1 comments about Galileo: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions).

1. In this slim volume is packed the central thesis of one of the foremost students of Galileo:
   1) that Galileo was not a victim of the inquisition but rather the Aristotelean method of reasoning particulars of Science from theoretical ideas. Galileo thought that experience, measurability and prediction should be the guide. Grand ideas he left to the Church and philosophers. Perhaps he was a little too naive in assuming that the inquisition would leave him alone. But it was in the defence of Aristotle that the inquisition indicted him. Not mere religious intolerance (which of course there was plenty).

   The other observation was the in-fighting and jockeying inside the academic community for political and religious favour -- the competition for well-paying university seats was intense and Galileo was a direct victim of academics who ruthlessly pilloried him to gain favour.

   2) Galileo was no crusader directly challenging the power of the church. He in fact had many freinds as high-archbishops and even a was a personal friend of the Pope. His desire was never to challenge the church and the church only very reluctantly charged him with "teaching" the doctrine of Copernicus and Kepler.

   This is a great jumping off point for further studies on Galileo. I love this series.

5 comments about Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio.

1. In 2005 the U.S. celebrates its 50th anniversary of the first national polio vaccination program which helped eradicate the disease in this country: it's hard to believe a generation is growing up without ever having known the ravages of polio. New York Times writer Jeffrey Kluger's Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk And The Conquest Of Polio is both a biography of Dr. Salk and his search for the vaccine and a social history of polio. Chapters based on exclusive interviews with his friends and colleagues and access to his private papers provides new details on Salk's life and career, setting this life in context of both his times and contemporaries.



2. Kluger writes a riveting account of the search for an effective immunization for an annual epidemic plaguing society through the first half of the twentieth century. He skillfully weaves the story of Salk's quest within its social background. Reading it brought me back to my childhood in the 1950's and my parents' anxieties each summer as newspapers published counts of local and national polio cases.



3. This tale of science, competition, personalities and politics provides one a splendid base for understanding of processes of the past in order to help in understanding the present.
   With my knowledge of viruses as a health care professional, I found the intersection of science with egos and policy somewhat disturbing but not surprising. According to Kluger, Dr. Salk was a selfless scientist who prioritized work above family. The book nearly slanders Dr. Sabin. I have no basis for judgment other than this book, however. This is only one side of the story.
   One may find himself extrapolating to the current threat of pandemic Avian Influenza. Splendid Solution provides insight into the process, which according to NIH officials may take up to five years, whereby we may have an Avian Flu vaccine.
   Drs. Salk and Sabin (with their assistants) did more than protect us from Polio. In the end, it was the combination of their discoveries that conquered Polio. The book implies that Salk's vaccine may have conquered it alone or more quickly had politics not intervened. But we will never know. We do know that the combination worked.
   They laid the groundwork for our protection from threats yet unknown. They are both true American heroes.



4. Oh...I was so disappointed when I got near the end of the book and realized that the ending would be based on the susquent gearing up of the corporate making of the immense quantities of this vaccine, to bring it into control world-wide. Yet, I came to unerstand that was the right ending to this story...everthing after that was useless detail, even if I wanted to know more about the people involved.
   
   The continuing fight between the arrogant Sabin and Salk has been told elsewhere.and since I wandered around the hallways where Salk and his group did his work. I would hear bits and pieces of the rest of the story, including Salk's mistake of neglecting to mention all of his immediate collegues who spent so much time for so little recognition. I wonder is he ever offered a simple apology...or did he know that would never gain him total forgiveness.
   
   The book is all the more exciting because of my being in and around the places where they worked, and my husband worked for the newspaper, same as Troan...so the book gained the feeling of a movie to me. Kliger is an outstanding scince writer, so that means a lont time between books. Sigh...
   
   At least this is one virus they can truly claim a victory over, and how glad I am as a mother of the 1980's that my children were spared this horrific disease.
   
