5 comments about Memoirs: A Twentieth-Century Journey in Science and Politics.

1. I am only 12 years old, but believe me when I say that this is one of the best books I've ever read! I had to do a report on a scientist for school and I chose Edward Teller because I had heard of him from my mother and he sounded interesting. Rather than being just another boring book report, I really did enjoy this book. It gave me a lot of information for my report and was not incredibly hard to read. I decided to do a movie for my report and filmed it as if Teller were writing journal entries. I got a 100++ on my project which is what I would give this book...a 100++!



2. There is no way that everyone would agree as to what events, or even list of events were the most noteworthy of the 20th Century. I do believe that most would agree that the splitting of the atom, the creation of atomic and then thermonuclear weapons would likely have a place on any list. If the controversy surrounding the use of nuclear power to create electricity for public consumption is added, I think the topic has a place assured on any list.

   One person among many who was at the center of these topics, events and developments is Dr. Edward Teller. He stands out from the groups he was involved in for many reasons but two are for his longevity in to his 90s' and the participation in the direction of all the associated research his long life has allowed him, and secondly for the controversy he often found himself at the center of. Another book I read not long ago, "Brotherhood of the Bomb", went in to great detail about the very controversial decision to strip Dr. Robert Oppenheimer of his security clearance and the role that Dr. Teller was said to have played in the security clearance not being renewed. In this book of just over 600 pages a large portion is spent on the issue including many pages of transcripts from the actual hearing when Dr. Teller answered questions with Dr. Oppenheimer present.

   I don't believe it is fair to judge from a handful of pages culled from over 1,000 whether Dr. Teller alone was the cause of the non-renewal of the security clearance. My impression from what I read was that it was clear there was a strong group that did not want the clearance continued, and to the extent anything negative was said about Dr. Oppenheimer they were going to make the most of it. Unless the pages that are shared intentionally mislead, Dr. Teller repeatedly stated he did not believe Dr. Oppenheimer would intentionally harm the security of The United States. However, if Dr. Teller believed that stating that Dr. Oppenheimer's actions slowed the development of the Hydrogen Bomb development by several years were not going to greatly harm Dr. Oppenheimer, he was either naïve or calculating then, and or now. Only he knows the answer.

   There are many large topics this book deals with but one that fascinated me was the perception of Nuclear Power Generation plants for electrical production for civilian use. Unless the reader knows the answer prior to reading the book they may be surprised by what percentage of electricity is still produced by nuclear plants in the USA today. It does not rival France or Japan, but the numbers are still quite large.

   In the end perception will carry the day. On average over 50,000 people die every year in The United States in car accidents. An Iranian airliner crashed yesterday killing 307 people, 400,000+ die annually from tobacco use in the USA annually. However, we continue to drive, fly, and about 50,000,000 continue to smoke.

   Are nuclear powered plants 100% safe, they are not and the book does not suggest they have been or that they are. The book does discuss the Three Mile Island accident, the incident in England, and the folly that was Chernobyl. Chernobyl must be in a category of its own for the shear scale of stupidity, negligence and intentional harm that was allowed to take place at that plant. To use the former USSR's conduct with nuclear energy as a measure for the rest of the world is absurd.

   Despite decades of knowledge that remaining dependent largely on imported oil is shear negligence the reality remains that we as a nation continue to do so. Events are still fluid but we may have a second war in just over 10 years because an individual that controls a nation in the heart of the planet's current oil supply makes us nervous. All the talk of alternative methods of energy have amounted to meaningless practical change, environmental concerns prohibit the pursuit of much domestic oil, so the question remains, what are we going to do?

   There are indeed some hybrid cars on the road and there are some that use natural gas, and there is the latest promise of hydrogen fuelled cars that made for a sound byte at the most recent state of the union address. Taken as a whole, their practical impact is nearly meaningless.

   Many may not like Dr. Teller's suggestions, and I too would prefer clean production of the energy we need. But the reality is we will change nothing until there is a massive and permanent impact on our economy and or way of life, and then it will be a prolonged painful transition, as opposed to being serious about the issue now and using all talents available to create reliable, sustainable clean energy sources. This man who is in his 90s' has seen decade after decade go by with no change to our consumption of fossil fuels. Those decades are lost, how many more will be?




3. If you have an interest in the history of science
   and technology, and in the scientific personalities who
   carried out the revolution in physics in the first
   half of the 20th century, you will be captivated
   by this book.

   I picked it up because of my interest in
   the history of physics, and because Teller has
   held such a central role in the transformation
   from small science to Big Science.
   Hans Bethe, with whom Teller had some difficulties
   during the Manhattan Project, reviewed the book
   very positively in Physics Today. I was prepared
   to continue to dislike Teller, because of his testimony
   in the Oppenheimer hearings and his advocacy of Star
   Wars, but he nevertheless quickly won me over.

   Teller comes across, in his own account, as a
   collegial, cooperative, driven man, who cared
   greatly about both his scientific and technical work
   and his relations with his colleagues.
   After Teller's 1954 testimony at the Oppenheimer
   security clearance hearing, Teller was vilified.
   Here, he gets to explain why he testified as he
   did, and how it was just one of several very
   stupid things that he did in his career. (The
   stupid thing in this case was to neglect to
   explain that his uncertainty about Oppenheimer's
   clearance was due to a transcript he was shown
   about Oppenheimer's fabricated story
   that implicated his friend Chevalier, and
   not to Oppenheimer's opposition to development
   of the H-bomb, which was widely shared among
   physics academics.)

   Teller makes an effort to explain the scientific
   challenges in his work, such as in the early
   days of quantum mechanics when he worked on
   molecular dynamics. For example, he explains
   Landau's reaction to what is now called the
   Jahn-Teller effect (and which Teller says should be
   called the "Landau-Jahn-Teller effect"), giving the
   basic physical principle involved and the reason for
   Landau's initial puzzlement.

   Teller played an important role after WW2 in
   setting up the engineering principles necessary
   to make nuclear reactors safe, and in getting them
   implemented.

   There are many delightful anecdotes, and even
   some poems that Teller wrote. His lifelong friend
   Maria Goppert Mayer saved all his letters, and
   these provided much material that Teller
   used to refresh his memory and select from.

   I found the period from 1946 until the establishment
   of Livermore Lab particularly interesting and
   suspenseful. This book leaves no doubt that
   Teller led a fascinating life.




