mate. Research by Dr. Helen Fisher (see her Why we love) says that our romantic choices will ultimately combine two features: 1) a common economic, religious, social background with 2) those physical traits we deem desireable (themselves predictable as pointed out in the Nancy Etcoff book Survival of the Prettiest by means symmetry, youth, apparent reproductive fecundity and the like).
Still another good case in point is the individual in choosing a religion. Typically, children follow the faith of their parents.
True, in each of these situations, it is predictable that a certain percentage of random choices will occur outside the predicted outcomes but a fair analysis seems to suggest that free will generally expresses itself in the form of an individual doing what -- by dint of genetic proclivity or experiential background -- they were in essence programmed to do.
That said, Dennett's point that more learning and ability to learn widens the options is well taken. However, the Tao Te Ching's advice to "not let your wheels stray from old ruts" becomes not so much advice as a fair predicter of human behavior.
Prove Yourself/You Are the Move You Make.......2007-01-27
I should say, before I start criticizing, that Dennett does what he sets out to do: he reconciles free will with determinism. His method of doing so is different, consisting not so much of building an argument but rather unleashing a torrent of poignant examples that end up changing one's feelings about things, making the counterintuitive intuitive. Perhaps were the book intended for a more sophisticated audience, Dennett would have provided a more formal argument. But here the author explicitly states he's reaching for a larger crowd, and perhaps that explains his informality.
Nonetheless, this work is really done by about halfway in the book. Past that, he oozes towards other topics, which he only partially addresses. He's obviously displeased with the idea of a Cartesian self and so propounds a materialist view of consciousness, but it's a shallow attack, and dualism remains. His view of the evolution of morality is interesting but unsatisfying in the questions it leaves dangling, such as: "If morality develops as a way of preserving the good of the community, then how do we define that community? How do we define good?" The final chapter gets to political philosophy, but the rumination is so thin one doesn't gather much from it. Yes, choices must be made, but how?
I can see how a person could convincingly argue for the positions here, but it would require a more thorough treatment of each of them. And this is a book about free will---moral and political implications, et al, all seem rather tacked on, tantalizing starts but functionally just padding.
I don't want to give the impression that I did not like the book--I did, I enjoyed it quite a bit. The tone is breezy and informal (though sometimes too much) and the thought powerful yet easy to follow. Even as it meanders it's still fascinating.
But after some chapters, whereas the author clearly thought he'd proved something, I could not put my finger on what.
Still, well worth reading, and Dennett has some great references listed within that I shall check out forthwith.
Did not Prove His Theories.......2006-07-31
I found Mr. Dennett's book to be very interesting and well worth reading, but I think that he failed to prove the major premise upon which the book was based, that is, that despite the fact that we are physical beings who must follow the clock-like laws of physics, our actions are not totally predetermined. I believe that Mr. Dennett is correct in his belief that we have a choice. But I do not see that he proved his point.
Compatiblism by Evolutionary Constructs.......2006-05-01
One never knows with Dennett. His "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" is truly an exceptional work, but his "Consciousness Explained" and "Elbow Room" leave a lot to be desired. This is among the latter.
Here's the gist: Determinism is a fact of nature, evolution is also a fact of nature, humans have evolved to "incorporate" the notion of free-will, even if science denies it, and so by evolution of social norms we accept (i) determinism on the macroscopic level, (ii) indeterminancy on the microscopic level, and (iii) free will on the social or cultural level. Does the conclusion follow from the premises? Hardly.
Dennett is taking a "compatiblist" perspective, by adding features of evolutionary theory. The compatiblist theory admits determinism as a fact of nature, but "allows" free will because we believe we have it. And we believe we have it, because we have evolved to that state of consciousness. Even if it might be untrue, we've been hardwired by evolution to believe it is necessary. It's not a matter of the facts, it's a matter of what we have evolved to believe. Evolution is the reason we adhere to it, even if it's not entirely true.
