Book Description

Book Description

"I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla," writes Robert Sapolsky in this witty and riveting chronicle of a scientist's coming-of-age in remote Africa.

An exhilarating account of Sapolsky's twenty-one-year study of a troop of rambunctious baboons in Kenya, A Primate's Memoir interweaves serious scientific observations with wry commentary about the challenges and pleasures of living in the wilds of the Serengeti -- for man and beast alike. Over two decades, Sapolsky survives culinary atrocities, gunpoint encounters, and a surreal kidnapping, while witnessing the encroachment of the tourist mentality on the farthest vestiges of unspoiled Africa. As he conducts unprecedented physiological research on wild primates, he becomes evermore enamored of his subjects -- unique and compelling characters in their own right -- and he returns to them summer after summer, until tragedy finally prevents him.

By turns hilarious and poignant, A Primate's Memoir is a magnum opus from one of our foremost science writers. ... Read more

Reviews (38)

Gets my vote for best nonfiction of the year
When a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" decides to write about his work for the general public, it's a good idea to pay attention, especially when the author already has a reputation for being as entertaining a storyteller as neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky. This book could not be improved upon. Part travel adventure, part coming of age story of a young scientist, and part life among the baboons, A Primate's Memoir tells what happens as the author travels to Kenya at age 21 to study how the social rank of baboons winds up affecting their physiological stress levels. Sapolsky readily describes himself in primate terms "young transfer male" as he recounts his hilarious, poignant and truly harrowing encounters with the world around him, sharing his candid reactions to some pretty novel events. In the course of this book he does achieve "full adult status" and circumstances grow more serious. You just have to read it yourself as examples could not convey the genuine humanity and originality of his overall experience. How does social status affect one's stress levels? He gives a bit of the answer in this book, but if you want to know more about the science of stress, still told very much in layperson's terms, read The Trouble with Testosterone, (thought provoking and hilarious) or the more fact-filled (if potentially anxiety-arousing), Why Zebra's Don't Get Ulcers. These books could affect how you perceive the world

A Wonderful Read
Dr. Sapolsky mixes deep personal feelings, intimate recountings of his experiences, and hard science to tell the story of his lifelong work studying the baboons of Kenya. The result is illuminating and entertaining at the same time. As reader, you feel like you are getting the "straight skinny," albeit in a form that is always interesting, and often hilariously funny.

There is an apocryphal story going around that Thomas Mann's typist for Joseph and His Brothers said as he finished "So that's what really happened!" (Spolsky, by the way, is not a great fan of Mann -- more smartass hilarity here.) I sort of felt the same way upon finishing this: so that's what really happens with people (Diane Fossey, Laurence of the Hyenas) who go off to Africa to do science. Sapolsky does them all justice. Life is tough, complicated, and rife with compromises, and Sapolsky captures all of this his inimitable style.

This is a great book. Read it!

Laughs all the way plus insights to social behavior
I recently listened to this book on tape.
I receive it from the Handicpped Library in Pittsbuurgh, but use them while I am framing up my art work.
Robert has such insight to both the animals he loved as well as the social similar behavior of the Humans he interracted with while in Africa (and America!)
To listen to his description of the elephants with breasts like VOLKSWAGONS, add in the adventrues of Samwelli's house as the elephants ate it, then to finish off, as all of us who come to

live with & love animals.
We find their social behavior similar to our own no matter what motives we initially seek.
That Robert carries a photo of his favorite Baboon to this day, tells a lot about the love he established with the troop he followed.
I carry a portrait of my favotite, Labrador, Tristan, to this day and also know that regardless of the human-animal boundry, when you start to listen to them, you cannot forget the experience.
It made me laugh & cry , but more importantly as in all great Autobiograhpihes, gave me more insight to the Author as a person.
I LOVED it.

As Entertaining as Great Fiction
This has got to be one of the best books I've ever read, fiction or non-fiction. It is non-fiction, but Sapolsky's writing is so engrossing that the book is as entertaining to read as a great novel. It made me laugh and it made me cry, especially the ending.

I've travelled extensively and worked on relief and research projects in west Africa. I read a lot of books about that area (e.g., Peter Matthiesson's "Tree Where Man was Born"). "A Primate's Memoir" is (so far) my favorite. I've given it to dozens of friends.

Tears of laughter and heartbreak
You know a book is really good when you shed tears from both laughter and heartbreak. The author, a Stanford professor of biology and neurology and research associate at the Institute of Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya, does just that without making you feel that you've been manipulated or set up.

A PRIMATE'S MEMOIR is part travelogue, part Jane Goodall-Diane Fossey communion with forest primates, and part field research in neurological behavior-related stress. Underlying all of these is the theme of a young, liberal Jewish boy form the Bronx coming-of-age in post-colonial East Africa. The book is as much about the peoples of Africa and contemporary cultural shifts as it is about his troop of baboons on the edge of the Serengeti.

Sapolsky is a natural story teller, the humorous ones told most often at his own expense. And even his behavioral observations and research findings are discussed as if the two of you are shooting the breeze over a pint of Guinness.

Where most field biologists avoid anything remotely anthropomorphic, Saplosky is so comfortable with himself as a scientist that he uses the best words he can muster to communicate to the reader whether they'd be approved by some learned academic committee or not. His language, befitting the bar where you and the author are downing pint after pint, is more Hemingway than scholarly.

Don't confuse Sapolsky's informality and naming-rather-than-numbering-his-study-subjects attitude as a sign that he is something less than a fully dedicated scientist. He makes this distinction perfectly clear in a chapter about Dianne Fossey, who in addition to being a substandard scientist in the author's opinion, was a threat to her own beloved apes. The low rating from the hand-full of animal lovers who submitted reviews is the only the reason that the overall rating for this book is 4.5 stars instead of a perfect 5.0! ... Read more

Book Description

Long before Oliver Sacks became a distinguished neurologist and bestselling writer, he was a small English boy fascinated by metals–also by chemical reactions (the louder and smellier the better), photography, squids and cuttlefish, H.G. Wells, and the periodic table. In this endlessly charming and eloquent memoir, the author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings chronicles his love affair with science and the magnificently odd and sometimes harrowing childhood in which that love affair unfolded.

In Uncle Tungsten we meet Sacks’ extraordinary family, from his surgeon mother (who introduces the fourteen-year-old Oliver to the art of human dissection) and his father, a family doctor who imbues in his son an early enthusiasm for housecalls, to his “Uncle Tungsten,” whose factory produces tungsten-filament lightbulbs. We follow the young Oliver as he is exiled at the age of six to a grim, sadistic boarding school to escape the London Blitz, and later watch as he sets about passionately reliving the exploits of his chemical heroes–in his own home laboratory.Uncle Tungsten is a crystalline view of a brilliant young mind springing to life, a story of growing up which is by turns elegiac, comic, and wistful, full of the electrifying joy of discovery. ... Read more

Reviews (42)

Wonderful science memoir!
Imagine yourself as a gifted youth born to an educated and supportive Jewish family living in WW II England where you are introduced to the fascination of discovery very early in life, exposed to the fearful suppression of twisted adults and the terror of war, and attempting to develop a personal worldview from family philosophies that ranged from confirmed Zionism through orthodox philosophies to more moderate conservative views. If you will stretch your imagination this far, then you will have a sense of one facet of neurologist Sacks's autobiographical Uncle Tungsten. Named after his Uncle Dave who manufactured tungsten light filaments and introduced the author to the fascinating world of metals, the book goes further than the usual autobiography. Containing many very informative footnotes, it smoothly digresses into beautifully written histories of chemistry and physics with marvelous examples taken from Sacks's sometimes-dangerous personal explorations as a child and young man. Written by one of the best writers of nonfiction alive today, the book gives a view of the science of chemistry that is denied most young people today in the interests of safety, if nothing else. Highly recommended; should be required reading for every aspiring young scientist. All levels.

