5 comments about Lincoln Beachey: The Man Who Owned the Sky.

1. From the pages of forgotten history, Marrero's well-researched and well-written story of Lincoln Beachey restores an important and illuminatiing chapter. Before reading this book, I thought I had a good working knowledge of the history of early aviatiion, and yet I had never heard of Lincoln Beachey, arguably the single most important force in the history of early aviation, and by far the most famous in his own day of any aviator before or since.

   The high esteem in which Mr. Marrero holds his subject shows in the care with which he gives life to the man as well as to his fabulous story. Marrero's book returns Beachey to the America public -- and so will the inevitable movie.

   No Aviation or US History buff should let this book get by: it is literally the only book (so far) on the subject. It's also a damn good read! Marrero can tell a story




2. Marrero has provided a measure of fame to Beachey that was lost when WW I broke out shortly after his death, creating a host of new aviation heros This is a well written book that I recommend to anyone interested in aviation.



3. It is exciting whenever anyone unearths a buried treasure and shares it with the world. Frank Marrero has done just that. Lincoln Beachey, the man who was key in starting the U.S. Air Force, is now deservedly on center stage.
   

   This exciting and fast-paced read is informative, educational, and even surprising. This is a peak into the past that will delight anyone, whether or not they have any interest in aviation.




4. While previous reviewers may dispute some of the facts recited, it remains that this is a great read about a man whose accomplishments deserve to be remembered. Indeed, a list of his feats would shame many of the more well-remembered aviators whose fame was based more upon subsequent movies than fact.

   For instance: Beachey flew upside-down around the Washington Monument, buzzed the Capitol Building until Congress adjourned to see what was happening, and then landed on the White House lawn to meet Mrs. Teddy Roosevelt. It served his purpose perfectly as a lead in to his words to Congress "If I had had a bomb you'de be dead." He was an ardent supporter of aviation as a national defense tool and worked to prove it his whole life.

   Mr. Marrero does not purport to offer a scholarly work, nor does he intend that this be a benchmark. Instead, we have a long-overdue refresher of what should never have been forgotten.

   I enjoyed the book I borrowed sufficiently that I bought my own copy for my collection. And while I would not put it on the same literary level as, say, Hemmingway (hence only an 8), I would recommend it to anyone.




5. Frank Marrero writes from his heart, and that is a truly valuable quality in any historian. I learned about an admirable and legendary man, in a field at which I wouldn't have looked twice if it weren't for Mr. Marrero's folklorish and mythical style of writing. Beachey does indeed deserve such love and praise. I hope many more people research and write about him, and such writings would in no way take away from Mr. Marrero's devoted tribute.

1 comments about The Einstein Almanac.

1. This fine book is essentially a chronological bibliography of Einstein's writings. While not exhaustive (Calaprice uses the word "selected"), this book provides a good real glimpse into what Einstein actually thought and researched and wrote as a scientist, philosopher and humanist from 1901-1955. Serious fans of Einstein (like myself) who don't have the multi-volume Collected Papers of Albert Einstein at arm's length will find this little book quite useful. Here you find the titles of articles, papers, essays, and even interviews accompanied by the originals in German (where appropriate). Descriptive or explanatory comments follow most of them. Did you know that Einstein studied the meandering of rivers? He wrote some illuminating papers on this geological question. Or that he and Leo Szilard patented home refrigeration by the "Einstein-Szilard pump"? Most standard biographies wouldn't mention these. But an Einstein almanac might. This one does. (The important scientific papers are of course not neglected.)
   
   To place Einstein's life in context, Calaprice includes many historical and scientific events - some of which bear only a remote relevance to Einstein. I personally think these can be replaced by more biographical info. For example, what James Watson and Murray Gell-Mann did, while interesting and important, hardly merit entry into an Einstein Almanac. What Otto Hahn did is more relevant and may be included. There are other books on the history of science in the twentieth century and even more on the history of historical events. My idea of an Einstein almanac would exclude anything not directly related or relevant to Einstein. If it were up to me, any event not directly involving Einstein I would ruthlesssly exclude.
   
