No comments about Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution.

5 comments about Coming of Age With Elephants: A Memoir.

1. This is a well-written and wonderfully insightful glance into the lives of elephants. If you are interesting in learning more about the hidden lives of elephants this is the book. Her story was both enthralling and insightful. I salute her for her work in getting the elephant listed on the endangered list; trying to prevent the slide of elephants into possible extinction. I cried when the elephants gave her a welcoming ceremony when she returned from a long departure. Thanks. A must read for all!



2. I enjoyed this book very much! I learned alot about elephants and their habitat. I feel I got to know the elephants personally from the info and stories that Joyce gave on all of them. I feel this book will give a reader insight on the elephants,lives,loves and servival.



3. When I finished reading this book, it made me burst into tears...for such a long time, I've never read a book that was so touching and unforgettable. I love elephants so much and after reading this book. It bring me more courage to boycott those merchants who sell ivory......very impressive work and worthy of reading again and again...



4. This book is mostly about Joyce Poole & her personal trials & tribulations. I did not learn anything new about elephants, but rather more about the lengths to which the author was driven to gain a prominent position in conservation bureaucracy;
   for example, deeply resenting exclusion from all the globe-trotting conferencing going on around the plight of the elephant, & stung by the reason given that her research into elephant communications was irrelevant to conservation, she abandons the research, "betrays" her mentor -- Cynthia Moss -- & goes to count elephants in order to prove that the widespread slaughter of adults for their tusks leads to an overall decline in the group's reproductive rate. Wow. She provides a very good example of how money spent with good intentions is usually wasted on the recipients.



5. I just finished the book and thoroughly enjoyed it. Joyce Poole blends delightful anecdotes of her interactions with elephants, her scientific findings, and her work to stem the tide of elephant poaching with the joys, heartbreaks, sacrifices, and harrowing experiences of a single woman living and working in Africa.

No comments about They Changed the World: People of the Manhattan Project.

5 comments about King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry.

1. As I very rarely read biographies and almost never books about math, this book, recommended to me my father, a geometry and coxeter enthusiast, came both as a pleasant surprise and a nice change in my reading habits. First of all, I must admit that it upsets some of the stereotypes we may have about mathematicians being rigid minded reasoners, inclined to reduce reality to barren numbers and calculations. This, as we are shown, is not the case for Coxeter.
   
   In King of Infinite Space, Siobhan Roberts depicts Coxeter as a veritable artist: driven by esthetic impulses and indifferent to scientific utility, we are shown Coxeter's geometry as being inspired overall by a sense of beauty . Roberts also shows how Coxeter's work, in spite of all this, has a significant place in the history of mathematics, as well as its current developments, and how it has found practical applications in many scientific fields.
   
   Avoiding tedious technical descriptions that could weigh down the book and providing adequate clarification when needed (usually indexed), the writing is accessible and engaging; it is written in an intelligent yet unacademic style which is inviting to all types readers, mathematicians and biography enthusiasts alike .
   
   One thing I especially enjoyed about this book is that we are given an image of the artistic, imaginative side of mathematics much different from the pencil and paper problems and encumbering calculations that many of us are put off by. Coxeter's mathematical world is replete with dynamic, rotating shapes and multi-dimensional figures, kaleidoscopes and mirrors, honeycombs and reflections; all of these are of interest not for their scientific utility or practical purposes but rather because they satisfy Coxeter's penchant for symmetry, harmony, and beauty. No matter how indifferent you may be to the math, what comes across in this book is something undeniably appealing in Coxeter's romantic quest for higher spaces and heroic in his attempt to 'save geometry'. Really, what is there not to like about an aloof mathematician whose primary tools are folding mirrors, kaleidoscopes, and escher paintings?
   
   In the end, we can make no claims of understanding Coxeter's math or individual work, a special privilege afforded only to geometers, career specialists, or die-hard enthusiasts (my father); however, what we can appreciate is the spirit and nature of his thought, its scope and importance, his esthetic approach to the subject and his humble outlook regarding his own work. This book, written for a popular audience, excels at informing us of just that.



2. Siobhan Roberts first book is a gem. This is up there with Hofstadter's books in terms of the content. I was very impressed with the depth the author went to in describing mathematical objects. I was introduced to interesting characters such as George Odom, a life long fan of Coxeter.
   
   This is a book all fans of math beyond the textbook must read!



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   King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry
   King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry (Hardcover)
   by Siobhan Roberts (Author)
   
   I learned arithmetics using my mother's measuring tape. Thereza, my mom, noticed my curiosity and decided to take advantage of the opportuntity to teach me about numbers as much as she could using the measuring tape. With my mom's help and using a simple measuring tape I learned to add, subtract, multiply and divide. From there on and until later in college, numbers, and later mathematics, were an integral part of my life. As time went on, my love for mathematics waned. Eventually I embraced a career in software engineering. Although I never lost my love and passion for it, I have not been able to connect with it all these years.
   