Rediscover the curious child in you!
Oliver Sacks, best known for writing about the fantastic consequences of neurological abnormalities (Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), takes us on a journey through his childhood in Uncle Tungsten. Deftly mixing the most intriguing aspects of the history of chemistry with his own experiences as a boy and adding the spark of a unique writing ability, he's utilized the principles of chemical lab work to produce something new and different--a book that revels in the most fundamental aspects of exploring the physical sciences.

Sacks was fortunate to be born into a family heavily composed of scientists: physicians, chemists, physicists, and metallurgists, like his "Uncle Tungsten." Both of his parents were physicians and indulged his curiousities by allowing him to set up his own lab in their house, where he familiarized himself with the history of chemistry by recreating many famous experiments and also trying many more of his own devising. Descriptions of his family life and his exploration into science are filled with wonder and with love for the world we live in.

Uncle Tungsten is a book to relish--written in everyday language, not in stuffy scientific terms--a book filled with the joy of youth, the fascination of discovery, and the wonderment of life. I would recommend it to anyone interested in science and nature, to anyone trying to understand those around them who love science so much, and to anyone in junior high or high school who wonders why they have to study chemistry!

Don't read, please.
This book is so bad. It is not interesting at all. If you don't have a chemical background, you will not understand it. Mr. Vincelette must die!
the end

A passion for discovery
Oliver Sacks was gifted by his parents with the greatest boon any child could receive. From the start, he writes, he was "encouraged to interrogate, to investigate". With this mandate, he spent his childhood interrogating the history of science and scientists. He investigated the nature of chemicals, learned magnetism and electricity, and, in preparation for his anticipated medical career, probed into the mysteries of the body. This exquisite and frank account traces Sacks' boyhood in London - with side pauses to the schools attended - exposing his fears and ambitions with equal fervour.

Sacks' quest for knowledge mainly focussed on chemical elements and compounds, with metals dominating his attention. "Uncle Tungsten" [his uncle Dave] owned a lamp factory and provided both advice and materials. Sacks drew heavily on his expertise, but Dave often left him to experiment on his own. With a highly inquisitive mind and a drive to learn, Oliver often duplicated the research performed by notable figures of science to achieve the same ends. This technique provided great insight into the scientific method, allowing him to manufacture chemicals that might have been purchased at a nearby shop.

He learns the scientists' techniques through the blizzard of printed paper he plowed through during those years. Biographies, autobiographies, published journals and notebooks, all were his reading fare throughout his boyhood. He reminds us of the hazards of research from the burned hands and faces from potassium to the still-radioactive notebooks of Marie Curie, today stored in lead boxes. Setting up a laboratory in a back room of the family home, he followed their reasoning, their sense of discovery, and their techniques as he made bangs, smells, brilliant lights and beautiful crystals. His biological endeavours were often less successful. He and his chums once drove the inhabitants of a house away for months until the noxious odour of rotting cuttlefish could be exorcised.

Although Sacks introduces a wealth of scientific information from a broad sweep of sources, there is not a dull page in this book. He describes the techniques to isolate elements in vivid detail, and you find yourself sharing the researcher's frustration to achieve the goal along with the exhilaration when success is achieved. You follow Sacks willingly as he plods through the museums and into shops buying chemicals. Mostly, you watch him as he begs Uncle Dave for materials or sits spellbound as "Uncle Tungsten" describes the properties of metals. Sacks' joys at "re-learning" what others have done is infectious - he leaves you longing to repeat the experiments for yourself - only to learn, of course, that today's caution has sequestered the materials away to prevent you blundering into harm. That's a sad testimony, but Sacks' journey through time and place remains for us to gain some sense of what it must be like to undertake scientific adventures. Every schoolchild should be in possession of this book as parents encourage them to "investigate and interrogate". [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Self-Indulgent, Boring
I was quite a fan of "The Man Who..." when I read this book. At least those stories were about people and things other than himself.

But, the "Tungsten" chapters are curiously dull and self-congratulatory without knowing it. As a kid, he's so blessedly, bloody interested in chemistry (don't get me wrong: I am too) but then travails us with his terribly elementary and utterly banal chemical trivia. (And get this: The uncle's nickname actually reflects his occupation! Fascinating!) Devoid of charm.

Perhaps he should have made his family even more the central focus of the book. Then at least you wouldn't expect to read about science.

If you could turn this book into a movie, it might appeal to science-loving sixth graders, but it does not entertain, and is not very scientifically enlightening. ... Read more

Book Description

A veritable cult figure to many, Sir Fred Hoyle was one of the most important, famous, and controversial figures of 20th-century astronomy. He coined the term "Big Bang" and earned himself scientific celebrity by enthusiastically endorsing theories that ran counter to conventional wisdom.

Fred Hoyle's prolific career spanned more than 60 years. During that time, he made major contributions in fundamental areas of astronomy. His most important work focused on the evolution of stars, the origin of the chemical elements, the nature of gravitational forces, and the origin of life on Earth. But he is perhaps best remembered for his rare talent as a science communicator. He hosted one of the first radio programs that focused on science and then moved his show to the new medium of television, making him a household name long before such science luminaries as Patrick Moore or Carl Sagan rose to prominence.

A man of ceaseless intellectual activity, Hoyle pushed the boundaries of our knowledge by being both right and wrong. When he was right, his contributions were of Nobel Laureate quality. Indeed, even when he was wrong, he stimulated his exasperated opponents to work that much more furiously to produce damning evidence against him, thus yielding additional discoveries and leading to more knowledge on a topic.

Simon Mitton's sensitive biography tells the story of Hoyle's life as well as his science. Structuring each chapter around an intellectual puzzle, the science is framed within the context of the knowledge available to Hoyle at the time. Drawing on his personal knowledge of Fred Hoyle, Mitton vividly recreates the many public clashes between Hoyle and his critics, and at the same time he clearly explains the science underlying the conflict. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The best way to write about science
This is the best way to write about science! Although Simon Mitton is a distinguished astronomer, this is science written for anyone intelligent, regardless of background - those of us in the humanities as well as sciences can read this fascinating book with equal enjoyment.

Fred Hoyle was probably wrong on how the universe began, holding to steady state rather than the Big Bang, in which most scientists now believe. But his reasons were perfectly cogent, as Mitton points out. He was also the first true communicator of science to a wide audience, including his brilliant science fiction plays for children that I can still recall over 40 years later. If astronomy is now a cutting edge subject, with considerable lay interest (especially after Mittonand Hoyle's Cambridge colleague Stephe Hawking) it is all because Hoyle was there first.

