5 comments about FitzRoy: The Remarkable Story of Darwin's Captain and the Invention of the Weather Forecast.

1. The figure of Fitzroy lurks in the background of the Darwin saga and it is actually quite refreshing to draw him out on this score, both because of the interest in his life and work on its own terms and also for the light it throws on Darwin's early explorations in biology. Fitzroy's achievements in weather forecasting are little known, and his contribution to Darwin's education no doubt proceeds indirectly from the context of disciplined and meticulous scientific work in the Beagle's prime mission.



2. The father of weather forecasts and explorer of South America. Robert FitzRoy will be remembered by me. This book tells us about a great British aristocrat who gave more than he took. I love Patrick O'Brian and this could have been his but it is real story about a real person. FitzRoy was a remarkable man who history has pushed back to the shadows and labeled Darwin's Captain. FitzRoy, whose family is descended from Charles II, becomes a beloved British Man-o-war Captain, explorer, politician and eventual Vice Admiral. Mr. Gribbin gives us a picture of one of the last explorers and scientific innovators who charts South America, tries to support native rights in New Zealand and gives the world weather forecasting, yet is forgotten. His end did not justify his life. He was an amazing man who deserved more. He was faithful to his family, his country and religion. A good man and a great read.



3. I got this book because I am playing Fitzroy in Timberlake Wertenbakers play After Darwin. It has a wealth of information on the good Captain and enabled me to find a pathway into his mind that would not have had otherwise. The combination of excepts from the Narrative, Sullivan and Usborne's journals, and the record of Darwin himself paint an honorable picture that Fitroy would have been happy with. The recounting of the loss of a ship to the Fuegians on the voage preceeding Darwin is particuary interesting.



4. This work, by John and Mary Gribbin, combines a deep respect for Robert FitzRoy and his achievements with sound research. The end result is a book that is accessible to anyone with an interest in this complex and multi-faceted man.
   
   Described by Charles Darwin as being 'A very extraordinary person', Robert FitzRoy served Britain as a naval captain (most famously as Captain of HMS Beagle), as a Governor of New Zealand, and in the field of weather forecasting.
   
   While covering the voyages of HMS Beagle, this book provides information on FitzRoy's governorship of New Zealand as well as his achievements in weather forecasting. Along the way, we obtain glimpses of the struggle between a greater understanding of science and a deep innate religious conservatism. Robert FitzRoy tragically took his own life a few months before his 60th birthday.
   
   A fascinating book about a fascinating man.
   
   Highly recommended
   
   Jennifer Cameron-Smith



5. If not for anything else he did in his life, this man should be remembered for setting up the first weather forecasting service in England during the middle nineteenth century. That he was the Captain of the "Beagle" when Charles Darwin sailed on it as 'naturalist'; is not half as important as he was the one who set in motion the random currents that caused Darwin to be on the ship for its' full five year plus voyage.
   
   He was a remarkable man who because he was also humble and self-effacing never ended up getting the critical acclaim that his life's work demanded. His five year voyage on the "Beagle" resulted in the most detailed mapping of the South American continent from the Plate to Valpariso, and especially the area around Cape Horn and the Straits of Magellan. So detailed were his maps that they were used for over 100 years.
   
   During the voyage, he also determined all of the meridians and set-up their places on maps by which other sailors were able to determine their place anywhere on the earth at any time. Later, he devised a system by which ships could be signaled at sea that a major storm was brewing created the "gale warning" system. His work on meteorology was the first to use telegraphy to coordinate the capture of weather statistics so that information could be printed in newspapers the same day. He also devised the first two day weather forecasting, including the coining of the word 'forecast'.
   
   The story of his life and accomplishments is well written, and well documented, besides being entertainingly presented. Great Biography.

3 comments about Grace Hopper: Admiral Of The Cyber Sea (Library of Naval Biography).

1. I was at a coctail party at a computer show when this lady in a white Navy uniform came it. It was Grace Hopper. Someone asked her for an autograph. Admirals don't need to carry pens around, so I promptly offered her mine. And after she signed one of her business cards for him, I said that I'd like one also, so she signed another. I still have it.
   