   Around one year ago, a friend of mine mentioned this book during a casual conversation. I bought it and let it sit on my books to read pile for almost one year. I packed it as I prepared for a trip to India. Half way through the trip I finish whatever I was reading and started on it. Starting on page one, I was totally enthralled. It took me a while to understand. Now that I finished it I know.
   
   Geometry got me going. Slowly but surely it was replaced by Algebra, which was the focus of my studies during my college days. The New Math of the sixties and ealy seventies was the ultimate expression of this movement. I remember a scene in college where an Algebra teacher told me I had no future in mathematics after I asked me to explain to me the practical applications of some complicated theorem she had just completed to demonstrate. That was the turning point. It became clear to me that, regardless of my love and passion for Mathematics, I had to go. And go I did! So have gone millions of kids who are born bubbling with the desire to learn the world about them, are endowed with the geometric instincts to do so, but are also robbed of this opportunity by the austerity of the analitycal thinking imposed on them by the dry algebra based mathematial curriculum of nowadays.
   
   Coxeter biography brought it all together for me. In addition to chronicling the life on an imensily interesting man, it also provided me with an incisive look at what happened with Geometry in the early part of the twentieth century and how the analitical reasoning required for Algebra replaced the intuitive thinking required for Geometry on our curriculum. My poor Algebra teacher had been a victim and with her a number of students that need an intuitive perspective to comprehend the complex Algebra before us.
   
   Coxeter lived to prove her wrong and to rekindle my passions. This biography is well written, anyone with a modic level o interest can enjoy it. Those with lingering and unspent passions will feel compelled to learn more about his works and contributions to Mathematics and society.
   
   I have a very hard time to finishing reading certain biographies. Coxeter's was one of them. No matter how great the life, it has to come to an end, and I struggled with it for quite some time. Coxeter will be with me for the rest of my life.



4. 
   If you enjoy Mathematics and particularly Recreational Mathematics;you'll find this book a real treasure trove. This book touches on so many interests I've had over the years,that I was mesmerized how one thing after another kept popping up.I have been interested in Recreational Mathematics,Puzzles and a wide range of things these pursuits lead to. I have over 500 books in my library connected to these interests in one way or another,but this book really shines in that it covers so much and over such a long period.
   Starting off with the author's name. It's pronounced "she-von" and is the Irish form of Joan,a name which was introduced into Ireland by the Anglo-Normans.It has been anglisiced as Judith and Julia.
   I have also developed an interest in the concept of "connections" and as one goes through the fascinating journey of Coxeter's life ,connections endlessly come up. I started getting interested in puzzles in school during the early 50's and have never ceased to be drawn to them.
   It's amazing how one encounters things without really trying.Two years ago ,while Birding at Pointe Peele,another obsession;things were quiet one evening,and I was doing some Sudoku puzzles when a young lad came by. I got him interested,and his uncle also came by. He told me that if I liked puzzles,I should meet his friend who constructs amazing stick and ball models.I took him up on it and met a retired engineer ,like myself,and for a whole afternoon,he showed me a number of models he had constructed.They were fascinating polyhedra,similar to those being held by Coxeter on the cover of this book. One big difference though;he used wooden balls,about 3/4" diam. and sticks about 1/8" diam. to construct his models. He painted the balls different colors to emphasize their positions in the structure. This approach allows the internal structure of the model to be seen. They remind me of the way chemistry uses similar balls and sticks to display molecular structures.This man told me about Coxeter and that he discussed his models with him and how he actually built a computer to determine what stellations of models were or were not possible to construct.At a later visit to his home,he showed me dozens of other models he had constructed and even a machine he had built to drill the holes in the balls. By that time I had turned up "Polyhedron Models" by Magnus Wenninger and my friend told me he also discussed these models with him.He gave me one of his models and it is one of my prized possessions.
   Later on I found Wenninger's website,and if you'd like to see his wonderful models,visit it.
   So, naturally,when I got Robert,s book,I knew it would be of great interest.
   Although I had purchased Rouse Ball's "Mathematical Recreations" in 1960,and had even constructed a Rotating Ring of tetrahedra,I hadn't noticed that Coxeter had done the revision.
   I recently read "The Universal Book of Mathematics" by David Darling,(see my review on June 22,2007)and found it a very handy reference as I read this book.
   There is so much covered in this book ,one hardly knows where to start in writing a review. I has us meeting so many people in Coxeters world;Einstein ,Buckminister Fuller,M.C.Escher,Martin Gardner,Paul Erdos,and on and on.You will meet their families ,students,likes and passions. There great minds are the people who have been in the forefront of Mahematics during the 20th Century and all who took over and expanded the horizons if the great Mathematicians who paved the way.
   Like in the world of music there are the great composers and great players,but even though most of us can never really enter their worlds or minds,we can thankfully still enjoy and appreciate their work. Such is the same with mathematics.
   I was glad to read where M.C.Echer couldn't begin to follow Coxeter when he tried to explain math to him.It just confirms that one does not necessarily have to understand something to enjoy it. Even Coxeter understood that, and felt likewise about many areas of math and science.
   If there is anything that this book really brought home to me is that it shows why I have enjoyed my pursuits in Recreational Mathematics and Puzzles so much over the years.
   On top of being a wonderful biography on the life of Donald Coxeter and his associates and friends;it is a goldmine of a reference. 63 pages of Endnotes provide endless resource information;coupled with 13 pages of Bibliography and an extremly well compiled Index;makes this a major reference source that I will turn to often.