In short, Mitton has written an outstanding book for all of us. I should also add that the mistakes pointed out in the Publisher's Weekly review have been corrected by the final version - they must have seen proof copies.

Buy this book! Science has become fun for all of us, and Hoyle's pioneering research and communication skills set that ball in motion. Simon Mitton is a worthy follower of his old master, and this book is proof of that.

Christopher Catherwood (author of CHURCHILL'S FOLLY: HOW WINSTON CHURCHILL CREATED MODERN IRAQ: Carroll and Graf, 2004) ... Read more

Book Description

Giuliano Pancaldi sets us within the cosmopolitan cultures of Enlightenment Europe to tell the story of Alessandro Volta--the brilliant man whose name is forever attached to electromotive force. Providing fascinating details, many previously unknown, Pancaldi depicts Volta as an inventor who used his international network of acquaintances to further his quest to harness the power of electricity. This is the story of a man who sought recognition as a natural philosopher and ended up with an invention that would make an everyday marvel of electric lighting.

Examining the social and scientific contexts in which Volta operated--as well as Europe's reception of his most famous invention--Volta also offers a sustained inquiry into long-term features of science and technology as they developed in the early age of electricity. Pancaldi considers the voltaic cell, or battery, as a case study of Enlightenment notions and their consequences, consequences that would include the emergence of the "scientist" at the expense of the "natural philosopher."

Throughout, Pancaldi highlights the complex intellectual, technological, and social ferment that ultimately led to our industrial societies. In so doing, he suggests that today's supporters and critics of Enlightenment values underestimate the diversity and contingency inherent in science and technology--and may be at odds needlessly.

Both an absorbing biography and a study of scientific and technological creativity, this book offers new insights into the legacies of the Enlightenment while telling the remarkable story of the now-ubiquitous battery.

Book Description

The compelling story of a young woman's emergence into the world after spending her first 13 years strapped to a chair, and her rescue and exploitation by scientists hoping to gain new insight into language acquisition. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Very tragic
This is a must read for anyone interested in linguistics or child development; however, it is sufficiently interesting and readable for the general population. The tragedy the title refers to is that Genie was a child exploited by the scientific world as she was treated as a case study of language acquisition rather than an abused child desperately in need of supportive therapy. Genie never got the help she needed, and ended up with "soul sickness" in a home for mentally retarded adults. This is a very moving story that will make you think about morality in research and science.

The "Afterword" knocked my socks off
Gee, I wish I could write a book this good, and I wish all books written were this good. The "afterword" is not to be missed -- Mr. Rymer describes his process of writing the book, and how he, the scientists he interviewed, and most everyone who tried to "understand" Genie, all ended up understanding themselves in some humbling or transformative way. So did I.

Brilliant
I don't have a lot to say that the other reviews haven't addressed, so I'll keep it short.

This is a book about such lofty subjects as neurolinguistics and scientific ethics, yet it remains wonderfully readable to the average (but curious) person. It's a fascinating story (see the other reviews), but Rymer's real achievement here is rendering what could have been dry scientific data interspersed with horrific tales of abuse into a book that at no time exploits its subject for cheap sentimentality. We care about "Genie" because her shot at normal life was twice aborted, not because Rymer simply wants us to.

Recommended to any curious mind.

A Modern Tragedy
I have worked as an American Sign Language interpreter, and I am also a qualified behavior specialist. I currently work with autistic teenagers in developing community living skills. I have also worked with adults who have grown up in institutions, and have an array of "institutionalized" behaviors. Thus they have become severely impaired in their daily function, when they might have been habilitated to live independently. No matter how many times I see these situations, each one breaks my heart.

So I have more than a passing interest in the subject of this book.

That parents could strap a child to a chair and provide her no social interaction for thirteen years, with no one knowing boggles the mind. The whole family is a tragedy.

Russ Rymer documents Genie's habilitation after she is discovered, and freed from this captivity. She is more than a tragedy to some people, because she is also a scientific curiosity; she presents an opportunity to study a person who, deprived of social contact past the "critical point" in language development, never develops language skills beyond the semantic level.

Everyone wants a piece of her. Linguists want her, social psychologists want her, developmental psychologists want her; each with a different agenda. As for Genie, it is difficult to fathom what she wants. In the immediate present, she has remarkable non-linguistic communicative skills which she seems to possess intuitively. But what are her hopes, her desires for a permanent living arrangement, an education, she can't communicate, or even correctly understand.

It's no good to assume that she would want what a normal child wants. She doesn't respond to affection, doesn't appear to discriminate between people and objects at first.

The story is heart-breaking and fascinating. Rymer's narrative voice is kind and full of compassion for Genie, and although the book is written in a typical third person academic style, sometimes I felt that the narrator was the only one on Genie's side.

When Rymer senses that readers may need background information, he departs from the story for an aside on linguistic theory, or the story of the Wild Boy of Aveyron. He dips into Montaigne, Locke, Descartes and Chomsky, but it is all relevant as Rymer reports it. We get the dirt on the nasty in-fighting among custodians and scientists as well.

I hesitate to say you will enjoy this book, because the subject is so wrenching; you may cry a few times. But it is a page turner. And you don't need to know anything about linguistics or developmental psychology to appreciate it.

GENIE: A VERY PERSONAL RECOLLECTION
Mr. Rymer's excellent book brought back an old and very painful memory for me. I am all-too familiar with Genie's tragic story. In 1970, I lived in California where it all took place. I was seventeen at the time, passing through my "hippie" phase much to the chagrin of my long-suffering parents.... We all happened to be watching TV one evening in early November of that year when a somber looking Walter Cronkite reported the tragic particulars of the a terribly abused thirteen year old. We were all shocked and completely emotionally overwhelmed by it.I've NEVER forgotten it. Many years later, I had moved back to my native East coast, finished college and became a free-lance writer. Then in 1994, PBS debuted its emmy award-winning documentary about this subject. It really took me by surprise. At that point, I hadn't thought of Genie for many years, but this heartwrenching expose brought it all back. All I could do is weep....and I'm NOT ashamed to admit that. I resolved, then and there to write something, ANYTHING to HONOR this poor girl (now in her forties, like myself). I am now six years into writing an elegiac work about her life. But its NOT easy . People directly involved with Genie'story have not really wanted to talk about it even though they are heroes to me. On this point, I take strong issue with Mr. Rymer when he seems to imply that these people exploited Genie. They really did the best they could to save her....although it was all in vain. Although I've never met Genie, she nevertheless is very very close to my heart. I will always remember her, and I hope, that her present life, such as it is, has at least some happiness and peace. No one deserves this more....... ... Read more

Book Description

In 1858 Charles Darwin was forty-nine years old, a gentleman scientist living quietly at Down House in the Kent countryside, respected by fellow biologists and well liked among his wide and distinguished circle of acquaintances. He was not yet a focus of debate; his “big book on species” still lay on his study desk in the form of a huge pile of manuscript. For more than twenty years he had been accumulating material for it, puzzling over questions it raised, trying—it seemed endlessly—to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. Publication appeared to be as far away as ever, delayed by his inherent cautiousness and wish to be certain that his startling theory of evolution was correct.

