Stew and Chuck are classics: Their fortunes rise and fall, they end their friendship and start it up again, their families...
A picaresque story of diamond-hunting in the Barrens of the Canadian Arctic, liberally fleshed out with the global history of diamonds.
“If there is one thing Americans and Canadians both love,” says science journalist Krajick, “it is the idea of the one-mule prospector heading out to find the mother lode.” Well, then, they ought to love this tale of two seat-of-the-pants diamond prospectors. Chuck Fipke and Stew Blusson, armed with their geological knowledge of indicator minerals that predict a hot diamond pipe—the column of gem-bearing igneous rock—have been hunting up likely diamond lodes for the past couple decades. Theirs is not the kind of Eureka! story that would make good Hollywood material; rather, it’s a slow gathering of samples to support a more extensive test drilling—but it comes laden with a fair measure of skullduggery and claim-jumping, wild helicopter rides, black doings by De Beers to maintain their near-monopoly, and a push into increasingly remote Arctic landscapes: the treeless land of caribou, grizzly bears, badgers, and blackflies, which at their height “entered mouths and nostrils in such quantities that the men sometimes gagged.” Worked into their story is an adequately detailed history of diamond-mining, spanning India to South Africa to Arkansas, including some of the great hoaxes and stories of treachery and madness that follow fast upon the stone. Mostly it’s the thrill of the chase to establish and stake a claim, perhaps most of all to get that first glimpse of a pipe, with all the promise it holds.
Stew and Chuck are classics: Their fortunes rise and fall, they end their friendship and start it up again, their families fall apart—but they never waver in their infatuation with crystallized carbon. (maps)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7167-4026-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001
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
A magnificent account of a central reality of our times, incorporating deep scientific expertise, broad political and social knowledge, and ethical insight, and Idled with beautifully written biographical sketches of the men and women who created nuclear physics. Rhodes describes in detail the great scientific achievements that led up to the invention of the atomic bomb. Everything of importance is examined, from the discovery of the atomic nucleus and of nuclear fission to the emergence of quantum physics, the invention of the mass-spectroscope and of the cyclotron, the creation of such man-made elements as plutonium and tritium, and implementation of the nuclear chain reaction in uranium. Even more important, Rhodes shows how these achievements were thrust into the arms of the state, which culminated in the unfolding of the nuclear arms race. Often brilliantly, he records the rise of fascism and of anti-Semitism, and the intensification of nationalist ambitions. He traces the outbreak of WW II, which provoked a hysterical rivalry among nations to devise the bomb. This book contains a grim description of Japanese resistance, and of the horrible psychological numbing that caused an unparalleled tolerance for human suffering and destruction. Rhodes depicts the Faustian scale of the Manhattan Project. His account of the dropping of the bomb itself, and of the awful firebombing that prepared its way, is unforgettable. Although Rhodes' gallery of names and events is sometimes dizzying, his scientific discussions often daunting, he has written a book of great drama and sweep. A superb accomplishment.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0684813785
Page Count: 932
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1986
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