Proposition: Gell-Mann is a polymath. Polymaths can write about everything with authority. Well almost. The Nobel laureate in physics who coined ``quark'' and developed the ``standard model'' of particle physics continues to explore unified theories at the subatomic level of ``simplicity,'' so to speak. But here his concern is to make the leap to ``complex adaptive systems''—which means you, me, the jaguar, entire societies, and computers that can learn, etc. The result is a wide- ranging book, reflecting a mind that has never ceased to be curious and that has been able to indulge that curiosity through travel and contact with experts from diverse fields. Thus, the book opens with a description of his close encounter with a jaguarundi—a wild cat- -in the Guatemalan rain forest surrounding the Mayan ruins at Tikal. The moment was something of an epiphany: Gell-Mann perceived that out of the simple and uniform emerge the complex and individual—the organism or system with a history, able to interact with the environment. The book plays out this theme in chapters that move from quarks and superstring theory to biological evolution, language development, culture, consciousness, creativity, and the present world ecological dilemmas. Along the way, the author offers introductions to theoretical constructs like measures of complexity, randomness, and depth; and he gives discourses on entropy and the arrow of time. All in all, this is a wonderfully heady experience. It is not particle physics made easy; it is an insight into the mind of an idealist and theorist—and polymath—whose company is a pleasure to share.
Pub Date: April 25, 1994
ISBN: 0-7167-2581-9
Page Count: 380
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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