An earnest examination that walks the tightrope between the scientific community and casual readers.
A remarkably complex yet fascinating scientific exploration that illuminates a particularly thorny area of physics for laypersons and professionals alike.
What is entropy? It’s a measure of uncertainty, but how is it defined in nature? How does it relate to other things like corporate communications and social networking? These are all questions that some of the most brilliant minds of the 19th and 20th centuries have pondered. Whether or not readers who don’t wear lab coats will comprehend this latest foray into the inner workings of the physical world depends largely on a reader’s determination and ability to wade through hieroglyphic formulas that extend far beyond freshman physics. This isn’t StarTalk Live or even Cosmos, but rather an ambitious textbook that seeks to appeal to learned scientists without leaving the rest of us numskulls behind. Gently paced discussions about “symmetrical” and “asymmetrical” networks having profound implications for achievable concepts in air travel and online communication perhaps come closest to hitting the mark. Generous bios of entropy’s greatest thinkers, meanwhile, add a much-needed human element to the proceedings. Nevertheless, even overviews of such giants in the field as James Clerk Maxwell and Claud Elwood Shannon come dangerously close to becoming dry resumes rather than engaging biographies. Take, for instance, this crisply written revelation: “Today, Shannon’s insight is part of the design of virtually all storage systems that digitally process and transfer information from flash memories on through computer and telephone communication, to space vehicles.” Although a few of these intriguing biographical bits might appeal to a wider audience, readers searching for a deeper exploration of “black body radiation” and the Second Law of Thermodynamics might consider Ludwig Boltzmann’s personal struggles an intrusion.
An earnest examination that walks the tightrope between the scientific community and casual readers.Pub Date: July 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482687699
Page Count: 278
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Loads of good explaining, with reminders, time and again, of how much remains unknown, neatly putting the death of science...
Bryson (I'm a Stranger Here Myself, 1999, etc.), a man who knows how to track down an explanation and make it confess, asks the hard questions of science—e.g., how did things get to be the way they are?—and, when possible, provides answers.
As he once went about making English intelligible, Bryson now attempts the same with the great moments of science, both the ideas themselves and their genesis, to resounding success. Piqued by his own ignorance on these matters, he’s egged on even more so by the people who’ve figured out—or think they’ve figured out—such things as what is in the center of the Earth. So he goes exploring, in the library and in company with scientists at work today, to get a grip on a range of topics from subatomic particles to cosmology. The aim is to deliver reports on these subjects in terms anyone can understand, and for the most part, it works. The most difficult is the nonintuitive material—time as part of space, say, or proteins inventing themselves spontaneously, without direction—and the quantum leaps unusual minds have made: as J.B.S. Haldane once put it, “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose; it is queerer than we can suppose.” Mostly, though, Bryson renders clear the evolution of continental drift, atomic structure, singularity, the extinction of the dinosaur, and a mighty host of other subjects in self-contained chapters that can be taken at a bite, rather than read wholesale. He delivers the human-interest angle on the scientists, and he keeps the reader laughing and willing to forge ahead, even over their heads: the human body, for instance, harboring enough energy “to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point.”
Loads of good explaining, with reminders, time and again, of how much remains unknown, neatly putting the death of science into perspective.Pub Date: May 6, 2003
ISBN: 0-7679-0817-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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