2 comments about Watching.

1. Way back when Desmond Morris first hit the scene I was looking for something that made sense in the plethora or "truths" surrounding questions of why we are who and what we are. Desmond Morris' thinking added up to a "truth" I felt comfortable with--after all, every so-called truth we have is just somebody's best guess, if you ask me. I like the man. He has led and continues to lead a charmed life that is absolutely fascinating. This book, if I understand him correctly, is a revision of his autobiography plus "eight new chapters." Each chapter is a short self-contained slice of some moment in his life, and I am savoring it slowly with smiles and laughter so far (I'm at chapter 14 of 80). I know he will make me cry sooner or later for all the right reasons and I know he will provide me with startling insights and fresh understanding of my species and of himself as a man whose companionship down through the years has always been the most pleasant imaginable. Long life, Dr. Morris! I bless the day I found you.



2. Since I didn't know much about Desmond Morris, I wasn't expecting a great deal when I picked up this book. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Morris is a good writer and has had a fascinating life. Artist, TV personality, ethologist, author, etc. I especially liked the details of how Morris analyzed fish behavior, then applied the same principles to human behavior.
   
   Morris' description of Fijian firewalking and of an encounter with Uri Geller struck me as a couple of sour notes for a scientist. Morris seems to simply accept these as unexplained human abilities, without close investigation. My understanding of firewalking is that the trick relies on heat conductivity of materials--coals are hot, but they don't conduct heat quickly, so you won't be burned as long as you keep moving. By the same principle, I can put my hand in a hot oven without pain for a few seconds; however, if I touch the metal oven rack, I will be burned immediately. As to Uri Geller, it's amazing what sleight of hand can do. There are several organizations that seriously investigate psychic powers; one of these is found at csicop.org. James Randi has had a million dollars pledged for years to anyone who can prove supernatural powers; it has yet to be collected.

1 comments about Sally Ride: Shooting for the Stars Great Lives Series.

1. Although this book was very informative, it was very hard for my nine year old to read. I helped her with alot of words and I may add she's quite academic in school. I would start the age at 12 and up. Other than that it's full of facts for a book report.

No comments about Carl Sagan: A Biography.

5 comments about Saddam's Bombmaker: The Daring Escape of the Man Who Built Iraq's Secret Weapon.

1. This is an excellent book and eye-opener based on the first hand account of the scientist that worked on Saddam's nuclear bomb program. It is very insightful on Saddam's personality in how he rules through fear, punishes and then rewards to try to regain loyalty.
   
   The most eye-opening is how the Iraq government circumvented the UN embargo after the 1990 Gulf War. It is also disappointing on reading how ineffective the UN inspection program was and how Saddam was able to hide his developmental programs.
   
   The author first starts his story attempting to escape Iraq alone, in the hopes of later being able to find a way to save his family from Saddam's regime. The author later describes the major events that occurred and provides his view on what happened and how the lives of not only the scientists, but also those of the average Iraq citizen were affected.
   
   An outstanding book that was published in 2000 and was worth every penny spent buying it, and every second spent reading it.



2. Most physicists lead hum-drum lives, but not if they were born in Iraq. Hamza studied in American graduate schools, and was summoned back to teach in Iraq as a way of paying off his university debts. When invited in 1972 to join the nascent Iraqi nuclear effort, Hamza did so with some enthusiasm, thinking this would be a wonderful professional challenge and not taking seriously the prospect of an actual bomb. In addition to Hamza's talent as a scientist and scholar, his finely-tuned ability to stay out of trouble quickly became apparent and he began a long march through the bureaucracy. By 1981, he was working directly for Saddam Husayn and by 1987 he served as director general of the Nuclear Weapon Program. This high stature inevitably brought the scientist head-turning benefits - a high salary, travel to the West, fancy cars, even a residence located within Saddam Husayn's presidential compound. "All that loot was softening me up, I don't deny it," Hamza admits. With time, however, an absorbing intellectual venture turned into a descent into Stalinist hell. Finally, Hamza fully woke to his situation ("I had sold out for a Mercedes") and in 1994 managed to escape from Iraq, settling a year later in the United States.
   