5. I am very happy to have received this book as a gift from a former math professor when I began teaching high school geometry last year. Initially during the year, it was difficult to get the students excited; I found that having them read excerpts from this book really helped! The narrative way the book is written allowed students to follow along, and they began to understand some of the joy that can come from mathematics.
   I hope this book inspires a new generation of geometers!

5 comments about The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist.

1. Neil de Grasse Tyson's writing style is unpretentious and reads like a letter from a good friend. It reaches a wide audience from the high school student interested in astronomy to the astrophysist. It is easy to understand and appreciate, even if you don't have a degree in astrophysics. Upon completion of this book you will have gained a wealth of knowledge and a basic understanding of astronomy. This book is a great find for anyone intersted in learning about the how's and why's of the stars, solar system and the universe. The book is jam packed with interesting information presented to you as an autobiography rather than a text book, which makes it very easy to read and very enjoyable. I would give it more stars if I could.



2. The sky is not the limit is a novel that goes deep into the heart of the author, Neil de Grasse Tyson, who started out at a young age shooting for his dream to become an astrophysicist. This book gives the reader a mental view of the objects surrounding us both in space and on earth. Throughout Neil's life he has worked hard pursuing his passion in astrophysics.
   I enjoyed this book because it is scientific and also teaches lessons of life that you may not otherwise encounter. I also enjoyed the comedy in his statements. I have learned that if I want to become a scientist like Neil, then I must start training at a young age. This book has opened up my eyes to become aware of many things that I did not notice before.



3. I ordered this book after reading Tyson's wonderful "Death by Black Hole" without knowing it was an autobiography.
   
   Overall, I enjoyed learning about Tyson's life path from a childhood interest in astronomy to becoming an acclaimed astrophysicist. Included are tales of how being black adversely influenced several life experiences. Fair enough. On the flip side, I wouldn't be too surprised if some of his extraordinary opportunities were due in part to his ethnicity. That said, Tyson is a true original, and his books are well worth reading.



4. I've been a fan of Dr.Tyson for a long time. I expected to enjoy this book and was not disappointed. Particularly enjoyable was his recap of his experience as a prospective juror. He was removed from the jury pool for being, well, too intelligent. It seems like the lawyer was concerned he might be too objective. My only quibble with the book is that he whines too much about racism. Notwithstanding this, I highly recommend The Sky is Not the Limit.



5. Astronomy is every physicist's first infatuation; which makes "The Sky Is Not the Limit" by Neil deGrasse Tyson somewhat of a love story. But this book is more about him than the object of his affection. It is a rewarding read because it is both general and specific. It provides insight into how all physicists think, while revealing much that is unique to the author. Like him, we physicists usually knew what we wanted at an early age and we share many of his youthful experiences (monthly pilgrimages to the Hayden Planetarium, high school nights spent with a six inch telescope). Despite our high coefficient of nerdiness, we were pretty average kids. The author, however, is not your average scientist. He writes and speaks much better than most of us. He is more famous than most of us. And, he is blacker than most of us. His reflections on being a highly educated minority in a world uncomfortable with both characteristics could constitute another fascinating book.
   
   Dr. Tyson is a worthy successor to the late Carl Sagan who was both a public educator and an advisor to the government on technical issues. The book discusses the author's experiences in both these roles. It also includes his heartbreaking account of witnessing, and inadvertently participating in, the 9/11 tragedy.
   
   Dr. Tyson relates how one can become totally absorbed in pages of equations. Indeed, if astronomy is a physicist's first infatuation, Maxwell's equations are their first true love. The author clearly wants to communicate to his readers the beauty and majesty of these equations, but wistfully acknowledges that impossibility.
   
   After a just-for-fun chapter on the fate of the universe, the book ends with his views on religion, where he succinctly, and thoroughly, covers a topic that has generated countless tomes.

5 comments about Remarkable Mathematicians: From Euler to von Neumann (The Spectrum Series).

1. Don't miss these captivating tales of the life and the times of mathematicians starting from the period of Tsar Peter the Great of Russia, and right up to recent times, at least up to and including the Cold War. Even if you aren't in math, I think you are likely to be caught up in the drama of the various lives, times, and events. The writing is fast paced and engaging, much like that of Constance Reid's books: "Hilbert", or "Courant"... Over the tumultous historical periods, it has been said that mathematicians have been more likely than others to have been uprooted in the upheavals of history, perhaps because they are concerned with theories and ideas that are more universal. But their lives are still much affected by the times and the events of history: The French Revolution(Galois, Poisson, Fourier...), the Napolionic Wars(Cauchy, Abel...), the period of Bismarck and Nationalism in Europe(Weierstrass, Cantor, Lie...), the Russian Revolution(Alexander, Kolmogorov...), the two World Wars, and the crisis period between WWI and WWII(Banach, Hadamard, Courant, Hilbert...), and the Cold War(von Neumann, Wiener...). The pictures on the cover give you a sample of the profiles in the book: G. Polya, K. Weierstrass, A. N. Kolmogorov, N. Wiener, S. Kovalevskaya, and S.-D. Poisson. Even if you won't get to meet them in person (I was a guest at George Polya's ninetieth birthday!), this book is the next best thing.



