A must-read for anyone studying physics or its history, and for others not afraid to swim in the sometimes deep and murky...
Part biography, part textbook on quarks and other phenomena discovered by one of the great particle physicists of the twentieth century.
Johnson (a New York Times science writer) first introduces us to Murray Gell-Mann in the present day, as a likable retiree living in Santa Fe. He sets his personal experiences with Gell-Mann against Gell-Mann the legend, cutting colleagues down to size if their viewpoints didn't coincide with his own, or calling them by unpleasant and sarcastic nicknames. Gell-Mann's broad scope of knowledge started in his youth in New York City, where he would visit museums, the zoo, anywhere he could learn about the world around him. In school young Murray was always eager to show off his knowledge, winning a spelling bee at the age of seven. At fourteen, he won a scholarship to Yale, moving from there to MIT, where he reveled in the unsolved problems in physics. It was these problems, theories about particles yet to be discovered, that Gell-Mann would spend his career solving. Johnson is not afraid to present these theories in great detail, giving crystal-clear descriptions of some of the most abstract and convoluted ideas in physics. Nor is he afraid to delve into the personal side of Gell-Mann, including his relationship with his colleague Richard Feynman, a friendship at times strained by the fame that Feynman achieved from his best-selling book of autobiographical anecdotes. Gell-Mann wanted to write one, too, but for all his knowledge he was crippled by a lifelong case of writer’s block. The limited success of his autobiography once it was finished presumably led to Strange Beauty.
A must-read for anyone studying physics or its history, and for others not afraid to swim in the sometimes deep and murky waters of cutting-edge science.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 1999
ISBN: 0-679-43764-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A physicist's attempt to reconnect science and theology on the controversial subject of extraterrestrial intelligence. Davies (Natural Philosophy/Univ. of Adelaide, Australia; The Mind of God, 1992, etc.) has written numerous works on religion and the nature of the universe. This time around he explores theories of physics that suggest that life elsewhere is possible. At the center of the argument is Davies's theory of organized complexity, which claims that the universe has an underlying order and that consciousness is one of its fundamental features. The author sometimes wanders into the arcane details of radio frequencies and the odds of finding a DNA molecule elsewhere in the universe. Davies is at his best when simply stating his own ideas. In the final pages he passionately argues that ``the most important upshot of the discovery of extraterrestrial life would be to restore to human beings some of the dignity of which science has robbed them [and to] give us cause to believe that we, in our humble way, are part of a larger, majestic process of cosmic self-knowledge.''
Pub Date: Aug. 2, 1995
ISBN: 0-465-00418-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
Decline. Dieback. Pandemic. Call it what you will, things are rotten in the American forest—namely, the trees—cautions this enthralling, terrifying study of our sylvan predicament. ``In the dim light of the summer forest, I felt a sense of uneasiness,'' notes Little (Hope for the Land, 1992). It gets much worse. From the East Coast to the West Coast (and Europe and everywhere), trees are dying wholesale. The author strongly suggests that behind each wooded ill lies the hand of humankind: Acid rain levels red spruce in the Northeast; fire suppression along Colorado's Front Range encourages the spruce budworm to do its nasty work; the introduction, through human accident, of the gypsy moth leads to the pleasures of DDT as an antidote; clear- cutting has catastrophic, rippling consequences, with two standing trees dying for every one cut due to blowdown and disease; internal combustion engines permanently remove sugar maples from the woods (not to mention maple syrup from the breakfast table). Little interviews plant pathologists and entomologists in each case, plumbing for the causes behind the effects. Comparing their findings with politicized, compromised, state-sponsored reports, he encounters one instance after another of sidestepping, obfuscation, and downright misrepresentation of facts on the part of the government. Little knows well what must be done: Reduce fossil fuel use, stop clear-cutting, end the release of CFCs, control population. But such massive mind-set changes don't come overnight, and he fears the forest may be beyond such remedial actions. To say that the fate of the woods looks gloomy to Little is to put it mildly. He doesn't mind being branded an alarmist, for it is an alarm that he wishes to spread. Biting and eloquent. A book that should make the current surge of environmental glad-tiders sit back and reconsider. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-670-84135-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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