Book Description

As a young professor at MIT in the 1920s, Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) did seminal work on analog computing and was a cofounder of Raytheon, whose initial success was based on long-lasting radio tubes. But he is best known for his role in Washington during World War II: as President Roosevelt's advisor, he organized the Manhattan Project and oversaw the work of 6,000 civilian scientists designing new weapons. His 1945 report "Science -- The Endless Frontier" spurred the creation of a system of public support for university research that endures to this day.

Although he helped to give rise to the military-industrial complex, Bush was a skeptical observer of the interplay between science and politics. He warned against the dangers of an arms race and led a failed effort to halt testing of the hydrogen bomb. This balanced and gracefully written biography brings to life an American original and his times. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Vannevar like beaver
This is a very well written and entertaining book about a scientific administrator who played a major effort in organizing the technical responses required to anticipate and successfully meet the challenges of WWII. His skillful analysis, technical comprehension and political astuteness not only provided outstanding leadership at the time but shaped the intractions of goverment, industry and the academic community in such a fashion as to remain intact to this time. One comes awawy with an enormous respect for Dr. Bush. He must have been one tough character and difficult to deal with but he got the jobs done. It is a pity that his battles with Admiral Ernest King have, to my knowledge, never been documented. The issues they disagreed about were not trivial and their interactions must have been awesome. I read this book shortly after completing Tycho's Island and the similarity between the two men and the administrative issues they dealt with is both striking and illuminating.

Good men are hard to find and good books about them deserve our attention.

An excellent biography of an important but little known man.
A very interesting and thorough biography of Vannevar Bush, who more than any other individual is responsible (for good or for ill) for the shape of today's scientific establishment. Well-written and engaging, with lots of interesting historical tidbits and good insight on the personalities involved. Excellent! ... Read more

Reviews (7)

yet another gem
This is a fine contribution although 'The Continuation' might lead one to believe that both Pihkal and Tihkal are of the same sphere. I suppose they are, if one isn't well-read regarding the metabolism and synthesis of these two very different families of compounds. As a synthetic organic chemist, I appreciated not only the autobiographical sketch but also the synthesis/observation section. Some of his methods are a bit dated. However, they are indeed valid if you don't mind sacrificing yield and purity.

Fun to read
I think I liked this one even more then PIHKAL for entertainment value. A lifetime's work for a value price. Highly recommended !

Less substantial than "PIHKAL" but still worthwhile
This book is thinner (in every sense) than it's more famous older sibling "PIHKAL", but is well worth getting if you're curious about what became of Shulgin after angering the government by publishing PIHKAL. For those with an academic interest in psychedelic drugs, it's almost a mandatory purchase, containing dozens of novel new tryptamine-based psychoactives (including several LSD derivatives), many of which are now available through the so-called "research chemical" trade. For better or worse, Shulgin's two books are landmark works in the developing relationship between the public, the government, and a dizzying array of new psychoactive drugs.

lasting work
A penetrating, intellectually substantive work that earns its right at center stage on your bookshelf. Filled with enlightening perspectives and solid scientific thought, hours are spent absorbing its wisdom.

Highly recommended.

Interesting but somewhat aimless extension to PIHKAL
This book is the much anticipated follow up to PIHKAL, and although it does contain some interesting information, the narratives are often disjointed and whimsical. It is as though the authors said almost everything that needed to be said in PIHKAL and included this additional commentary to satisfy themselves rather than the reading audience.

The chemistry section, however, is superlative, and is more than well worth the cost of the book in and of itself if you are interestd in the subject matter. ... Read more

Book Description

From "the preeminent historian of the Revolution" (Jonathan Yardley), a groundbreaking study, many years in the making, of Benjamin Franklin the man, Benjamin Franklin the myth, and the roots of American character.

Central to America's idea of itself is the character of Benjamin Franklin. We all know him, or think we do: In recent works and in our inherited conventional wisdom, he remains fixed in place as a genial polymath and self-improver who was so very American that he is known by us all as the first American.

The problem with this beloved notion of Franklin's quintessential Americanness, Gordon Wood shows us in this marvelous, revelatory book, is that it's simply not true. And it blinds us to the no less admirable or important but far more interesting man Franklin really was and leaves us powerless to make sense of the most crucial events of his life. Indeed, thinking of Franklin as the last American would be less of a hindrance to understanding many crucial aspects of his life-his preoccupation with becoming a gentleman; his longtime loyalty to the Crown and burning ambition to be a player in the British Empire's power structure; the personal character of his conversion to revolutionary; his reasons for writing the Autobiography; his controversies with John and Samuel Adams and with Congress; his love of Europe and conflicted sense of national identity; the fact that his death was greeted by mass mourning in France and widely ignored in America.

But Franklin did become the Revolution's necessary man, Wood shows, second behind George Washington. Why was his importance so denigrated in his own lifetime and his image so distorted ever since? Ironically, Franklin's diplomacy in France, which was essential to American victory, was the cause of the suspicion that clouded his good name at home-and also the stage on which the "first American" persona made its debut. The consolidation of this mirage of Franklin would await the early nineteenth century, though, when the mask he created in his posthumously published Autobiography proved to be the model the citizens of a striving young democracy needed.

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin is a landmark work, a magnificent fresh vision of Franklin's life and reputation, filled with profound insights into the Revolution and into the emergence of America's idea of itself. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

A Scholarly Biography that Gets Behind the Franklin Myths
Benjamin Franklin is often considered the quintessential American. A recent best-selling biography of Franklin is entitled "The First American," and many other biographers have also played up the Americanness of his life. His story is a familiar one to most Americans. Franklin overcame his lowly beginnings through a combination of street smarts and hard work. He was intelligent without being theoretical. He was a social joiner but also wary of traditional class distinctions. Because of this, he seemed to typify what many modern Americans feel is most distinctive about their nation.

Historian Gordon S. Wood splashes cold water on these common assumptions of Franklin's life. Wood shows that in many ways Franklin was not typical of his fellow Americans at all. Once he made himself a success, for example, he stopped working and began to imitate a gentleman. After Franklin moved to Europe and got a taste of the civilized life, it was difficult for him to break away from it and return to America. He often misjudged the opinion of his fellow Americans, sometimes leading too far in front of them and sometimes following too far behind. As a result, he was far more popular in Europe than he was in his home land. After his death, the public grieving in the U.S. was mild compared to that of other revolutionary leaders.

Wood's book is largely a conventional biography that is distinctive from other Franklin biographies only in its interpretation. Wood sees the Sage of Philadelphia as a proto-American, someone who became American only in retrospect as more and more nineteenth-century Americans began to lead lives similar to Franklin's. Like him, they worked in the trades and strove for social respectability and financial success while also maintaining a working class identity. As these self-made men began to predominate, Franklin's life became a model for them, and the popularity among Americans that he never saw in his lifetime became his.