   Karen Sadler
   Science Education



5. i found the first chapter of this book quite boring, full of uninteresting detail, but it got better later, though it may be that i just got used to it. as it is, it still wasn't a particularly good book.
   
   one of my complaints is how kluger completely idealizes Salk. for instance, at one point he refuses to tell his rival details about his work because "it seemed somehow wrong to share what he knew with one scientist before revealing it to all the others." come on. it was proffessional rivalry.
   
   another thing that annoyed me was kluger over-analyzing various details that didn't seem to mean anything. he ascribed intentions to various unimportant acts that for one thing, he has no proof of, and for another, are boring to listen to. and we never really get any idea of Salk's personality, which makes the book rather boring, as salk is, after all, the main character. in his acknowledgements, Kluger calls him "a tectonic force in scientific history." bull. all he did was develop a vaccine with already-created methods.
   
   and the details. the book would probably have been way too short if kluger hadn't put in all the details, but still. he spends pages talking about trivial things like how someone decided on the specific date for a conference. sometimes it's interesting details that make a book come alive... but these aren't interesting details.
   
   so i guess the whole problem with the book was that it wasn't alive. the man it's about is a flat, unknown character, and the plot is too long-drawn out and not interesting enough. it wasn't *so* boring, i got through it easily enough, but when i was done i couldn't help thinking what a waste of my time.

5 comments about Apollo: The Epic Journey to the Moon.

1. I am a space nerd - majored in space physics, minored in space studies, worked in the space industry. Am enthralled with the Apollo program and have studied it extensively. This book does have a few minor errors, but they in no way detract from the thorough examination of the Apollo program. The book is worth its weight in charts, maps, diagrams and photographs alone. For example, I had never seen maps of the tracks of where each Apollo mission did its EVAs on the moon.
   
   I refute the claim that this book is aimed at children - I doubt any standard kid would understand Delta V and Isp and hypergolic fuels and translunar insertions. I think having a background in rocketry helped me enjoy the book more, not less.



2. This book was a great resource to learn in depth about the history, people, technology and politics which was the genesis of the space program. Also, what the author captures uniquely well is the sense of imagination and wonder involved - the dream of space. That one reviewer dismisses this as 'childish' and 'inaccurate' is sad, because it's exactly that which inspired so many in America and the world, to look to the stars and understand the reach of human potential. (That includes me - as a child, btw). The personalities of the people who helped drive the program are inseparable from what was accomplished, and I was fascinated to hear more about figures like Von Braun and the Apollo astronauts. Though the writing can wax a little poetic at times, it's more than balanced by a thorough level of historical and technical detail.
   
   I highly recommend Apollo as an inspiring book for anyone who has even a moderate interest in space. I think it'd make a great book for younger people with a technical bent too.



3. This is a very comprehensive read which takes you from the beginning of the space age through to what might have been if the momentum had not been lost around 1970.
   
   The illustrations are some of the best I've ever seen and counterpoint the text superbly. There are none which are there just to look good, they all have a well defined reason for being where they are in the body of the book.
   There is plenty of input from the people who were involved and a lot of the adventures are recalled in quite thrilling prose. It even manages to convince the reader that the technology really was there to establish bases on the moon and go to mars using the Saturn V booster. It leaves the reader with a clear feeling of NASA's betrayal by Richard Nixon, portaying him, albeit subtly, as someone willing to take the credit for Kennedy's commitment but unwilling to extend the legacy.
   
   The book is somewhat spoiled by the fact that it is written very much from a cold war perspective. That the great and the good of the American people can overcome any adversary and that all other ideologies are wrong. A non-American is likely to find this a little sycophantic and it does leave a sour taste in the mouth in view of recent political activity, regardless of your enthusiasm for the subject. That it acknowledges that the space shuttle has failed in it's charter on just about every level since it's conception compounds the folly of the writer.
   
   This should not put you off from buying this book. First hand accounts from the astronauts and the eye candy in this book alone make it worth the price. Yet it is the story it tells which is most compelling. It's an absolute must for any enthusiast. Even the All-American (which to be fair, it was) narrative is not sickly enough to stop me recommending it



4. Outstanding book. It should be required reading for kids in high school. The only downside to this book is that it is printed in China. It's rather ridiculous to read about America's greatest achievement in a book printed by communist Chinese.



5. A visual gem; this book is one that even those with just a passing interest in space history would enjoy. In addition to the numerous photos, the text is extremely cogent and well written. It covers all major aspects of the apollo program in a highly informative and entertaining manner. The book is of a very high quality and will not disappoint.

5 comments about Einstein: A Life.

1. I don't think biographies do well by simply presenting lives as accretions of detail; that's the fundamental flaw of this book. It may be interesting to some readers that Einstein took time to take care of his cat, or to be reminded over and over again that he wrote letters to ordinary people, but that's probably not the best way to understand him. It's like a bad blog that somehow leaves out sufficient emphasis on the most miraculous year in 20th Century science, the year when Einstein created the theories that would define him. Brian elides over these enormous issues, and give Einstein a very long leash when questioning his abandonment of his first wife, his two sons, and possibly a daughter. I guess first-rate scientists don't have to adhere to pretty basic social mores, from this author's point of view. This book has been characterized as being about the life of the man, rather than of his scientific discoveries. But those discoveries are what defined him. Otherwise Einstein's life is as mundane as anyone's. Leaves school, gets married, can't find a job, finds a job, leaves his wife and kids, gets another job, moves a couple of times, dresses shabbily, likes to go sailing, writes letters to inquiring admirers, gets hounded by the press...blah blah blah. Despite the tonnage of everyday minutia, it's all superficial reportage.