   This all came back to me as soon as I saw this book. I picked it up, I opened it to a page where it talks about her first reporting to Howard Aiken at Harvard to work on the Mark I computer. Aiken handed her a manual and told her to write a program. Almost exactly twenty years after she was given the manual, the Army did exactly the same to me - here's a manual, here's the equasion I want solved.
   
   Even in her advanced years at the time I met her, she was still one very bright lady. This was in the very early days of the PC, and she had a basic understanding that enabled her to predict many of the things that were going to happen while the rest of were stumbling around thinking about word processing.
   
   Grace Hopper was quite a lady, and that's reflected in this book. Between 1934 and 1937 hers was the only Ph.D. in mathematics awarded to a female. It was quite a life that she led, and that too is reflected in this book. Adm. Hopper lived in a time when women didn't need to be educated, they were just going to be housewives, and they certainly weren't going to be Navy Admirals. This book is a story of one remarkable woman, but more than that it's the story of computing and of our changing times.



2. I had a chance to hear Grace Hopper speak in 1970's in the early days of my own computer career. She was impressive then, and, after reading this book, I'm even more impressed by her career and her accomplishments, which were underrepresented in the 'computing history' to which I had previously been exposed. Through interviews and delving into untold amount of original source material, Ms. Williams has found MANY fascinating tidbits about Grace and the environment in which she lived and worked. For example, Grace DIDN'T invent the term computer bug. However, the interesting facts are strung together in an oft times confusing narrative - it took me much longer to read than usual. And the index didn't mention her engaging physical representation of a nanosecond. A worthwhile book, nonetheless, for those interested in computing history, and/or women who made a difference in technology.



3. Grace Hopper's contributions to computing were very impressive - I knew that before reading this book because I was a COBOL programmer. Nonetheless, "Admiral of the Cyber Sea" provided a very informative and interesting biography of this lady. It was also interesting to learn of the signal achievements of her siblings - reminding me of President Eisenhower, one of many "stars" in his household.
   
   Born in 1906, Grace Hopper graduated from Vassar, and got a PhD in mathematics from Yale in 1933. She married in '43, and divorced 15 years later. During WWII she followed her grandfather (an admiral) and joined the Navy - WAVES division. At that time she wrote programs for the Mark I computer housed in Harvard - focus was on ballistic trajectories, and accomplished at the speed of 3 operations/second. The Mark I was an electro-mechanical giant - 50' long, 8' tall, and 8' deep, with 3 million wire connections and weighing about 5 tons, and only having 72 words of storage.
   
   The term "Bug" came about when the Mark II was stopped by a relay failure - a moth had been trapped inside one of the relays. The moth was fished out, and taped to the computer's log book.
   
   Hopper then went to work on compiler development, having foreseen their potential for drastically reducing programming efforts while reducing "bugs." Retired from the Navy Reserve in 1966 as a Commander.
   
   However, the Navy soon realized it needed Hopper's continue service, and brought her back. She was impatient with bureaucracy - and displayed it with a clock that ran backwards and a Jolly Roger flag on her desk. One might suspect that Hopper would be one wedded to the "big iron" computers of her day - however, she early on saw the potential and value of microcomputers, and for networking minis.
   
   Commodore Hopper received her new rank (equivalent to today's Rear Admiral) in 1983 at a White House ceremony attended by President Reagan. Retirement took place 12/86 on the deck of the U.S.S. Constitution - the Navy's oldest commissioned ship. The very next day civilian Hopper, twice retired from the Navy, reported for full-time work at DEC.
   
   Grace Hopper died in 1992 at the age of 80, having worked and given almost daily speeches cross-country until the prior Summer. Truly an inspirational achiever!

No comments about Rockets, Reactors, and Computers Define the Twentieth Century.

1 comments about Pursuing Giraffe: A 1950s Adventure (Life Writing).

1. This book really tells several stories at the same time.
   
   The nominal story is that of studying giraffes in Africa beginning in 1956. This year of study produced numerous scientific papers on the behavior of giraffes, their subspeciation, distribution, food preferences and more.
   
