A fictional approach to physics that captures both the substance of the theory and the passion of its practitioners.
In Husain’s debut novel, a scientist and a journalist explore the history of physics in a series of fictional vignettes.
The author uses a story-within-a-story structure to place the often complex history of theoretical physics in a human context. Graduate student Sara and journalist Leo connect as they both wait for news of the discovery of the Higgs boson. As they discuss their work, Sara suggests that Leo write a novel, and she agrees to review the text. His resulting fiction, punctuated by emails between himself and Sara, makes up the body of this book. Each chapter depicts a different phase in the development of physics: for example, a young man in Georgian England reflects on how his life has changed since he discovered the works of Isaac Newton; a star-struck enthusiast awaits Albert Einstein’s arrival in New York; and a former academic attends a Nobel Prize lecture and learns to reconcile her love of theoretical science with his less-intellectual day job. Each chapter’s theme and structure are shaped by the physics concept it illustrates, and each narrator shows a passion for the subject. Much of the flowery prose in Leo’s novel is clearly deliberate on Husain’s part (“How must Sir Isaac Newton have felt when he first beheld the adamantine gates of the Empyrean and the exalted abode of the gods lay in shimmering splendor before him?”), though readers may still find some of it excessive (“How potent they are, these scribbled symbols, these dim one-dimensional projections of a multifaceted reality!”). That said, the author demonstrates her own solid understanding of physics as she translates it for nonscientists, and she makes clever use of analogy to illustrate scientific concepts. Readers will easily pick up on the parallels between Leo and Sara’s relationship and the search for an elusive theoretical particle in lines such as, “In case she quantum-tunnels out of my life, disappearing as unexpectedly as she materialized, I want to be able to find her again.”
A fictional approach to physics that captures both the substance of the theory and the passion of its practitioners.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1589880887
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Paul Dry Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A meticulously researched, frightening report on a deadly pathogen.
A gripping account of one of the most devastating infectious agents on the planet.
MRSA, short for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, was once considered the exclusive bane of hospitalized patients, who were already weakened by disease or surgery, and hence prey to any infectious organism able to survive and adapt to the array of disease-fighting drugs used in health-care settings. Methicillin is an antibiotic that was first hailed as the successor to penicillin, designed to dispatch the bugs that had grown resistant to the first antibiotic. And so it did—until the bugs outwitted it. In time, strains of MRSA appeared not only in sick patients, but also in healthy people who had never been near a hospital. Science journalist McKenna (Beating Back the Devil: On the Front Lines with the Disease Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, 2004) writes that the first reports of community-based MRSA were scoffed at by the medical profession. The doctors assumed that the community patients had acquired infection from a bug that had escaped from the hospital. The strains were different, however, and so was their profile of drug resistance. McKenna traces a 50-year history of antibiotic-drug development and drug resistance, coming to the dismal conclusion that it’s a war we are losing. MRSA infections now kill nearly 20,000 Americans each year, and an estimated 4.4 million are colonized with the bug. Compounding the problem are the difficulties in hospital infection control—just getting staff to wash their hands between patients has proven a formidable hurdle. Testing all hospital admissions and isolating carriers has been effective, but the process is costly and comes with its own side effects—patients are left alone and have fewer check-ups by a staff that requires new gloves and gowns each time. Big Pharma has not helped, since companies see greater profit in drugs for chronic diseases. McKenna suggests that vaccines might be the answer, but it seems a distant hope—and too late for the patients whose heartbreaking stories she tells.
A meticulously researched, frightening report on a deadly pathogen.Pub Date: March 23, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5727-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
A collection of wondrous tales that present ancient myths as the proto–science fiction stories they are.
A fascinating unpacking of ancient myths that feature robots and other lifelike beings, some of which bear an eerie resemblance to modern technology.
More than 2,000 years ago, Greek thinkers were already envisioning the spectacular potential of being “made, not born.” As Mayor (The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World, 2014, etc.), a research scholar in classics and the history of science at Stanford, writes, during ancient times, “we…find a remarkable set of concepts and ideas that arose in mythology, stories that envisioned ways of imitating, augmenting, and surpassing natural life by means that might be termed bio-techne, ‘life through craft’…ancient versions of what we now call biotechnology.” The bronze giant Talos, protector of Crete, appears in numerous poems and artworks, some dating to 500 B.C.E.; Jason, of the Argonauts, is depicted as battling a phalanx of robotlike soldiers sprung from the earth and programmed to kill. Of course, these episodes are fiction, but they reveal the sophistication of the ancients’ imagined automata. In her meticulous research, the author discovers that the Greeks were hardly alone in conceiving mechanistic warriors, servants, or evil human replicas. Surviving myths from Rome, India, and China also explore ideas of artificial life and intelligence. In her insightful analyses of these tales, Mayor is approachable and engaging, and she infuses many familiar stories with new energy in the context of technology. She adroitly explores the ethical aspects of artificial life, addressing big questions about sentience and agency through the lens of ancient ideas. She also makes a convincing argument that these imagined machines anticipated advances that are considered cutting-edge today. Ultimately, she leaves readers in awe of these thinkers who dreamed of “androids” long before it was conceivable to build them.
A collection of wondrous tales that present ancient myths as the proto–science fiction stories they are.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-691-18351-0
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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