2. When reading about the great ones of mathematics, I always enjoy short biographies rather than long ones. If the biographer is required to fill a large section of a book, then they tend to cover more detail than I really care for. While I do enjoy some details about the personal life of a mathematician, anything more than just a few morsels tends to detract from their accomplishments in mathematics.
   James strikes the perfect balance in describing the lives of these great historical figures. Each biographical sketch is less than ten pages and he covers their life from birth to death. One valuable thing that he does is give their complete names, which is often omitted from biographies. In fact, despite all of my reading about the people of mathematics, there were some whose full names I had not known until I read this book.
   The emphasis is on the lives of the people, and the general concepts of the mathematics that they created, rather than the specifics. No formulas are used in the explanations. Personal and professional interactions are a large part of the life of nearly all mathematicians, and from these biographies, we learn many of the specifics of how contemporaries reacted to each other. As is always the case, the full range of human foibles are displayed as the lives of the mathematicians unfold.
   The lives of these sixty mathematicians are described in chronological order according to their birth years. Given that they all began their mathematically productive lives at different ages, this leads to some degree of overlap in both directions. Nevertheless, it is possible to easily trace the development of the major mathematical ideas as they are nurtured from early germs to towering oaks.
   Mathematicians are people who find themselves in a social and political environment that they must cope with and sometimes just survive in. In this book, you will learn about sixty of them who made a major contribution, sometimes starting from a point of privilege, and other times only after great struggle. It is well worth reading for pleasure and can also be used as a resource for a course in mathematical history.

   Published in the recreational mathematics e-mail newsletter, reprinted with permission.




3. The only reason that this book doesn't get 5 stars is because of the fact that not enough emphasis is placed on the achievements of the mathematicians in terms of their mathematics.

   However, this does not take away from the fact that is is exteremely well researched, laid out and presented. We get a meaningful insight into how these geniuses (genii?) lived and that fact that they were quite ordinary people with the same levels of hardship (and in some cases even more) as the rest of us. Perhaps an improvement could be made on further mathematicians, both past and present.

   Still recommended reading.




4. This book is a collection of short biographies of notable mathematicians from Euler to von Neumann. It does a good job of explaining both a mathematicians background and the significance of their contributions to mathematics. Great to read through or as a reference to have on the shelf.



5. I read this book a few months ago. I thought it got kind of stale by the end, they way the author presents the information is fine, but I think that after a while the biographies start to run together. The mathematicians start to fall in similar types, like the mathematician who was famous and didn't have many problems who overshadowed a brilliant mathematician who fell into obscurity. You do learn a lot of information about the mathematicians themselves, but I think that the book could have been better with less mathematicians, or more important famous ones (extend the time frame).

5 comments about The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors.

1. This is such a great book for the layperson itnerested in science. Easy to read and written in a style that tells a great story - rather than just telling the facts.



2. After purchasing this book I quickly perused it and rashly thought I would not like it. The author makes short shrift of the biological sciences, he neglects German science, and he does not cover anthropology at all (except for, by implication, Darwin). But a few weeks later I picked it up again and became immersed in what, by any measure, is a fascinating and delightful narrative. I've read a good deal of literature in the history of science, and I don't think I've encountered anything in the field so cogently written and eminently readable. He undertook a breathtaking sweep of history here, with a lot to cover, and to structure the narrative around biography to make it more interesting is an ingenious idea. His understanding of the progress of scientific theory is solid; contrary to what one reviewer notes, there was no Greek or Roman science! Science has its roots in the European Renaissance, but really doesn't arise until afterwards, and Gribbin notes this explicitly in his text (hence the reason for not including them). Indeed, one could say that what distinguishes the Medieval/Renaissance world from ours is science. Also, Gribbin understands that the scientific method is born out of the interaction between theory, experiment, and observation, between deduction and empirical analysis/testing.



3. OK, let's get this out of the way first off, this book is great. It is written very fluently, and it provides a great starter for those who are just getting into science. No, he doesn't cover all of the minor details, but how could he when the book covers everything from Copernicus to modern day science in only 600 pages?
   He does go into detail about the major shifts in science, like Darwin's Theory of Evolution and the Rules of Thermodynamics, but the rest he mentions and describes. This method works wonderfully, and this book proves to be a great way to do research. Got an essay on Thomas Young? Well, with this book you can read about him in a couple of pages and find other things that you could look up that you previously had not known about. I highly recommend this book.