It is at this point that the concluding volume of Janet Browne’s biography opens. The much-praised first volume, Voyaging, carried Darwin’s story through his youth and scientific apprenticeship, the adventurous Beagle voyage, his marriage and the birth of his children, the genesis and development of his ideas. Now, beginning with the extraordinary events that finally forced the Origin of Species into print, we come to the years of fame and controversy.

For Charles Darwin, the intellectual upheaval touched off by his book had deep personal as well as public consequences. Always an intensely private man, he suddenly found himself and his ideas being discussed—and often attacked—in circles far beyond those of his familiar scientific community. Demonized by some, defended by others (including such brilliant supporters as Thomas Henry Huxley and Joseph Hooker), he soon emerged as one of the leading thinkers of the Victorian era, a man whose theories played a major role in shaping the modern world. Yet, in spite of the enormous new pressures, he clung firmly, sometimes painfully, to the quiet things that had always meant the most to him—his family, his research, his network of correspondents, his peaceful life at Down House.

In her account of this second half of Darwin’s life, Janet Browne does dramatic justice to all aspects of the Darwinian revolution, from a fascinating examination of the Victorian publishing scene to a survey of the often furious debates between scientists and churchmen over evolutionary theory. At the same time, she presents a wonderfully sympathetic and authoritative picture of Darwin himself right through the heart of the Darwinian revolution, busily sending and receiving letters, pursuing research on subjects that fascinated him (climbing plants, earthworms, pigeons—and, of course, the nature of evolution), writing books, and contending with his mysterious, intractable ill health. Thanks to Browne’s unparalleled command of the scientific and scholarly sources, we ultimately see Darwin more clearly than we ever have before, a man confirmed in greatness but endearingly human.

Reviewing Voyaging, Geoffrey Moorhouse observed that “if Browne’s second volume is as comprehensively lucid as her first, there will be no need for anyone to write another word on Darwin.” The Power of Place triumphantly justifies that praise. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

The Best Biography of Darwin, part 2.
As several reviewers (including at least one critic of Darwin) have said, this volume is part of the best biography of Darwin yet published. It is hard to criticize this work as Janet Browne has included more detail and hit the nail on the head more times than in any other treatment of Darwin and his ideas. I have read five biographies, several specialized biographies and Darwin's autobiography and can easily say that this by far the best! Browne is simply superb in capturing the spirit of Victorian England and weaving it into a cogent story of the background and inspiration for "The Origin of Species," as well as Darwin's latter work. This volume covers the period from the receipt of Wallace's manuscript on natural selection through Darwin's death. It finally puts paid to the popular notion that Darwin stole his ideas from Wallace, without slighting the originality of the younger man. Darwin was a great thinker, not because he was unusually brilliant, but because he concentrated his thinking on a problem until he came up with a plausible explanation backed up by numerous bits of circumstantial evidence. While many changes have occurred in evolutionary thought because of the genetic and molecular revolutions, Darwin produced the most complete arguments for the common descent of organisms available to science at the time. He thus laid the foundation of our understanding of modern biology. This is true despite opinions to the contrary and, indeed, without evolutionary theory we would have to say goodbye to rigor in not only biology, but geology and astronomy as well!

It is my hope that anybody interested in the historical background of evolutionary theory will read both of Browne's books. They are well worth it!

The Origins of 'My' Theory
As a Darwin critic, I had passed this book by nose in the air, a full scale boycott, but a new biography of Darwin proved too hard to resist and I broke down and read the book, fortunately, since it turned out to be hard to put down, in a time-out on the Darwin debate. This is the second volume, but is fine taken alone, and opens with the arrival of the famous Ternate letter of Wallace. I was eagle-eyed at once, since this is the 'gulch' of Darwin biographica where the mystery of the origin of 'Origin' is beset with myth, coverup and suspicion. This treatment finesses the question slightly, but is a good depiction of how Darwinians actually see this strange moment of the priority dispute. From there it is plain sailing in a history best told by a Darwin fan, no doubt, and I found the accumulation of tidbits excellent, and a compelling read. One also has the Moore & Desmond account, with its clearer focus on the ideological dimension, but, in fact, this account cogently shows the world of nineteenth century cultural establishments in action at close hand, and the place of Darwin in that context--there is no mystery to the successful promotion of his views, given this picture. This is just about the 'baseline' Darwin biography and superb on its own turf.
Back to the Darwin debate.

THE BEST BY FAR
Of the dozens of books I have read of the life and works Of Charles Darwin, this, by far, is the best and most comprehensive.
The book covers the later portion of Darwins life, the time of his fame. I particularly enjoyed and was enlighted by the author's coverage of Victorian life and how it affected Darwin, his contemporaries, and influenced their thoughts and beliefs. I appreciated the way the author not only covered Darwin, the scientist, but Darwin the person and how the author examined the role of Darwin's wife and their relationship. This is a very detailed book, not one that can be read in a couple of settings. It gives us much to ponder. The style is excellent, much better than most English academics produce, i.e. it is readable. I highly recommend it as a read and an addition to your library.

Gentleman, gardener, genius, human . . .
Charles Darwin's "place" in history is secure. The concept of evolution by natural selection was "the single best idea anyone has ever had," as Daniel C. Dennett so aptly put it. Although the idea seems simple, Browne establishes that the man who conceived it was anything but that. In taking two substantial volumes to depict Darwin's life, Browne reveals the complexity and control hidden beneath his serene outward demeanor. For many years, Darwin's seclusion at Down House left the impression of the retired, retiring scientific thinker. On the contrary, Browne shows "a remarkable tactician" manipulating friends,
colleagues and, in the final analysis, society at large. This compelling study is the outstanding work on Darwin. Her focus on his motivations, activities and other aspects of what made him such a towering figure makes this a remarkable work. This magnificent study and its companion "Voyaging" will maintain their value as Darwin's pre-eminent account for many years.

The pivotal point, of course, is Darwin's 1859 book, The Origin of Species. Browne recounts the "Wallace letter" which nearly toppled Darwin from the place of priority in developing the idea of natural selection. Darwin's friends and colleagues rallied to sustain him while maintaining fairness to both him and Wallace. The many years of study Darwin had given to the concept resulted in the volume that changed our view of life, but it remains an open question whether he would have published without the "thunderbolt from Ternate." Browne's view isn't narrow, however, as she places Origin within the broader schema of Victorian writing, whether fiction, social commentary, poetry or science.

Browne leads us through the years of turmoil following publication of Origin. Strangely, she notes, the chief objectors were fellow scientists, not the religious establishment. Even the British Association debate, often considered the pivot point for making the public aware of the book's meaning, brought out a churchman who had been prompted by one of Darwin's scientific peers. Although Darwin remained at Down throughout the ensuing years, he maintained constant control of those who spoke for him. He reached Continental readers quickly, although troubled by freely editing translators.

This account portrays Darwin's "place" by almost every definition of the term. Browne shows Darwin's status among his colleagues, depicts him as a teacher, a father, a member of his community, both locally and in the grander Victorian Era setting. Darwin was a man of his class, most of which endorsed thinking and speculation. Most importantly, she shows his stature as a human, at times fearful, courageous, withdrawing, helpful to his friends and scornful of his enemies. He counseled his children, or used them for help, as the moment demanded. He sought to protect his wife, but Browne makes clear Emma was under few illusions of the meaning of natural selection. Darwin was no hypocrite, but was long in reaching his final dismissal of deities. Whatever the enduring nature of his idea, the man, Browne asserts, still remained a mortal figure.