2. Brian's biography is much less about Einstein the scientist, although elements of that are certainly present, and much more about Einstein as a friend, colleague, father, husband, and eccentric. The biography is intensely personal and often feels like a long quiet conversation about a remarkable acquaintance. Brian likes Einstein but brings in elements of Einstein's personal life, especially the stormy relationship with his first wife, Mileva and the secrets and anquish that ensued from that marriage. Einstein comes across as a man who passionately loved physics, music, and the company of good friends. Brian also paints the portrait of a genuis whose egalitarian personality is astonishing. The biographer's superbly documented anecdotes show how Einstein made his way through the maelstrom of the first half of the 20th century while authoring tectonic changes in humanity's view of energy, gravity, and the universe itself. This book allows the reader to be in a room with Einstein while he wears slippers and puffs on his pipe and chats with neighbors. It is a gift.



3. I love biography, and good biography does contain details. But this book's detail is tedious in content as well as tedious in its writing style. There is no attempt at literary art. It's descriptions sound juvenile. I strained mentally to get used to the style but to add to that the small and cramped print in the book caused me to give up after a few pages.



4. I bought it for my nephew who is a freshman in highschool and ever since he read the book his approach towards science has totally changed. He never liked science before.
   
   He likes reading books. But this one has become his fav



5. Einstein: A Life was a very enjoyable biography that doesn't dwell on making you understand Relativity. Though some of the laster chapters drag a bit on the whole I feel a much better understanding of the man behind Relativity than before.
   
   What pleased me most about the book was the fact that at the beginning of each chapter the author tells you what years of Einstein's life he is covering and Einstein's age range over those years. This helped a great deal in putting the events in order in my head - usually I find myself scribbling down dates in biographies to keep from referring back to the beginning of the book to see the subjects age at the time being referred to.

1 comments about Darwin: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions).

1. I think the extent of knowledge most people know about Darwin is about evolution and even that is spotty. I just wanted to get a broad idea about the man and his theories and this book fit the bill. I feel like I can now speak about Darwin and actually know what I am talking about rather than make off handed commments with out fully realizing what I am talking about. I recommend this book to Atheists and people of faith since each of us could benefit from understanding what Darwin is about and the context of his theories.

5 comments about Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics.

1. Having noticed over the years that Prof. John Archibald Wheeler's name turns up in an amazing variety of physics-related articles and anecdotes, I was particularly primed to read his autobiography. The book doesn't follow a simple from-birth chronology, but rather begins with Wheeler teaching at Princeton and volunteering to meet the ship carrying his mentor, Niels Bohr, at a New York City dock in January of 1939. From that pivotal moment at the brink of World War II, Wheeler fills out his story by reaching back to childhood and forward to his long career in teaching, research, and national service. We learn of his brother Joe, whose body lay in a foxhole on an Italian hillside until it was reduced to bones. Wheeler reminds us that if the Manhattan Project had geared up one year earlier, the lives of his brother and many others might have been spared.

   Wheeler's remarkable character pervades the book and helps make it unique and interesting. In a profession legendary for strong intellects and egos, he has achieved and maintained a pomposity coefficient of zero. His judgments of other people are unfailingly generous, but also astute enough to be interesting and revealing. He provides candid firsthand impressions of legendary figures such as Bohr, Einstein, Oppenheimer, Teller, Ulam, Heisenberg, Fermi, Szilard and Feynman . We also learn about many less well-known colleagues, friends and students whom he finds memorable for various reasons. In contrast to the eminent-scientist stereotype, Wheeler has always enjoyed teaching undergraduates and is genuinely interested in the problems and aspirations of the young people entrusted to his care.

   Like the brilliant George Gamow, Wheeler has a talent for explaining difficult concepts and illustrating them with whimsically inventive diagrams. The book's autobiographical threads are interwoven with a rich tapestry of subtle but plainly-spoken physical insights on dozens of topics, some arcane enough to leave even the author slightly bemused. I believe anyone interested in physics will find a personal revelation or two among Wheeler's lucid, informal scientific explanations. There are touches of Gamowesque humor too, such as his theory that the fates somehow conspired to entangle him with a string of Hungarian emigres.