4. This is the English major's review, that is, the review of someone not particularly interested in science or politics. Bought the book because I heard Savage interview Teller a few years ago; in retrospect, I think Savage read part of the unauthorized bio on air, not Teller's memoirs, and it was those racy psychological bits that I wanted to revisit now in conjunction with personal questions. I mistakenly picked up "Memoirs" and struggled to get through the first quarter with its geeky tea-and-ping-pong interludes, which read like my ninety-year-old grandfather after a glass of port at the Thanksgiving table. Teller's dictation style of authorship is not intimate, and my stylistic gripes return toward the end of the book when he relates how such-and-such a captain of industry and his charming wife hosted them, etc. and in the generally weak epilogue.
   
   But, wow, sometimes I couldn't turn pages fast enough. Where can you go to match this? "We all were lying on the ground, supposedly with our backs turned to the explosion. But I had decided to disobey that instruction and instead looked straight at the bomb." Tolstoy, maybe. The best memoirs, as with the best fiction, give clues to the great question of how to live and explore strands of fate, choice, history. For (fictional) characters of cognitive complexity and depth, one could consider Hamlet-or Teller's portrayal of Oppenheimer and Bohr.
   
   The book nurtured me with throw-away comments one might do well to adopt as life philosophies: "Bohr was the embodiment of complementarity, the insistence that every important question has opposite sides that appear mutually exclusive; understanding of the question becomes possible only if the reality on both sides is acknowledged." At a certain point I began mining the memoirs as if reading wisdom literature. Bohr's definition of an expert, as "one who, from his own painful experiences, has discovered all the mistakes one can commit in a very narrow field," Lawrence on risk-taking, Teller's experience of shunning, the recognition of right of dissent, opposition of elitism and limitations on knowledge, all are worthy of reflection because they result from pressurized experience.



5. Sometimes you get the feeling that Edward Teller is simply making too many excuses. Maybe he is making them to preserve his record for posterity. A man who measured his influence by the number of enemies he had, he probably would not make excuses to justify his actions to his detractors. Given this stance, Teller was surprisingly thin-skinned, and unintended slights could cut him to the quick.
   Yet you also get the feeling that Teller is being apologetic, that he wants to, but cannot quite admit, that personal misgivings and ambitions frequently coloured his massive and extraordinarily powerful rational power of thinking, that behind the domineering presence, there is hidden a sensitive man, larger than life and generous with his friends, who simply was overwhelmed by his alter egos. Unfortunately, when you are as brilliant and vocal as Teller, your mistakes leave a much bigger mark on history than those of lesser mortals, and you cannot erase the voices that the will emerge from the void of the future that will judge you. Those voices would speak to the mute volume of memoirs that Teller penned towards the end of his years, as a heroic and unique survivor of an extraordinary time.
   
   No scientist in the latter half of the twentieth century has exercised so much influence over governments and the arms race as Teller. No scientist has been maligned so much for his actions. And yet Teller's life began in innocence, in fair Budapest in 1908, when the world was a much different place. When he died in 2003, it had profoundly changed, and Teller was no small contributor to that change. Teller's childhood was marked by a deeply ingrained hatred of communism, inculcated by the regimes that were toppling democracy and enforcing the rule of force in Hungary. Teller was not alone in having these resentments; his compatriots John von Neumann, Eugene Wigner, Theodor von Karman, and Leo Szilard also felt them. All would become exceptionally brilliant scientists, all would flee from totalitarianism and immigrate to the United States, all would be instrumental in the making of the atomic bomb and the harnessing of the nuclear genie, yet nobody would demonstrate a temperament as volatile and emotional as Teller and nobody would have such far-reaching influences that would define a period of turmoil and imminent catastrophe. Teller's descriptions of his childhood make heartwarming reading, they speak of a lost time and place, the idyllic and innocent paradise of central and Eastern Europe, which would get heartbreakingly devastated and permanently marred in a few years. Teller talks with painful affection about his childhood friends, many of whom perished in the concentration camps in World War 2. He tries to hide the agony of being different and special in a matter of fact tone, sometimes laced with humour, and with affectionate Hungarian poems; throughout his life, Teller retained a great appreciation of literature and poetry, and was a pianist of almost professional caliber.
   
   Many months back, I compared Teller to Otto Octavius of Spiderman-2 fame in a post, in which I summarized the details of his life. Teller grew in fame and achievements through definitive decades of the century- as a graduate student with Werner Heisenberg, as a professor in England and in the United States, and finally, as the foremost and most enthusiastic proponent and designer of nuclear weapons that probably will ever be born. During this time, he rubbed shoulders, and also fell from the graces of, the greatest minds of the century- along with his fellow Hungarians, Teller stood with Enrico Fermi, Robert Oppenheimer, Hans Bethe, and scores of others. He went down in history as Leo Szilard's chauffer; he drove Szilard to meet Einstein, the meeting in which the eminent physicist wrote the now famous letter warning President Roosevelt of the discovery of nuclear fission, and the ominous possibility of the Nazis building an atomic bomb. After this incident, Teller, more than anyone else, worked to make US authorities aware of the gravity of the situation. It is an amusing irony of politics and history that is was not American scientists but `enemy aliens' from Europe who egged the US Government on to pursue the development of atomic energy.
   
   Teller's journey into fame and infamy, into endearment and notoriety, began with his work on the Manhattan Project. In the summer of 1942, at Oppenheimer's beckoning, he joined an elite and small group of physicists who worked out the basic physics of atomic weapons in Oppenheimer's office at the University of California, Berkeley. While the other participants, including Hans Bethe, pursued the elusive goal of trying to achieve an explosion that would shine brighter than a thousand suns, Teller was distracted by the power of the sun itself; whether instead of fission, one could achieve nuclear fusion by using the energy of a fission weapon, thus harnessing the source of energy that has kept the sun burning for billions of years. Needless to say, this was distracting at a time when the fission bomb was far from being a reality. Another time, Teller raised the ominous possibility of the atmosphere getting ignited by an atomic explosion, a possibility that was quickly shown to be `almost impossible' by the thoroughgoing Hans Bethe.
   During the Manhattan Project, Teller was outraged when he was passed over by Oppenheimer to be director of the theoretical division, the key section of the project. Oppenheimer instead chose Bethe, who was much more consistent and meticulous, and not given to wild, if brilliant, fantasizing like Teller. When Teller refused to work on the complex implosion calculations that were necessary for the atomic bomb, the patient Oppenheimer formed a group for Teller to pursue his own ideas on fusion. This created a gap in the fission group, a gap that had to be filled with three or four other scientists to compensate for the brilliant Hungarian's abilities. From this time on, in spite of some valuable contributions, Teller created more problems than solved them. His late-night piano playing did not help. As was aptly put, "Teller managed to keep more Nobel Laureates awake than he could have done at any other place in the world".
   Teller was brilliant beyond words, but highly erratic and inconsistent, volatile and moody, and somewhat sloppy in his calculations. These were qualities that would define his persona and his actions in crucial times to come. As a scientist put it, "Nine out of ten of Teller's ideas are bad. He needs other more methodical people to bring the tenth idea to fruition, which is usually a stroke of genius"
   