   Beyond giraffes, there are sub stories involved with the 'growing up' of a rather sheltered young lady leaving a private girls school in Toronto to live and work in Africa. Suddenly she is in the Africa of the colonial powers who are beginning to lose their colonial powers as the tide of history begins to move towards black rule. She is in South Africa as the racist rules of apartheid were beginning to be formulated.
   
   She returns to Canada to eventually earn a Ph.D. but is unable to get a university position. 'I'll never give tenure to a married woman,' a science dean tells her, because she has a husband to support her. Later she was was chosen one of eight top living female biologists in Canada by the federal government for the National Museums of Canada. She is now a faculty member at the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario in Independent Studies.

2 comments about Newton.

1. Most people see that Newton changed the world - creating a scientific world, a rational world, one free of superstition and the searching for vain outcomes (such as those of alchemy). There is no doubt that Newton's endeavours did bring a lot of this to pass. But, did he intend that? Newton was a complex character - part of which was an alchemist, part of which was a futurist basing his expectations on interpretations of Biblical verses.
   In this book we learn how Newton's reputation changed, how Principia lead the world in its understanding of physics. Principia was less successful with metaphysics, which was eventually exposed by Einstein. But that same world turned a blind eye to other aspects of Newton - things that Newton himself took as seriously - perhaps even more so - than the physics on which his reputation now rests.
   I took this book up because for a while I had been wanting to read more of the enigmatic character that Newton was. But this is not a biography. It is a component of the study of the history of science. I found it fascinating but the true Newton still waits for me somewhere else.
   
   recommended other reading:
   Ramunujan - Robert Kanigal
   The Man Who Loved only Numbers - Paul Hoffmann



2. This book was a surprise to me. As Fara points out, the work is not biographical nor intended to be. It appeals as an exhaustively researched treatment of 17th and 18th century academic and scientific life in western Europe, of which Newton is portrayed as a centrepiece.
   
   Interestingly, there is considerable focus on public image, public perception, academic politics and international academic rivalry. Much work also goes into the realisation of Newton as indelible national hero....the statues, paintings, medallions , anniversary celebrations, etc. Entire academic careers rose or fell on whether one resided in the Newtonian camp or not, and a whole section of the book goes to discussion on the nature of genius itself. Whilst I was expecting to get a better personal picture of Newton the man, the book makes clear how difficult this may be, given that his life and work are now 3 centuries past. That, and the fact that countless biographies of Newton already exist, many painting quite different pictures of the man, each from the somewhat subjective brush of particular biographers.
   
   Very readable, enjoyable and breathtakingly well researched.

4 comments about Prometheans in the Lab: Chemistry and the Making of the Modern World.

1. I was intrigued by the title and thought I would try it...this is an amazing book that puts into perspective life before refridgeration, soap, safe drinking water, sugar, dye, and more. This book makes a clear link between scientific discovery and the subsequent ripples in society -- as well as how those discoveries impact the lives of the scientists. Prometheans also shows how complicated science can be - for every discovery that changed modern society, it brought with it a host of new issues, ills, and irrevocable changes. A great example is Thomas Midgley, the man who created Freon and tetraethyl lead. Without him we would have no fridges, freezers, cheap gas (or a hole in the ozone layer). In his chapter, you discover that the early factory workers working with lead went insane from the fumes and ended up killing each other in psychotic rages; plus the high levels of lead were polluting the environment. This led to workplace reform and an overhaul of factory safety regulations. Then there's Wallace Carothers, who invented Nylon. He suffered from depression for years, and being around potent lab chemicals and fumes didn't help his outlook any; he killed himself with a cyanide pill he'd carried around for 15 years. I am not a scientist but interested in general scientific discovery. This book was great because each scenario is presented in a historical context, each side is shown and not portrayed in an extreme negative or positive light. It's very balanced, and didn't overwhelm me with incomprehensible explanations of the hard-core science behind the science. This is great & would make a great TV series.