   The title concepts of the book -- Geons, Black Holes and Quantum Foam -- were all named by Wheeler himself. He began his career at the minute scale of particle physics, moved on to the grand sweep of relativistic cosmology, and finally circled back to the hyperminuteness of quantum foam. Of course there is nothing really disjointed about such a journey, since connections among the nested scales of nature constitute one of the grand unifying themes of physics.




2. The physics is fine but this is an autobiography. What kind of a man is Wheeler? I got the impression he spent as much time avoiding offending anybody important as he did on physics. He sounds like an amiable sycophant.



3. This is really a wonderful scientific biography. Wheeler has an engaging, easy-going style that doesn't sacrifice detail and scholarly accuracy for readibility. It's almost like having a fireside chat with the great physicist about the entire history of 20th century physics. Wheeler's career spanned almost the entire 20th century and he worked in many areas, from atomic and radiation physics to nuclear physics, quantum theory, black holes and gravitation. He even made a brief foray into sociology when he attended a conference and spoke on "National Survival and Human Development," in which he emphasized the importance of a country developing the full capabilities of all citizens.

   In addition to learning about his own distinguished career, you meet just about every other important physicist and/or mathematician or had anything to do with physics (such as Carson Mark, who I didn't know about before, who Wheeler spoke highly of), and his account is full of interesting personal details about famous and non-famous physicists alike. Wheeler met or knew other great scientists like Einstein, Niels Bohr, Richard Feynman, Hans Bethe, Oppenheimer, Stanislaw Ulam, John von Neumann, Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence, Isidore Rabi, Leo Szilard, Carl Bohm, and many others too numerous to mention.

   In addition to the above famous names, I also learned something about many other names, both famous and not so famous, that I didn't know much about before, and Wheeler often briefly mentions what each scientist's contribution was about, especially when it influenced his own thinking.

   Wheeler provides some important insights about himself. For example, he commented on how much of his own productivity was due to the deadlines and time pressure he was under most of his career. Many of us have the impression that brilliant minds like Wheeler (much of it fostered by the public's stereotype of Einstein) create their amazing intellectual achievements in a world divorced from reality and the mundane aspects of everyday life, but Wheeler says that it was often all the deadlines he had to meet that was responsible for much of his best work. He was always having to meet deadlines for papers, class lectures, various reports, talks he was invited to give, and so on throughout the course of his career, and he said he was often spurred to work harder because of them, and often did his best work under the pressure of having to prepare a lecture or talk at the last minute.

   Overall, this is a very enjoyable, readable, and interesting biography about one of the great scientists of our time.

   By the way, just a personal note here. I'm not a physicist myself (actually, I'm a neurobiologist by training), but I'm the grand-nephew of physicist Ernest Lawrence, who won the 1939 Nobel prize for his invention of the first atom smasher or cyclotron, and who Wheeler met briefly when he was considering a move from Princeton to U.C. Berkeley.




4. Physicists often compare themselves to blind men feeling an elephant -- each guessing at the nature of the beast by describing the small part that they can touch. If true, then no man has come closer to feeling the Whole Elephant than John Archibald Wheeler. Wheeler's energetic career touched virtually every significant modern physicist -- Bohr, Fermi, Einstein, Teller, Oppenheimer, Feynman and many others -- a dazzling list that includes the most luminous minds of the last century. Wheeler may have missed winning a Nobel prize only because he was willing to sacrifice the best slice of his career to secretly help develop the fission and later fusion bombs for America. After leaving what he calls the "everything is particles" phase of his career, Wheeler entered "everything is fields" -- inventing the term "black hole" and describing the properties of these amazing objects long before anybody else ever took them seriously. Some ideas such as "geons" -- self sustained loops of light held together by their own gravitational attraction -- may still await discovery. Finally, in "everything is information" he explores ways in which information theory may be the most underlying unifying principle of reality. Part biography, part history and part speculation, this rambling story portrays a uniquely American explorer on a voyage through the amazing landscape of 20th century physics. The book is packed with photographs and profiles of the world's smartest men, fascinating anecdotes and meticulous historical details -- and shows that even at the age of 87, John Wheeler can still get excited talking about the unsolved mysteries that pervade our universe.
   
   --Auralgo



5. This book is a kind of autobiography concentrating in the scientific career of J.A. Wheeler. Wheeler has devoted his scientific life to Quantum Theory,General Relativity (he has a very famous co-authored monograph, Gravitation) and has tried to bridge the gap between these two key physics theories, specially studying black holes, term that he coined.
   