   After the war, while most of his colleagues withdrew from atomic research or pursued arms disarmament, Teller became a hawk and a vehement anti-communist. He was enormously helped by the political climate of the times, and rode on the emotions of the zealous anti-communists in the state department. In his pursuit of the hydrogen bomb, which he deemed necessary to prevent the Soviet Union from dominating the world, he became an obsessive fanatic. In spite of this, when he lobbied vigorously in 1949 for the government to support a crash program for development of that awesome and horrible weapon, he had no technical proof that it would work. The proof came in 1950, largely supplied by a brooding, reserved and brilliant Polish émigré mathematician, Stanislaw Ulam. The division of credit between Teller and Ulam as to the crucial idea which made the H-bomb work, is part of nuclear and historical folklore and debate, and I would not delve into it right now because it would be a colourful topic for another post. It is a constant controversy that never seems to die, although now most people believe that it was Ulam who at least was solely responsible for the initial idea; that of using the enormous compression supplied by an atomic weapon to efficiently and successfully cause nuclear fusion. Ulam seems to have thought of shock waves that would do this, while Teller quickly realized that the radiation from the fission explosion would do the job much more quickly. Whatever the case was, Teller has never given due credit to Ulam in public, and has proudly worn the epithet of `father of the H-bomb' on his lapel (Bethe has drolly remarked that Teller should actually be the `mother of the H-bomb' because he carried the baby for so long...)
   
   It is also to Teller's discredit that the US detonated their first fusion behemoth in 1952, thus frustrating the efforts of many to bring about a moratorium on testing that would have stalled Soviet H bomb development. Many also believe that Teller actually encouraged that development with his insistence on an early test; the radioactive fallout from an H-bomb test contains the characteristic signature of the design of the bomb, which could have made the Russians aware of the crucial idea of compression.
   
   Teller's damning testimony at Robert Oppenheimer's infamous security hearing in 1954 also has become part of nuclear folklore that has rankled deep. While allegations that Oppenheimer actually hampered H-bomb development have now been shown to be false and misunderstood based on recently declassified documents (Priscilla McMillan, 2005), and while allegations about his loyalty were too far-fetched and preposterous to be considered anyway, Oppenheimer's bizarre testimony a few years before about a left leaning friend that cost the friend his career, was apparently seen by Teller as a betrayal. Later, Teller justified his testimony against Oppenheimer as a reinforcement of his ideals of not behaving ambiguously with friends. He seems to have overlooked the fact that his testimony itself had a calculated ambiguity which turned out to have devastating consequences that cost Oppenheimer his security clearance. In the years that followed, Teller's true intentions and behaviour have never been fully explained, and he never chose to do that in interviews, but whatever the facts, recently Teller has been appearing more and more as the villain in a period which all too resembled the current age of neo-conservative coercion and informal totalitarianism.
   
   In the years after the hearing, Teller suffered a fallout with most of his friends in the community, who had testified on the brilliant Oppenheimer's behalf. But given the political climate of the times, Teller had no problem in endearing himself to hawks in the government who greatly valued his espousal of the development of grotesquely absurd and powerful weapons of destruction, and his belligerent anti-communist policies. Teller embraced and was one of the key forces behind both the putative anti-ballistic missile system of 1960 and the much debated Star Wars system of the 1980, both of which could not materialize because of the efforts of dedicated scientists and administrators who showed the technical and financial futility of the systems, and the escalation of the arms race that they would engender. But even today, proponents of National Missile Defense (the `son of Star-Wars') seem to be in the shadow of Teller's ghost.
   
   Why am I talking about all this, instead of talking about Teller's book? Because for a man as complex and influential as Teller, one hopes that he would be demystified at least to some extent through his own book, written at a time when he could be expected to have very different perspectives on the life he has lived and the times in which he participated. Many people think Teller is emphatically answerable to history. Many activists in the 60s and 70s even labeled him as a war criminal. They think that he should justify all the heretofore-mentioned actions. Many hate him and would like to see his reputation permanently soiled. Nobel laureate Isidor Rabi, one of the clearest and most authoritative consciences of the nuclear age, actually said that we would have been better off if Teller had never been born. Whatever Edward Teller says, his friends as well as foes would be most eager to hear.
   
   Unfortunately, I believe he fails to make a case in the book, which is otherwise extremely readable and an important document that is an ode to a remarkable age, written by one of its most important observers and participants. Most of his statements are as ambiguous as the testimony he rendered for Oppenheimer (an incident on which he predictably spends more time in the book than on any other in his life). Quite upsettingly, the book appears as another series of excuses and partial and foggy explanations that would possibly serve to absolve him. But I believe that Edward Teller had always had a very big problem saying sorry. While he does make an effort at apology for a few of his actions, I think that the weight of history is too much upon his shoulders for him to shrug it off in a massive admission of culpability. This is unfortunate, since Teller craved attention all his life, wanted to be part of the establishment and wanted to appease his friends. In the end, he probably found it much easier to be part of the anti-establishment (which ironically is usually called the establishment). He would rather face history's accusations than be ordinary. Which seems to be another misfortune, because Teller would not have been ordinary by any standards, even if he had chosen a different path in life. One suspects that if he had spent half the time he spent in weapons advocacy, in doing serious science instead, he would have stood in the same pantheon as Enrico Fermi and Hans Bethe, both Nobel laureates. The few books on physics which he has penned are a delight to read. His passion for physics and his astonishing understanding of it shines through untrammeled. He had ideas that were flowing, a tremendously fertile imagination, and an astoundingly creative mind. He made important contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, and collaborated with some of the most important scientists of the century.
   But he was not a team player. He frequently let his emotions override his rational intentions, and then became inadvertently, a slave to the consequences fostered by them. He wanted to be in the driver's seat all the time, where he could run the show surrounded by a bunch of yes-men. He was extremely ambitious, but finally ended up becoming more infamous than famous. He sank into the spiral generated by his own brilliance and his beliefs that came about by a complex combination of his fierce anti-communism, the traumas of his childhood, and his unique perception of the world around him. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he lived in a time and place where he could make an enormous difference. Maybe it is fitting that not Bill Clinton but George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, two months before his death.
   
