A pleasure for students of technological history—and for readers with a fondness for bizarre personality types.
Q: Why did Ben Franklin fly a kite? A: Because he was ticked off at the scientific establishment.
So writes seasoned offbeat-tales-from-history writer Davis (The Billionaire Shell Game, 1998, etc.) in this anecdotally rich, eminently entertaining tale of how fluorescent bulbs, boom boxes, and other fruits of electricity came into being. Davis brings a light touch to the story without dumbing it down. He notes, for instance, that Franklin was indeed more than a little annoyed that the learned societies of London had failed for years to respond to his voluminous theories on electricity (lightning and electricity, he observed, were likely one and the same thing, for the observable qualities of each were alike in such matters as “rending bodies it passes through” and “destroying animals”), so much so that he determined to do something truly memorable to demonstrate that he knew whereof he spoke. Franklin was one of many experimenters and natural philosophers at work divining the mysteries of electricity during the appropriately named Enlightenment, and Davis pays homage to them and their successors, from Humphry Davy, “the prototype of the new nineteenth century’s emblematic figure, the lone inventor,” to Thomas Alva Edison, who, in Davis’s account, emerges as something just this side of loony. “In addition to the Old Man,” he writes, Edison’s underlings “also called him the Beast,” and for good reason: he was addicted to chewing tobacco and pie, reckoning that Americans were superior to the English and the rest of the world for their devotion to the latter; he was suspicious of Jews and fond of “coon jokes”; he lost huge fortunes creating weird contraptions; and he believed that automobiles and home radios were passing fancies. Still, Davis notes, Edison was a master of vertical integration, and his development of not just parts of the grid but the entire system made the “Electric Revolution” a part of everyday life.
A pleasure for students of technological history—and for readers with a fondness for bizarre personality types.Pub Date: June 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-55970-655-4
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
A media-savvy scientist cleans out his desk.
Tyson (Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, 2017, etc.) receives a great deal of mail, and this slim volume collects his responses and other scraps of writing.
The prolific science commentator and bestselling author, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, delivers few surprises and much admirable commentary. Readers may suspect that most of these letters date from the author’s earlier years when, a newly minted celebrity, he still thrilled that many of his audience were pouring out their hearts. Consequently, unlike more hardened colleagues, he sought to address their concerns. As years passed, suspecting that many had no interest in tapping his expertise or entering into an intelligent give and take, he undoubtedly made greater use of the waste basket. Tyson eschews pure fan letters, but many of these selections are full of compliments as a prelude to asking advice, pointing out mistakes, proclaiming opposing beliefs, or denouncing him. Readers will also encounter some earnest op-ed pieces and his eyewitness account of 9/11. “I consider myself emotionally strong,” he writes. “What I bore witness to, however, was especially upsetting, with indelible images of horror that will not soon leave my mind.” To crackpots, he gently repeats facts that almost everyone except crackpots accept. Those who have seen ghosts, dead relatives, and Bigfoot learn that eyewitness accounts are often unreliable. Tyson points out that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so confirmation that a light in the sky represents an alien spacecraft requires more than a photograph. Again and again he defends “science,” and his criteria—observation, repeatable experiments, honest discourse, peer review—are not controversial but will remain easy for zealots to dismiss. Among the instances of “hate mail” and “science deniers,” the author also discusses philosophy, parenting, and schooling.
A media-savvy scientist cleans out his desk.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-324-00331-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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
BOOK REVIEW
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