   He also devised the delayed choice experiment that is a refinement of the double slit experiment and shows how quirky is Quantum Mechanics, i.e. Nature, at its fundamental level. In his last years he has also reflected on the big "philosophical" questions:How come existence? How come the quantum? He has ventured that information is the fundamental ingredient of everything: It from bit (or rather It from qubit).
   
   The book starts with the very interesting history of the Manhattan project, although perhaps it is the last chapter that I most enjoyed. Wheeler is a great teacher and he can explain difficult matters in a very clear way. This last chapter deals with time. He sets a sci-fi scenario (fiction only from a technical point of view) in which people travel at near light speed. Of course, when they come back to Earth, parents are younger than children that stayed at home and all the clocks have different hours. Can you image what would the chaos be in a society like ours where universal time is so important in our daily lives? For Wheeler, time is an emergent property, such as temperature or entropy.
   
   Another thing he explains well is the reality of virtual particles. Without them we could not reconcile the predicted and the observed value of the electron's magnetic moment. The book is only outdated in his belief in the Big Crunch.
   
   Wheeler was a student of Bohr and has had a lot of famous students, most notably Dick Feynman.
   
   This highly readable book is a history of XXth century physics full of anecdotes, such as the French not liking the name meson which would be pronounced like "maison" (house)in French.

1 comments about Scientists of Faith: 48 Biographies of Historic Scientists and Their Christian Faith.

1. This book is a good place to begin research of the topic of scientists of faith. The religious views of each scientist are summerized over several pages. The writing style is clear and concise. There are references given for more detailed information. Overall, it is an interesting read.

5 comments about Making Time: Lillian Moller Gilbreth -- A Life Beyond "Cheaper by the Dozen".

1. Lillian Moller Gilbreth is well remembered today as the patient mother of "Cheaper by the Dozen". This book makes it clear that this was the least of her attributes.

   Dr. Gilbreth spent over a half century as one of America's leading engineers. First colloborating with her husband, Frank Gilbreth, she spent the first forty years of her widowhood on an intense schedule of conferences, consulting, and teaching, finally retiring near her ninetieth birthday.

   While the primary focus of this book is on Dr. Gilbreth and her engineering career, and the conculsion makes clear author Jane Lancaster's bitterness that Dr. Gilbreth is best remembered for the fictionalized mother of "Cheaper by the Dozen", fans of the book will find material to satisfy them. Several chapters deal with the family's life. Few of the many footnotes are simply to "Cheaper" or its sequel, "Belles on their Toes"--appropriate, as a later chapter deals with how "Cheaper" came to be, and that it was written not as non-fiction, but rather as things should have been. For example, the episode in "Cheaper" where Dr. Gilbreth spent a day in bed, and the children were convinced that a new baby was due, having associated Mother's brief bedstays with childbirth, was based on Dr. Gilbreth giving birth to a stillborn, thirteenth child.

   Jane Lancaster gives life to this pioneering woman engineer, unfortunately typecast by her children's books. Highly recommended.




2. I just finished the book. Lillian led an exhausting life of lecturing, travel and endless writing. As the mother of 13 children, she puts us all to shame (with many fewer children)because of her unbelievable work schedule. This book does a great job of paying tribute to her life's work which is clearly well-documented.
   Although she did not promote herself as an activist for Women's Rights, Lillian Gilbreth took giant steps for all women because of her dedication to her family, husband, and her monumental career.
   Jane Lancaster has a beautiful command of the English language. This book is well-written without being intimidating. I would definitely recommend to anyone interested in juggling family and/or career.



3. The work of the Gilbreth couple has been influencing the way people work both in industry and at home since the beginning of the last century; and this influence has been quite underestimated, mainly because of the lasting succes of the books "Cheaper By the Dozen" and "Belles on Their Toes". The time has come to write a both thorough and neutral review on this work and to show the driving forces behind it. I am very pleased to say that Jane Lancaster with her book "Making Time" wrote this perfect review, which is carefully researched from the scientific point of view and very well written for the reader's pleasure.
   
   Ms Lancaster delivers several things: (1) A precise and complete description of the life of both Gilbreths (which of course is mostly the life of Lillian M. Gilbreth, because she survived her husband by almost 50 years). (2) A neutral evaluation of this work, where she points out that most of Gilbreth's work was outlined and carried out by Lillian M. Gilbreth, although Ms Gilbreth kept herself in the background during the life of her husband. (3) The creation of a well-deserved attention for the work of Ms Gilbreth beyond her (not neglectable at all!) role of a mother of 13.
   