   And yet, in the end, what one remembers is the early part of the book, when Teller talks fondly about his time in Hungary, in Germany, in Rome and England, and in the Unites States. He talks about his lifelong friendships with Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence, and John von Neumann. He warmly recounts the trip when he and his wife had to amusingly watch Hans Bethe's preoccupation with his future wife, Rose; apparently, Bethe had met Rose earlier, and in 'ten minutes' had fallen desperately in love with her, and the couple wanted to get to know each other as well as possible during the trip. Teller gives us rare peeks into the human side of revered scientific giants.
   Again, through the thicket of emotions, prejudices, and justifications, one can catch glimpses of the sensitive Teller, the Teller who was generous to his true friends almost to a fault, was warm to his students, and was a model of scientific integrity. The Teller who was loved by his colleagues and friends before his altercations with them, the Teller who sounds like a champion of freedom when he talks about his ideas for world government, the Teller who proposed to his childhood sweetheart Mici in the presence of cackling geese on the banks of the Danube...one wonders what happened to that Teller in later years, why he lay dormant, what those years of mistrust and dissent did to him. One feels sorry for the great man, but one also feels a sense of unwanted resentment towards him. In the end, no matter how eloquently he advocates his causes, it would be best to say that Edward Teller was complicated, and leave it at that yet again. Let that encompass all of him.

2 comments about Galileo: Decisive Innovator (Cambridge Science Biographies).

1. To all of us who have had romantic rushes with astronomy, the name Galileo is deeply revered. It is a matter of faith among us that Galileo invented the telescope and consequently a spate of remarkable objects in the heavens, particularly the rings of Saturn. We know he performed wizardlike scientific demonstrations from the leaning Tower of Pisa. If we had the benefit of a good liberal arts education, we came to understand, albeit dimly, that he got in trouble for all this with the Church.

   Biographer Michael Sharratt did a wise thing. He describes Galileo's adventures with the new telescope in the very first chapter of his biography, because he knows this is what we want to know first. It is a compelling chapter, although there is no way to tell the story without a certain measure of demythologizing. Galileo did not invent the telescope; the instrument was in common use in the Dutch Republic, though our hero certainly improved upon it. He never had a telescope strong enough to identify the rings of Saturn [another Dutchman, Huygens, gets credit for that.] And perhaps most depressing, Galileo first conceived of a telescope as an instrument of naval intelligence and tried to market it as such.

   Sharratt's book is not for curious little boys, but for the thoughtful grownups they became. The bulk of this book is not about the dramatic discoveries, but the wonder and dismay they precipitated. This work has a certain jargon true to its time. Galileo by trade was a mathematician. As the times did not require the high precision math of the nuclear-computer age, mathematicians, at least the good ones, served society by promulgating what we might call the sciences of organization: logic, the structure of accurate thought, and physics, the predictability of causes and effects.

   By Galileo's time, the early seventeenth century, traditional logic and physics were under assault by a number of independent scientists whose hypotheses and improved observation methods were bending the old medieval synthesis to the breaking point. Under particular assault were two venerable systems: Ptolemy's concept of the universe in which the sun, planets, and stars circled the earth; the other. Aristotle's complex synthesis of observable matter and motion.

   Sharratt traces with considerable detail Galileo's early disenchantment with both Ptolemy and Aristotle. Although questioning whether the Tower of Pisa events were quite the spectacle they were reported to be, Sharratt examines Galileo's method of disproving Aristotelian truisms such as the tendency of heavier objects to fall faster than lighter ones. Galileo, like many of his contemporaries, romanced the theories of Copernicus, whose theory of a sun centered universe better explained the retrograde motion of planets as observed from the earth. It was Galileo's eventual marriage to the Copernican system that would cause him so much trouble with the Church.

   The new telescope in the hands of a Copernican newlywed was an almost dangerous union. Galileo used his early observations virtually exclusively to attempt to prove the validity of the Copernican system [though Keppler, with all his number crunching, did a more thorough job of this.] Galileo's discovery of four moons revolving about Jupiter established at least that the earth was not the center of motion. The crescent face of Venus made a strong case, as he saw it, for a sun-centered universe. Perhaps most damaging to traditionalists, the discovery of mountains and valleys on the moon implied that heavenly objects could, for all practical purposes, undergo the same secular critiques as earthly matter and principles.

   Sharratt depicts Galileo as a gregarious man with many friends who, like most struggling artisans, knew how to ingratiate himself to influential patrons for financial support and connections. He could be jealously protective of his prerogatives and he did not suffer fools gladly. Sharratt's research leads him to believe that Galileo ran afoul of the Jesuits, or at least some of them, who were only too happy to provide Robert Bellarmine and the Roman Inquisition with disquieting interpretations of Galileo's works.

   The Inquisition's public dispute with Galileo involved the latter's teaching of Copernicanism. Put simply, adherence to Copernican theory in 1616 was tantamount to a denial of Biblical inerrancy in the eyes of the Catholic Church, then deeply enmeshed in struggles with Protestant reformers over, among other things, Biblical interpretation. However, there can be no doubt that Galileo's dismemberment of the Aristotelian system was viewed as an equally inimical threat to the unity and soundness of Catholic doctrine, also under fire from Protestants. In 1616 a somewhat friendly and informal encounter with Bellarmine and Pope Urban VIII resulted in an avuncular warning that Galileo refrain from public advocacy of Copernicanism. Sharratt reports that there was some confusion over precisely what these men agreed to. Hence, when Galileo published his masterpiece The Dialogue in 1632, in which he enhanced and reinforced earlier writings, he was arrested by the Inquisition for reneging upon the instruction of 1616. Sharratt's description of the trial is terse and brief; Galileo lived his remaining years under house arrest.

   Somewhat misplaced is the final chapter on Galileo's rehabilitation by John Paul II in 1992. This chapter has the marks of an afterthought or editorial recasting. The author himself admits that the "rehabilitation" was of the Church, not Galileo. More tellingly, Sharratt makes no mention of present struggles between Church traditionalists and modern day Galileos, and he would have needed to look no further than to reproductive science. One need only consider the present state of Catholic sexual ethics to see that the microscope has replaced the telescope as an object of terror for today's Bellarmines.




2. Book: Galileo: Decisive Innovator, 262 pages
   
   Author: Michael Sharratt
   
   In Galileo: Decisive Innovator, author Michael Sharratt portrays Galileo Galilei as a complete being, beyond the typical textbook and famous discoverer Galileo. Sharratt writes the truth and writes it vividly, with no added fluff or mythological misconceptions about Galileo, such as Galileo invented the telescope. In fact, Sharratt first introduced Galileo saying that, Galileo did not invent the telescope and that rather Galileo improved the Dutch invention and was the first to point the looking glass up towards the skies. Also Sharratt makes it a point that Galileo is one of the few scientists called by his first name, a reason why he, Sharratt, wrote the book referring to Galileo using his first name only.
   
