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At an Esalen Institute meeting in 1976, tai chi master Al Huang said that the Chinese word for physics is Wu Li, "patterns of organic energy." Journalist Gary Zukav and the others present developed the idea of physics as the dance of the Wu Li Masters--the teachers of physical essence. Zukav explains the concept further:

The Wu Li Master dances with his student. The Wu Li Master does not teach, but the student learns. The Wu Li Master always begins at the center, the heart of the matter.... This book deals not with knowledge, which is always past tense anyway, but with imagination, which is physics come alive, which is Wu Li.... Most people believe that physicists are explaining the world. Some physicists even believe that, but the Wu Li Masters know that they are only dancing with it.

The "new physics" of Zukav's 1979 book comprises quantum theory, particle physics, and relativity. Even as these theories age they haven't percolated all that far into the collective consciousness; they're too far removed from mundane human experience not to need introduction. The Dancing Wu Li Masters remains an engaging, accessible way to meet the most profound and mind-altering insights of 20th-century science. --Mary Ellen Curtin ... Read more

Reviews (86)

Taught me what a Prof. couldn't...
Let me start simply, by saying this book is no Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, even though a title-reviewer mentions ZMM in passing. It is, however, a discussion of quantum physics that you could have with a knowledgeable friend who lacks a pen and paper (well, perhaps an envelope and a pencil for some sketches).

This book isn't the "definitive" discussion of QPhysics in simplistic terms, but it does do a nice job of introducing how QPhysics came to be from Plank to Einstein through Feynman... [Others have mentioned Feynman's "QED", which I haven't read but plan to.]

What this book did for me was to solidify QM/Qphys after being taught by 3 Physics professors at one of the top universities in the country, as well as an electronics-materials prof. who couldn't seem to explain a single thing about Schrodinger's equation. And, for a book that's kept me reading it, that's quite a bit to say about it.

I kept saying, "Ah! Well, why didn't those sillies [Prof's] ever tell us that?!"

Agreeing with others here, I will admit at times it's slightly difficult to keep the whole particle/wave thing separate. If one stops to think about the book while reading it, it's not difficult in the least.

It also helped me to solidify a thought that's begun for me in past readings... that on the edge of knowledge, all of us are putting faith in our ideas. Science is closer to philosophy than most will admit.

This book, I agree, does not touch much on Eastern philosophies in the least. For that, I suggest reading Alan Watt's "Way of Zen", or perhaps the somewhat silly at times Benjamin Hoff's "Tao of Pooh" and "Te of Piglet", 3 classics for starters. [While you're at it, pick up Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig if you haven't yet - it's not really only about motorcycles.]

Another liberal arts convert
Until last fall, I wasn't a science person at all. At college, I majored in English Lit, minored in Music and Philosophy and did my best to avoid anything slightly scientific.

But then one night last October when I couldn't sleep, I stayed up flipping channels and came across Brian Greene's Nova program THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE. I saw it was about Physics, and almost hit the clicker, but something about the presentation made me curious to watch a little more.

Within an hour, I was a new Physics convert. If you interested in language, art, and the disciplines of beauty, you can't help but be mesmerized by Quantum mechanics, string theory, and all of the cutting edge theories of physical world represented in Brian Greene's program.

The next time I was at a bookstore, I tried to pick up a copy of the book the NOVA show was based on, but they were sold out, so I scoured the Physics section and found a copy of Gary Zukav's THE DANCING WU-LI MASTERS, instead.

Written back in the late seventies, Zukav's book is one of the first popular mainstream explications of modern theoretical physics for the lay, non-science person, like myself. I found it fascinating, and for the most part very easy to follow.

Zukav writes in a clear and compelling manner about the wonderful mysteries of the universe. He covers the history of how theoretical Physics got to where it is today (or at least was in the late seventies). He explains Einstein's major contributions to science in a few easy to follow chapters, and then goes on to skillfully explain the inexplicable conundrums of quantum theory.

As Zukav describes probability theory, he makes a convincing case that modern Physics isn't that different from Zen Buddhism. He shows how the steel-and-concrete building blocks that make up our universe are actually a lot more fluid and suggetable than common sense would dictate.

This books really helps you recover any amazement and wonder you might have lost in the everyday world around you.

Check this book out if you think you're not a science person, and if you like it, also get Brian Greene's THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE. Theoretical Physics is pretty literally the stuff dreams are made of.

One of the best books I have read
There are not too many books that can satisfy everybody. This book is for the whole family- scientists, lay-men, the religious aunt and the rebel teenager can enjoy this book equally.

Danger Ahead
I read this book when it was new, and found it entertaining. I didn't think much more about it after that. Then I came upon a reference to it in one of Gardner's books concerning bad science. Looking back at it knowing so much more now, I agree, it's borderline nonsence. E.g. electrons don't "think" about making a choice about which way to go; they enter into superposition.

Flow Like a River, Understand Relativity Like an Physicist
Do you want to understand all the mysteries of the universe? Hoping to discover the essence of existence? Well, if you desire to do anything along these lines, there are certainly worse ways to start than through reading The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics by Gary Zukav.

This information-packed book represents the pinnacle of popular science achievement, as it provides a gentle guide for the average reader through the intellectual minefield of modern physics from quantum mechanics to relativity. Rather than bogging down the reader with dozens of equations and complicated graphs, Zukav chooses to demonstrate the concepts of new-age physics through metaphors, diagrams, and an explanation of the thought processes that led to such startling theories as the Theory of General Relativity and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Sure, Zukav may explain the experiments that confirm the viability of a theory, but he doesn't force you to sift through the data; instead, writes in plain English while including lots of easily-followed, pretty pictures. Particularly for a high school student without too much exposure to physics, this style provides an excellent overview of the most interesting, cutting-edge ideas in science.
Zukav's subject-matter couldn't be more interesting: using the backdrop of Eastern philosophies to better link physical concepts to ideas more compatible to the human mindset, he breezes through Newtonian physics, quantum mechanics, and both theories of relativity in just a little over 300 pages. Zukav also admirably presents the problem of the irreconcilability of quantum mechanics with relativity, which bothered Einstein to his dying days. While none of these concepts is dealt with entirely thoroughly (it is a short book), the book is an enjoyable and easily understandable introduction to one of the most difficult fields mankind has to offer

At the same time, Zukav's book is not perfect. For one thing, the book is rather dated; he doesn't even deal with String Theory, which was by and large developed after the publication of this book. At the same time, the absence of String Theory may be advantageous to the reader who knows little about physics, since the five separate String Theories are both difficult to understand and incredibly theoretical (that is, no physicist has been able to design an experiment that actually produces data to prove String Theory, which means that the concept is rather ephemeral and hard to describe in a concrete way; for more on this, see http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0311047). Further, the whole Zen thing seems a little excessive. Sure, Eastern philosophies are generally conducive to modern physics in that Eastern philosophers have always realized that sometimes the human mind can't comprehend everything at once, but the fact is that people reading this book probably aren't doing so to learn about "Wu Li" ("The Way"); they're reading it to learn about "New Physics."

