Is it a bug or a feature?I spent a fair number of years at British Airways both programming myself and working with programmers. Arguably the most...
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We get quite a lot of books in that are made up of ‘fun experiments’ to do, and often, if I am honest, they are trifle lame. Sanitised and safe, they are the sort of ‘acid and baking powder’ experiment – of themselves entirely worthy, but not the sor...more
We get quite a lot of books in that are made up of ‘fun experiments’ to do, and often, if I am honest, they are trifle lame. Sanitised and safe, they are the sort of ‘acid and baking powder’ experiment – of themselves entirely worthy, but not the sort of thing that would have interested me as teenager when I was blowing things up, making miniature rocket motors and trying to build a laser from scratch. This book, however, would have been right up my street.
Neil Downie does a lot of work with Saturday Morning science clubs, school science clubs and the like, and although they can be done in the home, these are often the sort of experiments that would benefit from that kind of environment. I could also, frankly, see grown up engineers doing this kind of thing in there spare time, just for a bit of fun.
It’s not that every experiment involves danger, although we do have a dramatic vacuum powered cannon, electrical explosives and more – but there isn’t the usual feel of restraint and ‘health and safety gone mad’, which is excellent. Each of the 72 experiments comes with detailed instructions, but also some learning information and perhaps best of all the opportunity to try things out. Downie doesn’t give you a rigid approach – often you are encouraged to experiment with different possibilities to make your experiment even better. This is wonderful – it is encouraging the real scientific/engineering spirit to get out there, get your hands dirty and try things out.
Obviously this doesn’t really work as a book to sit down and read cover to cover, but that’s not what it’s for. My only slight criticisms concern the writing style and the book’s cover. The writing style is a jarring cross-Atlantic combination, which feels a bit like an elderly school-teacher trying to be hip. Unless the photos are very old, Downie isn’t elderly, but he rather writes as if he is. As for the cover, the design looks very amateurish, and to make matters worse in a book that should have a reinforced (preferably blast-proof) plastic cover, it feels very fragile – more paper than cardboard.
But don’t let the look put you off. If you either run a science club or are a teenager who likes getting your hands dirty experimentally, you are going to love this. I certainly would have in my youth.
Review originally published on www.popularscience.co.uk and reproduced with permission(less)
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It’s interesting that the ‘added puff’ fake sticker on the front of this book calls it ‘important’ because that is actually a very informative word about this book. What is packed into ‘important’ is that this is a really essential topic with lots of...more
It’s interesting that the ‘added puff’ fake sticker on the front of this book calls it ‘important’ because that is actually a very informative word about this book. What is packed into ‘important’ is that this is a really essential topic with lots of well argued material… but it’s a bit boring. And that’s kind of how I felt about the book.
In a way it suffers from the target of my agent’s non-fiction mantra: ‘Is this a book or is it an article?’ I felt that this really was more an article taken to book length. But the problem is more than that and it sits at the heart of the issue that Mark Henderson is addressing. Talking about the politics of science can be rather boring. It’s a turn off. It’s quite easy to make science itself interesting if you are good writer, as Henderson indubitably is – but it’s very hard to make politics of science engaging.
I read a lot of science blogs – in fact I’ve met many of the people Henderson quotes - and much though I love someone like Stephen Curry when he’s talking about science, when he gets on a politics of science rant I lose interest because I’m not professionally involved in science – and that same difficulty of engagement comes across here.
That said, this genuinely is a very important topic, and Henderson covers many aspects of it well. There were times (when he was talking about homeopathy, say, or the lack of science education amongst our politicians) I got highly involved. And even when it was a little more dull, it was indubitably worthy and necessary.
I guess what it comes down to is that this is, yes, an important book and you genuinely ought to read it. Just don’t expect it to be overwhelmingly thrilling along the way.
Incidentally I was slightly miffed he didn’t mention my book Ecologic, which covers many of the underlying issues he mentions on the environment and organic food in a very readable fashion (doubly miffed as we had the same editor) – but that has no influence on my review.
Review originally published on www.popularscience.co.uk and reproduced with permission(less)
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"You're welcome!
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In awarding this book five stars I am rather reminded of the infamous Samuel Johnson quote on women preachers: ‘A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all.’ Leaving...more
In awarding this book five stars I am rather reminded of the infamous Samuel Johnson quote on women preachers: ‘A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all.’ Leaving aside that Doctor Johnson might have had to rethink his opinion had he seen Pudsey (on Britain's Got Talent), the reason I say this is because I’m reviewing a book about mathematical equations. Taken purely as a piece of popular science writing it probably only merits four stars, but I am so amazed that anyone can write a book about a series of equations and make it readable and interesting that I have had to award it five.
When I first saw the title I thought I was about to flick through a nice picture book of astronomical photos, but in fact Dana Mackenzie provides us with plenty of words – it’s just that they are describing these ‘no words’ equations. Mackenzie eases us in gently with the work of the ancient Greeks, then brings us forward in time, allowing the maths (and the equations) to grow in complexity as we go.
What makes the book work so well is that there is plenty of context – we learn about the individuals behind these equations (not always the obvious ones when it comes to, say, Pythagoras) and the historical setting of their devising. There are some rather beautiful hand drawn illustrations of the equations themselves and diagrams (I just wish the handwriting was a little more legible) and the amazing, dog-walking-on-hind-legs feat is that we aren’t turned off by the equations, but rather get some feeling for their beauty and power.
