by David A. Mindell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 13, 2015
A lucid counterbalance to the menacing view of robotics long depicted in science fiction.
Historian and engineer Mindell (History of Engineering and Manufacturing, Aeronautics and Astronautics/MIT; Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight, 2008, etc.) argues that it’s time to change how we think about robots.
For decades, robots have been used in “extreme” environments, from deep oceans to outer space. Drawing on research, interviews, and extensive experience in undersea robotic exploration and the engineering of autonomous aircraft, the author takes us deep inside these robotic applications to reveal the critical role that humans will continue to play in the emerging world of driverless cars, robotic surgery, and remote warfare. His authoritative account looks at the relationship between humans and machines as they explore underwater environments for shipwrecks, conduct remote battles through drones, and engage in distant exploration and repair missions in outer space. In each instance, scientists and others do not physically go to sites where they are working, but their “minds and imaginations” spend days there. Space scientists “become” the distant rover. (“It’s…some kind of weird, man-machine bond,” says one.) Predator pilots, based in air-conditioned control rooms, experience identity crises as they engage in distant warfare “mediated by technology.” Geologists, accustomed to working directly with materials, often feel threatened professionally when engaged in remote undersea exploration. Yet humans are not abdicating to robots, writes Mindell. They are adjusting to new roles and using the robots. Indeed, the human factor—“human decisions, presence, and expertise”—remains more crucial than ever in working with robots. General readers will wish the author had offered more examples of the unusual man-machine interactions in the words of people who experienced them, but Mindell certainly dispels any notion that these robots are completely autonomous and leaves us with a better understanding of what lies ahead for our daily lives.
A lucid counterbalance to the menacing view of robotics long depicted in science fiction.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-42697-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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by Lulu Miller illustrated by Kate Samworth ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2020
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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by Carlo Rovelli ; translated by Simon Carnell & Erica Segre ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
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Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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