The definitive Franklin
Gordon S. Wood is such a fabulous writer and such a skilled historian that it's impossible to not be impressed by his work. He writes history that reads so smoothly and argues so gracefully that it's impossible to not be convinced. Wood has a comfort zone that he likes to operate in, and all of his books are resident in this zone. It has two components. First, he constructs all his arguments in a "before" and "after" style in order to frame the central points of his thesis. He says, once upon a time things were like this. Then a critical event happened that changed everything. That event, for Wood, is always the Peace of Paris in 1783. But it's not the military or political or economic consequences of the Revolution that Wood insists changed everything. It's the change in social structure and, more to the point, the blurring of social class lines due to social mobility (both physical and economic) that moved America and its people from feudalism to democracy. THE RADICALISM OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION went something like this, and the current biography of Franklin puts him in this context. It's a view of Franklin in terms of social class. Now, I'm sure Dr. Wood would argue with me, saying that I reduce his theses down into far too simple terms. Granted, I'm not criticizing him. This work, as his others, is a penetrating study and should attract much scholarly and critical acclaim.

A Pleasant Reading
Being a fairly recent Eastern European immigrant I found the book very inspirational. Gordon Wood tells the story of an extraordinary self-made man in rapidly changing times. If I can relate to Benjamin Franklin, everyone else in this country can.

It is also very informative and a nice take on the times when America was founded as a nation. However, I will give it four starts, as I was a little disappointed with how little weight it was given to the Revolution snowballing events.

Focused Biography of Founding Father
Gordon S. Wood has done another great job in his newest work of history, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin. This is not in any way a definitive biography but instead is a more focused work, essentially examining Franklin's move from a lover of the British Empire into an American patriot and then, finally, into an American icon, possibly one of American's most resonant. Franklin is always a fascinating tale, as his own Autobiography has shown for centuries, and Wood captures the tale of artisan of lowly origins turned into a diplomat at foreign courts with great skill. The author's look at how Franklin became an icon after his death is very interesting. For those who missed reading the massive biography of Franklin two summers ago, this one is not to be missed.

(Re)constructing Franklin
In the last few years, a number of thorough revisionist biographies have been published, which take Revolutionary Period luminaries and political players as their subjects, meeting with both public and critical success. Take for example David McCullough's John Adams, Joseph Ellis's Founding Brothers and Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton, not to mention Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin: An American Life: each of these works have contributed to the recent trend in American historical studies to reexamine the American Revolution and its key players from a contemporary historical perspective. Into this mix, Gordon Wood-noted historian of the American Revolution and Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution-has released his latest work The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin.

So, why do we need another biography of Franklin? Gordon Wood's answer: we don't. The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin represents little effort on behalf of its author to attempt to provide or refashion a definitive portrait of Franklin's life from self-made printer to world-renown writer, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. Wood's study does not set out to present a new or profoundly nuanced interpretation of Benjamin Franklin the man, but rather dissects the many-layered and convoluted construction of Benjamin Franklin the American symbol, the character of the communal American cultural imagination.

As Wood argues and carefully documents, Franklin's reputation-as canonized during the progressive times of the early 19th century and arguably extending to the present day-did not result from the mutual respect of and commendation from fellow members of the Revolutionary generation. Quite to the contrary, the Benjamin Franklin known to contemporary Americans-the industrious inventor, the master of the aphorism and clever turn of phrase, the self-made and quintessential "American" citizen-appears in Wood's work as a posthumous construction quite at odds with the Franklin so painstakingly working to protect his reputation after returning from his years abroad as a diplomat to both Great Britain and France. Wood, however, digs through the rhetoric of both Franklin's most venomous opponents and his most fervent and loyal supporters to uncover and unravel Franklin's precarious position during and after the Revolutionary War. In the course of doing so, Wood demonstrates that the "Americanization" of Benjamin Franklin owed more to his enduring international reputation, particularly in France, and to the popularity of his Autobiography, which necessarily put forward an image that Franklin himself would endorse.

Though Wood does present a rather thorough account of Franklin's life and achievements before and leading up to the American Revolution, the strength of The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin rests in its depth and analysis of Franklin's participation in the formation of the young American nation. Benjamin Franklin, as his contemporaries perceived him, remained an inscrutable and potentially dangerous emissary for American affairs. Probing letters, official statements and popular press accounts, Wood reconstructs the case both for and against such an interpretation. In effect, Wood understatedly performs an archeological investigation into the factors that most directly influenced the formation of an American popular identity and national work ethos embodied by Franklin, the results of which combine erudite intellectual inquiry with good American storytelling.

This type of historical study, in contrast to the more generalized biographical project, provides Wood the space to reflect upon a specific aspect of Franklin's life in a manner that exceeds the limitations of a more comprehensive survey of the statesman's markedly important and influential achievements and accolades. After reading The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, perhaps most significantly the reader comes away with not only a genuine empathy for Franklin, but also the recognition that, in the book's writing, his wit and candor have found a worthy foil in Wood's able hands. ... Read more

Book Description

On his deathbed in 1601, the greatest naked-eye astronomer, Tycho Brahe, told his young colleague, Johannes Kepler, "Let me not have lived in vain." For more than thirty years, Tycho had made meticulous observations of planetary movements and the positions of the stars, from which he developed his Tychonic system of the universe-a highly original, if incorrect, scheme that attempted to reconcile the ancient belief in an unmoving Earth with Copernicus's revolutionary re-arrangement of the solar system. Tycho knew that Kepler, the brilliant young mathematician he had engaged to interpret his findings, believed in Copernicus's formation, in which all the planets circled the Sun; and he was afraid his system-the product of a lifetime of effort to explain how the universe worked-would be abandoned.

In point of fact, it was. From his study of Tycho's observations came Kepler's stunning Three Laws of Planetary Motion-ever since the cornerstone of cosmology and our understanding of the heavens. Yet, as Kitty Ferguson reveals, neither of these giant figures would have his reputation today without the other; and the story of how their lives and talents were fatefully intertwined is one of the most memorable sagas in the long history of science. Set in a turbulent and colorful era in European history, at the turning point when medieval gave way to modern, Tycho & Kepler is both a highly original dual biography and a masterful recreation of how science advances. From Tycho's fabulous Uraniborg Observatory on an island off the Danish coast, to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph II, to the religious conflict of the Thirty Years' War that rocked all of Europe, to Kepler's extraordinary leaps of understanding, Ferguson recounts a fascinating interplay of science and religion, politics and personality. Her insights recolor the established personalities of Tycho and Kepler, and her book opens a rich window onto our place in the universe. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Tycho and Kepler
An amazing and inspirational account of one of the greatest stories in the history of science. Extremely well written and scholarly. I have average reading skills but at times found the book impossible to put down. In spots I had to stop reading it because emotions took over. The best book I ever read about the classical scientists.

Experimentalist & Theorist
As a physics teacher, I like to use the background on figures from scientific history to try to generate some interest from my students. When teaching Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion, I always make sure to talk about the contributions of Tycho Brahe. To my mind, the relationship between Brahe and Kepler is one of the earliest examples of the experimentalist/theorist relationship and, unfortunately, it is the experimentalist who is often lost to history while the theorist is remembered. I teach my students the names of both Brahe and Kepler as a small effort to rectify this unfairness. Kitty Ferguson has made a larger effort with this book and I hope she is able to reach a large readership.