   Having dealt with the work of the Gilbreth couple for more than 20 years, I highly recommend Jane Lancaster's book both for reading pleasure and for scientific work. "Making Time", in my opinion, sets the standards for the research on the work of the Gilbreth.



4. When you think of Lillian (Cheaper by the Dozen) Gilbreth you can help but think of her more as a mother than anything else. The movie presented a story of a wonderful mother, but none the less, just a mother. As is often the case reading the book gives one a much better, much more complete story of her life.
   
   You don't think of a female engineer from her time. Engineering was something that a man did. Yet she was an engineer of some reknown. And being left after her husband's death with eleven children under nineteen she had to face many of the same problems that women have to face today.
   
   To see how she faced them so many years ago is enlightning. Just to see that all of that many children graduated from college is rather amazing even in our world.



5. "This is funny, you might like it."
   
   That suggestion from a long-ago English teacher introduced me to a book called "Cheaper By The Dozen," which in turn kicked off a lengthy fascination with the Gilbreth family and their other books. Along the way, I got a taste of the fact that Lillian Moller Gilbreth was among the more important women of her generation, up there with Marie Curie and Eleanor Roosevelt. But, as other Gilbreth-philes surely know, her children's writings only hinted at that importance, concentrating instead on her role as the family matriarch. This, the first full-length biography not written by a family member, is therefore a welcome addition to the already sizeable collection of books about the Gilbreths.
   
   Jane Lancaster's research is very impressive, as is her ability to overcome the surviving Gilbreth children's noted concern for their privacy. Through over a century's worth of private letters and papers, she provides a surprisingly vivid look at the family you thought you knew as a kid. More importantly, she provides a well-rounded look at Lillian Gilbreth, who even in early life was not nearly the demure introvert so often portrayed elsewhere.
   
   Though very much a product of her 19th century upper crust California childhood, she was quite independent minded from the beginning, as reflected in her decision to go to college, get married and move East while most of her siblings never left home. A lifelong Republican and a close friend of Herbert Hoover, she was nonetheless an early and effective advocate of workplace safety regulations, paid breaks, eight-hour workdays and, of course, women's right to work outside the home. (Oddly, Lancaster makes no mention of Gilbreth's views on women's suffrage, by far the most prominent feminist issue of the era.) In earning a PhD, she overcame not only sexism and the responsibilities of a large family, but a "lost" dissertation as well.
   
   There are also more stories of the children, although few of them are as lighthearted as the ones you already know. Chances are you'd already figured out that "Cheaper By The Dozen" and "Belles On Their Toes" were a couple of idealized memoirs, but if not, prepare to have your bubble burst! Lillian's long absences from home after Frank's death were quite hard on some of the younger children, and Lancaster suggests (without going into much detail) that many of their childhood memories were not all that rosy. Still, Lillian's heroic role in keeping the large family together through hard times comes through everywhere.
   
   I do find Lancaster's thesis - that Mrs. Gilbreth's reputation was shortchanged through her simplistic portrayal in "Cheaper" - slightly unfair. As at least four generations of middle-schoolers know, that book ends with Mother choosing to soldier on with Dad's business after his death and to continue raising all her children on her own. That was no small undertaking for a woman in 1924 or for a single parent of eleven children in any era. (If anything, it gives her slightly more credit than is due: Lancaster reveals here that she briefly sent one daughter to live with her grandmother in California.) The admittedly less-remembered "Belles On Their Toes" and "Time Out For Happiness" are both loaded down with accolades for her achievements both at home and professionally. Also, engineering is not like music, sports, art, or literature - the geniuses of the field, male or female, are generally remembered only by people who practice it. Still, Lancaster does have a point that this pioneering giant of her profession is too often remembered only as a doting mother. And she's done a great job of helping to change that.

5 comments about Out of their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists.

1. If you're a computer scientist, programmer or what have you, then this book is a must read. The book presents key contributions of 15 computer scientists. While the book does contain some level of computer science speak, those who don't have computer science backgrounds will still find the book easy to read and follow. I first read this book when it was first published, and I occasionally refer back to it so I don't forget about all the great contributions made to computing.



2. I was looking for a good source on the masterminds who shaped the Computer Science field and I found in this book. I think this book delivers a good mixture of personal stories plus technical details about the main contributions of the 15 computer scientists who shaped the field.