2. I picked up this book because a ...review said, "On your next trip to the bookstore bypass the action adventure thrillers and seek out Prometheans in the Lab... It is one of those `story behind the story' books that are often written about celebrities and politicians [but it's about] the chemists responsible for the major chemical processes that undergird modern living.... I wish it were twice its length."
   The reviewer was right. The book tells science stories you definitely didn't learn in high school. But it also dramatizes the tangled relationship between technology's benefits and drawbacks and the public's conflicting desires for new products and environmental purity. Great stories, and a great read. *****



3. If you enjoyed "A Beautiful Mind," you should check out "Prometheans in the Lab." Scientific genius and mental illness are clearly not rare combinations. Like John Nash, several of the nine chemists profiled so ably by science writer Sharon Bertsch McGrayne were odd ducks who struggled with intractable mental disorders while achieving society-changing breakthroughs in their labs. McGrayne's nine subjects invented processes and products that define modern life.
   Wallace Carothers, an American and the inventor of nylon in 1935, was apparently afflicted with bipolar disorder. Throughout his career he tried to contend with severe mood swings, along with other maladies. In the end, his illnesses overwhelmed him, and he dosed himself with cyanide.
   Fritz Haber, a German, invented modern nitrogen-based fertilizer in 1908 and helped end Europe's millennial-long fear of famine. As a young man, he was hospitalized for "neurasthenia," after suffering sleeplessness, excitability, and nervous tension.
   Unlike Nash and Carothers, Haber's illness did not progress to a chronic and profound mental disorder. But neither was his life a bed of roses. His wife's depression ended with her suicide. And while Haber's prodigious scientific accomplishments brought him fame, they also brought him infamy. In World War I, he initiated and organized chemical warfare for Germany, through the use of chlorine gas. He argued that poison gas would save lives by shortening the war. (Not all of Germany's enemies were outraged; it turned out that some influential Americans agreed with him.)
   Most of the brilliant researchers McGrayne covers did not have mental illnesses. Many of them suffered from a much more prosaic and more ubiquitous "problem"- the inability to really foresee untoward consequences of their inventions. Paul Hermann Muller, a Swiss, invented DDT and in 1948 won a Nobel Prize for medicine. McGrayne's chapter on Muller includes a look at the huge plusses and minuses of the use of DDT. On the one hand, DDT saved millions of people from death from malaria and typhus. On the other side, the substance devastated wildlife, particularly bird populations, wherever it was used in any quantity. Muller apparently had a premonition that DDT was not an unmitigated good, but he didn't vigorously investigate its deleterious properties.
   McGrayne is an outstanding contributor to the genre of well-researched, readable books on scientists and science for everyday people. You don't need a science background to enjoy her book; you just need to be curious about some very unusual people and where all sorts of everyday stuff-nylon, fertilizer, soap, DDT, synthetic colors, leaded gasoline and even clean water--came from.



4. This accessible but rewarding history of applied chemistry ranks among the best books I have read in years. It does the basic job: providing information, but its prose is transparent and unobstrusive, its exposition uniformly consistent and intelligible, and the narrative even builds to moments of drama; finally, it demonstrates the tension between chemistry and environmental concerns, as well as that between science, capital and society. All this without taking a polemical stance. Who would have thought so drab a subject could be rendered this important and engaging? Anybody with an interest in business, finance, industry, environmentalism, science and applied research should read it. It wouldn't hurt for some book authors to study it as well as how to tranform coal-tar into mauve, so to speak.

4 comments about Brandy, Balloons, & Lamps: Ami Argand, 1750-1803.

1. An invention of an oil lamp has revolutionized the world. Finally, a lamp has been created that produced a good light without the annoying smoke that has plagued the social life of people over thousands of years. The value of the inventions is immediately recognized and the demand for the new lamp is overwhelming. A commercial opportunity of enormous proportion has emerged. Can a single person protect his invention and satisfy the demand for the new light against the competitive spirit of free market? It is the year 1784, the rumblings of the French Revolution, of the Napoleon wars, and of restructuring of the social systems are not yet heard. It is the time of technical innovations. The steam engine has already advanced manufacturing industry and the dream to conquer the air has just become a reality, the balloon of the Montgolfier brothers graces the sky. John J. Wolfe's book provides an initiate picture of Ami Argand, the Genevese citizen who perfected distilleries for Brandy, invented the two-air draft burner for oil lamps, and assisted the Montgolfiers in flying balloons. Its is a also the story of greed, deceit and unhappiness, and a story of an unfortunate hero and of successful villains. For the first time, an authoritative account is given for the life of Argand; a brilliant scientist who is immortalized by his invention, the Argand lamp, but also a person who sought recognition and wished to persevere in business. The combination of a spell binding story and never published pictures of early lighting promotes this book as a must for students of history, technology and lighting.



