The concept of curiosity is a tough nut to crack. Livio is not shy about admitting its difficulties, and he makes an...
An astrophysicist asks, “what are the underlying mechanisms of curiosity and exploration?”
Whether it was Leonardo da Vinci filling volumes with speculations, the millions of readers addicted to mystery novels, or the army of scammers teasing us to click on their tempting links, curiosity fills our lives. No one understands it, but it’s not for want of trying, and bestselling author Livio (Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein—Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists that Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe, 2013, etc.) delivers a lively, expert, and definitely not dumbed-down account of why we’re curious and what scientists have discovered. Some psychologists advocate the “information-gap theory.” Encountering something incompatible with our beliefs generates a “gap” in our knowledge, an unpleasant “uncertainty—a perceived disparity between the existing and the desired informational condition…the chief cause of curiosity.” Another school of thought maintains that an incompatible fact produces anxiety, leading to a thirst for knowledge, another word for curiosity and a pleasant sensation. These and other ideas are testable. Psychology experiments indicate that we generally enjoy learning, but only if the process isn’t too easy or too hard. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, neuroscientists have discovered that brain regions specializing in learning, reward, and memory are active when subjects are curious. Although exciting, these findings are not, the author admits, terribly revealing. After delivering the latest theories and research by Page 120, Livio then veers off to describe the evolution of the human brain, cultural, political, and literary attitudes to curiosity, and opinions of living geniuses who are happy to explain their motivations.
The concept of curiosity is a tough nut to crack. Livio is not shy about admitting its difficulties, and he makes an admirable effort to explain complex and still-not-well-understood ideas.Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4767-9209-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The sub-title of this book is "Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools." But one finds in it little about education, and less about the teaching of English. Nor is this volume a defense of the Christian faith similar to other books from the pen of C. S. Lewis. The three lectures comprising the book are rather rambling talks about life and literature and philosophy. Those who have come to expect from Lewis penetrating satire and a subtle sense of humor, used to buttress a real Christian faith, will be disappointed.
Pub Date: April 8, 1947
ISBN: 1609421477
Page Count: -
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1947
Yes: it's high time for a de-romanticized, de-mythified, close-up retelling of the U.S. Space Program's launching—the inside story of those first seven astronauts.
But no: jazzy, jivey, exclamation-pointed, italicized Tom Wolfe "Mr. Overkill" hasn't really got the fight stuff for the job. Admittedly, he covers all the ground. He begins with the competitive, macho world of test pilots from which the astronauts came (thus being grossly overqualified to just sit in a controlled capsule); he follows the choosing of the Seven, the preparations for space flight, the flights themselves, the feelings of the wives; and he presents the breathless press coverage, the sudden celebrity, the glorification. He even throws in some of the technology. But instead of replacing the heroic standard version with the ring of truth, Wolfe merely offers an alternative myth: a surreal, satiric, often cartoony Wolfe-arama that, especially since there isn't a bit of documentation along the way, has one constantly wondering if anything really happened the way Wolfe tells it. His astronauts (referred to as "the brethren" or "The True Brothers") are obsessed with having the "right stuff" that certain blend of guts and smarts that spells pilot success. The Press is a ravenous fool, always referred to as "the eternal Victorian Gent": when Walter Cronkite's voice breaks while reporting a possible astronaut death, "There was the Press the Genteel Gent, coming up with the appropriate emotion. . . live. . . with no prompting whatsoever!" And, most off-puttingly, Wolfe presumes to enter the minds of one and all: he's with near-drowing Gus Grissom ("Cox. . . That face up there!—it's Cox. . . Cox knew how to get people out of here! . . . Cox! . . ."); he's with Betty Grissom angry about not staying at Holiday Inn ("Now. . . they truly owed her"); and, in a crude hatchet-job, he's with John Glenn furious at Al Shepard's being chosen for the first flight, pontificating to the others about their licentious behavior, or holding onto his self-image during his flight ("Oh, yes! I've been here before! And I am immune! I don't get into corners I can't get out of! . . . The Presbyterian Pilot was not about to foul up. His pipeline to dear Lord could not be clearer"). Certainly there's much here that Wolfe is quite right about, much that people will be interested in hearing: the P-R whitewash of Grissom's foul-up, the Life magazine excesses, the inter-astronaut tensions. And, for those who want to give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt throughout, there are emotional reconstructions that are juicily shrill.
But most readers outside the slick urban Wolfe orbit will find credibility fatally undermined by the self-indulgent digressions, the stylistic excesses, and the broadly satiric, anti-All-American stance; and, though The Right Stuff has enough energy, sass, and dirt to attract an audience, it mostly suggests that until Wolfe can put his subject first and his preening writing-persona second, he probably won't be a convincing chronicler of anything much weightier than radical chic.
Pub Date: Sept. 24, 1979
ISBN: 0312427565
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1979
BOOK TO SCREEN
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