4. Fairly late in this history of science, John Gribbon quotes Arthur Holmes (who developed Alfred Wegoner's continental drift theory) on the secret of writing a successful science textbook. You must "think of the most stupid student you have ever had and then think how you would explain the subject to him" (451).
   
   Most readers wouldn't like being compared with that student. But we can probably agree that clarity of style is desireable in most science writing. James Hutton, the father of modern geology, had a writing style that was "largely impenetrable" (314), which delayed acceptance of his ideas. The biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamark also "had an abysmal literary style" (337).
   
   The Compte de Buffon and Pierre Simon Laplace had clear (if somewhat flamboyant) styles. Robert Hooke, Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein had clear, plain styles. They generally do a good job of explaining difficult ideas to the general reader. Tycho Brahe, Galileo Galilei, William Harvey, and Erasmus Darwin get fairly good marks, though their old fashioned styles might be a little difficult for some modern readers. Isaac Newton gets a mixed review. His _Principia Mathematica_ is fairly technical, but his _Opticks_ is a model of clarity.
   
   And what about Gribbon himself? Well, I wouldn't say that his work is aimed at that proverbial stupid student. You will appreciate his history better if you have already read a bit of science. But his writing is clear, relaxed, and lucid. Mathematical formulas are kept to a minimum. And there is that dry, British wit that enlivens the text:
   
   In 1818, [Humphry] Davy became a baronet, and in 1820 he was elected President of the Royal Society, where he took great delight in all the ceremonial attached to the post and became such a snob that was the only Fellow to oppose the election of Faraday to the Royal. (366)
   
   My primary disagreement with Gribbon is over his treatment of Isaac Newton. I will grant that Newton was not a saintly person, but I believe that it is overstating the case to call him "a nasty piece of work" (178) or to argue that by some standards he might be considered insane. Among Gribbon's attacks on Newton is the suggestion that he may have been a homosexual. While there is no evidence of any consumation of physical relationships "there is no evidence that they weren't" (178). Newton's oft-quoted line about standing on the shoulders of Giants is interpreted as a sly snub of Robert Hooke's short stature. Newton's promotion while a student at Cambridge was "lucky (or cunning)" (178). Gribbon seems to be straining a bit in this section.
   
   Gribbon is similarly rather stern with Giordano Bruno. He characterizes Bruno as a rabble-rouser and troublemaker who was burned at the stake as much for religious heresy as for his scientific ideas. Gribbon is here quite correct... But my sympathies still do not lie with the Inquisition.
   
   For most of the book, I find that Gribbon's treatment is sound.Not surprisingly, he gives full attention to giants like Copenicus, Tycho, Galileo, Harvey, Newton, Darwin, Antoine Lavoisier, Michael Faraday, and Einstein. But the real value of the book is the detailed treatment of lesser known figures like Leonard Digges (inventor of the telescope), William Gibert, Robert Hooke, Edmond Halley, John Ray, Francis Willughby, and Thomas Young. Where a scientist like Benjamin Thomson (Count Rumford) has led a colorful and flamboyant life, Gribbon has had the wit to give it a bit of extra attention.
   
   In a coda, Gribbon sums up his basic philosophy: "I reject the Kuhnian idea of 'revolutions' in science, and see the development of the subject in essentially incremental, step-by-step terms" (614). I fully agree with this position as I do with Gribbon's assertion that "the two keys to scientific progress... are the personal touch and building gradually on what has gone before" (614). In case you haven't already guessed from my rating, I greatly recommend this book. It is one of the best general history of science books to appear in a great many years.



5. This is an audaciously fascinating and well-constructed history of the study of natural science and the people who have developed it. Unfortunately, Gribbin's occasional metaphysical claims aren't exactly scientific or logical or even consistent with the history and the insights that he unveils (more on this later).
   
   First exposited are Copernicus, Vesalius, Tycho, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Hooke, Newton, Halley, Linnaeus, and others who were trailblazing contributors to our understanding of the natural world-- in a sense that later scientists generally could not be. In terms of his general theory of relativity, Einstein would eventually be something of an exception, but after Newton's time the dynamic current and affinity to new insights and ideas was so set into motion that the contributions of Cavendish, Lyell, Darwin, Wallace, Mendel, Dalton, Thompson, Maxwell, Faraday, Rutherford, Planck, Bohr, Heisenberg and so many others, would almost certainly have been propounded by other of their contemporaries had they failed to do so. This does not diminish these individuals or the ideas that they proposed, it simply acknowledges the directions in which scientific thought was moving. Gribbin explains all this quite wonderfully. But this is not merely a repackaging of history; Gribbin (an astrophysicist and prolific science writer) is unusually good at reducing scientific concepts into explanations that should be easily grasped by the interested nonscientist.
   