   There are a number of reasons for readers to bother reading this book. Some of the strongest points of this biography include: organization of content, personal facts, and accurate content. There are countless other books on Galileo, but this biography was organized in such a way that even someone new to Galileo or the concepts of science discussed, were to read this book, they would be able to get a full account the same way a scientist would have. Instead of consistently going in the typical, time-based chronological order of events and explanations, Sharratt divides up Galileo's life and his "ripple effects" into ten sections (with subchapters), which are located in the table of contents.
   
   The first chapter is not about Galileo's early life, but about "The Strangest Piece of News," talking about Galileo's turning point in life with the telescope and the beginnings of his support for Copernicus' theory. In the middle of different chapters, Sharratt makes references to other time periods in Galileo's life, events, people, things that were relevant to his current writing topic. Also, Sharratt is able to give many details concerning Galileo's events. No significant event is easily overlooked; the book provides many details about Galileo's feelings, environment, and other people's lives during Galileo's important events. In Sharratt's discussion about significant events in Galileo's life, such as the Dialogue and its condemnation, Sharratt is clear to identify whom Galileo was truly fighting. It was not the Church, but the stifling paradigm of natural philosophy, whose practitioners, rather than systematically observing nature, sought recourse in Artistotle. These methods help the reader get a lively feel for everything written about Galileo and not just boring fact after fact. There are also, black and white illustrations; intelligently placed, relating to the context around it (Sharratt included a list of illustrations following the table of content). Also there is a ten-page compilation of notes in the back, to refer back to, not to mention the small-print, eight-page bibliography, a good source for further readings.
   
   Sharratt was most likely compelled to recount this story, due to his expertise and profession in this field as a philosophy professor and a Roman Catholic Priest. Just the fact that Sharratt is a Roman Catholic Priest gives his last chapter, "Rehabilitation," a stronger thrust than other authors, methodically deconstructing the legal underpinnings of the case and identifying the true issues and personality conflicts of Galileo.
   
   Sharratt offers an effective and manageable method of dealing with the immense life of Galileo in his 262 pages. It is effective in putting an emphasis on Galileo's ideas rather than a collection of anecdotes and it is manageable because the biography, despite its details, is a succinct account of influences on Galileo and in turn his influences on the world, that shaped his life.

5 comments about Einstein's German World.

1. This book provides some good background information on some of the key people who went into making modern chemistry and physics from the 1870 German unification to just before WWII. It is similar (although much weaker than) the background provided by Michael White in "Issac Newton, the Last Sorcerer" - for the times in which Newton lived. While Fritz Stern is well qualified to comment on how German scientists conducted themselves in response to WWI and Hitler, (unlike White's treatment of Issac Newton's era) Stern never really seems to impart enough of a multi dimensional background so we can better understand the views and driving forces of "Einsteins German World".

   Max Planck comes out as a decent German, doing the best for his Jewish colleagues -- but upon reading Stern's account you get the impression that the whole Hitler atmosphere can be explained by anti-semitism leveraged to advance Dilbert-style rampant careerism.

   Stern takes pains to state that Goldhagen's book (on ordinary Germans under Hitler, which covers much the same era) is a gross simplification, and he advances high level arguments against Goldhagen's view that there was a ubiquitous inherent German anti-semitism at work. While Stern mentions (things such as) German Catholic-Protestant disharmony being equal German Jewish-Christian disharmony around WWI, he does not elaborate.

   Stern was there (or at least knew the people personally) -- and given this, he could have done a better job describing "Einstein's German World". You never come to understand anything beyond top German Jewish scientists working hard, struggling against a view of their work as being somehow Jewish (Stern never mentions how Freud was viewed in this regard - which was too bad), and that eliminating Jewish colleagues was a way of advancing one's career up a competitive government scientist ladder under Hitler.




2. The title of the review applies more clearly to the first part of the book: chapters 1-4 and, especially, chapter 3--the centerpiece and gem of the book--where the fascinating discussion of Einstein is central. The essays in the second part of the book are well done but less interesting. The book's title says a great deal about what one finds in the first four chapters, and one learns a lot about Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whether the focus is on science, culture, religion, the politics and economics of science, or the intricate ties that bound government, business, the universities, and both the applied and theoretical scientists. All of these strands are discussed in a writing style that can only be described as masterful. I remember a class wth Fritz Stern many years ago where, among many things, two virtues in particular stood out: clarity and honesty. Some things do not change.



3. This book commands interest at several points, but in the end doesn't come together as an integrated whole. It is a collection of former essays loosely linked by overlapping content, specifically the experience and achievement of German Jewish intellectuals and scientists during the first part of the century. The centerpiece is a description of the friendship between Albert Einstein and Fritz Haber, and the manner in which each attempted to come to terms with the rise of fascism in Germany. Also interesting are Stern's essay on the experience since reunification of former residents of East Germany, and the fate of Max Planck under the Nazis. Worth reading if you're a specialist, but in the end not biographical or focused enough.



4. The book's cover shows a photo of a happy Albert Einstein on board the German ship Deutschland, as he heads home for Germany from a trip abroad. On the back cover it is entitled "Heimreise nach Deutschland," meaning the journey home to Germany. The last essay of the book concludes with Professor Stern--who is German by birth--explaining how it feels to be "heimatlos," meaning to be without a home. The word "Heimat," carries a special meaning of warmth and comfort associated with one's homeland. It requires a good insight into German culture to understand the emotions it evokes for Germans who find themselves away from home.

   Between "Heimreise" and "heimatlos," lies the book's theme that recounts the poignant experiences of several world renown German scientists, who were Jews. This is not a book about scientists and their accomplishments, but about accomplished Germans who were ostracized by their country for being Jews.

   Contrary to some recent writings, these men and their families were well integrated and accepted by their colleagues and German society. They were Germans who could trace their ancestry in Germany for many generations. They were patriots just as any other German. Like any other German they contributed to the war effort during WW1. They distinguished themselves as soldiers. They prospered and enjoyed their German culture and lifestyle. They commanded respect and were held in esteem for their accomplishments. Then came the Nazis.

   The common theme of the biographical sketches of each of the personalities is a reflection on the sense of loss, the profound disillusionment, which these men felt as they came to accept the stark reality that their country of birth, their beloved fatherland, was turning against them. It is hard to imagine the deep sense of betrayal these men, and others like them, must have felt when the Nazis deprived them of their citizenship and drove them out of their "Heimat." The book tells a sad story, not of death and destruction, not of material dispossession, but of the loss of civil rights, disillusionment, and of the bitter sense of rejection felt by some of Germany's best and finest.

   Other than that, Fritz Stern's style makes the book a real joy to read.