Ms. Ferguson has at least given herself a chance by writing a very good book. Her prose is very engaging. She is detailed both science and biography and yet she is quite easy to understand even for those without a scientific background. And she has two extraordinarily interesting characters to talk about--Brahe, the rather spoiled Danish aristocrat who brought glory to himself against the odds in a "ignoble" profession by becoming the greatest naked eye astronomer in history, and Kepler, the poor German Protestant school teacher who had a knack for doing mathematics and finding trouble.

Though I knew the broad outline of Brahe and Kepler's story, I was surprised again and again by all I did not know. I may not be able to incorporate it all into my classes but I am glad to know the story myself. It is always interesting to see how the great ideas came into being, mostly through more fits, starts and mistakes than most people realize. Anyone interested in scientific history would be foolish to pass up reading this book.

The Odd Couple Start Astronomy
Science needs observers to acquire data. Science also needs theoreticians to make comprehensive explanations of the data. In _Tycho & Kepler: The Unlikely Partnership that Forever Changed Our Understanding of the Universe_ (Walker), Kitty Ferguson has given a duel biography of exemplars from both aspects, two who founded modern astronomy. This was a peculiar and unlikely partnership, more of shared data than of friendship or cooperation. The story, however, is a fascinating one of detail within the Copernican revolution, and of the difficulties of doing science within the religions and politics of the time.

Tycho was a Danish nobleman, and was not supposed to have a career, much less a scientific one. His pursuit of documentation of the heavens was a rebellious break with the traditions of his society. He began keeping a logbook of astronomical observations when he was sixteen years old, and complained even then of the inaccuracy of the tables which were supposed to tell planetary positions. He also railed about the imprecision of the cross staff by which angular distance between stars was measured. Tycho was not satisfied with the Copernican system, although he knew the Earth-centered Ptolemaic one was wrong. He proposed the "Tychonic" system, wherein the Sun orbited the Earth, and the other planets orbited the Sun. He was welcomed by Emperor Rudolf II of the Holy Roman Empire, who supported him in making a new observatory in Prague, but he died only four years later. Kepler's start was far different. Born near Stuttgart in 1571 into a peculiar and unnurturing commoner family, he was essentially rescued by the church. The Protestants were urging the importance of schooling, and he originally wanted to become a Lutheran minister. However, he became interested in the ideas of Copernicus, and became a mathematician and mathematics teacher in Graz. Religious persecution drove him out of Graz, and Tycho extended an invitation to join him in Prague. The invitation resulted in a year of stormy misunderstandings. The odd couple argued constantly, and Kepler at one point walked out. Tycho did not always show magnanimity, but in this case he relented, and became a little more generous with data. Only after Tycho's death did Kepler get all the data he needed, to start making his epochal laws of planetary movement. Kepler, building on Tycho's data, was one of the giants on whose shoulders Newton was to stand, giving us calculus and modern physics and cosmology.

Both Tycho and Kepler were largely working in a vacuum; there was no set scientific tradition for them to be working in, and at times they were more highly valued for their expertise in astrology; though both of them knew astronomy was more valuable, astrology sometimes paid the bills. Getting financial support from kingdoms was difficult and unreliable; at one point Ferguson writes, "Rudolph lavished praise on Kepler and granted him a bonus of two thousand talers, which would have been splendid had it been paid." Not only were they working against a religious tradition, but they were operating in societies ruled largely by religion and superstition. Kepler was extremely devout, but was chivied from place to place in his later years because he refused to insist on religious requirements for others. Kepler's mother herself was tried for witchcraft. Locating Tycho and Kepler firmly within their religious and political milieus, and demonstrating the enormous difficulty of doing science in their time, and in getting appreciation and support, Ferguson has given a wonderfully complex picture of the partnership of two main founders of astronomy.

Wild doings at the observatory
Tycho Brahe, a Danish nobleman, and Johannes Kepler, commoner, crossed paths during one of the times when scientific thought and philosophy was growing by huge leaps--the 17th Century or Age of Reason. Their story is set against the backdrop of the Counter-Reformation and some unsettled times in European history, not to mention the development of major ideas of cosmology.

But what's equally interesting are the life and times of these two scientists in the context of 17th Century daily life. Ferguson researches her subject and provides the reader with a story that is a cross between a soap opera and a historical fiction novel. Brahe's castle and observatory were not only architecturally interesting, the life inside the walls was fraught with nasty doings. Brahe, by all reports, had quite the temper. He may have even invented the modern day graduate student-slavey; he kept associates of lower social rank under his thumb for years, paid them a pittance, assigned them menial work, stole their intellectual property and literally imprisoned them in his palace.

If you have an interest in astronomy or philosophy or just plain European history from this era, you should read this. I couldn't put it down. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (8)

A Man With a Passion for the Game
Bill Bradley, a three-time basketball all-American at Princeton, Olympic gold medalist, Rhodes scholar, member of the New York Knicks and two time NBA champion definitely has a passion for basketball. This books helps show what goes into the making of a champion. Discipline, selflessness, respect, courage, imagination and passion are elements that made him a success on and off the court. I knew nothing at all about Bill Bradley before reading this book, but I have great respect for his personal code and his shining example.

An elegant look at the game of basketball.
I'm writing this review because the fact that it didn't have a 5-star rating irritated me. I first saw the McPhee/Bill Bradley piece in the New Yorker Magazine about 30 years ago. After reading it I xeroxed the entire article and sent copies of it to every member of the University of South Carolina basketball team (which for those of you who are as old as I am was coached by the legendary Frank McGuire (the assistant coach was Donnie Walsh, now President and General Manager of the Indiana Pacers) and featured a cast of great college players like John Roche, Tommy Owens, Billy Walsh, Bobby Cremins, etc. All of the players (an unusually intelligent group) loved the article. We had many conversations about Bradley's approach to the game in the months to come. This is definitely a 5-star book for any lover of the true game of basketball. It's great and can't possibly be outdated. Highest recommendation.

Do not recommend this book!
I was shocked to see that this book has received such marvelous reviews!

I am a big fan of anybody that has deserved success on the same level as Bill Bradley. However, this simple fact does not mean that the product of his interesting life will be a good book.

Simply, this book was very plain and details Bradley's life at Princeton, inside and outside the classroom and on the basketball court. The stories are not interesting and there is too much worship given to Senator Bill. I found many of the "facts" divulged by the author to be incredibly hard to believe.

If you like the modern-day NBA at all you will absolutely hate this book.

If you like the modern-day NBA, politics and the Golden Age of sports you will give this book two stars on a five-star scale!

