Readers looking for advice on business success or personal growth will find pearls of wisdom, but this is not Mlodinow’s...
With the world changing so rapidly, our thinking must change as well. This ingenious account by bestselling science writer Mlodinow (Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior, 2012, etc.) describes how we think and how we might do it better.
Business writers often argue that humans hate change. What they actually hate, the author insists, are the painful consequences often associated with change—e.g., getting fired. In their absence, we love change and actively seek it. According to one expert in evolutionary anthropology, “we [humans] jump borders. We push into new territory even when we have resources where we are. Other animals don’t do this.” This “neophilia” confronts us with new problems, but humans are superb problem-solvers. Mostly, we solve them through analytical thinking, a top-down, step-by-step approach based on facts or reason. This works fine in most cases, and it is also how higher animals and computers work, but true creativity requires what Mlodinow calls elastic thinking. Nonlinear, operating largely in the unconscious, and more emotion driven, it’s a bottom-up process that considers unusual and even bizarre ideas, resulting in genuine creativity essential in art and business and, increasingly, in our personal lives. Mixing a century of psychology and brain research with descriptions of fascinating cutting-edge technology and anecdotes from his own life, the author delivers the latest findings on how the brain takes in, processes, filters, and—if we apply a few techniques—improves on the perceptions that pour in. As he writes, “the world today is a moving target,” and we must be better prepared as a result.
Readers looking for advice on business success or personal growth will find pearls of wisdom, but this is not Mlodinow’s focus. He sticks firmly to a few ideas already showing their age (that computers will never be truly intelligent), but mostly this is top-quality popular neuroscience.Pub Date: March 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-87092-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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
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