   Although Saddam's Bombmaker is a well-written memoir (kudos to co-author Stein), it contains important information on two quite distinct topics of current interest: life at the highest levels of Iraqi regime and the inner workings of the Iraqi nuclear weapons project. It is hard to say which is scarier. Life in Saddam's court is morbidly fascinating. We learn about his paranoia about germs, his taste for virgins, and his personal penchant for brutality. As for the nukes, Hamza shows how, after an initial period (1972-81) of heavy dependence on imported technology, the Iraqis rethought their program, put twenty-five times more resources in it, and built "a crude, one-and-a-half ton nuclear device" by 1990.



3. I read this as a book on tape. This is an "important" book. I recommend it highly. Email:boland7214@aol.



4. Convinced he had discovered that Iraq was only ` a few inches' away from finishing a successful production of the `Bomb', the author suddenly summoned undocumented story about 1) his contribution to the `bomb's project' from initial stages, and another 2) by alluding to IBM not able to sell Iraq up to date technology.
   On page 141 he refers to IBM "couldn't sell us their new mainframe because of the export controls."
   The truth of the matter is that the Arab Boycott Office had narrated a statement, called the `negative' (or Nasty) clause, to the effect that `carriers and ships carrying goods destined to and/or from the Arab Countries, should NOT pass through or deal with Israeli ports".
   The Boycott Clause (stereotyped as is) was to be mentioned on the Bills of Lading and on all related shipping documents.
   IBM had to comply with the USA anti Boycott regulations that did not accept such `negative' statements.



5. Saddam's Bombmaker is an important contribution to our understanding of the challenges faced by groups and states trying to produce their own nuclear weapon.
   How Iraq and Hamza went about trying to obtain fissile materiel and advanced tools and parts is the most interesting and important part of the book. You will be alternatively pleased at how hard it is to obtain some items (like plutonium) and dismayed at how easy it is to obtain others from willing states and companies. The book should be read by those interested in obtaining a better understanding of nuclear proliferation.
   Now to the shortcomings of the book---
   (1) the chronology is hard to follow, the author doesn't reference a lot of dates and flips back and forth between present, past and future.
   (2) It's hard to not to become skeptical of Dr. Hamza's motives at certain points. He claims to have been forced and terrorized to work on Saddam's bomb, but was simultaneously enjoying all the comforts and benefits that Saddam's regime had to offer like new cars, high living and perks. One wonders whether Dr. Hamza's conscience really caught up with him as he claims, or did he just read the writing on the wall that there was no future in Saddam's Iraq?

No comments about Deal Makers, Brokers, and Bankers (Secrets of the Great Investors).

1 comments about Abelard and the Origin and Early History of Universities.

1. This book is a must for anyone interested in the roots of universities. Well documented, with references to a long list of authors through the ages, it tells the story of the very beginning of universities as learned societies which gained public and political support in the era of heavy turbulence. Fascinatuing stuff. I read it in one breath.

5 comments about Edwin Hubble: Mariner of the Nebulae.

1. One of the most remarkable astronomers of all time, and the one who generally gets the credit for the biggest revolution since Copernicus: Hubble was the one who recognized that the universe is expanding, and who first articulated the principle that bears his name, that of the expansion constant, the "Hubble" constant.

   This outstanding work does a good job of tracing his early years, a task made difficult by the fact that his wife destroyed many of his personal papers after his death. Hubble was enigmatic, aloof, and possibly disingenuous. He shed his Missouri roots and donned the polished exterior of a Brit. He was a shameless anglophile to the end of his life.

   He had a knack for asking the right questions at the right time, and being a talented enough observer to get the data needed to address those questions. (...)