5. 
   Fritz Stern has filled an important void around those times in which the promising figure of Albert Einstein has to face against that opprobrious regime; through a progressive cracking of the noble values which reigned in Germany, as well as all that state of things that surrounded, permeated and allowed the unthinkable happened.
   
   A revealing, poignant and incisive portrait.

3 comments about The Great Safari: The Lives of George and Joy Adamson, Famous for Born Free.

1. I liked this book particularly because it didn't report something as fact unless there was something to back it up or that the writer personally witnessed. Adrian House uses a lot of George and Joy Adamson's own diaries, unpublished writings, and personal letters to give a good glimpse into the personal lives of the couple. It also gives a detailed account of their murders and the circumstances leading up to them. I would recommend this book as a well rounded biography that looks critically into the lives of two unique and amazing people.



2. This book is a fascinating review of two very complex people. It doesn't gloss over their strengths or weaknesses. They led amazing lives in a world we'll never see again. I enjoyed every chapter.



3. It's an excellent, no-holds-barred book giving the plus and minuses of the human stars: George and Joy Adamson. And it's a book of triumphs and failures. The book is precise, but it does have some gaps which are filled by reading George Adamson's book My Pride and Joy. If you care about the most majestic of Africa's wildlife, this is a must book. But if you want to learn more about the nature of wildlife, particuarly lions, read My Pride and Joy. I highly recommend both books.

2 comments about The Statue Within: An Autobiography.

1. Even though I am a molecular biologist, I began reading The Statue Within with a bit of prejudice that it would be good for me but not necessarily interesting. I figured it would be beneficial to learn more detail about the work of one of the founders of my field. Boy was I surprised! What I got instead was the examination of a complex and vivid personality, a life filled with great flux, confusion, but most of all, a passion for knowledge. Dr. Jacob started off as a reluctant medical student, went to England to escape the Nazi takeover of Paris, signed up with DeGaulle's unofficial French army and served as a medic in a messy, confusing war. Afterward he returned to Paris and his medical studies, but, lacking direction, found himself in the midst of new and interesting biological research about genetics. Fascinated and obsessed, he pestered and cajoled his way into a top laboratory at the Pasteur Institute and began to experiment. His work of course was fundamental to the understanding of the mechanical functioning of genetics, and he went on to win the Nobel. But the beauty of the book is that it isn't about the glory and accolades - it is about the thirst for knowledge and the collaborative bonds that form between bright minds. It is very good for a scientist to be reminded of the essential nature of curiosity and the trial and defense of ones hypotheses. I will be reading this one for the rest of my career!



2. I got a copy of this book long time ago and still remember almost as if happens yesterday. The positive effects of this book have in my life are unforgetable. Actually one of the reasons I decided to became a scientist was because the way Francois Jacob found his way in hard times. The book details his experiences during the second world war and after. In these days, we are in a new century and it seems that we haven't learn much about peace and respect and we have quite similar hard time as Francois Jacob describes. However, I totally believes that this book will be a positive hit for all students in Jr college and high schools and for sure will encourage the scientist of the future to take over this activity. The future of those that identify themselfs with Francois Jacob's life will be significant as time advance.

5 comments about From X-rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries (Dover Classics of Science & Mathematics).

1. Segre's style on physics is straight forward and non-intimidating. But what make this book is his stories. Emilio met and worked with many of these men. He describes their personalities attitudes and politics, and they come alive in his book. This is history the way it ought to be taught. Squisito! Bravo! Bravisimo!



2. This is a great book on the history of quantum mechanics. I highly reccomend it. Unfortunately the book is out of print and one needs to hunt down a used book.

   It begins with the discovery of X-rays in 1895 and ends with events around the early 70's. It is interesting how the technological advances of today have come about after a sudden chain of discoverires starting with just 2 discoveries that acted as sparks: xrays and radioactivity (both of which thanks to some photpgraphic film that developed without the intention of the scientist). The chronological developments are nicely intertwined.

   I enjoyed how the author has written of the rigorous development of quantrum mechanics from 3 different viewpoints of schrodinger, heisenberg and dirac and how they later proved that all 3 were the same. There are great photographs of the scientists of the time also. Overall very well written with lots of stories about the featured scientists. Can finish the book in one day, it was that incaptivating (to serve as a reference, am a chemistry student).




3. Segre` has written two excellect histories for the educated non-scientist. These are not "light" reads, but they are informative and entertaining. This is the second part of the pair (the first, "From Falling Bodies to Radio Waves") and is just exciting as the first. One could almost call this work, "The Story Continues". It tells of scientists working for years on end in attempts to understand the universe and its workings. Of course, we meet those geniuses that discovered a new aspect of reality or a long-sought explanation.

   What is remarkable is how these great men and women used the work of each other to further their own endeavors. The practice of documenting new find and publishing scientific journals began during this era. Exquisite writine with diagrams, photographs and illustrations.




4. This is a wonderful book. I'm glad it's back in print again. Highly recommended, together with "From Falling Bodies to Radio Waves".



5. What this book is not:
   A text book
   Written to explain some controversial theory
   Promoting a world view or pseudo religious belief
   An artful work of literature
   Written for a general audience
   
   What this book is:
   A chronological narrative of the development of modern physics
   A series of stories about scientist and the nature of their experiments
   A tome that covers the most important physics discoveries for the era it covers
   
   Why read this book?
   I would recommend this book to anyone who studies the hard sciences
   This book would nicely augment a modern physics course
   Because knowing the history of science promotes real understanding

5 comments about Degrees Kelvin: A Tale of Genius, Invention, and Tragedy.

1. Degrees Kelvin, written by David Lindley, is a book about a very influential figure in the world of physics who is sometimes forgotten.
   
   The book chronicles the life of William Thomson (eventually Lord Kelvin) from the time that he was an inquisitive student in his father's mathematics lectures at Glasgow University in England, through the great and eventually turbulent events in Thomson's scientific career. Very early on in his life Thomson became the Professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow University, a position that he was to hold for much of his lifetime. Most notable, in his career that spanned many different fields, was his work with electricity for the telegraph industry. His work in this field allowed for the construction of the first transatlantic telegraph and improved upon the design of wires to transmit electricity over long distances. One of Thomson's lesser known, but still important accomplishments was the creation of the first modern physics textbook. There are many other interesting things that were important in Thomson's life and Lindley goes into great detail.
   
   One of the most endearing aspects of this book is the way that it can embrace science yet still read like a novel. One of the book's flaws is that at times it gives to much background information about other 19th century scientists that eventually slow down the reading and detracts from the author's main message. In writing this biography Lindley was trying to create something to represent a very important scientist whose name is lost in history. This biography is extremely interesting to read because Thomson has helped to shape many scientific principles of the modern age. This book would be recommendable to anyone who enjoys science, in particular physics, and who would like to read about a man who helped physics come to be. Overall, it is decently presented and anyone who likes science would probably enjoy most of the book.



