Provocative? Yes. The last word on evolution? No, but a stimulating one all the same.
From a renowned mathematician, a collection of a series of lectures on “Metabiology: Life as Evolving Software”—a “philosophy and history of ideas course on how and why to approach biology mathematically.”
Chaitin (Meta Math! The Quest for Omega, 2005, etc.) equates DNA with a universal programming language, software that “can presumably express any possible algorithm, any set of instructions for building and running an organism.” He creates a model “toy” organism—pure DNA stripped of any cell parts or functioning metabolism—and studies how the organism evolves through mutations resulting from random walks in a huge software space. He makes the point that his model reflects the creativity and open-endedness of nature, in parallel with the incompleteness and open-endedness of mathematics itself, as Kurt Gödel proved. Throughout the text, Chaitin pays considerable homage to Gödel, Turing and von Neumann. The author’s model organisms do not stagnate but respond to the challenge of creating extremely large whole numbers by creating variations in the software (mutations) achieved by those random walks, mutations that are in fact algorithms, which translate to the organism’s increased fitness. Chaitin’s invocation of mutations that are whole programs rather than simple changes in a single letter of the DNA code is necessary for his proof, but it has the effect of taking the issue of natural selection out of biology and into pure mathematics. As such, questions are sure to abound, and the book is a bit esoteric for general readers. But credit the author for a lively style, lots of useful historical references and an appendix that includes von Neumann’s prescient essay on self-reproducing automata.
Provocative? Yes. The last word on evolution? No, but a stimulating one all the same.Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-375-42314-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Loads of good explaining, with reminders, time and again, of how much remains unknown, neatly putting the death of science...
Bryson (I'm a Stranger Here Myself, 1999, etc.), a man who knows how to track down an explanation and make it confess, asks the hard questions of science—e.g., how did things get to be the way they are?—and, when possible, provides answers.
As he once went about making English intelligible, Bryson now attempts the same with the great moments of science, both the ideas themselves and their genesis, to resounding success. Piqued by his own ignorance on these matters, he’s egged on even more so by the people who’ve figured out—or think they’ve figured out—such things as what is in the center of the Earth. So he goes exploring, in the library and in company with scientists at work today, to get a grip on a range of topics from subatomic particles to cosmology. The aim is to deliver reports on these subjects in terms anyone can understand, and for the most part, it works. The most difficult is the nonintuitive material—time as part of space, say, or proteins inventing themselves spontaneously, without direction—and the quantum leaps unusual minds have made: as J.B.S. Haldane once put it, “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose; it is queerer than we can suppose.” Mostly, though, Bryson renders clear the evolution of continental drift, atomic structure, singularity, the extinction of the dinosaur, and a mighty host of other subjects in self-contained chapters that can be taken at a bite, rather than read wholesale. He delivers the human-interest angle on the scientists, and he keeps the reader laughing and willing to forge ahead, even over their heads: the human body, for instance, harboring enough energy “to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point.”
Loads of good explaining, with reminders, time and again, of how much remains unknown, neatly putting the death of science into perspective.Pub Date: May 6, 2003
ISBN: 0-7679-0817-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
BOOK TO SCREEN
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