   I enjoyed the book immensely, but must point out the problem I alluded to earlier. Gribbin's opening salvo proves to be a non sequitur (Introduction, pg xvii): "The most important thing that science has taught us about our place in the Universe is that we are not special." Through the following 600 pages he references this dubious conclusion only a couple of times (briefly, as "our theme") before trying to work it into his concluding summaries. His strangely undisciplined `reasoning' for this metaphysical demand is both unworthy of 99.5% of his text, and easily rebutted from the actual science articulated in that 99.5%. Gribbin's [irrational] argument here is that humanity would have to be at the "center" of the universe-- in some brutally simplistic Euclidean sense-- if it were to be in any way special. Secondly, and equally illogical, is his assertion that the very largeness of space-time must inherently define sentient man (so physically small spatially relative to the cosmos) as non-special. By this `rationale', quarks and gluons must be `nothing special'! Actually, scores of intensely specific parameters (cumulatively know as the so-called anthropic cosmological principle) inform us, in very strongly quantitative and scientific terms, of a far more rational definition of `specialness' than Gribbin's oddly simplistic geometric centers (neither a star system nor a galaxy is habitable at its geometric center)! What makes this assertion so puzzling is that Gribbin knows better, but cannot resist an attempt to force an extra-scientific and strictly disputable philosophical bent onto his `conclusion'. He does know better, as he himself has described (both in this text and elsewhere, see `Cosmic Coincidences', which he co-authored with Martin Rees), that within our best and most current understandings an incredibly elaborate, large and specific cosmic table has been set in our honor, so to speak. In his own words, "Given the laws of physics that operate in our Universe, all those billions of stars and billions of light-years are necessary for our existence." CC, 1989, pg 14. If life requires sophisticated carbon macromolecules (it does), and if our current understanding is correct that such complex structures are not possible until sometime subsequent to the second generation of stars (this is the present understanding), and if such a scenario requires an incredibly specific vacuum state (it does), with a very special set of governing parameters (it does), then a very large and very special space-time (universe) is specifically requisite. To insist on a dismissive manner of looking upon all of this is not science, but is a rather quasi-religious philosophical materialism. I'd rather stand with the actual science than the artificial boxes that certain scientists feel compelled to force science into. Read again the listing of great scientists in the above paragraph ("Copernicus . . . Heisenberg"), not a single one of them would have endorsed Gribbin's conclusion that either life itself or sentient humanity is nothing special. Gribbin's arbitrary and nihilistic diktat ["our theme"] is a curious 20th century extra-scientific fad, pitched earnestly by Sagan and Weinberg, but merely what Schrodinger called a "prejudice of our time."
   
   The author's unscientific sermonet is an unfortunate regression, but it happily constitutes a very small portion of the book. It is not his only misfire; his late mischaracterization of Kuhn's philosophy of science is constructed so simplistically as to be a mere argument of straw (this is not unusual, in fact miscasting Kuhn is a somewhat popular logical mistake; "revolutions" of thought do not require any strict non-linearity of thought, as a strangely popular straw version of Kuhn insists). However, while I have here focused largely on the book's relatively few problems, the book's merits easily dwarf its extra-scientific bungles. All things considered, Gribbin's dubious philosophical preaching constitutes less than 1 percent of the otherwise outstanding text. This reader has enjoyed few books as much.

5 comments about Rocketman: Astronaut Pete Conrad's Incredible Ride to the Moon and Beyond.

1. I've read way too many space books, so I love the subject matter, but the style of this one was too breezy, lacking in important detail. Each chapter is about 12 words long, so you get the impression this was either rushed through or intended for young adults. I learned little about the man, whom I wholly admire. Did he alienate anybody? Were there any character flaws? Also, I was looking to learn more of an insider's view of Gemini and Apollo, but it was all very superficial, heard-it-before material. I'd read a bit about Conrad, like his attempt to smuggle onto the moon a huge cowboy hat to fit over his space helmet, or his attempt at trick photography on the lunar surface, hoping to befuddle the photo analysts later. Neither of these gems were in the book. He's a great guy, a pilot's pilot, a problem-solving magician with a live-for-the-moment spirit. But the book is really junk food, even for a space nut like myself. Sorry, Pete. They done ya wrong.



2. The book arrived within the scheduled delivery time in excellent condition.
   
   Thank you,
   
   Mark & Francine Keehnel



3. I enjoy reading about this time in American History and consider myself a student of the early space program. In that regard, in a brief perusal of the book, I have already noticed some factual errors that should have been caught by the editor or by Mr. Klausner. First, in the picture section, it shows a picture of Pete on the ladder about to board an F4 Phantom, yet the label says that he is posing in front of a T-38. Another error is related to the issue with "Max Peck". Max Peck was the Mgr of the Rice Hotel in 1962. After the 2nd group of astronauts was chosen, including, Frank Borman, Pete Conrad, Jim Lovell, Ed White and Neil Armstrong they were asked to check in under the Mgr's name to avoid their names reaching the press prior to their formal introduction. However, this book states that this happened back in 1959 when the first 32 candidates for the Mercury program checked into a a non-disclosed hotel in Washington. Not only is that fact wrong, but they didn't check into a hotel in 1959 for that first meeting but the Dolly Madison house in Washington.



4. Pete Conrad had a fairly colorful style about him, part cowboy - part engineer - full time iconoclast. However, these traits do not come thru in this book. The writing does not convey the dynamics of the man, so ultimately it becomes little more than a 'just the facts' biography.
   