Beyond Origin, Browne relates Darwin's conflicting feelings leading to later works - Descent of Man, plant domestication, orchids, emotional expression and the obscure world of earthworms. Many of these publications would later prove fundamentally supportive of natural selection. All required immense amounts of study, communication and writing. He tended his own plants, studied earthworms at night and used the new technology of phototgraphy. The variation in topics and methods reflects once again Darwin's genius, but even more his strengths as a naturalist. Little escaped his scrutiny and he was able to impart his findings with flowing prose reaching a wide public. All these accomplishments were achieved in spite of frequent illnesses, none of which were successfully treated.

We owe much to Darwin, and Browne has discharged a significant portion of the debt with this book. The labour of many years, it's an elegant portrayal, worthy of the effort so evident in its making. Whatever your interests, sit down with this book and meet the man Browne has re-introduced to us. It will be a rewarding experience. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

A Wonderful Life
Well, this is volume II of a magnificent two-volume biography. In its patient, sympathetic and intelligent rendering it exemplifies those qualities in Darwin himself. Moreover, this is truly the second volume. One could read this without having read "Voyaging" and make sense of it, but Darwin and his world would be less fleshed-out, he and his friends would not be old friends of yours, and the story, which is nothing less than a whole life well-lived (but not, be it noted, perfectly-lived), the less thereby. And what is more, the Darwin-Wedgewood genealogy is not reproduced here - you need volume I for that.

Darwin, for someone of such stature socially and scientifically, was a rooted, private man. He rarely left his spacious, gated home at Down except to visit one of his few good friends or relatives. His public appearances were nearly as noted as the Pope's. In spite of this seeming exclusiveness, he maintained an immense and warm correspondence all over the world. Alfred Russell Wallace, for example, was one of his good friends, but almost entirely by means of letters. Moreover, he received a constant stream of visitors at Down, many of whom were hardly known to him, and some of whom barely spoke English.

However, these visits were rarely extended beyond a courteous lunch. Darwin would often plead weakness or illness (or let one of the womenfolk do it for him) in order to get away to his study and his studies after being dutifully social. Of course, if it was Huxley, or Lyell, or Hooker visiting, then Darwin had considerably more strength for conversation. These old friends formed the core of his scientific network, and, along with Asa Gray in America, were his representatives in the larger scientific world.

The story of Charles Darwin is the story of a homebody: he did most of his experiments with jury-rigged apparatus in his house, garden, or greenhouse, using his children as assistants, and begging and borrowing plant and animal material from his friends and correspondents all around the world, without himself going anywhere. It is the story of a man who loved his wife, and needed her, for he was always "poorly", and he was always busy. It is the story of a man who was warm and affectionate, and constantly a-tingle with some absorbing project in natural history. Yet it is the story of a supremely absorbed man, who was as totally selfish in his dedication to his obsessions as any artist, ruthlessly (but charmingly) using the people around him and around the world to further his investigations, and shield him from those social duties that soak up so much of the lives of most of us.

Janet Browne gently disapproves of Darwin's selfishness, which was consistent and on at least two occasions (when he refused to go to the funerals of old friends who had helped him tremendously) nearly unforgiveable. Yet she clearly liked the man, as did almost everyone who knew him (including some of his ideological opponents). He preserved himself for his work, it is true, but he still understood the obligations of a Victorian gentleman of means. He was active in the village life at Down, using his money and time to promote worthy causes of benefit to the poorer residents. He also had a soft spot for animals, and spent much energy opposing unthinking cruelty to beasts whenever he encountered it. He also was the prime mover behind getting a government pension for Alfred Russel Wallace, who had fallen on hard times, as well as many other quiet gifts to science, and to individuals.

On balance, Darwin was a tremendously appealing man, and his life, personal and scientific (which were totally intertwined, both domestically and socially) a model of Victorian striving. Prudent and successful in investing his money, an obsessive list-maker and careful household manager, and a famously hard worker in his science, he came by his success, as he felt, honestly. But to me the appeal of this book lies in its location in Darwin's domestic and social milieu. This also happened to be his scientific milieu, for most of his friends, and some of his relatives, were scientists whose interests overlapped with his own.

This book picks up the story in 1858, when Darwin got a letter from a man known to him only as a collector, Alfred Russel Wallace. He was stunned to see that his pet theory of speciation by natural selection had occurred to Wallace during his sojourn in the jungles of the East. The cat was out of the bag, so Darwin thought he might as well write down what he knew, including his researches during the previous twenty years into the topic. This book just grew and grew, and finally became "The Origin of Species"; the main narrative thread of Darwin's later life is, of course, the fate of this "child". After 1859 he was suddenly a household name, and a fit subject for political cartoons and pulpitical denunciations. Within a few years "Darwinism" was a noun in general use. He himself spent tremendous energy in surreptitious efforts to get his theory accepted, and did not scruple to let his friends, like Huxley, savage his enemies, like Owen.

Janet Browne gives this story its due. As always, her mastery of the material is complete, and she tells a complicated story gracefully. But more than this, she is attuned to the sociology of the situation. She understands how scientific ideas gain acceptance, as well as how the nascent industry of popular publishing contributed to the success of Darwin's ideas among the larger public. One of the recurring pleasures of this book is to enjoy her observations on the social issues that impinge on this life story.

Further, it is a measure of her almost novelistic skill that our attitude toward Darwin's life changes almost insensibly: though we may have come to his story because we were curious about an idea, we are sad to see it end because we have come to care about the man himself. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Stories of famously eccentric Princetonians abound--such as that of chemist Hubert Alyea, the model for The Absent-Minded Professor, or Ralph Nader, said to have had his own key to the library as an undergraduate. Or the "Phantom of Fine Hall," a figure many students had seen shuffling around the corridors of the math and physics building wearing purple sneakers and writing numerology treatises on the blackboards. The Phantom was John Nash, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of his generation, who had spiraled into schizophrenia in the 1950s. His most important work had been in game theory, which by the 1980s was underpinning a large part of economics. When the Nobel Prize committee began debating a prize for game theory, Nash's name inevitably came up--only to be dismissed, since the prize clearly could not go to a madman. But in 1994 Nash, in remission from schizophrenia, shared the Nobel Prize in economics for work done some 45 years previously.

Economist and journalist Sylvia Nasar has written a biography of Nash that looks at all sides of his life. She gives an intelligent, understandable exposition of his mathematical ideas and a picture of schizophrenia that is evocative but decidedly unromantic. Her story of the machinations behind Nash's Nobel is fascinating and one of very few such accounts available in print (the CIA could learn a thing or two from the Nobel committees). This highly recommended book is indeed "a story about the mystery of the human mind, in three acts: genius, madness, reawakening." --Mary Ellen Curtin ... Read more

Reviews (253)

An ambitious biography
Now that the Ron Howard film has been released, it is difficult to review the book on its own merits. Yet this biography is so strong, it can stand on its own. Nasar is an excellent writer who can create excellent pen pictures of life at RAND, MIT and Princeton. She shows great style in creating the environment of the late 1940s and the 1950s. Nash emerges as a complex, demanding and flawed person - an individual. Nash has since refuted the claims of anti-semitism and homosexuality in the book, but it is good to see that Nasar does not side step the issues at all. It is probably prudent to read Nash's comments on the book before making a judgement.

