A compendious work that will intrigue serious readers; others may find it overlong and too comprehensive.
Hands has spent the last 10 years assembling a critical overview of scientific orthodoxy in an attempt to answer the fundamental questions “what are we?” and “why are we here?”
The author, who has had managerial responsibilities in the British government and has tutored in physics and management studies for the Open University, acknowledges the help of more than 50 accredited scientists with expertise in the fields he explores. The first target of his scrutiny is modern cosmologists, who face the dilemma of attempting to explain the putative origin of the universe in a big bang. Hands finds their efforts to be fundamentally inadequate due to their necessary reliance on both Einstein's general relativity theory and the Standard Model of particle physics. Even though “each has been extremely successful in making predictions that have been verified by observation and experiment within its own realm,” they are incompatible theoretically. Another of the author’s bones of contention concerns the rate of expansion of the universe and whether it is constant or cyclical. He examines various attempts to explain the process, including string theory, loop theory, and the existence of undetectable dark matter and energy. In the author's view, an even more fundamental issue is that scientists today mistakenly “conflate mathematical theory with scientific theory.” Moving on to the origins of life on Earth, Hands suggests that Darwin's reputation is overblown and finds fault with the current “gene-focused paradigm.” Although the author refutes the claims of intelligent design proponents, he accepts the views of the Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin that the evolution of self-reflective humans has created a new stage in the evolution of the biosphere by our use of tools, artistic creations, and philosophy. Hands speculates on new stages of development involving “psychic” energy, and he provides an extensive glossary, which is helpful given the amount and depth of the material, much of which is esoteric.
A compendious work that will intrigue serious readers; others may find it overlong and too comprehensive.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4683-1244-7
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
Not only the definitive life, but a tour de force by a master.
One of history’s most prolific inventors receives his due from one of the world’s greatest biographers.
Pulitzer and National Book Award winner Morris (This Living Hand and Other Essays, 2012, etc.), who died this year, agrees that Thomas Edison (1847-1931) almost certainly said, “genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration,” and few readers of this outstanding biography will doubt that he was the quintessential workaholic. Raised in a middle-class Michigan family, Edison displayed an obsessive entrepreneurial spirit from childhood. As an adolescent, he ran a thriving business selling food and newspapers on a local railroad. Learning Morse code, he spent the Civil War as a telegrapher, impressing colleagues with his speed and superiors with his ability to improve the equipment. In 1870, he opened his own shop to produce inventions to order. By 1876, he had money to build a large laboratory in New Jersey, possibly the world’s first industrial research facility. Never a loner, Edison hired talented people to assist him. The dazzling results included the first commercially successful light bulb for which, Morris reminds readers, he invented the entire system: dynamo, wires, transformers, connections, and switches. Critics proclaim that Edison’s innovations (motion pictures, fluoroscope, rechargeable batteries, mimeograph, etc.) were merely improvements on others’ work, but this is mostly a matter of sour grapes. Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone was a clunky, short-range device until it added Edison’s carbon microphone. And his phonograph flabbergasted everyone. Humans had been making images long before Daguerre, but no one had ever reproduced sound. Morris rivetingly describes the personalities, business details, and practical uses of Edison’s inventions as well as the massive technical details of years of research and trial and error for both his triumphs and his failures. For no obvious reason, the author writes in reverse chronological order, beginning in 1920, with each of the seven following chapters backtracking a decade. It may not satisfy all readers, but it works.
Not only the definitive life, but a tour de force by a master.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9311-0
Page Count: 800
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
A book that describes what kangaroos do and offers unusually beautiful pictures of them doing it. One old male bending forward while scratching his back looks like nothing else found in nature- -except maybe a curmudgeonly old baseball manager with arthritis in the late innings of another losing game (in fact, baseball players would appear to be the only animals who scratch themselves as much as kangaroos do—bellies, underarms, Iwago captures every permutation of scratching). At other times, they look preternaturally graceful and serene. Some of Iwago's (Mitsuaki Iwago's Whales, not reviewed) photographic compositions flirt with anthropomorphism and slyly play to our urge to see ourselves in the animals. But kangaroos are so singular that there's always something about the cant of a head or the drape of a limb that makes you think you flatter yourself that there is any kinship. They remain wondrously different.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8118-0785-1
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
© Copyright 2025 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.
