3 comments about Final Report: An Archaeologist Excavates His Past.

1. Mr. Coe's contributions to society are immense. We owe much of our understanding of ancient Mesoamerican civilizations to him. He could have pursued many paths, and indeed the CIA and Ivy League background is reminiscent of William F. Buckly, without the politics. He is probably as close to a real Indiana Jones as you will ever find, and has written a marvelous tale of his exploits and accomplishments.



2. Excellent insight on this man who is a very interesting archologist. He brings life to a dead subjects and his final report is his memoir of his life.
   
   Highly recommend.



3. Final Report: An Archaeologist Excavates His Past
   Michael Coe, the famous Mesoamerican archaeologist, digs enthusiastically into his past. As an engaging memoir, this work chronicles the highlights of his personal life and his professional achievements. Each chapter is presented as a series of exciting anecdotes including personal experiences, conversations and opinions that sparkle with wit and good humor. Born into a well-to-do family in Long Island, NY, he fondly recollects his formative years at boarding schools in New England, interspersed with vacation times at the country estates of his wealthy grandfather. He developed an intense interest in the Maya during his undergraduate years at Harvard, where he majored in anthropology. During the Korean War, he served with the CIA in Taiwan. There he gained valuable new experiences in military intelligence - how to elicit information, how to detect lying, how to work with all kinds of people. After 2 years overseas service, he visited several ancient archaeological ruins in Southeast Asia before resuming graduate studies at Harvard. Following is the account of his 35 years of research and teaching, mostly in the Department of Anthropology at Yale. Discoveries from his numerous digging seasons brought new, exciting, and sometimes controversial evidence of age relations among the early Maya cultures. In particulat, the Olmec monuments that he unearthed have profoundly modified our understanding of their significance in early Maya history. His analysis of Maya hieroglyphs contributed significantly to his text "Breaking the Maya Code" (1992, Thames & Hudson, Inc.). In his personal life, Michael Coe was deeply devoted to his wife, Sophie Dobzhansky Coe, and to their five children. His greatest sorrow was at her death in 1994 that sadly coincided with his retirement. Among his many activities, he is an avid fly-fisherman. This memoir is an excellent "Final Report" - about an exciting life but, fortunately, not a final demise.

No comments about Galileo's Instruments of Credit: Telescopes, Images, Secrecy.

3 comments about Man and Machine: The Best of Stephan Wilkinson.

1. I had borrowed this book from my local library. I liked it so much, I had to own a copy. I put Stephan Wilkinson right up with John McPhee as one of my favorite writers. If you like aircraft, boats, or cars, this book is a great read.



2. This was a great book. Many technical stories and analysis of how things tick and the people who keep them ticking. This may be especially geared toward aircraft nuts, but it was still good for anyone interested in powered things. It even included a story on Steinway Pianos - very interesting.



3. This is a wonderful book. It's a collection of self-contained magazine articles originally published in 'Pilot,' 'Air & Space Smithsonian' and 'Popular Science' magazines that come together to form a greater whole. We get to look at machines that fly, and other machines from go-carts to ambulances to cruise ships. And we get to look at them through the gentle eyes of a smart literate man who doesn't miss much, a man who was the editor of Car and Driver, a man who smoothly writes about the things we wish we would have seen. We learn something about the machines; and celebrate the men that dreamt them up, made them possible and keep them running.
   
   If this book was a machine it would hum in quiet harmony, it would have no sharp edges, and it would do something better than that something had ever been done before. I think you'll enjoy being up close to see and feel the power of such a 'Man and Machine.'

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.

5 comments about A Room For The Summer: Adventure, Misadventure, And Seduction In The Mines Of The Coeur D'Alene.

1. This is a story that doesn't fit into any typical genre. Its a story about life with a personal memoir and some rich history as the back drop. The author writes in a style that is fresh and engaging. He uses vocabulary and dialogue that, unfortunately, no one encounters any more. This a rich story and a must read.



2. There have been attempts over the past 3 decades to humanize the mining business. Fritz's tale, seen through the eyes of a college kid 60 years later, is one of the finest. I know or knew several of the people he describes in his narrative; they'll vouch for his authenticity. Thank-you, Fritz. You have ennobled my friends.



3. I have only one complaint about this book. It says that the hardrock mining industry is all but forgotten. Someone apparently forgot to tell my neighbors who on most days put on their hard hats with headlamps and go down a half mile or so to carve gold ore out of the mountain.
   
   No, the world out here (Nevada) isn't quite like that pictured in the book. Then again, it's closer to the book than is life in most cities. He visits Carol who provides him with a "commercial embrace," for $15 for a half hour. I understand (I've of course no personal experience) that the rate is now $200 for a half hour.
   