2. I was surprised to learn of his many commercial inventions where he applied the physics he had discovered. His early work in product testing of the cable for the transatlantic telegraph cable was years ahead of its time. I found this book an easy read, Kelvin (Thomson) was a real down to earth scientist and the author has captured his essence.



3. This was a good book. The author does a nice job documenting the life and times of Lord Kelvin. It may not have been a goal of the author, but I think this book clearly illustrates that advances in science are not the work of one person, but collaboration between many different thinkers. Enjoy the read!



4. Another remarkable British physicist of the 19th century. The genius of William Thomson was formidable, capable of tackling every challenge in science quite fast, though not always totally right, but helping to narrow possible solutions and enriching scientific debate of the time. The book took you to a great epoch of scientific knowledge and progress, from the theory of heat and the beginnings of Thermodynamics, the marvellous story of the trasatlantic cable and even the perfection of ships compasses to compensate the magnetic effect of the new Iron ships that were built by the British Navy. Although I think John Clerk Maxwell is definitely the 19th century physics genius, Thomson place his name near to Faraday and several others that contributed to the dynamic and flourish scientific knowledge of the second half of the 1800.
   
   William Thomson was a genius, but seems that to accept new ideas was not an easy process for him. After reading the book my opinion is the same as Maxwell -- he was so busy on diverse interest that he was incapable of focusing on only one subject.



5. David Lindley's biography of Lord Kelvin is one of the most enjoyable books that I have ever read. The author provides a fair assessment of the man within his historical and scientific milieu and one is left with a sense of having obtained a deeper understanding of 19th century scientific thinking. The complexities of the foundation of thermodynamics are dealt with capably as is the scientific outlook of Kelvin as an advocate of a purely mechanical universe, in particular against the changing views towards the end of the 19th century. Overall a balanced approach between science and personal detail for a book of this type.

5 comments about Daisy Bates in the Desert: A Woman's Life Among the Aborigines.

1. Too much novelistic improvisation and repetition ruin this book. Julia Blackburn is clearly more interested in Julia Blackburn than in Daisy Bates. Julia Blackburn's ideas and dreams are constantly inserted just when you think you might get to read something about Daisy Bates! Julia Blackburn presents Julia Blackburn as a dreamy, visionary person, while describing Daisy Bates as a Liar over and over and over again, and then giving Daisy an "imaginary" life... It could have worked if Julia Blackburn weren't so in love with herself--- I bought this book because life among the Aborigines sounded interesting. But it's really too much about Julia Blackburn and she bores me. I read a lot of novels, biogs, poetry, and history, and this books tries to capture it all and while at times it is eloquent, it often feels false and flat.



2. The author is highly imaginative and tells a lot about her own life in this mish mash. We never learn much about Daisy Bates. the author writes " her body shudders like a dying rabbit and her new husband wakes and stares at his new wife..." But the author is really describing her own childhood dream of an old man with his legs wrapped around her neck!!! Blackburn's "very personal interpretation" of the life of Daisy Bates seems to include Blackburn trying to overcome some of her own childhood traumas and problems with men. If little is known about Daisy Bates' feelings towards her husband, I'd rather have that than a lot of silly conjecture and fantasy. The prose is very good, very flowery and high flown, but it doesn't help tell the story of Daisy Bates. Like other reviewers, I will have to research Daisy, yes even after reading her "biog". It didn't feel balanced at all.



3. Daisy Bates, a controversial woman who has attained almost mythical status in Australia, was an inveterate liar, constitutionally incapable of seeing herself in the world as it really was. Instead, she created a better world in her own mind and assumed that everyone else recognized her world as real. As Julia Blackburn reconstructs what she believes to have been Daisy's life in Australia's western desert, and her seemingly futile efforts to protect and preserve the aborigines and their culture, she presents a plausible personality with whom the reader can, to a great extent, identify.
   
   Blackburn is successful in making Daisy's dream world seem like an understandable response to the privations and hardships she faced in her early life alone. In Part I, Blackburn describes what Daisy has said about her life, and follows it with what Blackburn has discovered to be the truth as a result of her documented research. In Part II, she allows Daisy, as she understands her, to speak to the reader herself, and we "live" with her in the desert for many years, watching as her original dedication becomes a mission and then a mania, and her insecurity grows into delusion and eventually paranoia. A woman who seems to have accomplished nothing of lasting significance, Daisy might have achieved some of her goals if she had only bent a little. Part III tells of Daisy's life after she leaves the desert.
   
   Blackburn brings Daisy's Australian desert camp to life--the blinding sun, the heat of day and cold of night, the ghostly arrivals and departures of the shy aborigines, the birds and animals who were often Daisy's only company, and the changes wrought by the railroads, settlement, missionaries, and unfeeling governmental bureaucrats. Though she presents Daisy sympathetically, she is not Daisy's apologist, offering no defense, other than Daisy's own personality, for her extreme and solitary viewpoint. Unlike other readers, I found this a very poignant story of a woman who, at the end of a life of the utmost privation and dedication to saving a culture, realizes with sadness that it has all been for naught. Clearly, she never had a clue that most of her failure was her own fault. Mary Whipple



4. Daisy Bates appears to be delusional at times in recounting her adventures with the Aboriginese but this is still one of the most fascinating reads I've had in a long time! If you were to separate her tales from the fact that she lived on her own among the indigenous peoples of Australia during a time when it was shocking for a woman to do so, there would still be an incredible story of courage and perserverance. This is an account worth reading!



5. If you have a burning desire to read some historical fiction, I'd recommend "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden as a shining example thereof.
   
   What are the problems?
   
   1. Lots of digression/ babbling/ fillers sections of prose. It seems like a lot of it was inserted to give the book length. If the point of this was to give us an idea of the life of Australian aboriginals, the author could have supplied details to that effect. Instead, we get the author's imagined internal dialogues of a central character that may well have been schizophrenic.
   
   2. Why would Blackburn choose an inveterate liar to characterize the experience of a white living amongst the Aborigines? Were there no other whites that lived among them during that time? One thing that was clear was that there were many different types of whites to be found in contact with the Aborigines at this time. Could we not have seen these Native Australians from the perspective of government officials? Or railroad workers?
   
   3. On the whole, the characters were very poorly developed and one dimensional-- and especially those of the Aborigines. This might have been another vehicle to show us the customs that a reader might be intersted to know, such as language/ customs/ family structure.
   
   4. If this work was supposed to have been historical fiction dedicated to understanding Daisy Bates, the author could have taken artistic license to develop the character of Daisy Bates as it might have been seen through the eyes of an Aborigine. Or several of the government officials with whom she came into contact.
   
