The conclusion falls a bit flat, but Livio’s trip through mathematical history is thoroughly enjoyable and requires no...
Why does math describe reality so well? A scientist offers tentative answers.
Livio (The Equation that Couldn’t Be Solved: How Mathematical Genius Discovered the Language of Symmetry, 2005, etc.), an astrophysicist at the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute, frames his investigation with a history of math, beginning with the key question: Are mathematical truths discovered or invented? Pythagoras came down firmly on the side of discovery. His argument convinced Plato, and thus almost every ancient philosopher of note. The default assumption throughout most of history was that numbers, geometric figures and other mathematical truths are real. Galileo was the first to argue that scientific truth was necessarily expressed in mathematical terms. Newton’s highly accurate calculations of the gravitational force drove the point home, implying that math and physical reality were two sides of the same coin. Even probability and statistics, which seem fuzzier than the hard equations of physics, give useful answers in the world of quantum interactions. But then math began to explore realms of thought that had no obvious relation to the world as we experience it: non-Euclidean geometry, or the paradoxes of set theory and symbolic logic. The idea that math was a game invented by mathematicians rather than something inherent in reality became fashionable, perhaps even inescapable. Also, it became clear that certain undeniably useful scientific disciplines—Darwinian evolution, to name one salient example—resisted mathematical treatment. Even so, Livio shows that correspondences between mathematical discoveries and physical phenomena continued to crop up, often in abstract mathematics created without any idea of practical applications, such as Einstein’s use of non-Euclidean geometry. Knot topology, devised to explain a long-discredited model of the atom, turned out to have application to string theory. The author gives no final answer to the central question of math’s relationship to reality. There are physical phenomena that are modeled by math, he asserts, but we also understand reality with a brain wired to find mathematical relations all around it.
The conclusion falls a bit flat, but Livio’s trip through mathematical history is thoroughly enjoyable and requires no special training to follow it.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7432-9405-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2008
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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