   Other details have changed, but the people are much as he describes, good people, the salt of the earth. An excellent tale of times past when we were all a lot younger.



4. I lived for 15 years in the Silver Valley. My husband worked for both the Sunshine Mine and Bunker Hill Mine. His father worked and retired from the Sunshine. Our family enjoyed many years of living in this mining community, enjoying the natural beauty of the Coeurd'Alene river and camping, fishing and hunting in the area. Fritz Wolff's account of his life in that area and his memories of the mining community/industry were a pleasure to read. He wrote of places and people and things familiar to myself and members of my family. I hope many will want to read this book just because it's an interesting read.



5. I was attracted to this book, first by the striking painting on the cover, then by what was inside it. In fact, although I had other things to do I stayed up most of the night reading and finished it the following day. The miners and their families described by Mr. Wolff creates in essence what Garrison Keeler called his "storm family". People in a real mining camp that took the greenhorn from Seattle under their wing and taught him the ropes about hardrock mining, and a lot of other stuff an 18 year old kid needs to know. He uses nouns and verbs in a straight arrow kind of prose that is sparse, but entertaining. It's a people kind of book, and places some unforgettable characters on the map of western history. I hope the author tackles another yarn.

3 comments about The Door in the Dream: Conversations With Eminent Women in Science.

1. This book succeeds on so many different levels. Above all, it is a fascinating introduction to the lives of thirty seven remarkably successful women. It is a "good read" for anyone interested in a personal glimpse into many different worlds of scientific discovery. It offers varied templates to young scientists seeking alternative approaches to scientific careers today. It suggests some unconventional wisdom about possibilities for career progress for women and men in any organization. And finally, it provides compelling evidence for employer policies and programs to support employee efforts to balance professional productivity with personal and family commitments.

   Wasserman offers a unique perspective on all careers based on the life experiences of women scientists elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences. She draws on personal interviews, correspondence and biographic materials of thirty seven women(of a total of eighty six elected women scientists) to portray their experiences, often in their own words. Wasserman undertook this project based on personal questions about her own career, which led from research scientist (PhD chemist)to academic administration to the practice of law. She describes her career path in the context of family interests and commitments as well. For this study she sought to understand what differentiated the lives and paths of these remarkably successful scientists from the paths of others with similar interests and potential. In presenting a consistent set of questions to each of her subjects, she looked for similar patterns and notable differences within this group of women and between this group and others. Her interview material is organized into age clusters and is thus informed by societal characteristics of each cohort's era.

   Wasserman's work yields lessons about career success far byond the world of scientific research she depicts. For these women initial career decisions were most often based on interest, talent and encouragement from family plus special teachers at critical juncture points. Yet these initial decisions were then modified and shaped by circumstance and opportunity, for better or for worse. As with each of us, each of these women faced numerous barriers and hurdles as she moved along a path. As with each of us, the path was often unclear. Yet each of these women found her way to make unique contributions to scientific knowledge. Despite barriers and hurdles each was remarkably successful in her scientific career.

   Among the barriers and hurdles faced by many of these women, one persists, and that is the dificulty in balancing between professional and personal commitments. Here the lives of these scientists shared challenges similar to the ones faced by men and women at all phases of their professional development. How to balance a strong commitment to work with a strong commitment to family and/or personal life remains a daily struggle for so many of us. It is a struggle we hear about from men and women in corporations, government and academic life as well. It is a struggle anticipated by young people as they embark on their careers and by men and women in mid-career as they live their daily lives and consider their future directions. Each struggle is characterized by much that is personal and unique and much that is universal as well.

   In her summary chapters Wasserman highlights the balance between professional interests and personal lives as a key opportunity for organizations to affect lives and careers. She suggests that organizational policy could enhance productivity by becoming more flexible in demands on people and more generous in the resources provided to help support the balance between professional and personal commitments. Her exploration of policy and program implications is especially cogent for today's workforce and in today's workplace.