   While I doubt any astronaut book came come close to capturing the human story of space Michael Collins' "Carrying The Fire", this book had a chance since it focused upon one of the truly unique characters in the space program. So am immensely dissapointed at the final product.



5. I have read a lot of material on the Mecury, Gemini, and Apollo missions and found this book to be a nice easy read. There were a couple of items that were mis-quoted, but other than that, I enjoyed reading it. I would suggest for readers of this type of material to be sure to read "Failure is not an option" by Gene Krantz, he was the flight director who was envolved with Mecury all the way to Apollo 17. With the knowledge of his book, it helps to understand a lot of what's going on. I did however, seem to notice a lack of writting about Pete Conrad's family. I have done business with Pete Conrad Jr. and he's a great guy. I was suprised to see so little mention of his family in the book. There was just a small part about them in the book. I guess perhaps written by is present wife would explalin it. But I enjoyed reading the book. Long may you rise above the earth Pete Conrad.
   
   KLD

5 comments about Sky Walking: An Astronaut's Memoir.

1. This is a highly readable and expertly written account by Tom Jones about his astronaut career.
   He writes from his heart, and has clearly thought a lot about how to effectively communicate his experiences.
   His use of imagery puts this book in the realm of literature, though it is definitely non-fiction.
   A must for your Christmas list if you are or once were an aspiring astronaut, an aspiring writer of topics related to space and technology or just interested in knowing what it is like up there. It is a great read; I laughed, I cried, learned something about space, space policy and history, and was amazed by it all!



2. Sky Walking is the best account of the experience of space that I have ever read. It takes you deep into the physical and emotional sensations of space travel where you the reader experience what astronauts experience right down to the mundane task trying to locate an item that has floated away in the cabin or trying to use an exercise bike with zero gravity. Tom Jones is an articulate writer capable of constructing wonderful imagery and some choice metaphors about every aspect of space travel from training to launch to rentry. His descriptions of his space walks and working aboard the International Space Station are particularly memorable. Jones is also not afraid to render an opinion about this America's commitment to space what can and should be done to maintain NASA as a shining symbol of American capability. I highly recommend this book to anyone with a curiosity about what space travel is really like.
   -- Jerry Burton, author of Zora Arkus-Duntov the Legend Behind Corvette and Corvette, America's Sports Car, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.



3. There are many excellent books written by and about the Right Stuff astronauts who flew during the earlier days of the space program. However, until recently, there has been a nearly total lack of books by and about the shuttle astronauts who fly now. For better or worse, today's space program is as different from the program of the early days as the shuttle is different from the Apollo capsules. And today's astronauts are different, too.
   
   Mike Mullane was the first of the shuttle astronauts to write about his experiences in his book Riding Rockets. However, Mullane was a member of the group that made the transition from the Apollo program to the shuttle program, and the tone of his book is almost wistful; he clearly wanted to be one of the Right Stuff guys-- and he means guys-- but he ended up being a shuttle technician.
   
   Sky Walking is a memoir by a very different sort of astronaut. Tom Jones was very young during the "glory days" of the space program, so he has no Right Stuff preconceptions about astronauts as death-defying heroes. Rather, he is an Air Force Academy graduate who flew B-52s, earned a PhD in planetary sciences, and became a dedicated, professional shuttle program technician. That could have made for a dull, technical book if it weren't for his intellect and, more importantly, his powers of observation and ability to reflect on what he experienced.
   
   Jones flew four shuttle missions and took three space walks on his final mission, which was dedicated to construction on the International Space Station. His accounts of what space walks are like-- and of the hundreds of hours of training that precedes each one-- are first rate. His descriptions of the ISS and of the issues surrounding its planning, funding, and construction are excellent. I don't know of any other insider's book that deals with the ISS in such detail or with such authority. This is because Jones was an administrator in the ISS program between his third and fourth shuttle flights.
   
   The subtitle says that this is "an astronaut's memoir," and that's exactly what it is. Jones takes us trough his selection as an astronaut, his general training, his years of waiting for flights, his training for those flights, and the flights themselves. There is considerable technical information in the book, but Jones does an excellent job of clarifying it for non-experts. The real focus is on Jones himself-- what he sees, thinks, and feels about what's happening to him.
   
   This is an outstanding book. It answers the two basic questions many of us have always had: "What's it REALLY like to fly in space?" and "What are those people REALLY like?" I thoroughly enjoyed Sky Walking, and I recommend it most highly.



4. Not the Right Stuff for me.
   The writing is wordy, attempts to be profound and "educated" at every turn, and fails.
   
   His single most dramatic story, the stuck hatch, is anti-climatic.
   
   His second most dramatic story: too much air getting into the food packets.
   
   There is very little "inside scoop" here, as NASA is portrayed as all glorious, and almost perfect. Yet we know, and see demonstrated on a regular basis, that the opposite is true.
   
   Find this locally if you can, and browse through it first to see if its the right stuff for you.