Dennett, the ever-faithful materialist, cannot escape the physical reality that every effect has a cause, and because all effects are caused, even human behavior is ultimately only an effect of other causes. But we could not, and would not, have survived during evolution's slow process, if we genuinely believed that no one is responsible for his actions. So evolution implanted in humans (maybe it's in our genome) the belief that the important acts of humans are freely chosen, even if on another level they really are not. So both determinism and freewill coexist, but on different models and levels.
That's the gist. He could have been concise as I have been, but then it would have been an article at most, not a book. To fill the remaining pages, and they are many, Dennett opinionates about many things, including his disdain for rationalism, which is especially odd since his disdain is entirely a rationalist claim, even if it may not be rational. I don't deny the probability of some compatiblist theory, but don't undermine an appeal to rational claims, which is the only way to get there. Justifying free will by evolution is necessarily a rational exercise, because free will is not inherently a part of evolutionary theory.
When Dennett fails, it's often miserably. This was also a miserable read.
Book Description
This is an encyclopedic, large-format book containing hundreds of illustrations. While not geared toward making conventional instruments, Musical Instrument Design provides all the information that anyone (amateur or professional) should ever need to construct an amazingly wide variety of percussion, string, and wind instruments. Includes many designs along with parts lists and detailed construction instructions.
Customer Reviews:
Extremely useful and doable, even for a layperson.......2007-07-16
This book has very useful information on essentially all types of instruments, even keyboard-ish instruments. These instruments are definitely NOT little kiddy playthings - I wouldn't recommend getting it for your ten-year-old - but can be constructed even by those who don't have a plethora of equipment and supplies. Quite absorbing, especially for those who wish to make a wide variety of playable-quality instruments. Also, one can easily improvise. Very highly recommended!
Excellent.......2007-05-29
Valuable, enjoyable and an interesting read and reference. I would replace it if I lost it.
Get this book!.......2007-03-03
These projects will get your kids off the streets and provide hours of fun for you and your whole family, as you reinvent your own voice. Passive listening to music may relax you, but actively participating in the creation of your very own sounds is therapeutic and will lift up your heart and make your soul sing. Put your iPods in the closet. When was the last time YOU made the music?
Practical information for practically everyone.......2006-03-28
If what you want to do is make a guitar or violin from scratch, there are better books than this one. However, if you want to understand how and why musical instruments of all kinds are built the way they are, this book has you covered. There's information on instruments that are percussive, stringed (both plucked and bowed), and blown into. Most useful are the tips on how to get these things tuned in such a way that they are useful for making music.
Check out the "windworld" web site for some examples of the experimental instruments Hopkin has created.
The book contains information on building materials (with tips on where to get them), music and sound theory, and some history when relevant to an instrument he is trying to emulate. It's certainly not exhaustive, but gives you just enough to get your creativity flowing. I would have liked to see more illustrations and or photographs showing the assembly of some of these instruments, but that's not to say that the book isn't already full of illustrations. I just want more.
One other thing to note is that this isn't a book about making toys for kids. No pie plate tambourines here. This is 175 pages of serious information and ideas, a bargain at this price.
Impractical.......2005-08-19
This book should be titled "The Physics of Musical Instruments." I was hoping to get info to help me design a new Belizean form of Ukulele, and it was no help at all. Info on the resonance of stringed instruments is sketchy at best. The book concentrates on the characteristics of sound, using a instruments (actually experiments) such as a metal cylinder balanced on a couple of balloons. Mildly interesting but not relevant for me.
Customer Reviews:
tells the story well.......2007-01-14
What is impressive is how the author has told a story about wavelets, at a level that correctly communicates the mathematical essence. Where specifically the impressive achievement is that that level is for a first year undergrad. The maths discussed involves Fourier series [of course!], definite integrals, and simple matrix manipulations.
En route, she explains the Fast Fourier Transform. She credits Gauss as the original inventor, but does not mention Cooley and Tukey who independently rediscovered it, when computers were available to actually make the method practical. There's a hilarious little aside, when she does some approximations and credits this to "minor" administrative overhead. Where the humour is that universities typically charge 40% overhead on government grants! Must remember that.