Bill Bradley-a Princeton hero
This book is about how he was great at Princeton and was on the olympic basketball team.He also had so many reports.John McPhee tells about Bill's running hook shot,layup,set shot Etc.The book really inspired me to want to be a basketball player.

a sense of grace
Curious about Bill Bradley, the man? Sometimes a sense of the man can be had by looking at the youth. This book was written in 1965 after Bradley had finished his Princeton career and was on his way to Oxford. John McPhee's books pack powerful character studies into deceptively simple language. On the surface this is a book about basketball (it's a good book about basketball!), and about excellence through dedication and discipline . The ironic title refers to Bradley's always being aware of where he was on the court in relation to the basket, and to his deep sense of social responsibility for his gifts of privilege, intellect and ability. The portrayal is of a decent, conscientious young man, undistracted or affected by intense celebrity-- whose success in athletics and academics was as much a function of attitude and determination as any innate talent ... Read more

Book Description

Albert Einstein's brain floats in a Tupperware bowl in a gray duffel bag in the trunk of a Buick Skylark barreling across America. Driving the car is journalist Michael Paterniti. Sitting next to him is an eighty-four-year-old pathologist named Thomas Harvey, who performed the autopsy on Einstein in 1955 -- then simply removed the brain and took it home. And kept it for over forty years.

On a cold February day, the two men and the brain leave New Jersey and light out on I-70 for sunny California, where Einstein's perplexed granddaughter, Evelyn, awaits. And riding along as the imaginary fourth passenger is Einstein himself, an id-driven genius, the original galactic slacker with his head in the stars. Part travelogue, part memoir, part history, part biography, and part meditation, Driving Mr. Albert is one of the most unique road trips in modern literature. ... Read more

Reviews (84)

Just another book about a guy with a brain in his trunk
Michael Paterniti came upon a great idea, to write about his cross-country trip with Thomas Harvey, the man who autopsied Albert Einstein and then stole his brain, keeping it in his basement for fifty years. Much of this book is entertaining: meeting up with Harvey's various lady friends, visiting the bizarre William S. Burroughs months before his death, eating in truck stops, Paterniti rambling to strangers having Einstein's brain in the back of his Buick Skylark.

DRIVING MR. ALBERT is no ON THE ROAD, however. This book is a long-winded magazine article, stuffed with sidetrips and a light biography of Albert Einstein. Paterniti never truly has a meeting of minds with Harvey; he does not develop a friendship or any kind of trust. Paterniti is merely the driver, Harvey a spectacularly unusual character along for the ride.

Paterniti thanks a friend in his acknowledgments for pulling him back from precipices of metaphor, though it's obvious the friend didn't pull at him enough -- Paterniti still goes over the edge a few times, sprinkling the text with phrases such as "big as the cosmos" and "we drove down the highway like neurons racing through the brain."

Pacing is a problem as well. The backstory of Einstein's life is not well integrated into the book, taking us on day trips to nowhere. Paterniti has obviously researched this book well, but has merely inserted others' paraphrased words wholesale.

I love road trips, especially with cerebral passengers, but I was ready to bail on this one somewhere between Lawrence, Kansas, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Relative Review 84
I personally enjoyed this story of 2 unlikely road trip companions who travel across America with Albert Einstein's brain in the trunk of their rented Buick. I think some of the people reviewing it here on Amazon take it and themselves a little too seriously.

It was quirky and fun and sweet all at the same time. Included is a light biography of Einstein and the bizarre events that took place after his death concerning his brain. Even a little Relativity is thrown in. This is not a serious book and shouldn't be approached as one. I don't think it is one of the great books of our time, but it did provide an interesting escape.

I started readng it, thinking it was fiction, only to discover it is for the most part a factual account. I found it to be the perfect read while I was cruising around the Caribbean on my honeymoon. Anyone who is interested in this subject matter and doesn't already know much about it should pretty much feel the same way. Enjoy!

You can tell he writes for Esquire
This book is just one long-winded Esquire article...a topic with a catchy enough premise to suck you in, words that are put together well enough that you don't put it down immediately after picking it up, but in the end, it goes absolutely nowhere. There's no attempt to get to the heart of ANYTHING...the "brain keeper" his acquaintances, or the author's relationship with his wife, Sara.

Not great
The book is just OK. A friend told me that inspired by the success of this project, the author got a job as a Federal Baggage Screener to write an expose of this profession (although he claims that he just wanted to be a Federal Baggage Screener), and has been doing the rounds of TV interviews (CNN, FOXNews(unfair and biased), Nickelodeon, etc) to boost sales. He's been attacked by some of the interviewers for not being straight about his intentions to write an expose (but he claims that he just wanted to be a Federal Baggage Screener.) Does anyone else know if this is correct?

In the words of Sybil Fawlty, "Pretentious, moi?"
As another reviewer has pointed out, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" this book ain't.

The writer's understanding of even basic physics seems very limited (this is evident from how confused his physics based metaphors are), let alone whether he understands anything at all about relativity. If you are tempted to read this book because you think that it will offer a readable introduction to relativity - don't because it won't. The reviewers who have said that the book offers an introduction to relativity must be as confused as the writer is. I have the suspicion that the number of stars given by the reviewer is inversely proportional to the amount of physics which the reviewer understands.

The main flaw of this book however is how contrived it is. In this respect it is deeply disappointing, as the further I got into the book, the deeper was my feeling of hurt at being conned by this writer. Persevering with reading the book is like persevering with cultivating a relationship with an absolute liar and is deeply upsetting in this regard. You feel like reaching out to grab them and implore them, "Just tell the truth." I know nothing about writing, and have not attended graduate school in creative writing as has the author, but surely the first thing that a writer must do is develop his own voice which is an honest voice, and not a phony voice. Most of the incidents relayed in the book appear to be manufactured merely for inclusion in a book about travelling across America with Einstein's brain in the trunk - to be quirky and to boost sales.

The most enjoyable and least phony passages are towards the beginning of the book concerning the author's time spent at graduate school where he met Sara and his trips across country as a teenager and a 23 year old. After this, the mask comes up in front of his face and we step into the realm of "contrived quirkiness," presumably in the interests of sales. Perhaps "zany" sells, and it is probably easier to sell books by fooling the customer than by actually writing something of some enduring value. The many good reviews on this web site seem to me to be a testament to this fact.

All of this is to say nothing about the despicable act which the physician Harvey committed in stealing the brain out of a corpse. To employ my own physics based metaphor, there is a certain wave-particle duality between the dishonesty exhibited by Harvey in his actions (whatever his intentions were) and the actions of getting a magazine contract, then a book contract, then going on the trip (in a car paid for by the publishers) and then pushing the manuscript on those unsuspecting readers out there across America, who are waiting to lap up "zany" (whatever the intentions of the writer were.)

I'm with the school kid who asked the physician Harvey, "What's the point?" Ultimately, an exercise in pretentious and dishonest babbling, and I will be glad to be finished with the book. ... Read more

Book Description

"Miller is an excellent historian...and a fine biographer.... [His] artful arrangement of his conclusions...makes the book something of an intellectual thriller."-- New York Times Book Review.

The most important scientist of the twentieth century and the most important artist had their periods of greatest creativity almost simultaneously and in remarkably similar circumstances.

