by Michael Gunter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 7, 2014
Provocative and hard to put down, but only for the science savvy.
A new theory of how energy sculpts order throughout the universe.
Science usually advances in tiny increments within cloistered disciplines through peer-reviewed publications. This debut, though, is audacious in scope and approach. Gunter, a trained ecologist but not an academic, introduces a simple yet profound and largely homespun system that, if proved, would require a paradigm shift across all disciplines. He proposes seven new thermodynamic laws to reconcile the apparent contradiction between the existing second law—entropy, or the dissipation of energy—and increasing order in the cosmos, which he attributes to the operation of natural selection upon all structures, not merely the biological. Levolution, Gunter says, is the energy-driven process of “changing a group or population of existing entities such that they organize into a single new whole, a new entity, a new monad, or new kind of unit”—i.e., particles, atoms, molecules, cells, organisms, populations, solar systems, and galaxies—all in the service of maximizing and speeding the flow of energy to lower potentials: i.e., entropy. Gunter spent 30 years developing his theories and writing this book. He credits and builds upon the work of others, but his synthesis is new, and he has coined several terms as he organized these new laws. He challenges others to prove or disprove his ideas. The text, however, is devoid of mathematical support; the only formula in the book is Einstein’s familiar E=mc2. Gunter has an engaging style and often lightens his subject’s heft: “While the idea of energy’s descent to ‘entropic doom’ or the ‘heat death’ of the universe has been around to depress people for decades, few people really understand how deeply nature is involved in this Entropy project.” Of his proposal for 10 thermodynamic laws, he says, “[T]hey will now fit perfectly on two clay tablets.” Gunter writes clearly and intends the work as “popular science,” though he occasionally uses arcane allusions that will baffle many, such as “Jane’s radius” from gravitational physics and “slits and waves” experiments from particle physics. There is copious intentional repetition, as if drilling the reader in a new language, which in some ways it is. By the end, those who have stuck around will be able to complete many of his sentences.
Provocative and hard to put down, but only for the science savvy.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1480810075
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Lulu Miller illustrated by Kate Samworth ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2020
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
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by Carlo Rovelli ; translated by Simon Carnell & Erica Segre ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
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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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