Despite these minor deficiencies, though, this book does a good job of explaining very difficult concepts to a "normal" reader. There was a time when only the very top physicists in the world understood Einstein's theories of relativity, but books like The Dancing Wu Li Masters have helped rectify this problem by making complicated physics accessible to the general public. ... Read more

Book Description

New Cosmic Horizons tells the extraordinary story of space-based astronomy since the Second World War. Starting with the launch of the V2 rocket in 1946, this book explores the triumphs of space experiments and spacecraft designs and the amazing astronomical results that they have produced. David Leverington examines the fascinating way in which the changing political imperatives of the United States, USSR/Russia and Western Europe have modified their space astronomy programs. He covers all major astronomy missions of the first fifty years of space research: the Soviet Sputnik and American Explorer projects, the subsequent race to the moon, solar and planetary missions, and the wonders of modern astrophysics culminating in the exciting results of the Hubble Space Telescope. Extensively illustrated, New Cosmic Horizons offers amateur and professional astronomers an unusual perspective on the history of astronomy in our time.David Leverington was Design Manager of the GEOS Spacecraft and Meteosat Program Manager for ESA in the 1970s. During his tenure as Engineering Director at British Aerospace in the 1980s, he was responsible for the Giotto spacecraft that intercepted Halley's comet, and the Photon Detector Assembly and solar arrays for the Hubble Space Telescope. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He lives in Essex, England. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The fascinating history of space-based astronomy
In New Cosmic Horizons: Space Astronomy From The V2 To The Hubble Space Telescope, David Leverington reveals the fascinating history of space-based astronomy from the launching of the V! rocket in 1946 down to the present day. Here are all the triumphs of the space experiments and spacecraft designs that have produced the spectacular astronomical results in the last half of the twentieth century. Profusely illustrated and with a comprehensive, "reader friendly" text ideal for both astronomy students, astronomy professionals, and the interested non-specialist general reader, New Cosmic Horizons will prove to be an essential, core addition to any personal, academic or community library reference collection. ... Read more

Book Description

The animal communities in plant-held water bodies, such as tree holes and pitcher plants, are models for food web studies. In this book, Professor Kitching introduces us to these fascinating miniature worlds and demonstrates how they can be used to tackle some of the major questions in community ecology. Based on his thirty years of research around the world, he presents much previously unpublished information, as well as summarizing over a hundred years of natural history observations made by others. The book covers many aspects of the theory of food web formation and maintenance presented with field-collected information on tree holes, bromeliads, pitcher plants, bamboo containers, and the axils of fleshy plants. ... Read more

Book Description

The Essence of Illusion

Promise her anything...but give her Perfume. This bewitching, lavishly illustrated book explores every aspect of the fascinating yet little-known art and science of scent, which for thousands of years has worked its powerfully seductive magic on men and women all over the world.

You'll witness every stage of the development of a perfume, from the rose fields of rural Morocco to the finest department stores of Paris and New York. You'll attend a school for perfumers in Provence where hopeful apprentices hone their skills, meet the legendary alchemists who create complex, closely guarded formulas, which can be worth millions, and listen in as executives devise strategies for tapping the 15-billion-dollar-a-year perfume market -- an intensely competitive arena where failure can literally destroy a company.

Throughout, you'll glory in stunning color photographs that capture all the elegance and romance of an art where image is truly everything -- the sensuous shape of a crystal flask filled with amber enchantment, the alluring promise of a whiff of scent on a gentle evening breeze, the extraordinary power of perfume to evoke the memory of a treasured moment. Glamorous, mysterious, enthralling, this is a book as sophisticated and irresistible as the classic art it celebrates. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Beautiful and Informative
This book gave a fascinating history and overview of the use and creation of perfumes. It all seemed to have started when Romans wore perfume-soaked garments and shoes while Egyptians placed perfumed unguents in their hair to produce a slowly diffused scent that surrounded them.

From Catherine de Medici in the 16th century to Coty to Coco Chanel, there has been a connection between fashion and fragrance. During this time, the perfume bottle has evolved from a simple container to sculpture, often giving identity to a scent.

I learned that to be called "perfume", there must be an oil concentration of 22% or more. Eau de parfum has a 15-22% oil concentration while eau de toilette has 8-15% concentration of oil. Cologne has less than 5%.

The average fragrance has 60-100 ingredients and complex ones can have 300. Estee Lauder's "Beautiful" has 700 ingredients, which is a record.....and its formula is 12 pages long!

The perfumer must have a vast knowledge of raw materials and also of chemistry. There are only about 400 perfumers in the world and their training can take 10-15 years.

One reason why perfume can be so expensive is the amount of an ingredient needed to yield what the perfumers use. For example, two tons of rose petals are needed to yield just one pound of rose oil! Petals must also be quickly picked as the amount of oil that they yield diminishes as the day goes on.

I found the explanation of "headspace technology" very interesting. There are machines that vacuum up the molecules of a scent and then run them through machines that separate the fragrance into chemical components and identify them. This is particularly valuable when collecting the scent of a rare plant or when it is desirable to leave the plant in its natural environment.

A very informative and beautiful book. The accompanying photos are lovely and give the reader an added level of understanding.

Pretty Pictures
This is a better-than-average coffee table book that gives a very personal account of the author's introduction to the history of the art of perfumery. Good inside information on advertising and perfume promotion. Who knew that CoCo Chanel was such a...freak? If you're looking for specific information about how perfumes are made, as I was, look elsewhere. You can zip through this book in about an hour.

Excellent Book! A Unique Blend of Artistry and Science.
This bewitching, lavishly illustrated book does really explore every aspect of the fascinating yet little know art and science of scent. This book is very detailed from the beginning to the end.

The photography is stunning and spectaclar! It captures all the elegance and romance of an art where image is truly everything.

The book is very well written. It takes you through a very vivid journey into the fascinating world of fragrance. Sophisticated and irresistible as the classic it celebrates.

I have read this glamous, enthralling book twice and plan to place it on my coffee table as a conversational piece. It is well worth the money, every cents and then some.

TRULY THE ESSENCE OF ILLUSION!

GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All I can say is that this book is great. The auther Mrs. Cathy Ellen Newman, can make writing seem more like an art then an occupation. Learning about the proccess of how perfume is made and the science of it is just fascinating even our dignified leader, Mr. Sadahm Housane as insane as he is would like it very much and I hope he orders a copy soon.

A sumptuous and enthralling look at the perfume business.
This book follows the story of the business of perfume. It traces the scent from harvesting the raw materials and the art of the perfumer, to the packaging and marketing of the finished product. It is a story of the perfume business, not a guide to making perfume.

I read this entire book within two days of receiving it. The text is light but fascinating. The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs by Robb Kendrick. The photos are a sumptuous addition to the story and bring the text to life.

This book is beautiful and enthralling. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Book Description

In a book that is both groundbreaking and accessible, Daniel C. Dennett, whom Chet Raymo of The Boston Globe calls "one of the most provocative thinkers on the planet," focuses his unerringly logical mind on the theory of natural selection, showing how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of humanity's place in the universe. Dennett vividly describes the theory itself and then extends Darwin's vision with impeccable arguments to their often surprising conclusions, challenging the views of some of the most famous scientists of our day. ... Read more

Reviews (118)

Forceful, persuasive presentation of natural selection
Richard Dawkins books, starting with The "Selfish Gene," brought Darwin's dangerous idea of natural selection to a new widespread recognition. He addressed an audience that otherwise might not have been inspired to engage Darwin, and left them with the amazing and somewhat disturbing implications of a world guided by the Darwinian hand of selection and adaptation rather than the divine hand of the Bible.

In "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," Dennett takes the flag of natural selection on to its next step, toward a secular view of nature where meaning may be found in natural history. Dennett is a forceful and persuasive polemicist capable of making Darwin's core idea both understandable and hard to argue.

Sure, many will remain unconvinced that the "universal acid" of Darwin's algorithm of variation and selection reveals the bare bones of just about anything, as Dennett argues. But Dennett does exactly what we expect from an excellent analytic philosopher of his calibre, and all too often don't get, a powerful and enduring argument for the usefulness of a very basic idea.