3. from an insiders point of view, I've been in this environment all working life, this book puts everything in perspective.



4. Very enjoyable and entertaining book. But I've been working in the computer business for 30 years, a novice would have other opinions.
   
   The subtitle is very descriptive -- "The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Greaat Computer Scientists".
   
   Each is covered in a chapter, mixing together an account of how their life's journey ended up in important work.
   
   I knew some of the stories, but this book filled in lots of others. For example, I just know of Leslie Lamport's LaTeX system, not his other work!
   
   If you have an interest in computer science, this is a good survey of the
   individuals behind some of the fundamental discoveries.



5. This is a fast paced fun read. The book covers 15 scientists of the early to middle ages of computers. No list will satisfy everyone (note some of the reviews who were unhappy with this book). There is no section on Alan Turning, John von Neumann or Woz from Apple (sorry Apple PR machine), although the first two are mentioned at various times.
   
   The chapters cover the scientists within four sections: linguists, algorithmists, architects, and sculptors of machine intelligence. Within each chapter is a brief and generally entertaining biography and provide a concise discussion and explanation of some basic concepts that reveal the work that made the individual scientist famous within the field.
   
   The reference section is excellent for further research and enlightenment. It is broken down by chapter and is easy to reference.
   
   It is a fun read which I have allowed myself twice already.

5 comments about The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer: and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race.

1. One reviewer says that Teller was anti-semitic which is nonsense! He was a Hungarian Jew and close to Lewis Strauss who was an Orthodox Jew...
   Oppie was a victim of the Cold War and the Red Scare at the time, but missing from this and other books about the period is the real evil of Joseph Stalin!!!
   The hearing on Oppie's security clearance was a sham...but very telling is that Leslie Groves could not back Oppie then...very sad.
   I "knew" I.I. Rabi at Columbia and one of the great things in the book is O's relation to Rabi, Bethe, and other fine men!
   The Oppie story (a kind of frame-up complete with dastardly acts by the government) makes one realize that Alger Hiss may have been a good man too!
   But again, Stalin was out there, a menace! and Americans are more scared of Commies than Nazis!!!
   McMillan's work is excellent overall and a great read, but I tired of her one-sided complaints against the US policy on nucs...we did it in the context of a "war" with the USSR!
   Best, Neal



2. This is the third book in a row I've read on Oppenheimer (and related subjects), and this one is middling. The subject of this book is "the people and events that led to the destruction of J Robert Oppenheimer," although one of the book's flaws is that it isn't as focussed as that statement from the introduction might have it. For one thing, it's simply a given in the book that he was "destroyed" or "ruined" and yet there's scarcely a page or two about Oppenheimer the man or about Oppenheimer the man's reactions to his security clearance hearing. It's a pity too, because he's such a fascinating personality and compelling character that it would be interesting to learn more about him, personally or professionally. (I haven't read it yet, but the Kai Bird biography might be the trick here.)
   
   What the book is more closely about is precisely the 1954 security clearance hearing, although McMillan spends about the first half of the book winding up to the subject in roundabout ways. She clearly has done her homework and has stories to tell, but she gets caught in the middle often: for example, when she goes into some depth on Teller and his contributions to the H-bomb, she appears to be digressing to slap Teller around if her real focus is the Oppenheimer security hearing, but on the other hand she doesn't go into enough depth if her purpose is to analyze the post-war community of (thermo-)nuclear bomb research.
   
   Also, the book needed an editor to pick up the places where she repeats vignettes or quotes that she related 50 pages earlier; this unfortunately makes the book come off slapdash at times, although I think it was actually meticulously researched (no doubt just squeezed out under deadline). And, stylistically, the book's general methodical, dry tone (suitable to the material) is occasionally punctuated by McMillan's outrage with melodramatic chapter endings like: "the vast arsenal of superfluous nuclear weaponry that curses us today." My heart is with her, but she compromises the book with unbalanced rhetoric like this every 20 pages or so. One almost feels that she just couldn't stand being sober any more and has to yell out.
   
   So the book has a number of failings, yes, but it's still largely readable and it makes an excellent supplement to more consequential books. I would certainly start with the like of Gregg Herken's The Brotherhood of the Bomb before reading this one. But coming to this book after Herken's, it does a nice job of filling in some of the gaps by virtue of a narrower focus and a number of authorial interviews providing little insights here and there. Not a must read by a long stretch, but not a waste of time for sufficiently interested readers.