Where Nash is weak is in her descriptions of mathematical formulae. She does not appear to have any real understanding of the mathematics and I would have thought a plain English explanation of his work would have strengthened the biography. I got a little frustrated that she did not tackle this task. Yet it is perhaps a measure of Nash's genius that the ideas are so complex they cannot be easily reduced to a paragraph. Still she could have tried harded in this area. Nasar tends to get around this problem, by getting another expert to describe the brilliance of the idea, rather than the mathemtical idea itself.

Based on my own experiences with people with schizophrenia, Nash's recovery is remarkable and this is the section is probably the most interesting, perhaps because it is so startling. Even after reading the biogrpahy, I still find it hard to believe that someone could recover given the severity of the illness, so it gives some hope to people who suffer this disability and those close to them.

An absorbing biography and close to a great one.

Beautiful...and Intriguing
John Forbes Nash, Jr. was a genius who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was in and out of mental institutions for most of his life. Nasar's book, as she states so succinctly in her prologue, is Nash's story, "in three acts: genius, madness, reawakening."

Naturally introverted, even at a young age, Nash was described as being "bookish and slightly odd." His mother had him reading by the time he was four and instead of coloring books, his father gave him science books to read. But despite his parents' efforts, the young Nash was prone to daydreaming in school, which led his teachers to describe him as an underachiever. A loner and the ultimate nerd, his best friends were books, his bedroom resembled a science lab, he was always the last to be chosen for baseball, and at a school dance, he danced with chairs rather than girls.

Although his elementary school math teachers complained he couldn't do the work, his mother noticed he wasn't following the teachers' instructions because he had devised a simpler way of solving the problems. By high school, he was deciphering problems his chemistry teacher wrote on the blackboard, without using pencil or paper. In college, his math professors would call on Nash when they themselves ran into problems solving complex equations they were presenting to their classes.

But together with his brilliance were eccentricities that became more evident as Nash aged. Those close to him characterized him as "disconnected" and "deeply unknowable."

He had little use for textbooks and was known for solving difficult (and often previously unsolvable) problems using "no references but his own mind." His peers called the results he was able to obtain "beautiful" and "striking", perhaps his greatest achievement being his work on game theory, which led to a Nobel Prize for economics in 1994. He possessed a true love of discovery - while swimming with a friend in California, the two were dragged out to sea by an undercurrent and nearly drowned. Finally reaching shore exhausted, the friend was grateful for surviving while Nash, after briefly catching his breath, re-entered the surf exclaiming, "I wonder if that was an accident. I think I'll go back in and see."

Nash was in California during the Cold War working for the internationally famous think tank known as the RAND Corporation. Funded by the U.S. Air Force, RAND was populated by "the best minds in mathematics, physics, political science, and economics." Their principle focus was developing strategies to deter - or if that failed, to win - a nuclear war against Russia. Suddenly, the game theory Nash had been intrigued by at Princeton had a practical application, for war is the ultimate game of conflict. Years later, a more profitable application would be the FCC's $7-billion sale of cell phone air space to competing communications conglomerates.

Possibly the oddest in an odd bunch of ducks, Nash's math colleagues over the years included a professor who used a mathematical formula to select his suits; the manic-depressive Norbert Wiener (the founder of cybernetics), who was known to say such things as "When we met, was I walking to the faculty club or away from it? For in the latter case I've already had my lunch"; and others who were "beset by shyness, awkwardness, strange mannerisms, and all kinds of physical and psychological tics.'"

By the age of 30 it became apparent Nash was more than just eccentric as he started to display symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia; behaving suspiciously, becoming suspect of others, and finally announcing that "abstract powers from outer space" were communicating with him through encrypted messages printed in the New York Times and broadcast by radio stations. He developed "an obsession with the stock and bond markets," investing his mother's savings, convinced he could outsmart the markets and earn a profit. Instead, the results were "disastrous, to say the least." He was offered a prestigious chair in the mathematics department at the University of Chicago - something he had long strived for - but in response the chairman of the department received a strange letter from Nash declining the offer since he had decided to become the "Emperor of Antarctica" instead.

Eventually, his illness required long periods of hospitalization while he endured drug and insulin shock therapy, with the result being the loss of a considerable portion of his memory. When an associate came to visit during one of his hospital stays, Nash mused, "What if they don't let me out until I'm NORMAL?" Although Nash shared some exquisite company, at one point being hospitalized with the poet Robert Lowell, on the whole he was slightly atypical of the average mental patient. Most don't work on a paper on fluid dynamics while institutionalized, and he took some ribbing for this. Nasar notes an instance when another patient remarked, "Professor, let me show you how one uses a broom."

Despite his illness, the math community rallied around Nash. A colleague remembers, "Everybody wanted to help [him]. His was a mind too good to waste."

By 1990, his illness had gone into remission and he was able to stop taking antipsychotic drugs, while learning to separate rational thinking from delusional thinking. In spite of his amazing recovery, awarding him with the Nobel Prize was a contentious issue due to his history of schizophrenia. But once awarded, there was resolve that the right decision had been made about a very worthy individual. One committee member recalls, "We resurrected him in a way. It was emotionally satisfying." Soon after it was announced he had won, Nash half-joked "he hoped that getting the Nobel would improve his credit rating because he really wanted a credit card."

Nasar's engaging account of Nash's life and work is both comprehensive and well-written. It is highly recommended reading if you're looking for the full story.

A Beautiful Mind
John Nash's story is truly inspirational. I could not stop the audio until I got to the end!

John Nash, a mathematical genius, had many ups and downs in his life, including a diagnosed mental illness and various social problems that made his life painful and complicated. His Nobel-prize winning work occurred while he was writing his dissertation at Princeton. He was not recognized until later in his life for his ground-breaking contribution to "game theory".

His story is one not only of his incredible gift, mental illness and remission, but really one of personal victory. In the end, he learns to live in harmony with those around him doing what he enjoyed most.

One of my most recent favorites!