5. This is a beautifully written account of one astronaut's experiences going through the NASA space program. If you are curious about what it takes to become an astronaut, the inner-workers of the organization, and what its like to truly live in space, this is a terrific book. And, the writer has a wonderful way of translating complex information into easily digestible bites. Truly a wonderful read!

5 comments about Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever.

1. Scientists are human, too. They have pride, turf, and overbearing egoes. This little book, with its chapters relating disagreements and outright feuds between scientific luminaries, shows how the March of Science rarely proceeds in lockstep. The fur flies the thickest in Newton versus Leibniz, concerning the invention and popularization of calculus. This is a good "sidebar" book, to go along with a more conventional history of science. The human drama within provides a couple of nights of good reading.



2. Hellman has an excellent ability to describe the personalities, the scenes, the zeitgeist, but unfortunately he is not too good in science. He never really gets into the heart of the matter, he never discusses any details, he usually relies on second hand sources, he leaves the story in the air just when starts to get exciting. If you know history of science, this book does not contain anything new or startling. But it is fun reading for the uninitiated.



3. I suppose it is an eternal effort to try to bring science to the public in an interesting way. Hellman, who according to the blurb has written 26 other popular science books, takes the tack of presenting various controversies in science, of which there are a depressing number.

   Hellman picks ten, most of which are fairly well-known: Galileo vs. the Church, Newton vs. Leibniz, and so on. He springboards off of these to various extents to present the science behind the controversies or at least the history thereof. In particular, he takes the Darwinism vs. creationism issue up to the present day, even mentioning Behe and Darwin's Black Box. Other controversies are inherently recent: Donald Johanson vs. Richard Leakey on mankind's family tree and Derek Freeman's issues with Margaret Mead. (I have to side with Mead on the latter, at least as the situation is presented here. Freeman comes across as an opportunist looking for a way to gain publicity more than as a seeker after truth.)

   It's lightweight if sometime saddening reading, particularly in such cases as Lord Kelvin, whose successes were undeniable but whose lack of flexibility hindered the progress of science at times.




4. I had mixed emotions about this book. There wasn't that much deep insight into the underlying science or philosophy under debate, so it was sometimes hard to decide whose side I might have been on?
   It did focus on showing the emotional side of the combatants, which makes them all too human, but also disappoints because it showed how emotions & personality got in the way of the facts, and as Scientists one always thinks that the 'facts' will transcend mere human frailties? But this book shows them all too plainly.



5. The way we teach science in our schools is not a true representation of how science actually is. We teach it as a calm, objective, and detached road to certain truths when, as books like this point out, science is frought with emotionalism, tentativity, and competitiveness. Who discovered what first (and gets the credit)? Whose theories will be superceded by the next big discovery? Whok will be seen as the winner and who, the loser?T
   
   hese are the types of scientific feuds profiled in this highly engaging book. Hellmen profiles what he sees as the 10 greatest feuds.
   
   Some have to do with the all-too-familiar and -touchy area where religion and science collide (Galileo v. Pope Urban, TH Huxley v. Bishop Wilberforce). In both chapters, Hellman describes well how tempers flared, arguments got heated, and science eventually won the day. (Galileo lost the battle but won the war.)
   
   A few are battles that many people may never have heard about. Newton and Leibniz sparred rhetorically over who discovered calculus first. (It turns out that Newton did, but Liebniz was the first to publish.) Hobbes and Wallace wrote many a stinging rejoinder to one another over whether one could square a circle. Cope and Marsh most heatedly accused eachother of everything from incompentence to blatant dishonesty when battling over whether certain sets of fossils were of dinosaurs. Other feuds profiled in this book are more well known (Leaky v. Johanson battling over whose human fossils were the oldest and Derek Freeman slashing into Margaret Mead's reputation posthumously).
   
   What all of these feuds have in common - what Hal Hellman does an excellent job replicating - is that science is not always the calm, detached discipline that we teach our kids of, where truth is the primary goal. There are egos, there are rhetorical bouts, and there are fierce competitions. And (particularly in the case of Wegener arguing about plate tectonics) there are points where the once-nonsensical position gradually, and grudgingly, becomes the accepted one. Science lives and breathes, and this book shows it!
   
   The reason I give it four stars rather than five is because I do not think that Hellman represented the best and most relevant battles in science. I have been scratching my head, for instance, as to why he did not include the recent battle over sociobiology (culminating in EO Wilson being doused with ice-water at a conference), or the Dawkins/Gould feud over gradualism v. punctuated equilibrium and reductionism (which is one of the most heated I have seen!). What about Einstein's attempts to dismantle and disprove Heisenberg as to the uncertainty principle.
   
   I know that one cannot include EVERY good battle in a book while keeping it a manageable size, but some of Hellman's choices and omissions are, to my eyes, strange.
   
   For all that, the book does a wonderful job of conveying the emotion that seeps into sceince every now and again. He also does a good job of keeping the 'science jargon' to a minimum, though he does do well in explaining the idea that each feud was over.
   
   It is a pity that our high school students can't read about this side of sceince also. But at least you can.