2. John Wolfe portrays the poignant story of a brilliant, gentle, and naive 18th century inventor, Ami Argand. Wolfe's exhaustive research rewards the reader with an intimate view into the life and thinking of Argand and other 18th century luminaries. This book engages your sense of histroy, science, intrigue, and lighting. I really enjoyed it.



3. Tremendous book. Beautifully researched and filled with staggering illustrations. I bought it as a reference as I collect lamps. As a reference and piece of scholarship it ranks with the work of Florence Montgomery, John Bivens and Catherine Lynn. What was the most pleasant surprise is that it is beautifully and compellingly written. A truly fascinating story of a fascinating man who lived during a fascinating era. No serious collector of lighting or 18-19th century decorative object should be without this work. Any major decArts library would be remiss not to own it. At $59.95 it is probably underpriced.



4. This is a beautiful book, lavishly produced on fine paper, with 46 colored plates and many black and white photos. This is the story of Ami Argand, inventor of the greatly improved oil lamp in 1780. Argand lived an interesting life, and knew some of the main characters in the industrial revolution, such as James Watt, Matthew Boulton, and the Montgolfier brothers. His story had been mostly forgotten, though, and Wolfe has done the world some good in bringing it back to life.
   
   The lamp Argand patented was actually an important invention. It was no small thing to bring a much improved, cheaper source of light to the homes and shops of an industrializing West. The Argand lamp became the standard configuration until about 1850 when the kerosene lamp more or less replaced it. Many of them were real works of art, eagerly sought by collectors today. They were more or less on the edge of what could be mass produced at the time, and Argand experienced many trials and tribulations in bringing it to market. Even the renowned Boulton factories had trouble producing them.
   
   This is a wonderful tale of the Industrial Revolution, and I much enjoyed it. Thank you Mr. Wolfe!

No comments about I Want to Be a Mathematician: An Automathography in Three Parts (Maa Spectrum Series) (Maa Spectrum Ser.).

4 comments about Acid Tongues and Tranquil Dreamers: Eight Scientific Rivalries That Changed the World.

1. I have reviewed Acid Tongues in the Street Cred column of Wired Magazine (April 2001, p. 218); I won't repeat my whole review, since that is available in the magazine and at Wired's online site.

   I conclude that "Michael White delivers blow-by-blow accounts of the rivalries that underlay eight historical advancements, and he enriches each story with analysis, solid scientific explanation, and detailed biographies of each combatant." However, the whole never equals more than the sum of the parts. "White's principal assumption seems to be that rivalry fuels the advancement of science and technology." But he never proves the point. Edison's stubborn opposition to alternating current, for example, didn't really advance science so much as delay widespread recognition of the superior technology.

   "Acid Tongues' thesis begs for a comparison of competitive and noncompetitive research, but--contrary to the book's title--we encounter no 'tranquil dreamers.'" I also have other minor quibbles, but conclude that "although Acid Tongues may not deliver an overarching argument, it does prove one thing: It's fun to read about rivalries." - Edward Samuels, author of The Illustrated Story of Copyright




2. What a shame that spell-check can't distinguish among a and an, their and there, misplaced commas, and then and than. I found 47 such errors in this book, and find it apalling that a name publisher never had it actually "read" before printing. Shame on them. And the title? Bears no resemblance to the subject matter or treatment. White writes very well, when his ideas make it past a rudimentary grammar check. But the book seems to be a loose collection of magazine articles, with little overriding messages. Sure, we know science has rivalries, and that scientists can be prima donnas. Anything else new here? Not much. I'd pass on this one.