   This is my main humble criticism (and my own opinion). One other shortcoming is that few personal letters are included. But this is quite understandable because letters don't usually carry titles. Also, Einstein wrote so many letters in his lifetime that to list them all and summarize them with comments would be a herculean task. For letters, interested students should refer to the CPAE. But I think a separate chapter on the most important letters Einstein wrote might be a good idea for the next edition (if any). Some of Einstein's most incisive thoughts are found in his letters (such as those to Max Born) and a brief overview of these may be useful.
   
   One more suggestion for improvement (bear with me) might be a detailed timeline of Einstein's life. Timelines differ in details. Very extensive and all-inclusive timelines provide a virtually day-by-day chronology. One outstanding example of these would be University of Delaware professor Leo Lemay's Documentary History of Benjamin Franklin, which is an on-going project available on the Web. It gives impressive details of what Franklin was doing and where he was doing it on numerous specific dates. Calaprice's other books about Einstein already have brief timelines. An Einstein Almanac could use a very detailed one. (This book also has a brief timeline of Einstein's early years - but then again not all the details seem to me relevant. A lot of things happened in 1895 for Einstein, but I see no point in mentioning the invention of the Gillette razor, for instance, because this has nothing to do with Einstein, whether or not he used one.) Just listing all of Einstein's personal and scientific activities, rather than non-Einstein events, can be a worthwhile if lengthy task. But an almanac is designed to be full of dates.
   
   Leave out the fat of irrelevant non-Einstein stuff, and build more muscle of Einstein-exclusive matters, and this book could be even better and more useful than it already is. If this book is also an on-going project, then there is room for growth on what is in my view an excellent basis.
   

No comments about Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of DNA: A History of 'The Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology'.

1 comments about The Wright Brothers Legacy: Orville and Wilbur Wright and Their Aeroplanes in Pictures.

1. FIrst book I read on Wright Brothers. Excellent pictures and good bood. Wish I could get some of these pictures in 5x7 glossy for the walls in my house, even "first flight". After reading the book, I went back looking at the pictures several times.

5 comments about Einstein: The Passions of a Scientist.

1. If you didn't know much about the personal side of Einstein you do now. The book was stimulating, and has enlightened us to the human side of his persona. From his marriages and love of woman to his love of classical music he comes alive once again. Without finding all the answers he search for in his physics pursuits, he had many other faucets that shed a new light on who he was as a man, and not just a brillliant scientist. Wonderful book!



2. I recall when I was a kid reading a piece in the Reader's Digest about "Mrs. Einstein" being interviewed by the press. "Do you understand the theory of relativity, Mrs. Einstein?" a reporter is said to have asked. "No," she demurely if rather smugly replied, "but I understand Mr. Einstein." Ha! Author Barry Parker, in "Einstein, the Passions of a Scientist" blows her cover. This was a man whose passionate interests were not limited to whether space was curved, and it is unlikely that either his first wife or his second was aware of the scope of his love life. In his lively and informative biography of the greatest scientist of our age, Barry Parker brings the man alive with a fascinating look at his personal life, as well as his intellectual one. A great read.



3. I have just read "Einstein: The Passions of a Scientist" and found it to be most informative and entertaining. I have always been curious about Einstein, what kind of a person he was, what his interests were outside of science. Mr. Parker, in fine style, certainly answers those questions and more. He has a very arresting way of capturing Einstein's personality. Mr. Parker has a writing style that I find particularly easy to read and understand, a rare quality amongst science writers. Congratulations Mr. Parker for a book that not only held my complete attention throughout, but was also entertaining and educational. Geoff Pearson, Jacksonville, N.C.