The greatest danger of Darwin's idea is not, as many religious conservatives seem to fear, that Darwin will erode faith in God. As powerful as Darwin's dangerous idea is, it has not itself been a threat to religious faith. The faithful have always had a way to reconcile their faith with the modern view of natural history along Darwinian lines. The greatest danger is that Darwin's idea seduces us into telling second rate evolutionary stories that don't add to our real understanding the way Darwin's core concept does. As Dennett says, the greatest danger of Darwin's idea is its seductiveness.

Dennett brings the power of Darwin's view of nature to us in a renewed and clarified form, and makes many of its implication startlingly clear. But then he leaves us to wonder what is left once the "universal acid" of Darwinism had eroded the rest of our cherished ideas.

Dennett doesn't always convince me that he has quite eroded *all* of the other ways of viewing nature by making such a forceful case for Darwin's selection and adaptation, but he does make it clear that these are ideas that must be understood and applied if we are to truly understand our role in nature. Whether we can take them as far as Dennett does, that's left to the reader to decide.

While I can't agree with all of the nuances and implications of Dennett's arguments here, it is very hard to find specific fault with them, and I certainly was left with the feeling that Dennett is more right then wrong in his conclusions. The greatest weakness of this book, like Dawkins' Selfish Gene, is that it is perhaps _too_ compelling, it seems to lead us beyond science and into a secular religion of sorts.

Dennett's writing style is very user friendly
The density of the subject matter makes this slow reading as all good philosophy often is. Daniel Dennett's writing style goes a long way toward making this accessible. He relies on very good story telling, excellent metaphors, and avoids a lot of the dense jargon heavy prose often found in other philosopy works. The condensed introductions and summaries at the beginning and end of each chapter make it easy to review material again and again, without having to do complete rereadings.

Dennett creates one of the most conceptually vivid pictures of the evolutionary scheme, and demonstrates how evolutionary algorithms occur even outside the field of biology. Intelligent detractors of evolution will find themselves accusing Dennett of turning evolution into a theory of everything. Assuming of course their minds do not become dissolved within this universal acid. I don't think Dennett makes it a theory of everything, but it just might become a theory that has at least something to say about most important things. Proponents of evolution will discover new ways of thinking about evolution. Even career biologists will find conceptual doors that an intelligent scientifically oriented philosopher like Dennett can best point to. Nobody can truly digest this book without having their thinking altered in some significant ways.

Dennett's user-friendly style makes philosophy exciting even for the more philosophobic readers. No one interested in the various debates about evolution, regardless of their personal position, should miss this book. It stands to eventually change the entire arena for dialogue on this subject.

Philosophy, not Science
As a Darwinist and a reader of Dawkins and Gould, I read this book primarily to familiarize myself with the scientific refutation of other prominent Darwinists, specifically Gould. I say "scientific," because on the upper left corner of the back cover of the paperback, it is categorized as "Science," so I thought I was reading a science book.

I started reading the book past the half-way point, in the area of content that most interested me, and I discovered a couple of things.

First, there are metaphoric terms used throughout this book, introduced in earlier chapters, which make the book difficult to fully comprehend when opening it up to read at an arbitrary later chapter, if you aren't already familiar with the metaphors (such as "skyhook" and "crane").

Second, apparently, among other subjects, this is also a book on architecture. Specifically, on arcane aspects of the architecture of domes and their supporting structures. Several pages were dedicated to this subject, including detailed pictures and diagrams. Apparently this proved that Gould is wrong, which made absolutely no sense to me, so I bit the bullet and started back at page 1.

I enjoyed the first three or so chapters of this book. A good introduction to the history of thought which immediately pre-dated Darwin, which put into context how truly revolutionary His ideas were at the time.

I couldn't get through the final chapters, something about the evolution of morals. A worthy subject, I'm sure, it's just not the subject for which I picked up this book. Again, I thought I was reading a science book.

Ultimately, I came away thinking, "Why did Dennett write this book?" More specifically, why did a non-scientist write a book purportedly about Science? Well, Dennett answers that for me, sort of. In an anecdote he tells about attending a conference of Thinkers and Scientists in the Northeasten US, and how, during a Q&A type session with attendees, the responses given clearly showed that many of these educated people had a very poor understanding of Darwin's Ideas. It was this experience, he claims, which helped further to motivate him to write this book, ostensibly to set the record straight.

If Dennett had written a book which simply synthesized and explained the current state of Darwinist thinking, I would have been more receptive. Instead, I read a book by a Philosopher who is pretending to be a Scientist, espousing his own scientific ideas, and I don't think he was able to pull that off credibly.

Shallow
I am for evolution, but I find Dennett's arguments very weak. It is books like this that sustain creationists.

Dennett's Stupid Idea
If creationists wanted a book that would make evolution look absurd, they could do no better than Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Allies of science and reason are done no favor by the likes of Dennett (who, by the way, has no formal scientific qualifications) and his crudely reductionist screeds. ... Read more

Book Description

As author of the bestselling Why People Believe Weird Things How We Believe, and Editor-in-Chief of Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer has emerged as the nation's number one scourg of superstition and bad science. Now, in The Borderlands of Science, he takes us to the place where real science (such as the big bang theory), borderland science (superstring theory) and just plain nonsense (Big Foot) collide with one another.

Shermer argues that science is the best lens through which to view the world, but he recognizes that it's often difficult for most of us to tell where valid science leaves off and borderland science begins. To help us, Shermer looks at a range of topics that put the boundary line in high relief. For instance, he discusses the many "theories of everything" that try to reduce the complexity of the world to a single principle, and shows how most fall into the category of pseudoscience. He examines the work of Darwin and Freud, explaining why one is among the great scientists in history, while the other has become nothing more than a historical curiosity. He also shows how Carl Sagan's life exemplified the struggle we all face to find a balance between being open-minded enough to recognize radical new ideas but not so open-minded that our brains fall out. And finally, he reveals how scientists themselves can be led astray, as seen in the infamous Piltdown Hoax.

Michael Shermer's enlightening volume will be a valuable a to anyone bewildered by the many scientific theories swirling about. It will help us stay grounded in common sense as we try to evaluate everything from SETI and acupuncture to hypnosis and cloning. ... Read more

Reviews (17)

Not the Applied Skepticism book I wanted, but good anyway.
What I'm looking for is a detailed users' manual for a Baloney Detection Kit (as Carl Sagan called it.) I'd hoped to find this in one of Shermer's previous works, Why People Believe Weird Things, and I'd hoped to find it here. In both cases, the first part of the book did exactly this, but somewhere along the way it turned into case studies of debunking, rather than the process of debunking. (That's okay: they're well-written.)

Michael Shermer's background is psychology and ultra-long-distance cycling; he's written a number of books on cycling and analysis of (and refutation of) Holocaust deniers. He's also president (apparently for life) of the American Skeptics society and a reasonably good writer. In this book, Shermer spends a lot of time talking about the scientific method, its strengths and potential flaws -- and, more importantly, its system for dealing with its flaws (which he claims "sets science apart from all other knowledge systems and intellectual disciplines" -- a heady claim I wish he discussed more.)