This fascinating parallel biography of Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso as young men examines their greatest creations--Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and Einstein's special theory of relativity. Miller shows how these breakthroughs arose not only from within their respective fields but from larger currents in the intellectual culture of the times. Ultimately, Miller shows how Einstein and Picasso, in a deep and important sense, were both working on the same problem. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Going over Boundaries between Disciplines
What factors can be motivations of a genius's reformative work? Is it possible that the same notions affect geniuses in science and art? What is the daily life of geniuses? What processes are going on when a genius does a monumental work? We often have such questions as above. Arthur I. Miller, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at University College London, wrote a wonderful book to answer all of those questions and to tell us more about creative activity by the example of the two giants of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso.

This dual biography centers on the special relativity theory discovered by Einstein in 1905 and the Cubism painting "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" produced by Picasso in 1907. In the first chapter, the author mentions that Poincare's book "La Science et l'hypothese" gave a spur to both of the two geniuses and led them to explore new notions of space and time. Tracing their respective lives in later chapters, the author clarifies how both men sought representations of nature that transcend those of classical thought and reach beyond appearances. The reader would be convinced of the fact that the effect of Poincare's book is not a superficial similarity between the works of Einstein and Picasso but a common denominator deeply rooted in the culture and science of the early twentieth century.

In the last chapter the author insists that at the creative moment boundaries between disciplines dissolve. Namely, aesthetics becomes paramount also in science; on the other hand, artists solve problems just like scientists. So, if you are a scientist, you would find direct interest in the chapters on Einstein and also find it profitable to read the chapters on Picasso; and if you are an artist, the reverse would be true. Laypersons would also get a lot of stimuli to a productive life from this book.

Great minds think alike.
Arthur Miller is a Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at London's University College. Equal parts biography and art-science history, his interesting book follows the parallel lives of physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) and painter Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) into the 20th Century. Although the two lives never actually intersected, Miller demonstrates that as a result of the intellectual atmosphere of 1905, Einstein and Picasso "began exploring new notions of space and time almost coincidentally" (p. 4). "I wrote EINSTEIN, PICASSO," Miller tells us, "for lovers of art and science practiced at their most fundamental and exciting level, for aficionados of thinking across disciplines and generally for readers interested in the drama of high creativity. We wonder about the moment when everything comes together to produce incredible insights. How does this happen? How do thoughts emerge that go beyond the information at hand?" (p. 8).

While it does not ultimately succeed as a biography in bringing either Einstein or Picasso to life in its 357 pages, Miller's book shows that his subjects were able to achieve "enormous successes under conditions that would have defeated most people" (p. 266), and to this limited extent, Miller gives us insight into what made both men tick. However, Miller's real strength is in exploring how Einstein and Picasso "processed information in order to make their momentous breakthroughs" (p. 245) resulting in Einstein's 1905 theory of relativity, and the cubism of Picasso's 1907 painting, "Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon." The theory of relativity, like cubism, Miller shows, represents "a profound response to changes in the philosophical and scientific climate as well as to dramatic technological innovations" (p. 174). While his book demonstrates time and again how Einstein and Picasso were equally fond of work and women, it only really soars when it reveals how these two men were able to simultaneously move the world into modernity through science and art.

G. Merritt

strains to equate two rather different lives
The idea that there may be a connection between the appearance of relativity and cubism at the beginning of the twentieth century is not a new one. Though it has been shown quite convincingly that Picasso was not aware of Einstein's work when he and Braque invented cubism, it is still possible to say that BOTH Einstein and Picasso were influenced by some common elements that had appeared in western culture at that time. This, in itself, would be unremarkable; Both Einstein and Picasso lived in the same continent at the same time, it would be very surprising if they did NOT have some common influences. But professor Miller tries to stretch this comparison to the breaking point and well beyond. The result is a book in which excellent summaries of their early life and careers are marred by clichéd and overblown psychobabble and cultural theorizing.
The book is still interesting because it deals in detail with the lives of two such gifted and unique individuals. But the comparisons are frequently forced, and the author seems to have failed to take the advice of either of the masters. Picasso was dismissive of most attempts to retrospectively slot his art into some art historian's version of "influences and phases" and he would certainly have resisted any attempt to "explain" his genius in this manner. Einstein, too, was willing to leave the mystery of creativity unsolved. Mr. Miller would have done well to present us with two separate books about Einstein and Picasso, or one bigger book on the cultural ferment of the early nineteen hundreds. This attempt to find "the secret of creativity" fails to rise above the level of the self-help manuals that crowd our bookshops. Einstein loved music, so music is listed as one of the routes to creative "non-verbal" thought. But the fact that Picasso was never interested in music does not constitute a counter-example for Mr. Miller. Meanwhile, Picasso smoked hashish and took opium with great regularity through this period, but while the slightest hint that he might have heard of geometry is inflated beyond belief, this significant aspect of his life gets only two lines in the book.
Last, but not the least, while science and art are both human products, their natures are very different. Much of Modern art has moved beyond mere representation and become more like music (an esthetic experience which may or may not represent a particular "story") but science is nothing if it's not a coherent story. Einstein rebuilt the foundations of modern science by systematically and LOGICALLY questioning the basic assumptions of Newtonian physics and the discoveries of electro-magnetism. This achievement may have involved intuition and unconscious influences, but it would be useless if scientists could not eventually understand and agree on its meaning. Modern art may well deal with matters even more important than the physical structure of the universe (love, sex, death, loss, meaning, values, rebellion, rage...) but it would not be art if all artists were to agree on its significance and meaning.

Creativity and the Mind
A brilliant book for a discussion between the relationship between the art and science.

Maybe we can not be an Einstein or Picasso, but there is a lot to learn about their creative spirit.

Einstein and Picasso - no premise for comparison
In an attempt to seek commonality between Picasso and Einstein, the author fails to leave the reader with the revolutionary nature of Einstein's legacy; precisely why Einstein's ideas were counterintuitive and what its implications for science were. I was disappointed that I did not get a better grasp of this subject matter than before I read the book (I am not a physicist). Einstein was truly a genius because he was able to predict physical phenomena later borne out by empirical observations. Picasso was at best creative and his "legacy" was a new representation of art that is entirely subjective. The author makes conjectures of Picasso's connection to philosophy and science but this is like saying that Bin Laden and Gandhi are similar because both believe in some form of self determination. Picasso's thought processes appear divergent. This is not genius. The poor explanation of Einstein's theories and its implications results in this superficial equating of genius with the "creative". I suppose in a sense the author has succeeded in showing us that when you equate genius with the scandalous hell-raiser you are bound to come up short. This is injustice to Einstein and scientific thought.
While I disagree with the author's basic premise, he has done a fine job of collecting information about the historical aspects of each person's life, placing them in the context of the sociological environment of the twentieth century . He describes many of the key scientific discoveries of those times and has made me eager to learn more about the evolution of scientific thought and advances. ... Read more