An amazing piece of detective work
As I have said in the title, this book is an amazing piece of detective work about the life of Great John Nash. This is by far the work that beats the movie. If you have seen it, do not stop there - read the book, because it is TRUE! If you are interested into mathematics, into the Game theory - read it, not to learn the science, but to appreciate the scientist! However, I still give it 4 stars since the level of writing drops a little after exhilarating first few chapters. Nevertheless this is a great read!!!

a not-really-that-beautiful mathematician
(hey everyone else is making a pun with their titles so why not me?)

well this book has been well commented on so i'll try to keep this brief.

first, it is fact that many great mathematicians develop some sort of mental illness (it happened to kurt godel, georg cantor, and even issac newton). nash, then, is not really an unusual case.

what does make him interesting, then, is the fact that he had "reawakened" from his illness and continued to do math in his old age. such among mathematic circles is very rare.

and his math is indeed great. nash's ability to solve problems concerning manifolds and other topological spaces is still making waves in math today. the layman unfortunately, like nasar, doesn't appreciate this fully, which is a shame. i would have liked to get a mathematician's view on johnny's life.

but, as a pop bio, it's not too bad. i agree with other reviews that it contained too much minute detail, and her references to nash looking like a golden god were overstated and a bit offputting. i wouldn't be surprised if nasar was really in love with nash. (she might have dedicated her book to alicia to subdue any suspicions of that sort.)

in the end, though, we see the life of one of the greatest modern mathematicians, through triumph and tribulation, which was the ultimate goal of the book. i would recommend this book to some and not to others. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

From Physics to Touva!
My reading of "Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman" was surely "forced" me to read the life of Richard Feynman furthermore: NO ORDINARY GENIUS is a GREAT BOOK. Family, friends and colleagues of Feynman share their views regarding the genius (with bump's-language-style) Feynman. The photos are great and can make a good spot on his life. Truly inspiring especially when he stated that he's an irresponsible man! And also, he couldnt stop to do physics until several days before his death: he's still doing the physics in 70. Feynman also brought the tiny-state named TOUVA to the world: even a geographic teacher wouldn't know bout this region! Buy this book, okay?

fun character fun book!
This book made me laughed and it made me cry but most importantly it taught me a lot, not just about feynman but a lot more other stuff like science, life, having fun and reminded me why I got into science in the first place. It was very inpirational as well as fun.

If you want to know a little about what feynman was like, then you must read this book. I said
"little" because there is no way you will ever get to know this man just by reading a book. This book was really good at taking out the really good stuff from other books and integrating it.

I like what his friends and family had to say about him and adventures they had, as much as when Feynman was quoted. It is
really interesting and gives you a really deep insight on stuff he may not had put into his other books.

Even if you don't like to read biographies, or care about feynman, you could read this book like a novel. Its little
stories are so interesting funny (sometimes sad) that you forget that you are reading a biography. I say this because
reading biogrphies usually gets me bored. Not this one however, its and adventure!

After I read this book I felt like I lost a friend and mentor--it was that good or perhaps feyman's life was that interesting--I actually missed a guy I never met before! It sounds flaky, but I guessed Feynman would had liked it that way!

Alex Lee
...

A Superb Introduction to an Under-Appreciated Man
Richard Feynman was a remarkable man who lived many remarkable lives, most of which are succinctly summarized in this fast, engaging read. Relying upon testimonials from close friends and associates of Feynman's and mostly from Feynman's own recollections, No Ordinary Genius delves into each of these lives, including Feynman's childhood obsession with finding out how things worked (a trait inherited from his father), his work at Los Alamos both as the keeper of the keys to the mainframe processing the mathematical calculations for the Manhattan Project and as the head of on campus hi-jinx and safe-cracking, his Nobel Prize for developing the field of Quantum electrodynamics (and along the way the now famous "Feynman diagrams" which have become the physicist's graphical tool for "viewing" sub-atomic activity), his very early visionary forays into what has become nanotechnology, and his ability to buck the NASA bureaucracy and quickly get to the bottom of what really went wrong with the 1986 Challenger disaster. Along the way we learn of his love of people (including his two wives, the first of whom died when she was only about 20 years old of TB), of life, and of physics (though probably not in that order), and what begins to emerge is a rare character, a multi-dimensional, and apparently "human" genius-one with foibles like anyone else...but one surprisingly devoid (at least as Sykes's book of recollections would have us believe) of the peccadilloes and neuroses of similarly brilliant historic figures. In fact one wonders whether Feynman's relative "normalcy" may have prevented him from being more widely known outside of scientific circles. This is itself somewhat ironic as Feynman was not just a brilliant physicist in his own right, but was perhaps the greatest interpreter (and hence most accessible) of all physicists who tried to explain how the world really worked to the rest of us.

Feynman was often criticized for not giving greater weight to the moral consequences of the actions of scientists like him who were responsible for creating "the" Bomb. At one point toward the end of the book, and partially in response to this question about the morality of scientific progress, Feynman observes the interesting irony that it's only in the most free, open, and democratic societies (i.e, the U.S.) that computers capable of infringing the most upon individuals' privacy have been developed. I.e., the countries that would have stood to benefit the most from this advanced "snooping" technology (i.e., the USSR, China, etc.) during Feynman's Cold War days, weren't able to produce the requisite technological infrastructure.

Later, towards the end of the book, the Nobel laureate, Marvin Minsky speaks about a feeling he and Feynman shared about man's soul. "Now here you are, a person, and thirty thousand genes or more are working to make the brain, the most complicated organ. If you were to say it's just a spirit, just a soul, just a little hard diamondlike point with no structure, a gift from some creator, it's so degrading! It means that all of the sacrifice by all of our animal ancestors is ignored. It seems to me [any by implication, Feynman] that the religious view is the opposite of self-respect and understanding. It's taking the brain with a hundred billion neurons, and not using it. What a paradoxical thing to be taught to do!"

So at once you have Feynman then specifying democracy and freedom as the necessary precursors to allow for scientific innovation. Then later he's demonstrating his "belief" in the pre-eminence of reason over non-fact-based belief and religion. Though non-Objectivists and spiritualists could debate his point-of-view, it is particularly refreshing to observe in thought and action a true seeker of the way things truly work. In many respects, Richard Feynman was Ayn Rand's John Gault.

This book should be read as a precursor to getting to know one of the great characters of the 20th century. But it won't suffice if one really wants to understand his genius. For that, one has to read his two books of "Six Easy Pieces", his lecture on Quantum Electrodynamics, or most appropriately of all, his Lectures on Physics.

Does it even need one ???
Does a book on the one of the greatest person to have lived need a review. Even a badly written book about Feynmam would be fun to read ! and this is one of the better written one. My only wish is that every person gets to read about this fascinating person.

A MUST for Feynman fans everywhere!
This is a wonderful book for all those individuals who are even remotely interested in the life of the great Richard P. Feynman. It is illustrated with pictures that cover the entire scope of his life; from his earliest days as a boy all the way up to his final years.

The book is mostly a collage of anecdotes and commentary written by a slew of people from all walks of life. We hear from an artist friend of his, Feynman's musician friends, his sister Joan (who herself received a Ph.D. from Syracuse university) and his daughter, as well as the memories of such distinguished colleagues as Freeman Dyson, Hans Bethe and Marvin Minsky.