Since this is supposed to be a review of Borderlands and not Weird Things, I'll just say that if you like this, you'll like the other as well. In The Borderlands Of Science, he analyzes beliefs that are at defensible, beliefs that could (or were once thought to) be scientifically accurate. Among these are, for instance, ramifications of cloning, confirmation bias in explaining racial differences in sports (about which Malcolm Gladwell has also written), and a whole, whole lot of discussion of Alfred Wallace. Wallace and Charles Darwin were both responsible for the theory of evolution. Wallace is not remembered as widely for a number of reasons, which are explored in frightening detail in roughly 3.5 of the 16 chapters of this book. Shermer did his doctoral thesis on Wallace, not coincidentally. The ratio of stuff-about-Wallace-or-Evolution to everything-else, by chapter, is 3:7; Shermer is pretty focussed on this specific discussion.
The book has four sections: a short introduction (which is quite heavy in skeptical theory, exactly what I wanted) and the main body, discussing borderlands theories, people, and history. In theories, he tends to stray a little from 'why people believe weird things' into 'why stupid people believe weird things' (as he did in the book of the same title) and that's fun. He covers a lot of quite current topics (like cloning, Wacky Unified Field Theories, the importance of Punctured Equilibrium in the evolution of evolutionary theory.)

In section two: people, he discusses the Copernican revolution and its effects, then goes off about Alfred Wallace. Here, he does something weird that needs more discussion. In analyzing Wallace, he constructs a psychological profile, which he derived by having a large number of Wallace experts fill out a survey of the "strongly agree, 9, 8,.. 3, 2, strongly disagree" sort, and then uses the results of these surveys to fill in his discussion of why Wallace became a scientific spiritualist, for instance. It's an interesting technique that he also uses with Steven Jay Gould and Carl Sagan. It is tempting to ask how much confirmation bias exists in a survey of this sort, though. Since I've already let the spoiler out of the bag, Shermer discusses Gould and Sagan, spends some time doing a statistical analysis of Sagan's greatness as a scientist (by comparing published papers by topic with a number of other contemporary, canonically great scientists) and pauses briefly to smack Freud upside the head in a somewhat snarky comparison of Freud and Darwin.

Finally, in section three: histories, he does a lovely discussion of the myth of pastoral tranquillity, including a quick summary of four ancient civilizations that probably managed to destroy themselves through environmental stupidity without (as he puts it) any need of Dead White European Males coming in and inflicting devastation from outside. Shermer then analyzes (and debunks) the theory of transcendent genius, the Mozart Myth, as he calls it, and goes back to two more chapters on Wallace and evolution, in a discussion of the Piltdown Man hoax and why that should (but doesn't seem to have) support the idea that science can be self-correcting and learn from its mistakes.

I like what Shermer is doing, and he writes well and readably. If I sound a bit impatient, it's because I want him to be writing about the application of critical thinking rather than case studies, and when he starts out writing just what I want to read, then goes off in a different direction, he leaves me standing at the intersection saying "hey, wait, this isn't the bus I wanted." The book could stand to be either edited down into two books: a Wallace analysis and a case studies in how science inspects itself discussion, or edited up with a clearer discussion of the math involved in his statistical analysis of Sagan or his psychological profiling of people. In the end, I liked it, I learned a fair bit from it, and I would recommend it to people who want to learn more about both critical thinking and science history.

A World of Glasshouses
I'm a scientist, an astronomer specifically, and I'm not really the target audience here I suspect (even though in the line of work I have had to respond to a number of "Borderlands" claims). Objectively this is a 3-star book, but the sleight-of-hand marketing biases me against it.

This is a semi-scholarly work written by a science historian. Most of the essays revolve around Darwin, Wallace, and evolution. With these essays, and a handful of others, Shermer takes a historical approach to the "borderlands of science" to look at the process of how scientific theories develop to acceptance. He looks at very few cases of the current borderlands, and of those he does he makes generally weak arguments (and not scientific ones) with correspondingly weak conclusions. An early chapter on remote viewing is the exception.

The wordcount here is limited, but I wanted to point out some specific problem points. In the chapter asking if Sagan was "a great scientist," one questioning his rejection from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Shermer compares his publications to "the creme de le creme" of scientists: Gould, E. O. Wilson, Jared Diamond, and Mayr. The comparisons involve number of honorary degrees, popular articles, advisory groups, books, etc. There is NEVER a comparison of his scientific publication rate or citation rate versus NAS ASTRONOMERS, a primary criterion for the NAS membership who understands that publication practices vary from field to field. Shermer sets up a straw man and knocks it down, the same thing he accuses pseudoscientists of doing. He never comes close to making an argument about whether or not Sagan was a good scientist, merely that he was a well-known one who was highly regarded for his popularization.

I liked the idea of the chapter on the "Amadeus Myth," which is a topic worthy of comment, but not the execution. We like to make myths of our heroes. But here is another straw man, where Shermer's "genius" is equated to practicing math tricks and never very well characterized. Prodigies are not discussed.

Cosmology is noted as suffering from a bias against "historical science." This is far from true, I assure you. Origins programs in astronomy get funding far ABOVE their non-historical competitors.

A whole chapter is spent discussing whether or not punctuated equilibrium represents a "paradigm shift" of evolution. This is the semantic playing field of a science historian, and of little interest to actual scientists.

Shermer indeed would seem to have such a bias against what he calls "nonscience" topics that he gives them almost no mention. While he lumps, for instance, "Big Foot" in with some poor company, he later quotes anthropologist Krantz in another chapter on another subject; Krantz is one of a number of credible scientists who take the topic seriously. The same cannot be said for his other "nonscience" topics, yet all get rated equally at 0.1 with no discussion.

Indeed, despite Shermer's interesting discussion about a spectrum of "science," his spectrum seems to correspond to his idea of the ideas' correctness, NOT their scientific validity. What is validity (to play Shermer's word games)? All topics can be validly studied using the tools of science. Some are routinely, and some are not. He should have used a different term. I found myself losing trust in Shermer.

When Shermer finds that SETI pioneers are primarily first-born rather than later siblings as in most other scientific revolutions, he finds a way to argue it away in terms of their religion. I did not see this sort of multiple parameter analysis in the comparison sample, so should I believe it? Or did he just invoke the same kind of wishful thinking he criticizes in others?

I had many more problem points that kept my "doubt-o-meter" ringing at regular intervals.

What my criticisms mostly boil down to is that Shermer writes and acts as a science historian much better than he does as a scientist. He gives hints all too often that he doesn't think like a scientist, and this made me distrustful while reading.

This is a shame. I used to subscribe to the Skeptical Inquirer, but let that lapse since that magazine too often took lazy pot shots at the same easy targets again and again. Shermer, and Shermer's magazine the Skeptic, for the most part shoot at more interesting targets, but I'm afraid not as well as they should.

Shermer Ruins the Book by Talking Too Much
I expected more of Mr. Shermer in this outing, given his excellent work in Why People Believe Weird Things. But then, in that book, Shermer took on and successfully skewered the easy targets, such as UFO nuts, believers in astrology and other New Age fantasies, revisionist Holocaust deniers and whatnot. However, his latest effort basically amounts to little more than a barely intelligible rant than thoughtful scholarship. Shermer begins with a bold objective- trying to lay down demarcation lines between generally accepted science (as is generally accepted by scientists themselves), iffy propositions which he calls borderlands science, and a large group of topics that he labels non-science and pseudo science. I must say without hesitation that he fails miserably in his objective, partly due to his poor choice of content, but mostly because of his even poorer writing style.

Although the book starts out well, the writing steadily devolves, and by the fifth chapter, the reader must set his or her shoulders and hunker down for some very painful reading. Like most PhD holders, Shermer has acquired an impressive amount of scholarly trivia over the course of his education, yet somehow did not the master the mechanics of good writing. This actually is not hard to believe, as too many people finishing PhD programs in engineering, science and to the dishonor of all liberal arts traditions, English and history programs can not string together a few decent words of prose. Honestly, many of these programs think that they can make up for a lack of erudite soul with an overdose of abstract quantitation and esoteric facts.