2. Parts of this book are absolutely first rate -I thoroughly enjoyed the introductory & concluding sets of chapters that "place" the interviews- and some of the biographical pieces are also intriguing and insightful. Unfortunately one gets the feeling that Wasserman has tried to both stretch too far & at the same time go too deep in some areas. In the cases of scientists where we actually get enough material to sense a "conversation" the book cannot be faulted (the interview/section on Ruth Patrick was marvellous for instance), but in some cases we have little more than an expanded extract from some sort of "Great Women & Men in Science" dictionary. Fewer and longer entries would perhaps have served better. This breadth/depth problem is in a sense highlighted by a striking shortage of ecologists (there is the Patrick interview mentioned already & a disappointingly short blurb on Jane Lubchenco) & an absence of behavioral ecologists (what of the likes of Sarah Hrdy etc.?)while at the same time it seems we get lots of biochemist/genetics/& physical science types. A number of authors have noted the greater success that women have had in penetrating the Life Sciences, and perhaps Wasserman feels that this area needs less attention, but a more detailed analysis of WHY things have been better in Biology would be of interest. Other than these complaints I enjoyed the book and will have no problem encouraging my students (female and male alike) to read it.



3. I definitely like the idea behind this book which I thought was to help understand the lives/struggles that the women elected into the National Academy went through. I also liked the way the book was grouped into women born within specific time periods since they seemed to have more in common with each other. But along with all survey books, this one lacked a focus or goal. The author who conducted the interviews seemed very passive and not willing to explore problems the scientists were going through. Wasserman hints at problems/solutions, but I was looking for more.

1 comments about Einstein: Su vida y su universo/ His Life and His Universe.

1. I ordered this book (which was advertised as being signed by the author) as a gift for a friends birthday which was one month following the date of my order. The book took over 2 weeks to arrive and it was NOT SIGNED. Am frustrated and left without enough time to get the gift I intended to give.

3 comments about Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity.

1. This is a review of "Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity," by Andrew Robinson.
   
   For the last three or four years, I have both actively and passively searched for a good introductory book on Einstein, something that is accessible to me as an intelligent non-scientist, but that is broader in scope than I take most of his biographies to be. I want a good, clear explanation of special and general relativity, but I also want to know more about the pacificist and cultural icon, about Einstein as a humanist. No one book has filled the niche. Either you find good discussions of his physics, or you find books on his love life, or you find books that are beautifully produced but have very little substance.
   
   As the centennial of the "miraculous year" of 1905, 2005 has seen a bumper crop of books on Einstein, many of them poorly conceived and some richly priced. But this book is just what I've been looking for for the last few years.
   
   The Editorial Review is wrong in stating that all entries are new except for Einstein's last interview. In fact, a few pages from Einstein's autobiography are also included--and that indicates one reason why this book is so well done. It is divided into two parts; the first has seven chapters on "The Physicist"; the second has eight chapters on "The Man." All of these are written by Andrew Robinson. But interspersed with this biographical-chronological-topical layout are essays by other authors. Einstein contributes a few pages to Part One and a few to Part Two. But there are also four essays by others in Part One and five essays by others in Part Two. It's thrilling to read Stephen Hawking on the history of relativity and Philip Glass on his operatic take on Einstein. The book is not hagiographical. Freeman Dyson's preface mainly discusses the embarrassing (for Einstein) peculiarity that Einstein did not believe in black holes.
   
   The book is full of other goodies. Though the text is more than one finds in a typical coffee-table book, the illustrations are of that beauty and quantity. It's an illustrated book with well-chosen pictures, always with captions. There are notes in the back, a detailed chronology of his life, and a (non-annotated) bibliography. The whole is made authoritative not only by the caliber of its contributors, but by its use of Einstein's archives housed at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
   
   The only way this book could be better is if there were more of it; sometimes the discussions feel rushed and compressed. Also, despite Robinson's literary credentials, I'm not partial to his somewhat awkward, hypertactic writing style.



2. This beautiful, hardcover coffee-table book, whose text is as delightful as its scores of photographs, retails for $29.95--not the $35 that Amazon advertises. It is an amazing value in this day when trade paperbacks often retail for $24.95 and higher.



3. Very well planned, full of meaningfull illustrations, accurately written and revised,this book deserves special attention of everyone interested in Einsteins's personal life and scientific production. Recommended with enthusiasm.

2 comments about Machines Who Think: A Personal Inquiry into the History and Prospects of Artificial Intelligence.

1. The field of artificial intelligence, in terms of its research content, and the confidence it expresses in the results of this research, has executed a roller coaster ride in the last five decades. There have been many proposals, many leads not going anywhere, but just as many leads showing great promise but were abandoned. The reasons why they were abandoned are unclear, but many researchers in artificial intelligence have let them themselves be persuaded that their results do not reflect real intelligence. This has thwarted the development of many promising areas in artificial intelligence, which could have been highly developed by now.

   The author, in this new edition of her book, has given the reader her opinions of the status of artificial intelligence in the twenty-five years after the first edition of the book. Her assessment of the last twenty-five years is in general optimistic, but her review concentrates mostly on research in the academic setting. There have also been dramatic advances in artificial intelligence in the commercial sector in the last twenty-five years, but many of these are difficult to document, since issues of propriety arise in the business environment. The many applications that are used by business and industry are practical proof of the rise of machine intelligence in the last twenty-five years, and many of these make use of the academic developments that the author discusses in this book.

