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The planet's thin covering of air is acclaimed in
the new book by popular science journalist Gabrielle Walker.
The title is
An Ocean of Air :
Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere
.
The book is abundant in the use of people-stories.
For example, in reading about the tendency of radio waves to
travel around the world by means of reflection by ionosphere, we
really didn't need to know about the family life and hobbies of
radio inventor Marconi [pages 160-161]. However, I am discovering
recently about myself -- the more I learn about science the more
pleasure I take in the mixture of biographical characterization
and historical intrigue into the presentation of scientific
material.
For me, a fascinating part of the book is
the story of scientific misconceptions. It was in an age of
astrology and alchemy that some of the cornerstone work was done.
Surprising to me was the fact that Torricelli overcame a
misconception by disproving an assumption of Galileo. The author
says: "Galileo believed that our atmosphere as a whole is
incapable of pushing. It was one of the few occasions when the
great man was wrong." [7]
Other misconceptions involved the
fact that air contains a specific element that life uses, the one
that we now call oxygen. Prior to the work of Lavoisier, it
didn't seem obvious to anyone that an animal deprived of air dies
for the same reason that a flame deprived of air is extinguished,
just as it wasn't obvious that the purpose of food to an animal
was the same as the purpose of fuel to a flame. [42-43]
With the permission of publisher Harcourt, Inc., we
have reproduced a
BOOK EXCERPT
from the beginning of chapter 1, pages 3-7.
More ....
LINK TO OUR COMPLETE BOOK REVIEW
Two physics professors from the University of
California at Santa Cruz have teamed up to investigate the aspects
of quantum mechanics that Einstein once called "spooky".
Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner seem particularly fascinated with
the physics profession's "skeleton in the closet" -- the
proposition that it's the observation of an event that makes it
real, and that seeing an object over there is the very act that
has put it there. As to practicality, "one-third of our
economy" [chapter 8] relies on the truth of QM, with products
ranging from your CD player's laser to your hospital's MRI
machine, but let me not imply that it isn't also a practical issue
to consider whether human beings can really act out of free will.
Quantum Enigma : Physics Encounters Consciousness
presents such abstruse subjects as the Copenhagen interpretation,
Schrödinger's Cat and entanglement in plain English, so the
reader won't be tormented with any mathematical equations.
Relatively new concepts, such as the anthropic principle, the Many
Worlds hypothesis, and the prospect of making quantum computers,
are covered as well. (Hardcover, 224 pages,
June 2006 from Oxford University Press)
BOOK EXCERPT
BOOK REVIEW
May I Quote You on That?
________________
"This political movement has patently demonstrated that it will
not defend the integrity of science in any case in which science
runs afoul of its core political constituencies. In so doing, it
has ceded any right to govern a technologically advanced and
sophisticated nation.""
-- Chris Mooney, in
The Republican War on Science
________________
"Religious behavior may be a misfiring, an unfortunate byproduct
of an underlying psychological propensity which in other
circumstances is, or once was, useful."
-- -- Richard Dawkins, in
The God Delusion
Hopefully, since we are in the age of genetic engineering,
Better For All the World
will have a wide readership. When author Harry Bruinius looks at
the history of eugenics, he does more than cover the fascist idea
of "racial purity", and the cruel practice of forced
sterilization in the U.S. and several other countries. He also
looks at the sincere idealism of the early 20th century that the
world's problems can be solved by designing a better kind of human
being. The idea was bound to grow out of the discovery of
evolution by natural selection; in fact it was Leonard Darwin, son
of Charles, who organized a "scientific"
conference in 1912 to call for social problems to be solved by
means of mandatory sterilization of the "inferior" among
us. Four years later, in 1916, I.Q. tests were introduced in the
U.S. with the original purpose of identifying the
"morons" -- so that we might do something (but what?)
with the knowledge about which among us have "defective"
genes. The book made me ponder how easy it is to slip from a
vision of utopia (a very good society) into an actual dystopia (a
very bad society). I am fearful that, in the new age of
biotechnology, the road to hell may be paved not only with good
intentions but also with laboratory apparatus. (416 Pages, hardcover, published by Knopf in Feb.
2006.)
A cultural characteristic continues, if it does
continue, not because it's useful, but because whatever it
does sets people up in such a way that we tend to continue it. A
traditional behavior is like a virus in that, having no plan of
its own, it finds in human beings a place where it can keep
reproducing.
Breaking the Spell : Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
is the latest book by philosopher and Tufts University biology
professor Daniel C. Dennett. The scientific method is applicable
to anything that displays observed patterns, and therefore
religion as a human process, apart from any concerns about whether
its teachings are true or false, can be analyzed in terms of
what's going on (the topic of Part I). Whether religion is in
nice symbiotic connection with humans, or whether it's a parasite
that eats us inside, either way, it is a replicating entity that
has found a lush breeding spot in us. We keep feeding it because
it seems to relieve us of certain fears and indecisiveness, and
it's a somewhat good placebo for pain. We are seeing a type of
survival of the fittest, in the sense that certain folk beliefs
and rituals have great fitness in the area of getting us to keep
on doing them. While we're making a habit (or even an
institution) of such a traditional practice, it doesn't outright
kill us, it's host, and therefore it thrives. Note that this
hypothesis differs from that presented in
The God Gene
by geneticist Dean Hamer, who postulates a genetic basis
for performing rituals and the sensation of mystical revelation.
(464 pages, Feb. 2006, in hardcover from
Penguin-Viking Books.)
Notes about science books, continued below
(scroll down)....
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Science Book Reviews
- Gabrielle Walker, An Ocean of Air : Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere
NEW
- Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, Quantum Enigma : Physics Encounters Consciousness
- Jeff Hawkins, On Intelligence
- Timothy Gay, Ph.D., Football Physics -- The Science of the Game
- Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth : Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe
- Jack Kelly, Gunpowder -- Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics : The History of the Explosive That Changed the World
- Helen Fisher, Why We Love : The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love
- Philip Ball, Bright Earth : Art and the Invention of Color
- Steven Strogatz, Sync : The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order
- Francis Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future : Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution
- Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, The Life and Death of Planet Earth : How the New Science of Astrobiology Charts the Ultimate Fate of Our World
- Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter
- Scott Weidensaul, The Ghost with Trembling Wings : Science, Wishful Thinking, and the Search for Lost Species
- Atul Gawande, Complications : A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
- Michael Novacek, Time Traveler : In Search of Dinosaurs and Ancient Mammals from Montana to Mongolia
- Juan Enriquez, As The Future Catches You
- Bob Reiss, The Coming Storm (about global warming)
- Colin Tudge, The Impact of the Gene : From Mendel's Peas to Designer Babies
- four books about birds in the Golden Field Guides series
- Glenn T. Seaborg, Adventures in the Atomic Age
- Daniel L. Schacter, The Seven Sins of Memory
- Charles B. Strozier, Heinz Kohut : The Making of a Psychoanalyst
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