Book Description

In 1856 eighteen-year-old English chemist William Perkin accidentally discovered a way to mass-produce color. In a "witty, erudite, and entertaining" (Esquire) style, Simon Garfield explains how the experimental mishap that produced an odd shade of purple revolutionized fashion, as well as industrial applications of chemistry research. Occasionally honored in certain colleges and chemistry clubs, Perkin until now has been a forgotten man. 8 pages of color illustrations. ... Read more

Reviews (18)

I loved this book
I received Mauve this Christmas and loved it. It's a hybrid of a book, a primer in science, Victoriana, fashion and color. It's not so much a biography of Sir William Perkin, the man on the cover, as a history of mauve since his invention (1850s) to the present. Simon Garfield made me believe that the whole world can be seen in terms of a particular color, and he weaves in some great historical detail to support his case.
Mauve was really the first artificial dye to be made, and became the toast of London and Paris once the Empress Eugenie found that it suited her crinolines like nothing else. After mauve, any artificial dye was possible, and the world really did change. Even if it isn't your color of choice, I recommended this book as a very interesting read.
(By the way, I'm not Pat Barker the British author!)

Very interesting, but I found it patchy to read
The title alone was a seller for me. "How one man invented a color that changed the World". And I think Garfield really does manage to show this. William Perkins experiments with Coal Tar not only managed to show a viable use for this waste product, but it is because of him we are now able to dress in bright, unfading colours - aniline dyes.

I found the first few chapters of this book the most interesting. I felt Garfield had a good story - showing Perkins role, his experiments, the difficulty finding someone to use the process, the expense of doing it and the competition from people also discovering the process. These first few chapters in themselves made the book worth the purchase, for me anyway.

Unfortunately after that I found my attention wandered about. For some reason which I don't quite understand, Garfield started mixing up things by putting stuff on modern use of dyes, and quotes on Mauve all around the place. This really didn't work for me at all. I found it plain distracting actually. Also I don't think Garfield has quite the talent and touch of really good historical writers such as Dava Sobel (Longitude) and Giles Milton (Big Chief Elizabeth) and I think that may have also contributed to my losing attention later on.

This book certainly has a place for those of you who enjoy reading about these small but essential bits of history which are all but forgotten in the modern age. The story is a very good one indeed. I just think it would have been much more gripping as a purely chronological history.

OK
Not bad - but only the first half of the book is readable. More interesting is the substory that the author didn't even catch or perhaps was ignoring - it sounds like this inventor wasn't really that critical in the development of the industry, except that once UK went to war with Germany they needed to find someone who wasn't German that they could credit with the invention of chemical dye and decided to make this guy the hero.

Okay. But I really didn't get it.
I really wanted to like this book. And, yes, it has a fascinating tale to tell. But there was something lacking in the writing that me entirely unable to 'get' what the writer was trying to say. It IS an interesting story about the origins of dyes, about the effect of dyes on other industries, the industrial surge of technology of the age, and so on. But I couldn't ever quite figure out what made the chemical composition about this particular mauve so unique and important, and what about it was pushing the world into the future. I'm not usually this lost when I read, so, officially, I'm blaming the author! Sorry Simon.

origins of heterocyclic chemistry
This is a fantastic accounting of a too little glorified period in the development of organic chemistry. The story will be inspiring to anyone who has an interest in chemistry and/or business. The latter because the story demonstrates the importance of recognizing and capitalizing on an unexpected invention (vs. more target-oriented discovery).

Unlike, most other popular science-related books that this is likely to be lumped with, it is enjoyably written, well researched and full of fascinating facts. ... Read more

Reviews (18)

Very accurate, the most comprehensive book on N.Tesla
Marc did great job covering life and work of Nikola Tesla, a serbian-american inventor who made great contributions to modern science and engineering. Book covers all of the important aspects of Tesla's inventions and scientific discoveries. It covers the broader historical background and explains the importance of Tesla's work to a great detail. It is also very good at explaining "mysteries" surrounding Tesla's personal life. It presents Tesla both as one of the greatest scientist ever as well as a human being. This book is so good since it makes the right balance between technical information (very accurate, with rich bibliography) and Tesla's personal life and social interactions. Therefore it is interesting for both serious scientists who would like to learn from Tesla's work as well as for general population who would like to learn about this extraordinary personality.

Overall, this is the number one book on Tesla so far. The best starting point and reference regarding Tesla's life and work.

Superb Biography of a Man ahead of his Time
Seifer's comprehensive look at Nikola Tesla is unexpected. It is neither dry, formulaic or predictable - even for those familiar with the enigmatic genius. Simply put, it is fascinating, exciting reading. Tesla was credited with the invention of modern AC power generation, remote control, fundamental advances in radio, wireless voice- and data-transfer, the first laser, advanced flight concepts, and a myriad of other inventions. Yet he died without ever achieving the financial rewards one would expect for a man who was truly ahead of his time.

Taking advantage of ill-defined intellectual property laws and the vagaries of international court systems, other well-known inventors such as Pupin, Marconi, and Steinmetz either "borrowed" his discoveries or helped write him out of the history books. While many rode Tesla's coattails to public recognition and, often, staggering financial success - the great man was left penniless and alone.

Seifer pulls no punches. Tesla made a series of startling gaffes. From ill-conceived contracts with Westinghouse (leaving him with no ongoing revenue from his discovery of the AC polyphase system) to poor management of critical projects backed by J.P. Morgan, Tesla disappointed his financiers time and time again. Lack of prioritization, spinning off in too many directions simultaneously, poor project management - all contributed to Tesla's inability to achieve the breakthrough he needed (and deserved) for true financial independence.

Seifer covers Tesla's life in exceptional detail. His bizarre work habits (often sleeping only two hours a night), his odd social life (never married and apparently a lifelong celibate), and his many other idiosyncrasies are described with fascinating anecdotes. You don't need to be an Electrical Engineer, or a Scientist, or even technically savvy to thoroughly enjoy _Wizard_. In a nutshell: superb.

This was AWESOME!
If anyone has ever been interested in a the fascinating inventions of Tesla, this book will satisfy this interest and do so much more. It tells of his intellectual genius, and egotistical and financial failings. Tesla was his best and worst enemy, and this book does a nice job of proving both points. A really interesting read, with no slow parts as you might think. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

About time for the Facts.
Bravo, Bravo.
What a great find. I have been through this book twice and still find myself overwhelmend by the accomplishments of Tesla. The Author was detailed and objective in his writing. Considering the family ties he writes about. What I especially found interesting is the later chapters, addressing the so called occult theory's about Tesla and his works. For the most part, he laid them to rest. Again Bravo! However I am a bit disapointed that there wasn't more on his Invention's and Patent's. I was hoping for a detailed list or drawings on his invetion's. Still, the pictures and accounts of his life, is one of the best I have seen. Over all a must to read.