And boy oh boy does this approach show in Mr. Shermer's stilted and constipated text. Moreover, as someone who regards himself as a champion of the hypothesis test and the scientific method, he really should know when to appropriately use such methods, and when not to use them. In reading his text, I got the feeling that in his graduate training he only attended the lectures in his Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences having to do with hypothesis testing, and studiously skipped all the other lectures, particularly those having to do with measurement, validity, operational definition and level of trust in results.

I say this because in his chapter on Psuedoscience and Race, he utterly fails to lay down an operational definition, and merely assumes that everyone shares the same common definition of race and knows what he is referring to. He also fails to consider the history of race and the common knowledge that race is a social construct, not a biological phenomenon. Though he provides a context (U.S. race relations), he does not provide an operational definition. He also seems unaware of considerable population genetic and molecular genetic evidence which would make it impossible for most in America to claim, at least from a genetic standpoint, to be truly 'white' or truly 'black'. Thus, from this one would have to assume, especially when reading Mr. Shermer's screed, that he defines race based on physical appearance pretty much like everybody else. However, scientists would take a different point of view, much as many a bigotted proponent of eugenics have on many occasions.

A second bone of contention that I have with Mr. Shermer's overly scientific and inappropriately quantitative approach to everything is his use in Part II Borderlands People, of quantitative methods to evaluate purely subjective things. Some variables we measure are concrete and have meaning that is fixed, such as weight, temperature and volume, athough we can use metric or English units to evaluate them. However, as I recall from one statistics text (the actual text is Richard M. Jaeger's Statistics A Spectator Sport), things like intelligence or neuroticism are totally subjective because their meaning and their measurement can change depending on who is evaluating and measuring them. For such things, there can be no common agreement as to definition or even measurement.

Which I believe Shermer should have learned, thus invalidating the invocation of Sulloway's work in his exposition. A good educational regimen in statistics (which I believe should begin with Moore's Statistics: Concepts and Controversies) would emphasize the importance of looking behind the numbers, using the appropriate measurement methods, and taking into account information other than that in the test when drawing conclusions. None of this was done within this text.

Still, I did learn a few things, being quite surprised to learn that there was actually a black champion cyclist, and Mr. Shermer did make a number of correct points. I also give him credit for (grudgingly) admitting, in his last chapter, that scientists are people too, and are motivated by the same concerns and issues like everyone else. Yet, this does not make up for the overall bad writing and worse scholarship. I expect, no, I insist on better from a self-respecting skeptic.

An Excellent Primer on Critical Thinking
Michael Shermer gives an open and honest account about the inner workings of scientific thought as well as exposing ideas that-even today-many take as fact. The above reviews criticize Shermer for presenting science as philosophy, but there is no question that science is a belief system-it is influenced by culture and opinion. It does not exist as some purely isolated set of truths, partitioned from reality. This is Shermer's point about many scientific ideas throughout the book, not a blunder or misstep. Yes, science uses a particular method to understand the world. But Shermer points out that there are culturally driven forces behind the things we chose to study. Anyone versed in scientific method understands this. Throughout the book, Shermer stresses the criteria for labeling something "science".
Using a textbook definition of science will get you nowhere if your intent is to understand how science truly works. If you want to find the true meaning of life, for instance, rarely would you use Webster's to find it.
This is a great book for anyone truly interested in science and scientific thought. Shermer uses interesting stories, facts and ideas to relay his message that science may not always be as cut and dry as we may think, but its the best method we have of interpreting the world around us.

Very well arranged
The Borderlands of Science, like all good science books includes philosophy. When you are writing about the importance and big picture of science, writing about philosophy is inevitable and very much necessary to show the meaning. Because Shermer has so much experience in cricism it is only right that he debunk nonsciences such as remote viewing. I will be anxious for new literature. ... Read more

Book Description

Hailed as a breakthrough in the understanding of human evolution, The History and Geography of Human Genes offers the first full-scale reconstruction of where human populations originated and the paths by which they spread throughout the world. By mapping the worldwide geographic distribution of genes for over 110 traits in over 1800 primarily aboriginal populations, the authors charted migrations and devised a clock by which to date evolutionary history. This monumental work is now available in a more affordable paperback edition without the myriad illustrations and maps, but containing the full text and partial appendices of the authors' pathbreaking endeavor. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

History and Geography of Homan Genes
This work, in hardback, is written with the advanced researcher in mind. The author is world famous for his pioneering efforts in identifying traits in particular traits in ethnic groups with unique genetic markers. The color plates in the index section can be helpful to those who know how to intrepret them.
It's a scholarly treatment of a highly technical subject and a thorough one as well. This is ground-breaking work collected from many samples and analyzed in detail. I think this should be required reading for college students in the field of genetic research.

A review of everything
Cavalli-Sforza presents the nearest approximation possible to the correlation of all measurable human genes, markers and attributes. You might think of the work as the "unified field theory" for evloutionary biology, culture and linguistics.

While the heft even of the abridged version is imposing, the component parts are manageable for those who already have basic statistical knowledge or who are willing to pay attention to the author's explanations. The world's populations are addressed in geographic chunks, and then at various appropriate points, more general conclusions drawn from the pieces.

Given the advances in genetic research acheived since publication, the model may ultimately prove more valuable than the particular contents...but for this decade the contents are fascinating.

Good Book, but Martel is Wrong
The book provided a great deal of information about genetic distances and the relationships between populations. However, Mr. Martel's review includes lies and these lies must be addressed. First of all, the native North Africans were not "very blonde" or "nordic". In fact, the ORIGINAL population was as black as their rock art depictions of themselves (which just so happen to span the Sahara and date back nearly 10000yrs). Many of these Ancient Saharans were, however, completely abosorbed by an incoming of migrants from the Middle East. Perhaps these migrants are the people Mr. Martel is speaking of??? At any rate, with the dessication of the Sahara, most of the original Saharans (blacks) migrated South into The Sudan. In fact, they can still be found in West Africa today. They (especially the Fulani and Dogon) can be recognized in person as easily as they can be recognized in the Ancient Saharan depictions drawn by their ancestors.

Thus, despite Mr. Martel's comments to the contrary, the admixture seen in North Africans today is not so much the result of slaves (modern admixture) as it is the result of both modern admixture as well as ancient admixture - admixture which took place LONG before the Arabs ventured anywhere near the region. As for the Egyptians, they were from the same stock as the rest of North Africa and they almost always depicted themselves as brown and intermediate between and separate from both the white people of the North (Europe), the light skinned Semites (Middle East), and the darker, more Sudanese people of the South (Nubia).

Mr. Martel is not completely wrong in so far as SOME of these Middle Eastern migrants had blonde hair and light eyes (a few individual Lybians were depicted this way). But, such features were most probably seen at the same rate theyre seen in Middle Easterners and North Africans today. Neither people, however, are "Nordics", and to assume they descend from Nordics based on hair color alone is ridiculous. Blondism occurs in Aborigines... are we to believe they descend from Nordics as well? Somehow, I think not.

