Further essays from William and Mary physicist von Baeyer, who pleased with Taming the Atom (1992) and Rainbows, Snowflakes, and Quarks (1984). The compass here is physics: Newtonian, quantum, and astro-, with some commentary on the style of doing physics, along with its attendant aesthetics and pleasures. The title essay, for example, demonstrates Enrico Fermi's way of tackling seemingly intractable problems by breaking them into manageable bits with reasonable assumptions. So von Baeyer details how to solve the legendary problem that Fermi posed to his students: ``How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?'' (answered by estimating how many families; how many pianos; how many pianos a tuner can tune a year, etc.). Von Baeyer's explanation should be must reading for all high-school students (it also applies to business, economics, estimations of risk, etc.). For the rest, the author neatly comments on dark matter, the not-quite-empty void, gravity waves, absolute zero, the elusive monopole, and other quantum esoterica. He's at his best when using everyday analogies- -e.g., gut memories of gravity walls and roller coasters to illustrate points of equivalence between gravity and inertial forces. Several essays deal with new phenomena such as quasi- crystals and nondestructive, noninvasive analytic techniques. Here, the author should be cautioned that CAT and PET scans are by no means ``noninvasive,'' since they expose patients to radiation. Overall, von Baeyer does extremely well by words alone, but a few illustrations would have underscored the trickier points.
Pub Date: June 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-679-40031-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993
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
Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.
Award-winning scientist Jahren (Geology and Geophysics/Univ. of Hawaii) delivers a personal memoir and a paean to the natural world.
The author’s father was a physics and earth science teacher who encouraged her play in the laboratory, and her mother was a student of English literature who nurtured her love of reading. Both of these early influences engrossingly combine in this adroit story of a dedication to science. Jahren’s journey from struggling student to struggling scientist has the narrative tension of a novel and characters she imbues with real depth. The heroes in this tale are the plants that the author studies, and throughout, she employs her facility with words to engage her readers. We learn much along the way—e.g., how the willow tree clones itself, the courage of a seed’s first root, the symbiotic relationship between trees and fungi, and the airborne signals used by trees in their ongoing war against insects. Trees are of key interest to Jahren, and at times she waxes poetic: “Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.” The author draws many parallels between her subjects and herself. This is her story, after all, and we are engaged beyond expectation as she relates her struggle in building and running laboratory after laboratory at the universities that have employed her. Present throughout is her lab partner, a disaffected genius named Bill, whom she recruited when she was a graduate student at Berkeley and with whom she’s worked ever since. The author’s tenacity, hope, and gratitude are all evident as she and Bill chase the sweetness of discovery in the face of the harsh economic realities of the research scientist.
Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-87493-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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