4. When most people think of Albert Einstein, they think only in terms of his older years. Parker's book takes the reader through his early years, some of which were quite stressful. Like most great musicians and artists he was quite poor when young. Also, his stubborness got him in trouble in school all the way through college. Parker's book is well written and depicts Einstein's trouble with things such as mathematics and having to write serveral theses for his doctorate before one was accepted. This book describes some of Albert's passions such as a love for physics, playing the violin, hiking, sailing and women.



5. This book does an excellent job of telling the life of Einstein. The author, Barry Parker takes many accounts of his life and sums them all up into one book. The author was compelled to write about Einstein because of how important he was to our understanding of physics. I highly recommened this story because unlike most biographies this one throws in some humor, which keeps you interested. Also, this book not only talks about Einstein's many achievements but also takes you into his younger years. This book is also short so if you are interested in Einstein but do not want to read a 500 page book about him pick this one up. This book also includes many photographs and drawings of his early years and of people who influenced him in his life. My favorite fact of this book is that Einstein was not only interested in math and physics, but also enjoyed playing music.
   
   The only negative part of this story is some of the chapters feel out of place. Parker begins to jump around near the end. Other then that it is an excellent read.

5 comments about Models of My Life.

1. Herbert Simon's research contributes to human knowledge in many different areas, including economics, artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and organizational behavior. In each of the mentioned areas, his contributions are ranked among the most important and influential that even a scientist who focuses solely in one area finds hard to achieve. The testimony is the top awards that the community in each discipline bestowed upon him--the Nobel prize is only one of which.

   The secret of this interdisciplinary success is that he is, in his own word, a "monomaniac", studying only one thing--human decision process--for fifty years. The field of his own choosing is not bounded by usual academic disciplines, however, and he did study it from many different aspects, from the levels of individual cognition to organizational decisions, using tools as varied as mathematics, computer simulations, and human subjects.

   This book detailed his own account of the various aspects of his life, personal and professional, in a sincere and direct prose. From the childhood that undoubtedly helped set the tone for his later accomplishments, the way he managed and nurtured new academic thoughts that later grown into full-fledged disciplines (artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and, less prominently, bounded rationality), to the philosophy of working and living including brief exposures to familial life, we can learn tremendously from hise xperience, decisions, and actions.

   How could he achieve as much as he did? We can glean several lessons from his stories. He collaborated extensively. He learned a great deal from the outstanding individuals he respected. He had a love for truth and rigor in reasoning. An empiricist who firmly believed that any valid theory must be based on empirical facts, he did not hesitate to fight against widely held beliefs conflicting with facts. His work on bounded rationality which helped earn him the Nobel Prize is an outstanding case which his stubborn, and valid, arguments against mainstream theories brought a valuable alternative viewpoint to the world. Strong passion and the ability to break out of the mold and stand tall under storms are important characteristics exemplified by many past giants, including Galileo, Columbus, and Einstein.

   Not just a normal autobiography, but the story of a distinguished life we all can learn from.




2. The late Herbert Simon was a veritable renaissance man. His autobiography, "Models of My Life," discusses the single thread that underlined all of his intellectual conquests in artificial intelligence, sociology, cognitive science, psychology and economics. This one thread, animated by philosophical positivism and ripe scientific thirst, was his deep obsession with modeling and researching decision-theoretic behavior.

   It's interesting to note that even though decision theory (how intelligent agents percieve and act upon choices amid various modalities) serves as the impetus for Simons work, he uses "Models" instead of "Model" in the book's title. This is no accident. For you see, beautifully fitting of his memoir, this book delves into how Simon's one passion was his "heuristic" in choosing which of many paths he could have taken througout his life. The upshot: Simon's own life emulated the heuristic search (in AI) that he helped invent! Consequently, this lead him all over the globe, from Wisconsin to UChicago to Berkeley to Carnegie Mellon to China.

   This book is also about the times of Simon: the positivistic turn in social sciences, the scientific fermet of the 1950's, the cultural tumult of the 60's, the death of behaviorism and the rise of cognitivism -- all along, peppered with intrigue of the politics of academia. Although the writing can get quite dry at times, his book is highly recommended.