Very interesting, but...
In this book, a group of Italian researchers present their study of the repartition of a sample of human genetic sequences, based on data they collected between 1978 and 1986. This is certainly very interesting for the study of human races, even if based on only a sample of sequences, many of them being not relevant for races. Although the authors acknowledge that some scientists were able to identify and classify the majors races, they pretend the concept of race is a failure because there is much intra-class variation for some DNA sequences within given races (by saying this they already implicitly recognize the existence of given races.) This is however the fallacy of strawman - attacking a caricatured enemy - for the concept of race never meant that there would not be great inner variation for specific sequences, but only that it is possible to cluster and classify human groups and that such classification should correspond to a higher degree of common ancestry for individuals of the same cluster, as the races are the result of micro-evolution. And given that we now know that most of the genome is not used, that the active genes are a very small proportion, the intra-class variability makes sense, as these genes are not expressed and thus not submitted to the selection of evolutionary pressure. It is enough to find some sequences clusters that correspond to the existing races to show that different races indeed exist, which the authors actually do (something confirmed recently by the result of the genome projects, finding that inter-races distance is 0,1 of the genome, something enormous given that most of the genome is not expressed, and that the distance between humans and monkeys is 1%, the difference between human races being then 10% of the differences between humans and the closest animals.) Besides, the same intra-classes variability is also observed among animal races and vegetal varieties, yet no scientist will say that this makes the concept of animal race or vegetal variety useless. Anyway, this misconception allows the authors to get a green light from the politically correct thought police and avoid censorship.

The book follows with an exposition of their data analysis method. The main issue is the distance measure for the genetic data, something new for me. Otherwise, they use standard methods of data mining / pattern recognition : design of classification trees, and clustering with principal component analysis (PCA, for which the authors use the PC acronym).

Then, after 60 pages, come their results, which make the rest of the book, 300, p, that is most of it. It is way too much to review in detail, I will make general comments.

Globally, when dealing with the main racial groups, their findings are corroborations of what was already known or supplementary information. The PCA gives a mapping corresponding to the main racial groups (Africans, Australoids, Mongoloids, Euripids.) .After 200 000 years of existence (at about -200 000), our African ancestors start to move northwards and evolve into the common ancestor of the non-African races. 100 000 years later, at -110 000, occurs the split between the Australoids and the Eurasian. And then at -80 000 the split between Mongoloids and Euripids, Europeans appearing very lately, at -20 000.

In the remaining 200 pages, the authors deal with each local populations, proceeding continent by continent, and comparing the local races together. Interestingly, they add a lot of environmental and cultural information. But here they miss the most relevant, namely the history and anthropology that is relevant to the given population, which makes them miss important considerations and analysis. For example they seem to believe that the Basque are an ancient Indigenous population, failing to know the well established facts that they arrived very late (in the 8th century) and are believed to have come from the Caucasus. It would have been interesting to compare the Basques with the populations of the Caucasus, instead of comparing them with the native Western Europeans. Or they fail to know that the native populations of North-Africa (Berbers, Kabyls, etc.) were very blond and tall Nordic people, as is attested by the Egyptian, Greek and Roman antic sources, as well as by their Arabs conquerors. And when the Spanish conquered the Canari Island, the Berbers (Ganches) they found there were also Nordics. The genetic change of the North-African population occurred after the Arabs imported many African (Negroids) slaves, as they did in many other places, like Egypt, Palestine, etc. This the authors ignore, speaking only of the Arab genetic influence (which was probably insignificant.) It would have then relevant to compare the North-Africans with the Nordics and with the Negroids, and see how close they are to each, and the same for those Berbers populations in the mountain who did not so much racially mix and often have light hair of eyes. To their credit, the authors find out with their genetic analysis that the North-Africans have Caucasoid ancestors.

In conclusion, this book is a mine of interesting data analysis. It would have been though quite better if the authors had teamed up with historians competent in the field of racial history, or with true anthropologists (anthropology having becoming ethnology.) Let's hope that the next similar book, which will exploit the data of the human genome, will be able to improve this. Anyway, human diversity, as long as intermixing does not destroy it, is a thrilling subject that illuminates history, as this book shows.

An extremely technical book
This volume is an abridgement of the full $200 "History & Geography of the Human Genes," and I found it quite incomprehensible. If you think you might want this book, I would suggest taking a look at its unabridged version in a local library first. The same author has summarized his findings in two other books which are aimed at the general reader. "Genes, Peoples, and Languages" is the most recent, while "The Great Human Diasporas" is the most accessible to the layman. ... Read more

Book Description

This classic best-seller by a well-known author introduces mathematics history to math and math education majors. Suggested essay topics and problem studies challenge students. CULTURAL CONNECTIONS sections explain the time and culture in which mathematics developed and evolved. Portraits of mathematicians and material on women in mathematics are of special interest. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Great!
I agree with the person who said this book is very informative & it is also easy to read. I learned lots from doing the problems too, like for example, a simple algorithm on how to construct magic squares of odd size. This book was good for the course I did because there's only so much you can do in a course; Morris Kline's "Mathematical Thought From Ancient to Modern Times" is twice as long as this one so it goes into much more detail, but too much for a 1-term course. This book by Eves is a good INTRO to the history of math, I liked it.

Excellent
The careful documentation of the discoveries and history of mathematics is of overwhelming importance, especially in modern times where the advances are taking place so rapidly that the historical roots of some branches of mathematics seem to be getting lost. It would be a tragedy if the history of these important developments were not put into print so that later generations of mathematicians and students could have an understanding of how these came about. Thanks to the information age, the accessibility of mathematical documents has dramatically increased, but these documents usually do not include overviews of how the ideas took root and then flourished as independent research disciplines.

This book gives a general overview of mathematical developments up until the middle of the twentieth century. It is a fascinating story, and readers will realize to what extent mathematical ideas deemed complex by even modern standards were known by the ancients. Indeed, it is very surprising to learn that in 2000 BC the Babylonians were solving quadratic equations and even some cubic and quartic equations. The Babylonians did not produce an Evariste Galois, that took centuries more time, but they were dealing with mathematical constructions that were interesting to compare with modern methods.

One very interesting feature of this book is that it is meant to be used as a textbook, and not just in a course in the history of mathematics. The author has included "problem studies" and "essay topics" at the end of each chapter that challenge the reader to solve problems pertinent to the historical topics of each chapter. The inclusion of these problems will allow the student to gain insight on the difficulty in solving problems with the constraint of using concepts that were unique to a definite period in mathematical history.

The book also includes discussions of the history of non-Western contributions to mathematics. The work of the Hindus, the Chinese, and Arabs is included. The contributions of the Arabs are particularly important for later developments in the West, as it was they who revived Greek philosophy and mathematics and consequently changed dramatically the role of mathematics in Europe.

The reading of this book will give a greater appreciation of the developments in mathematics as they are done today. Mathematical research now is done by both human and machine, and no doubt this century, and others beyond it, will result in brilliant developments. Mathematics pervades every human activity in the modern world and every piece of technology. When books like this one are written in the future, readers who peruse them and take note of the incredible advancements made in mathematics in the centuries that preceed them, no doubt their predominant emotion will be astonishment.

When used as a self-study text ...
When used as a self-study text, I found the book to be lacking a sufficient quantity of example problems solved in adequate detail to be truly helpful.

Outstanding!
This book is quite informative and interesting to read. If you love any math at all, you should definitally read it. ... Read more

Book Description

Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod and The Basque History of the World, here turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions.Populated by colorful characters and filled with an unending series of fascinating details, Kurlansky's kaleidoscopic history is a supremely entertaining, multi-layered masterpiece. ... Read more

Reviews (34)

Salt as focus of world history
The book tells the story of salt throughout world history: how it was made, how it was traded, how it was used, and the effect the salt industry has had on villages, cities, and regions.

The book starts and ends in China, first describing the brine wells and the advanced drilling techniques the Chinese invented centuries ago. The text then moves to how salt was used in Roman times describing a sauce called garum made from pickled and fermented fish parts. Kurlansky then continues with Mediteranean fish industry. Salt's main use was in preserving fish. The next big change came when cod was found off the coast of Newfoundland. Cod's low fat meant more salt was needed.

Eventually, the American colonies developed their own salt and cod industries. Kurlansky describes the importance of salt in the American Civil War, how salt works led to the marketing of Tabasco sauce, how canals were dug through New York state to take salt from the Great Lakes to the coast.