3. There are a few facts that Ms. McMillan seems to ignore. The first fact I glean not from this book but from the KGB archives. According to the docent I encountered in their museum: Oppenheimer, though not himself a Soviet spy, was aware of USSR espionage at Los Alamos and turned a blind eye to this treasonous activity. The Atomic Energy Commission was rightly suspicious and, if anything, under reacted when they stripped Oppenheimer of his clearance.
   
   As to the suggestion that Edward Teller was less a humanitarian than Oppenheimer, let's not forget that Teller (and others) petitioned the U.S. government to use the first nuclear bomb on a military and not a civilian target. Oppenheimer favored the policy that prevailed- unleashing these weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.



4. Robert Oppenheimer led the country's World War II Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, but America's nuclear monopoly was short lived. Only four years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviets exploded their own device. An internal debate ensued within the Atomic Energy Commission's General Advisory Council (GAC) which was largely responsible for United States nuclear policy, chaired by Oppenheimer, on the merits of pursuing a hydrogen bomb. This debate occurred behind the scene and out of the public spotlight. Indeed the news of the Soviet accomplishment was delayed while President Truman determined its impact. Then not only did Truman overrule the GAC he "bound them to secrecy at a moment when they urged the public be more fully informed" (56) stifling any opportunity for an open public debate on a major national security issue.
   
   At its "Halloween meeting" the GAC voted 8-0 to recommend the hydrogen bomb not be developed. McMillan explains how this opinion, the decision of scientists, diverged into a full-fledged developmental program comparable to the Manhattan project notwithstanding the reality of the bomb's destructive power. It is McMillan's contention that had the scientists, who knew the potential destructive power of the hydrogen bomb and who advocated a nuclear freeze, been able to keep control away from politicians, the arms race, hallmark of the Cold War, could have been averted.
   
   McMillan argues "Oppenheimer "believed in international control, but he did not know how to get there [because] he was the possessor of a divided mind and extraordinarily divided emotions."(60) His personality prevented him from making a more forceful case against the "Super," as Edward Teller's design was known. One thing led to another and "the decision to produce the H-bomb enshrined secrecy and made the cold war a way of life...."(61) The urgency was heightened with the advent of the Korean War.
   
   The war also had implications affecting Oppenheimer and his relations with the Air Force. Big bombs were preferred to defend Europe but smaller tactical weapons were needed in Asia where there existed few large targets. Atomic weapons seemed to promise "'the greatest possible gain in minimum time'"(91) reducing the need for a larger bomb. But Stan Ulam and Edward Teller developed the concept of "radiation implosion," which revived thermonuclear possibilities and led to the creation of a second (Livermore) laboratory in California diluting Oppenheimer's authority.
   
   Oppenheimer's past affiliations with the Communist Party, Edward Teller's ambitions, and fellow GAC member Lewis Strauss' Machiavellian maneuvering, Soviet ambitions, Air Force militarism, McCarthy' red baiting, admitted espionage, and the war in Korea, combined to shunt Oppenheimer aside. In McMillan's treatise Oppenheimer, given his faults, is seen as a sympathetic figure that could have changed the course of history. However McMillan's bias is palpable: "Livermore and Los Alamos created the vast arsenal of superfluous nuclear weaponry that curses us today." (135) Nonetheless her contention that Oppenheimer was hung out to dry is well documented. Whether he could have averted the arms race is more speculative but her point that the shift away from scientific to political ownership of scientific knowledge is important to understanding the arms race. Ironically Robert Oppenheimer, the hero of nuclear development and long subjected to illegal scrutiny by the FBI, loses his security clearance though no one knows as many secrets as he does.



5. Growing up, one of the hardest lessons I had to learn was that there are people in the world who, often hiding behind obsessive secrecy, are not very nice people. Raised to believe everyone had equal worth and deserved equal respect and consideration, it was a mortal shock to me to discover facts to the contrary. There really ARE monsters under the bed sometimes.
   
   This book is a classic example: delineating the decline and fall of J. Robert Oppenheimer not through any fault of his own or any hint of disloyalty or whiff of impropriety, but strictly because of the machinations of a cast of thoroughly dishonorable characters who took it upon themselves to become Robert's enemies. Politics is never a clean business (like sausage-making...) but it's particularly heinous what was done to Oppenheimer since his motives, in opposing nuclear proliferation, were head-and-shoulders more "civilized" than the wolf pack pursuing him. Narrow minds and twisted moralities won the battle -- as often happens -- and a generation of schoolchildren grew up cowering under our desks during monthly nuclear attack drills.
   
   History is the study of events, but people create the events. Sometimes bad people make the decisions, and everyone suffers.