Among the scores of US submarine skippers in WW II's Pacific theater, Fluckey, captain of the Barb on five war patrols, was credited with sinking the greatest tonnage of enemy shipping. All told, he and his well-trained crew sent over 85 Japanese vessels (including a carrier, a cruiser, and a frigate) to the bottom. They also laid waste to a host of coastal installations, destroying Japan's largest paper mill as well as a sizable shipyard and, on one occasion, slipping ashore to blow up a 16-car military train (thereby becoming the only Americans to land on Japanese soil before the guns fell silent). A 1935 graduate of Annapolis, Fluckey offers a grippingly detailed account of his command's hell-and-high-water feats, which won him the Congressional Medal of Honor, as well as four Navy Crosses. While willing, even eager, to go in harm's way—e.g., by searching for prey on the surface rather than submerged—Fluckey was not reckless. On his watch, no man aboard the Barb earned a Purple Heart (awarded for having been wounded)—a stunning accomplishment at a time when half of the silent service's craft failed to make round trips. Derring-do apart, the author tells of the terrors of depth-charge attacks (known to submariners as ``thunder below'') and the satisfaction of rescuing POWs whose ship had been torpedoed. Fluckey even recalls learning where Midway's gooney birds go during their seven-year absences from this remote, albeit strategic, outpost—a discovery he duly reported to the National Geographic Society a couple of weeks before V-J Day. A standout in a field crowded with first-rate entries. (Fifty photographs; six maps.)
Pub Date: Oct. 13, 1992
ISBN: 0-252-01925-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Univ. of Illinois
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992
As much a work of philosophy as of physics and full of insights for readers willing to work hard.
Undeterred by a subject difficult to pin down, Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, 2017, etc.) explains his thoughts on time.
Other scientists have written primers on the concept of time for a general audience, but Rovelli, who also wrote the bestseller Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, adds his personal musings, which are astute and rewarding but do not make for an easy read. “We conventionally think of time,” he writes, “as something simple and fundamental that flows uniformly, independently from everything else, uniformly from the past to the future, measured by clocks and watches. In the course of time, the events of the universe succeed each other in an orderly way: pasts, presents, futures. The past is fixed, the future open….And yet all of this has turned out to be false.” Rovelli returns again and again to the ideas of three legendary men. Aristotle wrote that things change continually. What we call “time” is the measurement of that change. If nothing changed, time would not exist. Newton disagreed. While admitting the existence of a time that measures events, he insisted that there is an absolute “true time” that passes relentlessly. If the universe froze, time would roll on. To laymen, this may seem like common sense, but most philosophers are not convinced. Einstein asserted that both are right. Aristotle correctly explained that time flows in relation to something else. Educated laymen know that clocks register different times when they move or experience gravity. Newton’s absolute exists, but as a special case in Einstein’s curved space-time. According to Rovelli, our notion of time dissolves as our knowledge grows; complex features swell and then retreat and perhaps vanish entirely. Furthermore, equations describing many fundamental physical phenomena don’t require time.
As much a work of philosophy as of physics and full of insights for readers willing to work hard.Pub Date: May 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1610-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The Johnstown Flood was one of the greatest natural disasters of all time (actually manmade, since it was precipitated by a wealthy country club dam which had long been the source of justified misgivings). This then is a routine rundown of the catastrophe of May 31st, 1889, the biggest news story since Lincoln's murder in which thousands died. The most interesting incidental: a baby floated unharmed in its cradle for eighty miles.... Perhaps of local interest-but it lacks the Lord-ly touch.
Pub Date: March 18, 1968
ISBN: 0671207148
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1968
IN THE NEWS
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