Excellent Introduction to Wavelets.......2007-01-03
This is an excellent introduction to wavelets and also the Fourier Transform. The first part of the book is readily accessible to almost anyone who has a passing knowledge of high school math. The second half will mostly be useful to the more mathematically sophisticated. It is an ideal kick start for any one who has the requisite knowledge and is motivated to learn more about the applications and theory behind wavelets.
It is not likely that this book will satisfy all your needs if you intend to master this subject but if you are just getting started, I would start here.
Good effort, but no.......2006-10-07
The author of this book states in the preface that her goal is to make wavelet theory accessible to the layman, without bombarding them with "paralyzing" "funny symbols or hieroglyphics" they haven't learned yet. I thought this was a wonderful idea, as I am a layman who never made it past high school geometry with an interest in learning all about the successor to the ubiquitous FFT used in engineering. Unfortunately, while she does manage to avoid using excessive amounts of "hieroglyphics" in the first part of the book, she makes up for it by throwing around a lot of mathematical terms which are never defined for the reader, so the net result in terms of comprehension is ultimately the same as if she had used the formulae, if not worse. Ms. Hubbard will dedicate three pages worth of text to an anecdotal retelling of some conversation that took place between two researchers in front of a Xerox machine, and then suddenly throw in one line at the end of all this nonsense about integrals and coefficients, as though the preceding story somehow prepared the reader for these terms well enough to divine their meaning from one terse little sentence devoid of any contextual clues. It may be presumptuous of me, but I don't think these words mean any more than the much maligned "hieroglyphics" would to the average layman this book is meant to be read by.
On top of that, the diagrams and illustrations are horrible, looking like something that came out of a dot-matrix printer in the late 70s, and ultimately illustrating nothing.
The world desperately needs a book that actually does what this one claims to. "Who is Fourier?" certainly managed to pull it off well enough for the Fourier Transform despite being translated from Japanese, so I'm certain it's possible even if Ms. Hubbard happened to fail miserably at her task.
Good for start.......2002-11-12
I was very happy reading this book. If you are familiar with the Fourier transform and don't know anything about wavelets, this is a book for you.
Actually, the book has got two parts. In the first part you can learn basic things about Fourier transform (about its usage but also about its limits), what we need wavelets for and what the wavelets are. It is explained in very simple language without any formulas. The second part contains basic formulas related to the topics in the first part. I find that the link between these two parts is very good. Also, the author gives physical explanation whenever it's possible.
If you are a specialist in the wavelets area, you probably know all these things but if you are new (like me!) you will find that this book is quite useful.
It can be done!.......2002-08-18
I am a math professor,-- and I often wondered if it wouldn't be possible to get some essential math ideas accross to almost anyone, --and with fewer equations. Ideas can be burried in symbolism;-- not always! But it does happen. Many of my colleagues tell me that if it were possible, then it would be done. The author of this lovely little book didn't take math courses (she says!). Professional mathematicians would most likely agree with me that she (the author) did in fact communicate the essential ideas behind wavelets (and did it well!);- and so she must have understood them!! Perhaps, anyone who really wants to, can penetrate a specialized math discipline;-- I would guess. Perhaps it is not even hard!? At least this book proves that it is not impossible to communicate
the beauty of math;--and its uses. Take a look at the book, and judge for yourself!
It is fun too!