   Christianson's work is an honest treatment of a difficult and complex subject. She doesn't gloss over the rough spots or try to sugar coat his scientific accomplishments. This is thoroughly researched and well written work.




2. If you ever wondered why the Hubble Telescope is called the Hubble Telescope, I have a book that has the answer for you. In an age where all you have to do to have a highway or bridge or named after you is get elected to some minor office (the "Eric Winkler Parkway" ???) and where all you have to do to be referred to as a "genius" is guide an NFL team to a winning record ("Tampa sure has turned around since Smith arrived to handle the coaching chores haven't they Dandy? Yes Frank, they sure have, Coach Smith is a genius"), it is sobering to meet true genius -- warts and all.

   When I was in high school, I studied nothing but sciences - with a particular emphasis on Physics and Astronomy - As a child I dreamed of being an astronomer - I built my own telescope. But then fate intervened and I ended up studying English literature and becoming a music lawyer. But later in life, in my early forties, I returned to my first love via a series of general interest science books. One of those books was "Edwin Hubble, Mariner of the Nebulae".

   This compelling, lovely book was written by Gale Christianson, the author of an equally engaging portrait of Isaac Newton. Christianson is a Professor of History and writes with a down to earth, straightforward style. He writes for the general reader and does not presume that you are grounded in science or astronomy. So do not fear - dragons be not here.

   Hubble is easily one of the most important figures to have graced the 20th century - or for that matter all of history. If you think that is an overstatement, then factor this into your thinking. This one man is responsible, virtually single-handedly, for several of the most important discoveries of all time. It was with reference to a discovery of Hubble's that the famous Harlow Shapley remarked, "here is the [discovery] that has destroyed my universe".

   1. It was Hubble who confirmed the existence of other nebulae, what are now called galaxies, outside of the "Milky Way". This seems trite now, but it was not at ALL obvious at the time. Having discovered a Cepheid variable in Andromeda he was able to measure the distance to that body of stars -- the results of his calculation (using the period/luminosity relationship (discovered by Henrietta Leavitt in 1912) that makes Cepheids the standard candles of the universe) proved beyond a doubt that Andromeda was much farther away athan any star in the Milky Way.

   2. It was Hubble who proved that the universe was expanding (and worked out the famous "Hubble Constant")- an insight of incalculable significance that laid the cornerstone for the Big Bang theory.

   3. It was Hubble who developed the system of classification for galaxies that is used to this day.

   4. It was Hubble who brought forward evidence that the universe is homogenous - i.e., the same in all directions.

   Incredibly, he never won the Nobel Prize - he died before they got around to recognising him.

   But this is only part of the story. For Hubble was probably one of the most unlikeable men of all time. He was arrogant, unkind, a publicity hound, revoltingly condescending and patronising, and at times even dishonest. A considerable portion of the book is devoted to exploring his extraordinary "reinvention of himself". A polite way of saying that he made up stories about his past life to enhance his reputation - for example he claimed to have practised law.

   Shinning out of the pages of this book, like one of his Cepheid Variables, is the story of his truly extraordinary wife Grace who put up with everything and was constant and faithful to a fault.

   I guarantee that you will not be able to put this book down. You will be by turns elated, repulsed, amazed, disappointed, astounded and saddened. I very nearly wept during the achingly touching Epilogue. It is one of those special books that you will return to more than once.




3. Gale Christianson's biography on Edwin Hubble is the story of possibly the greatest astronomer of our time. The book includes interesting nuances about Hubble's life as well as all of his discoveries in his work. It was obvious that the author had a great amount of respect for Hubble's discoveries as well as a lot of fascination over his life. The book is extremely informative, sharing all of the details of Hubble's life as well as those of the people important to Hubble. The book is quite recommendable both as a biography, and also as an astronomy book. It teaches a significant amount on the basic terms and ideas of astronomy as well as touching on some of the more advanced concepts. The book is a wonderful account of the life of a great astronomer and the history of astronomy.