After a quick recounting of how salt was used by Ghandi to spark India's revolution, the book ends back in China and how the salt industry there has moved into the modern age. The old traditional derricks are gone; no one wanted to pay to preserve even the most important ones as historical landmarks.

Kurlanski gives a good outline of how salt was taxed in various parts of the world. His description of how the salt tax was an important factor in both the French and Indian revolutions deserves special mention.

As he describes how salt was traded and produced, Kurlanky peppers his narrative (sorry...) with short recipes that illustrate how salt was used in different parts of the world and at different times of our history.

If you love food and history, you'll love this book. If you love one and only moderately like the other, you'll find the book bogs down a bit.

Taking a love of Salt to its logical extreme
Salt is one of those things that turned up all over the place in my high school studies. It turned up in chemisty (sodium chloride), in biology (the amount of salt in our bodies and what we do with it), in history and English (check out the root of the word: "salary"). So sure, salt's important. But does it merit its own entire book about its history? Turns out the answer is both yes and no...

I like these small, focused histories (as you've probably guessed if you've read any of the other reviews I've written). I've read many of them, including another one by Mark Kurlansky, Cod (which I rather enjoyed). So when I ran across Salt, I was certain I wanted to read it. I liked Kurlansky's style, and I already knew that the subject matter would be interesting.

And it was. In Salt, Kurlansky walks through both the history of salt and the influence of salt on history, presenting a wide and varied picture of one of the [now] most common elements in our modern world. And he does this in the same engaging fashion that he used in Cod; although, with fewer recipes. So why not give it five stars? Well, it has a couple of noticable flaws that tended to detract a bit from the overall presentation.

The first flaw was in the sheer number of historical snippets that were included. While I'm certain that salt has been important in the broad span of human history, there are a number of these historical anecdotes where he was clearly reaching to demonstrate the influence of salt. Salt may have been involved in these incidents, but it was peripheral at best, and the overall tone sounds too much like cheerleading. Cutting a few of these out would have shortened the book without detracting from the presentation at all.

The second flaw was the meandering path that he takes through the history of salt. He generally starts early in history, and his discussion moves along roughly as history does as well; however, he has a tendency to wander a bit both forward and backward without effectively tying all of this together. I'd have preferred to either walk straight through history while skipping around the world (effectively comparing the use and influence of salt around the world) or to have taken more time to discuss why we were rewinding (effectively following one thread to its conclusion and then picking up another parallel one). To me it made the presentation a little too choppy.

There have been other criticisms as well; for example, the chemistry is incorrect in a number of places, but if you're using this as a chemical reference, then you've got serious issues with your ability to library research. Of course, that begs the question of what errors are in there that we didn't catch. And it does tend to be a bit repetitive in parts; although, this could have been used to good effect if historical threads had been followed a bit more completely.

While I had a few dings on the book, overall I liked it. The fact that I read it end-to-end and enjoyed the last chapter as much as the first is a testament to my general enjoyment of it. It wasn't the best book I read last year, but I'll certainly keep it on my bookshelf. So, back to my original question: does salt merit its own book? Yes, it does, but perhaps in a somewhat shorter form.

A gem of a book
This is a gem of a book. It discusses and intertwines the history and importance of salt from prehistoric times until now in the context of the various types of salt, preserving and brining meat, fish and other foods, cooking, cheese making, health, geology, geography, place names, world trade, world history, warfare, art and investments, to name a few topics.

The descriptions of the role of salt in the American Civil War and the Caribbean islands were fascinating. Then there were the Romans, the Mayans, The Aztecs, the Chinese, the French, the Germans, the English, the Dutch, the Russians, the Scandinavians and others and their involvement with salt.

The recipes for cooking with salt are aptly chosen from about 4000 years of recorded history and are remarkably similar to those in use today. The colorful view and history of the San Francisco salt ponds from an airplane were always a bit of mystery to me, but no longer. The origin of towns and cities whose name ends in "wich" was enlightening, to say nothing of Salzburg and the many salt mines in the world.

In short, this book is a grand, well-written, informative and often amusing world panorama of salt filled with a host of pearls of learning. It is hard to put down and makes 449 pages pleasantly fly by, leaving you with a taste for more. If you have ever used salt, you really should read this book.

Definitely worth his salt . . .
It's become a party cliche to comment on our need for the results of combining a poisonous gas [chlorine] and a volatile metal [sodium]. Kurlansky passes quickly over such levity to seriously relate the role of sodium chloride in human society. While at first glance his account may seem overdone, a bit of reflection reveals that something so common in our lives is easily overlooked. Salt is essential to our existence. Our need is so strong and enduring that we tend to take its availability for granted. As a global history, this book is an ambitious attempt to re-introduce us to something we think common and uninteresting. It's immensely successful through Kurlansky's multi-faceted approach. He combines economics, politics, culinary practices, tradition and myth in making his presentation. About the only aspect ignored is the detailed biological one explaining why this compound is so necessary to our existence.

Because our need for salt is so fundamental, its history encompasses that of humanity. Salt was basic to many economies, Kurlansky notes. It's acted as the basis of exchange between traders, was the target of empire builders and even paid out to soldiers as a form of "salary" - hence the term. Venice, a coastal city tucked away from the main tracks of Mediterranean trade, bloomed into prominence when it discovered it could garner more profit by trading in salt than by manufacturing it. The Venetian empire and later renaissance was founded on the salt trade.

Empires may be built on salt, but can be felled by misguided policies on its trade and consumption. One element leading to the downfall of the French monarchy was the hated "gabelle", or salt tax, which imposed a heavier burden on farming peasants than it did on the aristocracy. The reputation of tax evasion borne by the French relates to the resentment expressed over the salt tax. A British regulation on salt resulted in similar reaction leading to the breakup up their own Empire. It was a "march to the sea" led by Mahatma Ghandi to collect salt that galvanised resistance to British rule. Over a century after the French Revolution, the British were displaced from India for similar reasons - greed.

While acknowledging the importance of salt in our lives, Kurlansky notes that determining how much is "too little" or "too much" is elusive. Many people today claim to have "salt-free" diets while remaining ignorant of how much salt is contained in our foods, both naturally and through processing. Yet, as Kurlansky records, salt has appeal beyond just the body's needs. He records numerous commentators from ancient Egypt, China and Rome who express their admiration for salt's flavour-adding qualities. Sauces based on various ingredients mixed with salt permeate the book. He notes that the salt dispenser is a modern innovation, supplementing the use of salt in cooking processes.

Salt's decline in conserving food, which changed the amount of salt we consume directly, came about due to increased world trade, displacement of rural populations into cities, and, of course, war. "The first blow" displacing salt as a preservative came from a Parisian cook; a man so obscure that his given name remains disputed. Nicolas [Francois?] Appert worked out how to preserve meat by "canning". Adopted by Napoleon's armies, the technique spread rapidly. The technology of the Industrial Revolution led to effective refrigeration. Kurlansky gives an account of Clarence Birdseye's efforts to found what became a major industry.

Although the topic seems overspecialised, the universal application and long historical view of this book establishes its importance. Kurlansky has successfully met an immense challenge in presenting a wealth of information. That he graces what might have been a dry pedantic exercise with recipes, anecdotes, photographs and maps grants this book wide appeal. He's to be congratulated for his worldly view and comprehensive presentation. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Tintinabulation?
Mr. Kurlansky had a great idea to wrap a world history around the discovery, usage and evolution of salt. There are many fascinating tales around this substance, but unfortunately you can't get away from the fact that you can only read the word "salt" so many times in one sentence or paragraph before you begin to yawn.