Good Profile
This is a well written piece of work by Seifer. It is not as detailed an autobiography as say Cheney's "Tesla: Man Out of Time" but if offers many other aspects that other works do not. What is most beneficial about this read is that the author is a professor of psychology as well as a handwriting expert. This allows him to analyze the habits, writings, and many other idiosyncrasies about Tesla. Another plus is it goes more into detail about Tesla's work than other biographies. A very worthwhile read for future engineers like myself, historians, or people interested in learning more about where many of the devices we use all the time today originated. ... Read more

Book Description

For as long as anyone can remember, a man named Luca Turin has had an uncanny relationship with smells. He has been compared to the hero of Patrick Süskind’s novel Perfume, but his story is in fact stranger, because it is true. It concerns how he made use of his powerful gifts to solve one of the last great mysteries of the human body: how our noses work.

Luca Turin can distinguish the components of just about any smell, from the world’s most refined perfumes to the air in a subway car on the Paris metro. A distinguished scientist, he once worked in an unrelated field, though he made a hobby of collecting fragrances. But when, as a lark, he published a collection of his reviews of the world’s perfumes, the book hit the small, insular business of perfume makers like a thunderclap. Who is this man Luca Turin, they demanded, and how does he know so much? The closed community of scent creation opened up to Luca Turin, and he discovered a fact that astonished him: no one in this world knew how smell worked. Billions and billions of dollars were spent creating scents in a manner amounting to glorified trial and error.

The solution to the mystery of every other human sense has led to the Nobel Prize, if not vast riches. Why, Luca Turin thought, should smell be any different? So he gave his life to this great puzzle. And in the end, incredibly, it would seem that he solved it. But when enormously powerful interests are threatened and great reputations are at stake, Luca Turin learned, nothing is quite what it seems.

Acclaimed writer Chandler Burr has spent four years chronicling Luca Turin’s quest to unravel the mystery of how our sense of smell works. What has emerged is an enthralling, magical book that changes the way we think about that area between our mouth and our eyes, and its profound, secret hold on our lives. ... Read more

Reviews (21)

For Perfume-Lovers, Biology Nerds, and Curious Minds
This is one of those rare un-put-downable books. It's unusual to find a book on science that is so highly, compellingly readable. It weaves together stories of science in theory and in practice (amazing discoveries, long years of research, stubborn hidebound resistance) and both the allure and industry of perfume, through the figure of Luca Turin. The story focuses on the scientist's lifelong obsession with perfume (the book is a must-read for any woman who wears classics like Chanel No. 5, Rive Gauche, or Shalimar) and his determination to unlock the mystery of how we smell--and the science community's determination to ignore his compelling conclusions.

Not to be missed
This may be the best popular scientific book ever written.
The writing style flows from beginning to end without a single misjudged word or phrase. It seems much more like a thriller than
a story of intellectual discovery. As the reader is drawn along by the narrative, key technical concepts are absorbed almost by osmosis.
This is cutting edge science presented so clearly that it seems self-evident, even though it involves advanced concepts in physics, chemistry, and biology.
Luca Turin is the ideal subject, a man who would be fascinating even if he didn't produce revolutionary science. The reader ends the book waiting for the scientific community to wake up and
FedEx his Nobel Prize without delay.
The highest praise to Chandler Burr for giving us an unforgettable portrait of Luca Turin and his pursuit of the mystery of smell. It seems unlikely that anyone will pick up this book without eagerly devouring it and wishing that every book on science could be half this good.

Science on the Fringe
The Emperor of Scent is a fascinating, fun to read account of a man out on the scientific fringe. Chandler Burr, tells the story of Luco Turin, PhD in biology and a self described "Bio-physicist" who has been practically obsessed with smell all his life. Turin is clearly an expert when it comes to using his nose to decipher the mysteries of perfume. A book he authored on the subject has gained him access to the inner sanctum of the scent industry.

In the course of his scientific and non scientific dabbling, Turin becomes interested in the theory of smell. The mainstream theory is that smell is based upon the shapes of molecules. But there are several problems with this theory, and as is sometimes the case, the scientific establishment refuses to deal with these problems rationally as too much is invested in the current theory. Turin resurrects an old theory. That smell is based upon how a molecules vibrate. This theory was considered preposterous in the past because the mechanism to measure this vibration seems too complex to be done biologically. Turin tackles this by proposing a plausible biological mechanism for tunneling electron microscopy or spectroscopy. He even finds some supporting evidence for this mechanism in scientific literature. Next Turin sets out to do some experimentation to provide evidence to support his theory. In physics there are theoreticians and experimentalists, In biology theory and experiment are the realm of the same individual or team. Turin seems to be a better theorist than an experimentalist. As it turns out biologists don't understand math very well. (fear of math may have been a reason for choosing that field) and Turin's theory is full of math. On the other hand physicists don't understand biology. Turin is caught in the middle. And no one wants to take him seriously.

The Emperor of Scent spends many pages recounting Turin's attempts to be taken seriously. But he is an outsider who wants to upset the apple cart with a new theory only a multidisciplinary scientist such as he can really understand. He has little supporting evidence and is too impatient to spend years in a lab gathering the evidence he needs to support his theory. Instead he keeps leaping for the brass ring.

While Chandler Burr is not very objective in his account he does tell an interesting story. This is not a scientific work, but a work of journalism. Burr's ultimate purpose may be to promote Turin's theory, but he also does a fine expose' of the scientific establishment at its' best. He also does a great job of introducing us to Luco Turin. A man out of the mold of Richard Feynman. Fun loving, entertaining, intense and monomaniacal at times.

The Emperor of Scent is interesting on many levels. I learned a lot about smell, smells, and the fragrance industry. I also enjoyed the story of how a ball coming in from left field is handled by the scientific establishment. A very human story.

Wow - fascinating - scathing
Need some basics in chemistry/physics/biology, and helps if you are familiar with major perfume brands, but a GREAT read. Quirky characters. Edge of the seat story. Wanted a Hollywood ending, but then, this is life/art/science/business, and it isn't always what we want it to be.

Now I have to rush out to Sephora and smell all the smells!

Excellent book on resistance of science to new theories
This book is very engrossing, and I will not repeat the praise many other readers have posted here. Instead, I will respond to some reviewers who criticize Luca Turin's theory based on his not having performed certain kinds of experiments, or criticize the author's failure to go into the science in more detail. To the contrary, the book's main point is very well supported: Turin has developed a coherent theory of smell and has backed it up with enough data that other scientists, instead of simply shouting him down, should instead have conducted any experiments they claim he should have done. The book shows that Turin has done enough to now put the burden on other scientists, who are more established, better-funded, and better equipped with labs etc., to do more than simply claim Turin left gaps, and then sit on their hands. The point is that science should not be about sitting in judgment on whether a particular scientist should be rated high or low; it should be about the development of promising theories regardless of the names attached to them. The book shows that the praise-and-prestige game of modern science impedes scientific progress. Other books that tell the same kind of story of scientific supression motivated by clinging to prestige are "The Rejection of Continental Drift" and "Plate Tectonics," both by Naomi Oreskes. The behavior of the opponents of continental drift (who lost, obviously) is uncannily similar to the behavior of those who oppose Turin's smell theory. ... Read more

Book Description

With the hundredth anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ history-making flight at Kitty Hawk, world attention is once again turning to these intrepid American inventors. Written by two of the world’s leading experts on the Wrights, The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age will provide a definitive, richly illustrated look at the lives of the brothers and their world-changing invention.