3. This intellectual autobiography is not just a chronology of the particulars of a great intellectual life. It is a wonderful opportunity to obtain a coherent overview of the views and contributions of one of the twentieth century's great thinkers. Simon - political scientist with his Ph.D. from University of Chicago, founder of the new and emerging area of artificial intelligence, cognitive psychologist, Cargegie-Mellon faculty member, Nobel laureate for economics (1978), and contributing philosopher of science - was no dilitante. This book, which is written is a very accessible style, reveals the integrity and evolution of his thinking, which can be extracted only with relative difficulty from his large and diverse literary corpus. It is also an inspiring book for any person with an active intellectual life in science or philosophy.
   
   Thomas J. Hickey, www.philsci.com



4. If you are a graduate student of management, this is must for you. Simon is an icon in the field of decision-making. Much of his work has inspired contiuned research in the field of decision-making. An extraordinary man with extraordinary vision.



5. Satisficing as in searching for "good enough" actions rather than the optimal ones is one of the many contributions Herbert Simon is most famous for, in addition to being one of the parents of Artificial Intelligence. Whether the topic is management decision making, economics, traveling, teaching, or computer programs, this Renaissance Man had a life that many or most would envy.
   
   Herbert Simon is a true example to exemplify the benefits of multi-discipline efforts as one subject does not always know the answers. If anyone is interested in building their own latticework of mental models then the life of Mr. Simon is one to emulate. As this is not your average biography, expect to be challenged as the reading may take you to subjects that you are unaware of or have been exposed to. However, this is what makes the experience worth the trip as my many notes and earmarks attest to.
   
   As his life was about scientific discovery to quote, "I have sketched the theory of scientific discovery to which my study of these problems has led me. It is not a theory of global rationality but one of human limited computation in the face of complexity". Yes, we live in an evermore complex world and I am glade I have some of Mr. Simon's mental models to guide me through it.

No comments about Grove Karl Gilbert: A Great Engine of Research (American Land & Life).

2 comments about Extreme Measures: The Dark Visions and Bright Ideas of Francis Galton.

1. An enjoyable introduction to Sir Francis Galton, the brilliant Victorian who gave us weather maps, fingerprints, and (on a less positive note) eugenics. Galton loved to measure things; wherever he was, whatever he was doing, it seems that he found something in his surroundings to measure. His curiosity and enthusiasm for life and discovery make him a sympathetic character even considering his racism, sexism, and classism; he was, after all, a product of his upper-middle-class Victorian environment.
   
   This version of his life story is a good read; choose it instead of Gillham's version unless you want to get into the actual science of what he was doing. One major fault of the Brookes book: it doesn't have an index. Gillham's book has an extensive one.
   
   What would make a Galton biography one step better: more analysis of why Galton became who he was and perhaps a deeper look into his own writings, along with the impact that Galton has on science and psychology today.
   
   For more info on Galton, go to the website [...]



2. This book is quite quirky, about an individual largely forgotten today but whose innovations in statistics, data gathering techniques, and survival tips are still used today. The book paints a convincing picture of a man who sought a reputation as a man of science but who was (as all human beings are) filled with rather dark sides that showed in his snobbery and in his mania for collecting data. The book appears a bit too sympathetic to evolution and to the moral difficulties that follow from rejecting God's standards, seeking to condemn Galton for his Nazi-esque eugenic fantasies while not understanding the Darwinian root of such problems. Nonetheless, the book is a fine one about a compelling and unusual figure who will remain obscure to most of those who take advantage of his quirky innovations.

1 comments about Chemistry for Scientists and Engineers, Preliminary Edition (Saunders Golden Sunburst Series).

1. This book had many errors, even one in an important explanatory sections. Having to study this text book in Mr. Fine's Chemistry class was just plain wrong. He taught a class with a poor textbook the students were forced to read. Do not buy this book

No comments about Robert Hooke: Tercentennial Studies.