This, I think, leads to a certain desparation by the writer in attempting to find something - anything - to amuse the reader. One great example is a sentence containing the word "tintinabulation" which, if looked at carefully, is totally meaningless and serves only for the author to exercise his ego in being able to say that he used the word in a published sentence.

Another problem is the easy way that Mr. Kurlansky throws untruths into his story to back up some odd facts .. for example, he says that French is a language that "does not use apostrophes" during a store-naming story. Considering that the apostrophe is liberally used in French (c'est la vie!) these kinds of assertions cast doubt on the rest of the "facts" presented.

I felt the book was a way for Mr. Kurlansky to attempt to impress us with his perceived worldliness and culinary expertise - to the extent that the book wraps up with a recipe for butter cookies.

Sorry, don't bother, ego gets in the way of what may have been a good story. ... Read more

Amazon.com

In Journey through Genius, author William Dunham strikes an extraordinary balance between the historical and technical. He devotes each chapter to a principal result of mathematics, such as the solution of the cubic series and the divergence of the harmonic series. Not only does this book tell the stories of the people behind the math, but it also includes discussions and rigorous proofs of the relevant mathematical results. ... Read more

Reviews (39)

An informative an entertaining look at the history of Math.
I studied mathematics in university but never at any great level. I eventually went to law school and I now practice law. I give you this background so that you can appreciate what I know (and don't know about math). When I feel like reading about mathematics I look for a book that can give me a general idea of the math, but that does not get technical (and therfore boring). I also the lives of mathematicians intereting.

Dunham's book fits the bill for excellent reading in mathematics. It has just enough meat to it so that I can get insights into various mathematical theories. However he never gets so technical that I fall asleep reading the material.

The best parts of the book are the discussions of the various mathematician's and the importance of the mathematical in question. Both form the bulk of the book and are witty and informative. After reading this book, you get the impression that the history of mathematics is filled with a collection of absentminded and colourful men. These parts of the book can be read and enjoyed with absolutely no understanding of the mathematics involved. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get some basic knowledge of mathematics and its history.

Quite a Journey
I don't know too many math authors who have consistently written "five-star" books. I had the pleasure of having Dr. Dunham at Muhlenberg (not Muhlendorf!) College for a class on Landmarks of Modern Mathematics. With Dunham's sharp lectures, I hardly needed the book, but with his brilliant book, I hardly needed the lectures. The key, however, is that I wanted both, and couldn't get enough of either. Graduation and reaching the back cover does that...

Others have already described what's in the book, but what I must stress is that everything - every single thing - in the book is written in a clear and captivating fashion. You feel like you're sitting right there with the mathematcian under review, solving the problems for the first time with their hints. You wonder if Dunham has a time machine hidden somewhere. What this book adds to the experience is that you get a hint not just about the mathemacians' genius, but also about the personalities of the mathematicians. For example, Cardano is probably one of the humorously psychotic mathematcians that lived.

This book is good for anybody who has had half of a high school education all the way up to people who think in numbers. This isn't a "skim over the math" book like those of many of Dunham's contemporaries - and you wouldn't want to do that anyway. Buy it for yourself and then give it to a budding math student - or heck, buy two!

Stunning !
Absolutely one of the most wonderful books i've ever read !

In a chronological way, through each chapter, the book covers the background and history of the current chapter's genius, his great theorem and other achievements, including detailed proofs.

William Dunham writing style is perfect :)
Amazon's service is really good also, I live in Israel and I recieved the book in less than one week since ordered...

It drove me crazy
This book talks some of the most intriguing of classical math problems, and I can not tell you enough about how much of a pleasure it is to read.

It forces us to put some thought over some of the mathematical results that we take for granted today, such as pythagorean theorum, the infinitude of the prime numbers, etc. I read it in just 2 sittings, and have read it over once again after that.

If you have any inclination towards mathematics and its beauty, you will be a different person after you have read through this highly motivating and pleasurable read.

The only thing I wished the book had more was the number of problems it covered :) I seriously wish that William Dunham sets out to write many more such books covering many many more such mathematical problems in his beautiful style! Wish you all the best, William!

Solid Math
Dunham selects several mathematical theorems and discusses their meaning and their proof. The book is arranged chronologically beginning with Hippocrates (Quadrature of the Lune) and follows with Euclid, Archimedes through Newton, Euler up to modern scientists. If the subject was ONLY mathematics he would have succeeded. But I expected more of a historical perspective and review that the merely cursory one presented here. Still, the book was arranged well with many graphs, formulae, pictures and charts. ... Read more

Amazon.com

People love secrets. Ever since the first word was written, humans have sent coded messages to each other. In The Code Book, Simon Singh, author of the bestselling Fermat's Enigma, offers a peek into the world of cryptography and codes, from ancient texts through computer encryption. Singh's compelling history is woven through with stories of how codes and ciphers have played a vital role in warfare, politics, and royal intrigue. The major theme of The Code Book is what Singh calls "the ongoing evolutionary battle between codemakers and codebreakers," never more clear than in the chapters devoted to World War II. Cryptography came of age during that conflict, as secret communications became critical to both sides' success.

Confronted with the prospect of defeat, the Allied cryptanalysts had worked night and day to penetrate German ciphers. It would appear that fear was the main driving force, and that adversity is one of the foundations of successful codebreaking.

In the information age, the fear that drives cryptographic improvements is both capitalistic and libertarian--corporations need encryption to ensure that their secrets don't fall into the hands of competitors and regulators, and ordinary people need encryption to keep their everyday communications private in a free society. Similarly, the battles for greater decryption power come from said competitors and governments wary of insurrection.

The Code Book is an excellent primer for those wishing to understand how the human need for privacy has manifested itself through cryptography.Singh's accessible style and clear explanations of complex algorithms cut through the arcane mathematical details without oversimplifying.--Therese Littleton ... Read more

Reviews (201)

Sound, Entertaining, and Informative Introduction
The fine popular science writer Simon Singh (author of _Fermat's Enigma_, about the proving of Fermat's Last "Theorem") has just put out _The Code Book_, a quick survey of the basics of cryptography from a historical perspective.

Singh's book is an enjoyable and well-done overview of the basics of cryptography. He begins with a story about how Mary Queen of Scots was doomed because her crypto was bad, and continues up to the present day. He describes the 16th Century French Vigenere cipher, World War I cryptography, including the Zimmerman telegram, and lots of detail about Enigma. There is a fascinating side branch into the related issue of deciphering ancient languages. He does a good job describing the Rosetta Stone and the work in deciphering that, and a good job discussing Linear B. The concluding chapters discuss computer based cryptography, particularly the Data Encryption Standard, Public-key Cryptography, the RSA algorithm, and Pretty Good Privacy. I was a bit disappointed in the final chapter, on Quantum Cryptography, which didn't explain things as clearly as I would have liked. Their is also a set of ciphers in the back, and a contest for readers to try to decode them.

Singh does a good job describing the characters involved, in the best tradition of popular science. And though I've known a bit about this subject for some time, he still taught me lots of new stuff. I was particularly surprised to learn that British researchers had invented both Public-key Cryptography and an equivalent to RSA several years before the more famous inventor, but that the British government had classified their work, denying the researchers credit for their discoveries.

This is a sound, entertaining, and informative introduction to the basics of cryptography.

Historical and Mathematical intrigue
Simon Singh can describe tails of drama, history, and common mathematical sense into a great book. While most people take cryptography for granted, Singh provides historical and simple examples to illustrate it's importance to mathematics and history. He details it's use in wars, especially World War 2, and commerce. He even delves into th