4. For my physics class I was required to read a biography on any scientist I wanted...and I choose to read about Edwin Hubble.
   
   Before reading this book I had little knowledge of this great astronomer. While reading this book, I was generally impressed of the author's intense knowledge of Hubble's entire life. I soon found out his entire family social status, his early childhood, his success in high school and college sports as well as his interest in school and greatly respected work. His Rhodes Scholarship introduced him to a field of law which pleased his father but resumed his early childhood interest, once his father passed away. The rest is history....His system of classification (which is still used today) put Hubble on an International status but it doesn't end there. His studies of the Nebulae Red Shifts proved very useful and his data proved that the galaxy his greater than the Milky Way and later, was a key piece of information in the Big Bang Theory. Hubble's famous law V=Hd was so groundbreaking, that Einstein himself changed his General Relativity Equations to accommodate Hubble's law.
   
   Edwin Hubble, by Gale E. Christianson, is an extremely well written and well organized biography. However if a reader was not deeply interested into Hubble and his life work, he/she may find the book a little on boring side. Not to say Hubble did not live an eventful life, but I personally do not find astronomy deeply interesting.



5. The other reviews summarize well some of the key accomplishments of Edwin Hubble. But this biography leaves both the nature of those accomplishments and his personality a bit abstract.
   
   Maybe this isn't the biographer's fault -- his subject was hardly a live wire. As Hubble's own wife remarked, in an inadvertently chilling quote near the book's end, other than smoking a pipe he had "no mannerisms" -- he never whistled, sang, drummed his fingers or gestured. He seems to have been something of a vain and self-centered guy, but his slights and injuries to other people seem to have been relatively mild and generally not malicious. (Pace another reviewer, we aren't told anything that could rank him as "one of the most unlikable men of all time;" he seems to have been no more, and maybe a bit less, of a jerk than many other vain, successful academics, and had many long-term friendships.) He exaggerated about his past experiences in law and the military, but these fibs seem not to have precipitated any crisis, much less catastrophe, in his life or caught up with him in any significant way. The main impression from the book is of a bland, pretentious Anglophile, Republican, with many of the racial prejudices of his day, who loved honors and attention and meeting famous people. His wife comes off as the same, though maybe slightly more prejudiced and pretentious (albeit once almost tempted to vote Democrat).
   
   Maybe the most vivid thing we're told about Hubble is how late in life he became very attached to a cat, his first permanent pet. The biographer is quite generous in his attention to this cat, BTW. He's also generous in details of who were the Hubbles' friends in Hollywood, what plays those friends or the friends' friends starred in, etc.; if you'd like to know what Hubble's wife, and her friend Anita Loos, thought of Carol Channing (an actress of whom you've probably never heard if you were born after 1960), you've hit pay dirt. There are a few character sketches of scientists that could interesting if you've heard of them before, e.g. James Jeans and Arthur Eddington. (Einstein, OTOH, is inexplicably ridiculed by GC for his physical appearance, notwithstanding that he was regarded as handsome in his day, and was kind of a rake: he's called "diminutive" (@205) and "gnomish" (@365).)
   
   What, then, made Hubble a genius? After reading this book, it's still a mystery to me. Although Hubble was famous for his studies of nebulae, there isn't even a single picture of one in the book. Hubble's work was intensely visual, and it might have been interesting to see some of the spectra or photographic plates that he used in his discoveries, but none are offered. Did Hubble's legal training during his time as a Rhodes Scholar have any role in his professional career, such as his style of writing scientific papers? No connections are drawn or even suggested. Some of the scientific controversies of the 1920s, e.g. about whether what we now call galaxies were within the Milky Way or beyond it, are explained well. But the strongest personalities in those dramas belonged to others, not Hubble. As for how "the greatest astronomer in 400 years" really ticked, one finishes the book knowing little.
   