   The self-doubts and concentrated attention expressed by various researchers are well documented by the author, and some interesting historical anecdotes are included. The author describes the "odd paradox" in artificial intelligence as one where the its practical successes are absorbed into the domains in which they found application. Once assimilated, they become "silent partners" alongside other (non-intelligent) approaches. This reinforces the belief that the intelligent applications were not intelligent in the first place, and are then viewed merely as "valuable automatic helpers". This scenario has been played out many times in the history of artificial intelligence, and, even worse, the fact that the workings of these applications were understood made many assert that this was proof of their non-intelligence. If a process or algorithm is understood, it cannot be intelligent. This bias, the author correctly observes, continues to this day. Regardless of these beliefs or prejudices, the fact remains though that many of today's computers and machines are packed full of intelligence, albeit in different levels, and these levels will dramatically increase in the next twenty-five years.

   Researchers in artificial intelligence have been accused of exaggerating the status of machine intelligence, and similar to the same exaggerations that occur in other fields, which arise many times from pressures to obtain funding, these accusations do have some truth to them. But the author points out a case where the funding was cancelled due to the project not being "extravagant enough." This is an interesting historical fact, and one that illustrates the large swings in confidence that have plagued AI research from the beginning.

   The strong emphasis on emulating human intelligence has been dampened in recent years, with researchers realizing, refreshingly, that human intelligence is not the only kind in nature. It is in retrospect quite surprising that silicon-based machines were thought to be able to mimic the processes and powers of biological systems. The author quotes one researcher as saying that "Silicon intelligence would surely be different from human intelligence". This is indeed correct, and one can expect many different types of intelligence to reside in future machines, each of these types emphasizing particular tasks, but being general enough to think in many domains. Maybe a better word for describing the field would be to call it `Alien Intelligence', so as to emphasize the (non-human) idiosyncrasies of these different intelligences.

   With very exceptions, the philosophical community has been against the possibility of artificial intelligence. This continues to this day, and the author discusses some of the philosophical tirades leveled against artificial intelligence since the first edition of the book. Researchers in AI have taken the time (unfortunately) to answer some of these criticisms, but there is also a trend, which hopefully will continue, to ignore them and instead spend time on what is important, namely the design and construction of intelligent machines. There is no penalty in ignoring philosophical criticism; it lends no constructive insight into artificial intelligence. However there is a great penalty taken in the form of wasted hours in attempting to answer the vague and impractical claims of philosophers. Ironically, there have been a few renowned philosophers that have left the practice of philosophy and have entered into research into artificial intelligence (and have done a fine job in this regard).

   The author also shares with the reader her personal insights into artificial intelligence, and these are interesting considering her involvement with some of the major academic experts in AI. She describes her bias in thinking of (mobile) robots as the sole representative of artificial intelligence. This bias has been alleviated to a large degree in the last decade, but many still equate artificial intelligence to the presence of bipedal robots wandering around performing useful tasks or possibly acting as adversaries to human beings. The latter view of course is very popular in Hollywood interpretations of artificial intelligence. The real truth though is that (immobile) machines, be they servers in networks, laptop computers, or other types of machines, can exhibit high levels of intelligence, depending on what kind of "software" or "mind" is overlaid on them.

   The most important thing to be settled for the field of artificial intelligence, and this is brought out also in many of the author's remarks, is a general methodology for gauging machine intelligence. The Turing test is too subjective and tied too much to measures of human intelligence. The AI community definitely needs to arrive at quantitative measures of machine intelligence in order to assess progress and allow the business community to judge more accurately whether a certain level of machine intelligence is needed for their organizations.




2. Twenty five years ago Pamela McCorduck wrote a definitive book on Artificial Intelligence. She first went among the artificial intelligentsia when the field was fresh and new, and she asked the scientists engaged in it what they were doing and why. She saw artificial intelligence as the scientific apotheosis of one of the most enduring, glorious, often amusing, and sometimes alarming, traditions of human culture: the endless fascination with artifacts that think.
   
   Long out of print, it became a classic, often quoted, but not often read. Now it's back and in a new edition with an extended afterword that brings the field up to date in the last quarter century, including its scientific and public faces. McCorduck shows how, from a slightly dubious fringe science, artificial intelligence has moved slowly to a central place in our everyday lives, and how it will be even more crucial as the World Wide Web moves into its next generation.