Wilbur and Orville were two eccentric owners of a bicycle shop in the heartland. But it was invention, engineering, and the new possibilities of manned flight that obsessed them. In just three years, they went from designing and flying a glider and creating a test wind tunnel to Wilbur’s history-making moments in December 1903 above the dunes at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In moving prose, Crouch and Jakab explain the Wrights’ achievements and the moments of their great successes, and they paint a masterful personal portrait of the two sometimes erratic, genius personalities (never married, the brothers lived together all their lives), and, most important, the world of pioneering aviation in which they operated.

Poignant archival photographs throughout the book capture that world, where ox carts and airplanes co-existed and where two determined brothers from Dayton were celebrated by presidents and kings. But the most poignant of all the images remains that of an airplane, almost kite-like in its simplicity, struggling skyward from the dunes at Kitty Hawk.

Book Description

Karl Pearson, founder of modern statistics, came to this field by way of passionate early studies of philosophy and cultural history as well as ether physics and graphical geometry. His faith in science grew out of a deeply moral quest, reflected also in his socialism and his efforts to find a new basis for relations between men and women. This biography recounts Pearson's extraordinary intellectual adventure and sheds new light on the inner life of science.

Theodore Porter's intensely personal portrait of Pearson extends from religious crisis and sexual tensions to metaphysical and even mathematical anxieties. Pearson sought to reconcile reason with enthusiasm and to achieve the impersonal perspective of science without sacrificing complex individuality. Even as he longed to experience nature directly and intimately, he identified science with renunciation and positivistic detachment. Porter finds a turning point in Pearson's career, where his humanistic interests gave way to statistical ones, in his Grammar of Science (1892), in which he attempted to establish scientific method as the moral educational basis for a refashioned culture.

In this original and engaging book, a leading historian of modern science investigates the interior experience of one man's scientific life while placing it in a rich tapestry of social, political, and intellectual movements.

... Read more

Amazon.com

History hasn't been particularly kind to Robert Hooke. Inescapably linked to Sir Isaac Newton, with whom he famously feuded, Hooke was also a notable associate of surveyor Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Boyle, the father of modern chemistry. Gifted in everything from architecture to anatomical dissection, he perhaps spread his knowledge too thin to have had a towering impact on any one field. His versatility combined with an impolitic personality damaged Hooke's standing in his lifetime and, author Lisa Jardine convincingly contends, in the centuries since his death. Jardine, the author of On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life and Tumultuous Times of Christopher Wren , once again delves deep into the 17th century to resurrect the reputation of "a founding figure in the European scientific revolution." A London-based professor of renaissance studies, Jardine brings great enthusiasm to her task, even embarking on some detective work to discover what she convincingly contends is a long-lost painting of Hooke, whose appearance had heretofore been limited to unflattering descriptions by his contemporaries. As readable as it is thoroughly researched, The Curious Life of Robert Hooke will stand for some time as the definitive account of one of history's great dabblers. --Steven Stolder ... Read more

Reviews (6)

REVIEW OF LISA JARDINE'SROBERT HOOKE BY JOHN CHUCKMAN
Robert Hooke's life was curious, a neglected topic that makes good reading, although a full, living sense of this man is missing from the book.

He was an ingenious, creative man, abounding with energy and interests in his younger years, whose acquaintances and friends included Boyle, Pepys, and Wren. He was widely recognized as a physics and general science experimenter of exceptional ability - a designer of both accurate instruments and experiments in which to employ them - almost certainly the greatest of his day. He might be viewed from today's perspective as something of the Ernest Lawrence of his day versus the great theorists.

Hooke's interests included astronomical measurements, microscopy, fossils, watches, the behavior of gases, and more. He was also interested in theoretical concepts although his mathematical abilities fell far short of people like Newton or Leibniz. Still, he came up with the hypothesis of the inverse-square law for gravity which he sent to Newton, asking him to prove mathematically whether it was valid. Newton never gave Hooke appropriate credit for Hooke's early insight, and it is not clear whether this was owing to Hooke's annoying carping or Newton's own very unpleasant temperament.

Hooke's early musings on the layers of fossils found on his native Isle of Wight demonstrate a remarkable analytical and creative mind at work. He got the process of their formation pretty close to right lifetimes before the meaning of fossils was widely recognized in science.

Ms. Jardine made the happy discovery of what is likely Hooke's portrait (no known one survives), a picture that had long been identified as being of John Ray. The circumstances of her discovery make a wonderful little tale early in the book.

What comes through so strongly from some of Jardine's anecdotes is how the basic philosophy of science had advanced by the second half of the 17th century, Hooke's time. This was, after all, only a few decades after Francis Bacon, yet the main points of modern science seem to be assumed by Europe's leading tinkerers and scientists.

Hooke's story is not a happy one, but I will leave that for readers to discover. Ms. Jardine is at times a slightly awkward writer, but she has an interesting story to tell and, on the whole, she tells it well. Ms. Jardine also wrote On a Grander Scale, a biography of the wonderful Christopher Wren. The book on Hooke she regards as a companion volume to the one on Wren. Do read both.

An Introduction
I think I would have liked this book much better if I had read it before Stephen Inwood's The Forgotten Genius which, like this book, deals with the life of Robert Hooke.The differences between the two books, however, are striking.This is not to say that one is necessarily better than the other but, rather, that each has its strengths and weaknesses.

The first thing of note in Ms. Jardine's book is that she has a case to make--that a portrait previously identified as botanist John Ray is, in fact, a portrait of Hooke.This may not seem important to the casual reader but it has been one of the commonalities of Hooke research that no image of him remains.(Whether through accident or the machinations of bitter scientists like Newton, no one knows.)In fact, it is her argument over the authenticity of this portrait (which has some merit) that seems her real incentive for writing this book.In some sense, the rest of the book is an afterthought.

This is not to say that the rest of the book is not worthwhile.It most certainly is.Ms. Jardine tells her story well.Ms. Jardine's book has one major advantage over Mr. Inwood's: it is much more readable.Her style is much lighter and engaging.She is telling the story for a general audience whereas Mr. Inwood's main audience seems to be scientists and historians.She vividly recreates his youth on the Isle of Wight and his flight to London.She is excellent with outlining Hooke's tendencies towards hypochondria and the many tonics he took to keep himself going at a hectic pace.I am also very impressed with her telling of Hooke's conflict with the Huygens family which often gets short shrift in Hooke's story due to the much better known conflict with Newton.

Still, overall, Inwood's book gives a much better sense of the man.There is a real depth missing in this book.Ms. Jardine talks of Hooke's conflict with Newton near the very start of the book and then hardly mentions it again, though this is probably the defining time of Hooke's life.Her ability to discuss Hooke's scientific