I am not saying this book brings me round to a mathematician’s viewpoint. I still think that their view is too abstract, and that much of the maths they get excited about is hugely ‘so what?’ – but this book really does give you a flavour of why they get so worked up.
Strangely, the book tails off towards the end. This is in part because Mackenzie spends more time on physics (which he is less effective at explaining than maths), and partly because there is less focus on equations. Maxwell’s equations, for example, aren’t explored, just mentioned. Yes, remarkably, by then the reader is so drawn in that we want more equations!
I have two specific gripes apart from this. One is about the introduction. We are told how the great Richard Feynman took on someone with an abacus and beat them on the calculation of cube roots because he knew ‘a famous equation from calculus called Taylor’s formula’ – yet we aren’t told what the equation is. In a book that is all about making equations visible, this rankled for the rest of the book.
The other problem I have is with a bizarre mini-rant that Mackenzie has about those who worry about the impact of mobile phones on their brains. He points out that the photons produced by a mobile phone have not got enough energy to ionise atoms, so don’t present a danger. But this entirely misses the point. After all, the photons produced by microwave ovens aren’t ionising radiation either, but few us would feel comfortable sticking our heads in a functioning microwave. It’s not that I agree with the ‘danger from phones, phone masts and wifi radiation’ lobby – I don’t – but Mackenzie merely muddies the water with this strange irrelevancy.
That’s a very minor complaint, though. If you’ve always been puzzled by mathematical formulae, or wondered why mathematicians bother to get out of bed in the morning, this is the book to let you into their secret world. A remarkable achievement.
Review first published on www.popularscience.co.uk and reproduced with permission(less)
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I sometimes have the pleasure of being sent a book for review that doesn't fit with www.popularscience.co.uk and cover it here. In this case I've got the double pleasure of both a review and a short interview with the author (interview only on blog)....more
I sometimes have the pleasure of being sent a book for review that doesn't fit with www.popularscience.co.uk and cover it here. In this case I've got the double pleasure of both a review and a short interview with the author (interview only on blog).
The book in question, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs has been very popular in the US and should do brilliantly over here. It's the kind of fantasy that I've always found particularly appealing - one that is set in the real world, but where some strangely different things occur. In this case it's peculiar (in the sense of strangely gifted) children, living on a island off Wales, and strange manipulation of time. But despite the author noting at the back of the book that he consulted a 'leading authority on time travel,' the time travel aspects bear no resemblance to the real physical possibilities for time travel, which is one of the reasons I label this fantasy - you've just got with it and ignore the obvious impracticalities and lack of sense.
It's a very atmospheric read, on a par with some of my all time favourites. This is particularly strong in the first part of the book before the main 'reveal' - I wish the author had kept this back until later, as once everything was explained you lost some of the tension. Even so the story continues in an excellent fashion. The only other slight complaint I have is that the book doesn't really finish - it was clearly written with a sequel in mind and is more the first part of a book than a real, standalone novel.
What sets this apart from other books of its ilk is the use of photographs. The author has made use of a pile of strange photographs, mostly Victorian/Edwardian and incorporates these wonderfully into the story. Although this might pale in future books, and I hope he has another trick up his sleeve, for this book it really was a wonderful extra, adding hugely to the atmosphere.
Review first published on http://brianclegg.blogspot.com(less)
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This book follows on from Justin Thyme, which had some excellent science content. Although there are slightly more doubts about the science in this volume, as will be made clear, it still presents science and technology in a sufficiently positive lig...more
This book follows on from Justin Thyme, which had some excellent science content. Although there are slightly more doubts about the science in this volume, as will be made clear, it still presents science and technology in a sufficiently positive light that we feel it deserves a place here.
At the beginning of the book there is a certain amount of confusion if you have read its predecessor, as it jumps forward a little in time as far as the run of events ago (at the same time as featuring a story involving moving backwards in time), but soon the reader is plunged into an engaging and occasionally mindboggling storyline. This is very much the strength of these books - unlike any other fiction we've reviewed that contains some science, they work really well as a mystery story that pulls the reader along.
As well as bringing in one of my favourite bits of science (admittedly incidentally) in quantum entanglement, the storyline also plays with the opportunities for time paradoxes. I can't say too much without providing a spoiler, but the big reveal part way through the book is genuinely surprising, and results in some very interesting thinking about the implications of time travel.
Where I have to take a step back on the science is the handling of time travel. In some ways, the book almost gets this back to front, making backward time travel easier than forward travel, where the reverse is actually true. We also get a time machine that materializes in time - this isn't how real physics based time travel works - it always involves movement in space as well as through time, and a time machine would simply arrive, not appear. Finally, the book ignores the absolute fundamental that any time machine based on relativity cannot travel back in time further than the point in time where the machine was first constructed.
So the time travel aspect is the weakest, scientifically speaking (and the notes at the end of each chapter haven't got the scientific bite of those in the previous volume). Don't get me wrong - there is no problem with ignoring the realities of science in fiction, but it does reduce the book's value as a way of getting science across. But it remains a dramatic and interesting storyline in which science and technology plays a major role - and for that reason is still highly recommended for the age group.
Review first published on www.popularscience.co.uk and reproduced with permission(less)
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"Thanks for that clarification - it isn't made obvious in the book.
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Is it a bug or a feature?I spent a fair number of years at British Airways both programming myself and working with programmers. Arguably the most fascinating sociological aspect of the computer programming environment is the concept of the bug. The error in the code that makes it do the wrong thing. I might not be rich, but I could probably afford a pint of beer if I had 10p for every time I...
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