So order this book, borrow this book, do whatever you have to do to read & enjoy it. Come, take a tour of the life of a humble & friendly (and extraordinary) genius. You owe it to yourself. ... Read more

Reviews (37)

Sincerly written-Great tribute to the Genius
I always wanted to know the contributions done by Ramanujan to Mathematics and landed up on this book. I could not imagine such a thorough work on this genius mathematician, his environment,his time, circumstances, troubles, and an undying spirit depicted so well. I am surprised at the authors understanding of nuances of an Indian society which is an important background to appreciate what a genius undergoes to further his cause. Author is very objective in all his assessments and that helps the reader to come to some of his own conclusions. In effect this is a wonderful read for anyone who is interested to know about this Genius and if one is a bit mathematically bent, this is sure to provide ,well, an infinite surprise and joy

An exploration of genius in the colonial condition ....
Kanigel's is the first book I've read on Ramanujan. It is well put together and explores the elements of the man, South India and Cambridge that led to the "collaboration" which allowed Ramanujan to flourish and be "discovered" by the West. Mathematics and Science is Planetary in scope, whereas cultures and colonialism, idiosyncracies of Universities, constraints of poverty, all in some way deny us the fruits of genius, whom I daresay are "normally" distributed in all populations! Nurture, in the true and fullest sense of the word, allows the light to shine through. Ramanujan's letter to Hardy is a classic! It is the essence of understatement, he may have been uneducated in the purely formal sense, but he was quite aware of the world he was to be reluctantly invited to join. His gifts are rare, his powers abundantly evident, there is no use debating how much longer he may have lived, if both he and Hardy understood the difficulties of a South Indian clerk attempting to live in Cambridge. The collaboration brings into sharp relief, the genarally accepted notion that in most endeavours of man, critical mass, or an informed bouncing wall/mirror brings out the best. Does Hingis give of her best against a weak opponent? Doesn't Michael Jordon reach deep when there is half a minute and five points to score? Would Karpov have ramped up his game had Fischer allowed him a match? Ramanujan may have contributed much more had he survived even two more Summers. As it stands his contribution is so outstanding that his notebooks still give up useful gems to knowledge-hungry post-graduate students. Kanigel's book is a must read for anyone interested in the history of Mathematics, anyone interested in harnessing the powers of genius, the relationships among nature and nurture, genes and culture etc. Good companion reading would include the lives of Richard Feynman, John Maynard Keynes and anything on the Manhattan Project to name but a few.

Outstanding Biography
An exemplary piece of biographical writing. Kanigel brings Ramanujan, his times, and his contemporaries vividly to life. I wish even more of Ramanujan's mathematical contributions had been treated, but appreciate that a biographer has many priorities. Kanigel handles them all deftly. One of the finest (most informative and engaging) biographies I've ever read.

Wow
This is an amazing book about an amazing man, just reading about him makes most math geniuses feel like a complete idiot. If Ramanujan had a proper education in the field, he could have become the greatest mathematician of his time, even greater than Hilbert.

worthless
I think the worst book on mathematics or mathematicians I have read. The reader would have some knowledge, perhaps to the 9th grade, but is informed what a coefficient is, that the denominator is 'the number on the bottem'! Functions of interest to Ramanujan are mentioned but never adequately specified. Similarly for theorems. The author seems uncomfortable with mathematics.
The reader comes away with the sense of great things done but no idea of what they were.
This book is a read only for those interested in cataloging the faults of sloppy 'scientific' writing. ... Read more

Book Description

"The nuclear physicist most responsible for the creation of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, was a genius both scientifically and otherwise. In Jeremy Bernstein's intensely interesting biographical memoir, Oppenheimer emerges as a man unsure of his identity and captive to an element of self-destructiveness in his makeup. As a former colleague of Oppenheimer's, Bernstein has composed a book that is both personal and historical, bringing the reader close to the life and workings of an extraordinary and controversial man." ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Interstitial Material
This book has supplied insights and information which none of my readings on the topic of Oppenheimer or the Manhattan Project or Los Alamos (where I spent part of my childhood, hence the interest) has provided.

This is not a massive tome with large quantities of detail related to any one specific area of Oppenheimer's life, but provides information that tends to hold the massive amounts of data which has been written about him at a more personal level.

All in all, a readable, cogent, human book about a man whose life seems filled with contradictions and disparate interests.

An involving, highly recommended biographical survey
Oppenheimer: Portrait Of An Enigma is the biography of the preeminent American nuclear scientist has been a long-awaited book: Biographer Jeremy Berstein spent two years at the institute where Robert Oppenheimer was director, observed him nearly daily, and is in the perfect position to blend history with personal observation. The nuclear physicist Oppenheimer was key in creating the atomic bomb, and was a genius both scientifically and otherwise: Oppenheimer's science, background, and most of all the personal talks between biographer and scientist spice up a revealing, involving, highly recommended biographical survey. ... Read more

Book Description

In 1920, Albert Einstein wrote to Max Born, "Theoretical physics will flourish wherever you happen to be; there is no other Born to be found in Germany today." The End of the Certain World presents for the first time Born's full story: Nobel physicist, a discoverer of quantum theory, exile from Hitler's Germany, teacher of nine Nobel physicists. Born's role in the "Golden Age of Physics" helped to shape the science of the twentieth century and open the door to the modern era. Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, and Eugene Wigner, among others, flocked to Gšttingen, Germany in the 1920's to work with Born, the physicist who had discovered one of the most profound principles of the century - the physics of indeterminacy. In a cruel twist of fate Born, a pacifist who loved science for its beauty, had educated these renowned scientists who developed the atom bomb.

Not everyone embraced Born's revolutionary quantum principle. Throughout much of his forty year friendship with Einstein, the two debated the nature of the universe - deterministic versus non-deterministic -with Einstein declaring "God does not play dice", even though the Nobel Committee supported Born's position when they awarded him the 1954 Prize. A social history and a history of science as well as an intimate biography, The End of the Certain World reveals the story of a great physicist and humanitarian and his struggle with the forces of religion, politics, and war during the upheavals of the twentieth century. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Superb account of a Great Physicist
Having developed a great respect for the works of Max Born through his books on atomic physics, I always was surprised that he received little credit (compared with Bohr, Heisenberg, and others who also developed a lot of QM).

This book provides an exciting, interesting review of his life that would interest physicists, people of German ancestry, Jewish ancestry, and others interested in early 20th century history, from a personal point of view. As a physicist, I like that the physics ideas are not simplified or glossed over. For example, Born realized that the electron had to occupy a 3D space within the atom (rather than, for example, a circular Keplerian orbit), because of the compression of solids. This is NOT a physics book, however, but an excellent biography.

Excellent
Max Born was an amazing man.From his childhood until his retirement in Bad Pyrmont, Circa, he had accomplished more than most people.After refining the world of Quantum Mechanics using his own theories, he helped changed the world.However, he was not recognized for that.It wasn't until after he retired that he was recognized for his participation on wave functions.Max Born lived a life full of tragedy and greatness.Being a Jewish man in Germany, life didn't come by very easily for him at times.Being forced to emigrate from his home, and the coming to the realization that he was the one who taught some of participants who created the atom bomb, he came to the realization that, "Love is a power just as strong as the atom."This quote from him proved to show that he did have a love for Physics, he enjoyed it, and it was a passion of his.Nancy Greenspan did an excellent job with this book.She showed the world about the life of Max Born through the first thorough biography of him.She showed us his life through a portrait with her words.She showed us him in his times of despair and his times of prosperity.This book is a great read.It will show you a dramatic life as well as informing you about the world of Physics, specifically the Quantum Revolution.This book will teach you of a great man, who lived a great life, and people now are just beginning to find out his great imagination. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A very good book for students and "real" scientist/engineers
Students who are really interested in physics, electrical engineering or related subjects would find this book informative and inspiring.
Real electrical engineer would have the deepest feeling when reading through the lines.
Written for a genius (hero) by a great educator of the field. ... Read more