   Again: If you are looking for good historical fiction, don't look for it in this book.

5 comments about Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World.

1. David Berlinski's portrayal of Isaac Newton is very informative. In his note to the reader Berlinski explains that the goal of his retelling of Newton's story is to give the reader a sense of Newton without becoming tedious and getting caught up in the mundane. This book sheds light onto influential factors in Newton's career and the adversity that he had to overcome within the scientific community. The math explaining Newton's concepts and conclusions about science is relatively simple and easy to understand for people who don't have a doctorate in physics, which is quite welcome to the average person. Berlinski also endeavors into Newton's personal life as well as his close friendships and bitter rivals. These personal interactions shed some light as to Newton's temperament and personality quirks that succeed in Berlinski's goal to inform the reader about Newton, not just Newton's ideas and discoveries. All in all a good read.



2. Personally, I am infuriated when an author deliberately writes obtusely to show off how "artsy" he is, or how vast a vocabulary he has. The author here does that throughout this book. Here's one example- "the halter of specificity has been imposed on heretofore disorderly concepts."
   
   My other strong objection to this book is how the author takes an active voice asserting his own (incorrect, in my opinion) philosophy. He does this in numerous ways in numerous places throughout the book. For example, he indicates Aristotle's philosophy as something that Newton needed to overcome, instead of recognizing Aristotle's role as the originator of the scientific method. As another example, the author states that Newton's religion, Arianism is "heresy." He says this despite the fact he admits that Newton kept his religious views to himself. How did the author determine Newton's religion? For that matter how did the author determine anything? The book has no bibliography, much less footnotes.
   
   Finally even Newton's scientific work is undercut by the author's poor views on this subject. For example, the author sees an arbitrariness in the fact that Newton's laws "favor" a straight line. The author asks "why a straight line?" and claims Newton had no answer.



3. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World, written by David Berlinski, is a very informative novel that seems to let you see views of the world through Newton's eyes. While it was very informative and showed great appreciation for Newton's accomplishments, the author tends to ramble. While talking about one topic, he will go off on a tangent for quite a while, before going back to his original topic. The author tries to be funny, but often assumes what was taking place at certain times in Newton's life. He might mention what the weather was probably like or pointless details about how Newton was probably sitting in his bed reading with the window closed to keep out the cold air.
   
   Berlinski does cover important aspects of Newton's life and discoveries. He mentions his influences and inspirations, ranging from being struck on the held by an apple, to Euclid and Descartes, whose works spurred his imagination. Also, Berlinski covers what was going on in the world of science during the time period that Newton was making his famous discoveries and working diligently on new ideas. The author also explores challenges that Newton faced, as well as adversaries that tried to stand in his way or beat him to his goal. Since Sir Isaac Newton, scientific history has changed and has not been the same. Berlinski talks about how Newton's Principa has affected the scientific community, and helped it evolve into how it is today.



4. The author did a marvelous job in trying to explain and simplify great mathematical concepts in order to be understood by a "normal" person.
   
   The book also shows that Newton, although a man with one of the most powerful minds in history, was still a human, with very "pedestrian" weaknesses. That only enhance the greatnes of the man.
   
   The book is very fast to read, and a great companion in the metro



5. Why this throwaway book exists is anyone's guess. Maybe Free Press was being told to publish conservative authors. Maybe Berlinski had a contract to write a book in record time. Whatever the reason, there's no reason for the average reader to bother with it.
   
   As popular science history, it fails miserably. The science is too math-dense to be understandable by the average numerophobic reader. Worse, the book doesn't provide enough cultural/intellectual context for the average reader to appreciate Newton's huge scientific achievements. Even as Vanity Fair-style biography, the book barely gets a passing grade. We do learn tidbits about Newton: He may have been gay! He had a mania for Biblical esoterica! He had an authoritarian streak! Unfortunately, the writing is too rushed and the narrative too lacking in texture and detail to communicate a feel for the life of a great man and the age he lived in.
   
   Bottomline: "Newton's Gift" has too much math to be read at the beach yet too little substance to be worthy of serious study. Not recommended.

3 comments about The Autobiography of Charles Darwin.

1. This book is definitely a really fun read for someone with some leisure time and an interest in Darwin. It's important to not take this book too seriously (perhaps) because Darwin doesn't really take it that seriously himself. The autobiography tells us a lot about Charles Darwin the man and the way that he felt about certain issues but it barely scratches the surface: he has a great sense of humor (like when he talks about his original plans for being in the clergy) and sometimes he talks about his own life seriously (like his regret for not reading more poetry), but when you come down to it, the book is sort of written in a really mechanical manner. He doesn't really share with us any of his deepest desires or secrets (nor do we really expect him to).
   
   Overall this autobiography is pretty fun to read and it's probably a good springboard from which we can then go and read his Origin of Species or Voyage of the Beagle.



2. Darwin's Autobiography serves as a good overview of his life and the major events that happened to him. While the actual autobiography itself is very short and lacks details, its a good starting point for someone wanting to learn more about Darwin. In this edition edited by his son Francis Darwin leaves out some passages about Darwin's family and married life, something one could argue as particularly telling or interesting information; if this bugs you, buy the later edition.
   
   One of the most interesting sections to me was Darwin's description of his boyhood and young adult years. It's comical to hear this scientist describe his obsession with the pastime of shooting things and his mediocre performance in school. A few things signal Darwin's observational powers or scientific inclination, such as his collection of beetles, but for the most part, he seems an ordinary young person.
   
   Also, the book continually references scientists and intellectuals of the time which Darwin comments on. Some of these people were close to Darwin, others he just mentions. Now knowing these people can be somewhat frustrating to the reading, as I can attest to. The book is very much written and directed at his children, who would be familiar with this social context.
   
   Even with these minor faults, Darwin does give insight into his own mind, something I'm sure anyone who's reading a book about Darwin is looking for. The introspection comes at the end of the book. Darwin speaks of his own reasoning capacities and ability to notice things which easily escape the observations of other men.
   
   This book is short and a I recommend it as a good place to start for getting a handle on the major events of Darwin's life and hearing Darwin's own perspective.



3. This reprint of Francis Darwin's edition of the Autobiography is not the full version, but is fascinating nonetheless. Francis omitted some passages in deference to his mother, Darwin's widow Emma, who marked passages that she did not want published. (Interested readers can go to Nora Barlow's 20th century edition of the Autobiography for the full text). Francis Darwin's reminiscences of his father's working habits and "everyday life" (chapter 4) are wonderful. Chapters 5-18 are largely chronologically arranged extracts from Darwin's letters with Francis's commentary.