   It may be difficult to allocate blame for that between Hubble and his biographer. But the apparent shallowness of Hubble makes this pleasant-enough read feel like a disappointment by the end.

2 comments about The Last Man On the Moon.

1. My chief complaint with this book on tape is that it is read poorly, probably by the author. Although Moon Shot by Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton was panned in Amazon reviews, I very much enjoyed the book on tape version because a professional actor did the reading. Cernan's book on tape could have benefited immensely from an actor, too.

   I found myself wondering how much co-author Don Davis helped Cernan with the descriptive language and thought it was a waste that Cernan (if he was the reader) couldn't do justice to the words.

   As for content, Cernan relies too much on cliches, and I tend to agree with the reviewer who said Cernan writes too much about the internal politics of mission assignment.

   However, his account of his first marriage made me wonder how much he wasn't telling. At first he seems to go out of his way to explain that other astronauts cheated on their wives, but he did not. His marriage was sound. Later in the book we hear how he spends too little time with his family. And at the end he tells us they got divorced four years after he left NASA. He, of course, got remarried and had two more children. Sounds like just another guy who traded in his faithful wife of the same age on a younger model. I ended up feeling sorry for Barbara.




2. I enjoyed Gene Cernan reading this book himself. Hearing his own descriptions of the wonder and beauty of space was wonderful.
   
   Perhaps I'm biased. He's a Chicago native, as I am, and hearing a regular Chicago guy expressing such wonder of his experiences is a real treat for me. A lot of personal identification with what he accomplished.
   
   As to the "politics" of NASA, I took it to mean that the astronauts were a really competitive bunch, which is the reality of the situation. At no point does Cernan accuse any of his fellow astronauts of dirty pool; the competition was intense but clean. Should this be a surprise?
   
   I was a little less impressed about his characterization of Wally Schirra as an insubordinate whiner. You could just as easily see Wally's actions as advocating for astronaut safety and well-being.
   
   Cernan's antipathy to Schirra is much like the way a manager feels about a union representative. And this should not be surprising; among all the celebrities Cernan counts as friends, at the forefront is Spiro and Judy Agnew. Well, we're known by the company we keep; Cernan must be a pretty conservative dude, politically.
   
   I do like, though, his forthright and blunt descriptive style. If you don't want to hear the straight stuff (and a little cussing, too), don't buy this book. On the other hand, if those traits enhance your enjoyment, you'll love this book. Either way, it adds something important to the history and literature of space exploration.

1 comments about American Scientists (American Biographies).

1. The latest title in the outstanding Facts on File 'American Scientists' series is "American Scientists" which is a compendium of biographical profiles of the men and women in every scientific discipline who are acknowledged contributors to their respective fields of study. Organized alphabetically for ease of use as a general reference, almost 300 entries highlight the lives and contributions of scientists who have significantly impacted society in general and the scientific community in particular. Enhanced with 74 photographs, cross-references, an extensive bibliography, a general index, and two subject indexes (one by discipline and one by year of birth) the scientists range from Rachel Carson, to Edwin Hubble, to Linus Pauling, to Werner von Braun. Every school and community library should acquire and have available for their students and patrons and copy of "American Scientists" from Facts on File in either the Science History or Bibliography reference collections..

1 comments about The Correspondence of Michael Faraday: January 1849-October 1855 : Letters 2146-3032 (SP).

1. Michael Faraday ranks today as one of the greatest chemists and physicists of all time. In fact, it was more or less in the era that he lived that physics and chemistry separated as sciences. He may be considered as the last major figure to span both disciplines. He is reputed to have complained that the word "physicist" was so awkward to pronounce, unlike "chemist", which just rolls off the tongue.

   The attraction of this book to students and historians of science are the many unpublished letters. Now accessible to a much broader audience. You can get some insight into his mental workings. Plus, his correspondents include some towering figures in 19th century Britain. Isambard Brunel, Charles Babbage and others stride across this book in cameo appearances.