No comments about A Prophet from Amongst You: The Life of Yigael Yadin : Soldier, Scholar, and Mythmaker of Modern Israel.

No comments about Decision Science and Technology: Reflections on the Contributions of Ward Edwards.

2 comments about Primo Levi: A Life.

1. A highly enjoyable book. Thomson paints an extremely detailed picture but does not attempt to create a mythic figure out of Levi. He is presented in 3 dimensions with all his strengths and weaknesses. Extremely rich look at the assimilated Jewish community of Turin suddenly being cast as the enemy of the Fascist state. Highly recommended.



2. A really wonderful biography on a complex man. Kudos to the author. I'm impressed.

No comments about Ernest L. Eliel: From Cologne to Chapel Hill (Profiles, Pathways, and Dreams).

No comments about Marcel Mauss: A Centenary Tribute (Methodology and History in Anthropology, V. 1).

2 comments about John Napier: Logarithm John.

1. The ordinary lives of famous mathameticians rarely prove to be as interesting as their professional activities and such is the case with John Napier. This slim volume is, at least to my way of thinking, a disappointment in that it provides only the most superficial insight into Napier's thinking concerning the period during which he conceived the idea of the logarithm and produced the first table of such numbers.
   For centuries thereafter they significantly simplified the multiplication and division of large numbers. Until the advent of the scientific calculator tables of logarithms were in wide use. Napier's contribution was recognized for its value by the major natural philosophers of his day and an indepth presentation of this aspect of his life would be a worthy contribution to the literature. Napiers bones, an abacus like device without wires or beads is also rather poorly covered in the book. The bones were the precursor of the slide rule and may, indeed, be among the earliest forms of mechanical calculators.



2. What there is of it is very good. Personally I'd have liked it better if it was expanded more. It might be nice to see more material about how to actually use logs in problem solving, or how logs were used in problem solving in the past.

1 comments about My Life: A record of events and opinions.

1. This book was just what I wanted. A R Wallace's account of his own long and interesting life.

No comments about Technical Traders and Commodity Speculators (Secrets of the Great Investors).

No comments about F. G. A. Stone: Leaving No Stone Unturned: Pathways in Organometallic Chemistry (Profiles, Pathways, and Dreams).

1 comments about Fermi Remembered.

1. This book is based on a symposium held at the University of Chicago to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Enrico Fermi's birth on September 29, 2001. The editor, James Cronin, was principal organizer of the symposium. A distinguished list of speakers was assembled, and written versions of their reports are included in the book. Extensive research in the U of C archives produced many interesting documents, including letters to Fermi and by Fermi, and notes written in Fermi's hand on a wide range of topics. The results of this archival search are also included in the book.
   The decade immediately after World War II was a magical time for physics. The success of the Manhattan Project, Radar, and many other defence applications of physical science attracted much talent to the field. It seemed that almost everyone wanted a PhD in physics, and graduate schools like Chicago were mobbed. Fermi was the center of attention, and the students that he trained, both individually and in classes, went on to illustrious careers.
   This book covers many aspects of this exciting time. Space limitations in this review restrict my comments to only a few specifics. Fermi's computer program to calculate charged particle orbits in the cyclotron, written for the Los Alamos Maniac computer, is wonderful. It should be read by every programmer. The review talks by Fermi's colleagues, Richard Garwin, Murray Gell-Mann, and Marvin Goldberger, are not to be missed. The reading public interested in the history of 20th century science, in particular the period 1945-1954 when government support of peacetime research came into being, will find this book full of information not easily obtained elsewhere.