Book Description
Isaac Newton is a legendary figure whose mythical dimension threatens to overshadow the actual man. The story of the apple falling from the tree may or may not be true, but Isaac Newton's revolutionary discoveries and their importance to the Enlightenment era and beyond are undeniable. The Newtonian Moment, a companion volume to a forthcoming exhibition by the New York Public Library, investigates the effect that Newton's theories and discoveries had, not only on the growth of science, but also on the very shape of modern culture and thought. Newton's scientific work at Cambridge was groundbreaking. From his optical experiments with prisms during the 1660s to the publication of both Principia (1687) and Opticks (1704), Newton's achievements were widely disseminated, inciting tremendous interest and excitement. Newtonianism developed into a worldview marked by many tensions: between modernity and the old guard, between the humanities and science, and the public battles between great minds. The Newtonian Moment illuminates the many facets of his colossal accomplishments, as well as the debates over the kind of knowledge that his accomplishments engendered. The book contributes to a greater understanding of the world today by offering a panoramic view of the profound impact of Newtonianism on the science, literature, art, and religion of the Enlightenment. Copiously illustrated with items drawn from the collections of the New York Public Library as well as numerous other libraries and museums, The Newtonian Moment enlightens its audience with a guided and in-depth look at the man, his world, and his enduring legacy.
Book Description
"Science is rooted in conversations," wrote Werner Heisenberg, one of the twentieth century's great physicists. In Quantum Dialogue, Mara Beller shows that science is rooted not just in conversation but in disagreement, doubt, and uncertainty. She argues that it is precisely this culture of dialogue and controversy within the scientific community that fuels creativity.
Beller draws her argument from her radical new reading of the history of the quantum revolution, especially the development of the Copenhagen interpretation. One of several competing approaches, this version succeeded largely due to the rhetorical skills of Niels Bohr and his colleagues. Using extensive archival research, Beller shows how Bohr and others marketed their views, misrepresenting and dismissing their opponents as "unreasonable" and championing their own not always coherent or well-supported position as "inevitable."
Quantum Dialogue, winner of the 1999 Morris D. Forkosch Prize of the Journal of the History of Ideas, will fascinate everyone interested in how stories of "scientific revolutions" are constructed and "scientific consensus" achieved.
Customer Reviews:
A revolution.......2006-06-26
A major sociological question is: how can we make a revolution?.
This question is adressed by Mara Beller in "Quantum Dialogue", which can be seen as a new way to look at the problem of social change beyond Kuhn's "Structure". Indeed, it is well written, informative and, sometimes, technical. But I believe technicalities are at the heart of physics, so, it is necessary to grasp them.
I recommend this reading for all physicists, sociologists and anarchists.
A must read book on history of Quantum Physics.......2001-06-20
This is the book to read all about the development of Quantum Theory day by day with quotations from individuals, excerpts from theor correspondances. It is shocking to read those geniousess vacciliatting on some concepts. I trust the author is providing actual data but most interesting was to read that Bohr was thinking about the factor on his Energy states factor and his decision to make it one half to match zero state energy. Mr. Heisenberg through out concepts not knowing what he was saying. This is the impression I got from the readings.Author has ceratinly knows a lot about the theory itself and makes clarifications to the arguments that they were shooting to each other.This book is a gem. This book is not for someone who does not know at least a littel about the theory itself otherwise you miss the story behind the correspondances.Recommend to all who is interested in the development of modern physics.
A paradigm shift in the making--terrific!.......2000-04-21
Mara Beller has written an exciting and very valuable portrait of physicists engaged in making a scientific revolution--the quantum revolution. Beller lets us see Niels Bohr and his colleagues as they worked to win general acceptance of the Copenhagen formulation of quantum physics through ongoing dialogues, in print, correspondence, and talks, with fellow scientists. She argues that Bohr et alia prevailed, not because their view is scientifically more robust but because they were more skillful in what amounts to public relations within the scientific community--they were more effective in selling their views. Beller recreates the controversies surrounding the development of quantum theory and the acceptance of the Copenhagen formulation as "the" established view in great detail. She supports her arguments with a mass of gracefully employed archival and published documentation, including some real gems--that one of Bohr's major papers was published with two pages reversed, and nobody noticed, for example. This book is a delight to read, and an important and absorbing book, for everyone interested in how scientists develop, advocate, debate, and come to accept a new theory. I have been skeptical about work in history and philosophy of science, but this book convinces me that the Science Wars are way off base--Beller clearly is knowledgeable about the physics, and about the scientific community too. Read this book especially if you are a scientist, and see if you don't recognize yourself and some of your colleages!
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Chaos & Systems
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