You don’t need to be an oenophile to enjoy this flavorful adventure about one wine nerd’s search for the perfect grape.
In 2008, when former AP correspondent Begos was in his hotel room in Amman, Jordan, he took a red wine named Cremisan out of the mini-bar. He wasn’t expecting much, but “wow. I perked up immediately. The dry red wine had a spicy flavor.” As he writes, “my hotel room wine morphed from an obsession into training wheels,” and he was off on a two-year quest to learn more. Begos traveled through the original wine routes from the Caucasus Mountains and the Holy Land and north through Europe. He soon realized that it was not the wine he was seeking but the grape or grapes from which the wine was made. There would be more wine sampling ahead and interviews with experts who would provide him with “facts instead of just colorful myths.” At the University of Pennsylvania, archaeologist Patrick McGovern, the “Indiana Jones of ancient wine and beer,” taught the author how tests using liquid chromatography have helped identify types of wines in King Tut’s tomb. At the Cremisan monastery in Jerusalem, Begos discovered that his 2008 wine was probably made in 2006, “so I’d tasted one of the last vintages made by the monks.” In a small city on the Rhone, the author learned about ampelography while visiting with Jose Vouillamoz, a “kind of John James Audubon for endangered grapes.” It was like studying “branches (or vines) twisting in all directions, each shoot representing a different variety, a new flavor.” Others taught Begos about the importance of the soil (terroir) and yeast in the fermentation process. His “biggest American winemaking surprise came from Oregon,” which “may be the epicenter of wine innovation in America, even if there’s more money in California or New York.”
The narrative occasionally drags, but this multidisciplinary master class in the history, science, religion, and literature of wines is as luscious as a full-bodied pinot noir.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61620-577-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Categories: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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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 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
Categories: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
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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. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
Categories: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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