3. If you're really into science 'Acid Tongues and Tranquil Dreamers' is a sufficient documentary of eight fairly substantial events in the history of science. If you're not a science aficionado then I imagine it could be a pretty tedious read. I like science very much and enjoyed the scientific theme but found author Michael White's (ex-member of the 80s synthesizer band 'Thompson Twins') writing style tepid and his thesis muddled. Aside from the author's style and thesis the eight essays, ranging from the development of calculus to the Microsoft corporation, stand on their own and, hence, possess a great deal of content. White's thesis that rivalry possibly promotes great endeavor is a tautology already implied in the essays. The mundane background given on the human subjects of these stories, although probably necessary, tends to bog down the pace of the book. As a chronicle of the development of science and technology in the western world I'd say this book is useful and worth the time spent reading it. It is written, however, with the zing of a middle school textbook. Reading it is a struggle between its richness of content and lack of literary acumen. Depending on how important these two elements are to the reader is likely a good indication of how much one would enjoy reading this book.



4. White promotes an eight-round match of leading contenders to explain one of the ways science and technology produce champions. Each match in this series explains how rivalries among scientists developed and what long-term effects the conflicts had for science and for the rest of us. Some of these issues remain almost solely personality clashes, such as the priority question over calculus between Newton and Leibnitz. Others, the choice of AC over DC for electrical power distribution and which nation would be the first to build a nuclear bomb, are meaningful to us all. Offering brief descriptions of the issues and personalities, each of the essays is a good synopsis of the science. The personality sketches are given with a strong emphasis on the contender's childhood where it can be derived. Although the relevance of the childhood foundations seems contrived in most cases, the information provides a "human" background of people who often seem remote from us.

   The topics and personalities are so disparate that a general assessment is difficult, if not impossible for this work. To his credit, White has focussed on fundamental questions and not been distracted by side issues. He is at pains to be "fair", avoiding judgmental approaches and emphasising long-term impact of the conflict's resolution. If the personality involved is too obtuse, stubborn or devious to withstand White's scrutiny, he makes it clear that the problem lies with that individual. However, as he admits, he's not the only one doing the judging. Aristotle's views of nature inexplicably dominated Western European thinking for two millennia because his proposed "four basic elements" could be merged with nearly any philosophy. Only reason backed by empirical evidence would overcome this long tradition.
   
   The variety of topics forces some selectivity in evaluating White's effort, but one essay may be exemplary. In describing the Monkeys and Men debate as a clash between Charles Darwin and Robert Owen, White stumbles badly. There was little "rivalry" in this so-called debate, since Owen simply flatly refused to accept species "transmutation". Since this concept was held by many educated people, Owen was already out of his time. White notes Owen's strategy of remaining anonymous, but doesn't criticise it. Since that was Darwin's chief objection to Owen, this is an amazing omission. Darwin's real problem, natural selection applied to humanity, was the major stumbling block to universal acceptance to his concept. White deals with that issue only in passing, and that incorrectly [Darwin mentioned "man and his beginnings" but once in Origin, not White's "few"]. He lauds Owen as England's "leading biologist", a questionable claim at best. Yet in his description of the clashes between Owen and Huxley, he avoids their confrontation over the hippocampus in ape brains, in which Huxley demonstrated his superior research abilities in Owen's own field. In dealing with Darwin's community of supporters, White mis-names Joseph Hooker as "John Hooker", even in the Index. How a biographer of Darwin could make this gaffe remains an enigma. Why, when Daniel C. Dennett has published the finest analysis of Darwin's Idea, White turns to an obscure work on science ideas for a quote from this eminent scholar is almost a greater mystery.

   White's collection targets a few direct confrontations since the Enlightenment to show how important of science has become to us. The "current wars", "reaching for the moon" and "the race for the prize" which revealed how DNA is structured [not "discovered" as White puts it] have impacted how meaningful science is to us. Except for some terrible editorial sloppiness ["prevarication and "procrastination" are not synonyms] the book is a readable and important work in that regard. White demonstrates how clashes over how natural forces work doesn't invalidate science. Instead, it is the root of the scientific method - postulation, examination and refutation or acceptance. He shows well the struggle science must engage in to reveal nature's secrets. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

No comments about William H. Emory: Soldier-Scientist.