Merry Chemical Christmas!

Two wonderful Christmas trees from Chemical & Engineering News' Newscripts column.

Book Review: Logicomix

Not sure where to file this one. It's a biography of Bertrand Russell, focusing on his work in logic and mathematics, ending up in World War II, written by Greeks with a bit of ancient Greek tragedy thrown in for good measure. Although Russell is the main figure it's really about the other characters as well: Cantor, Wittgenstein, and Godel. Godel's Incompleteness theorem is presented right (far as I know, since it goes along with what I read in Godel, Escher, Bach long ago!), but there's just so much logical depth one can achieve with a comic book! It really is about the characters, and I enjoyed going with the flow. Although I wonder how much of the story is colored by what the authors want to say rather than what is really there. For instance, did the computer really win WWII for us? I think it was a factor but a lot more factors were more important. Radar, for instance (was the computer necessary for radar, in the sense that without Turing there would be no radar?). The book puts forward democracy as a solution against evil and skates on by the fact that Germany in the early 20th century was pretty democratic! As a thought-provoking way to learn some math history and to start a line of thinking this is an excellent book. What it doesn't do is resolve the issues it brings up -- but I wouldn't expect that anyway!

Book Review: Tales from Outer Suburbia

This is another book by Shaun Tan, who wrote The Arrival completely without words. Since that's one of my favorite graphic novels I was looking forward to this. It's a collection of (very) short stories, often punctuated with large illustrations, but it is still more about the words than the pictures. I read this one together with Sam and it was interesting -- I don't think he's ever been exposed to fanciful fiction like this before, in which every story is matter-of-factly told, and everything is familiar, except for one outlandish fiction in each (say, an alien exchange student, or a deep-sea diver wandering around the neighborhood). Each story has some deep current underneath it. There's two that still stand out to me -- one in the middle about marriage and one toward the beginning about a sad child. The former is not what I expected from a young-adult book like this but it is very well done. Bottom line: it's like a box of chocolates, and if one story is semi-normal I guarantee the next one will surprise you. Great for introducing what fanciful fiction can do to a young boy.

Symposium Lecture Posted

This summer my colleague in psychology called together a few of us interested in science and asked if we'd like to give a symposium for "Darwin Day" (depending on who you ask, either the anniversary of Darwin's birth or the publication of the Origin of Species). The thing grew to five hour-plus sessions and even then felt like it didn't have enough time. My 15 minutes of semi-fame are in the "biological sciences" section, and I'm in the middle, between Eric Long's talk and Tim Nelson's. I probably am focusing on a scientific audience a bit much but am trying to make my case for a general audience!

I just regret that the Q&A isn't on there (although that's partially my fault -- long story!), because that's where we really addressed the faith/science overlap. Here it's (mostly) all about the science. Discussion of the overlap will come in the upcoming Weter Lecture!

Here is the link to the iTunesU page with all the sessions.

Book Review: What the Dog Saw

[piclink]

It's very obvious that Malcolm Gladwell tried to get his start in advertising, then "fell back" to writing, as he decribes in the introduction to this, his latest book. He's at his best in short snippets, like ads, just enough to make his point (which usually results from two or three who'd-a'thunk type connections) and then get out of Dodge before the reader starts to think up objections. (This is why this book is definitely better than Outliers.) He's very good and very original, but it would be nice to see him in conflict with ideas rather than promoting them. (The ideas he sets himself up as being in conflict with are usually conventional wisdom "everybody knows" semi-strawmen ... but, to his credit, they usually ARE something everyone knows that he then shows is wrong!)

This collection gets stronger as it moves along. The first few articles feel almost like informercials, but later he has some very good essays, and my favorites usually involve some science. The problem with Gladwell is he's never faced peer review and it shows. In the introduction he says he hates it when someone reads something and says "I don't buy it" because writing's supposed to be entertainment. Well, I've said this before but ... I don't buy it. Every piece of writing is an argument. It's making an argument that you should take the time to read it. And Gladwell's actually very good at making that argument implicitly in his writing! So, sorry, Mr. Gladwell, I still don't buy it, but I will read it.

(Besides, "igon value" instead of "eigenvalue"?! That's just embarrassing.)

Regardless, there are enough good essays in this book that I think I may assign it to my students to buy for a seminar class for which his essays will be good introductions to the topics I'll discuss. But they are only introductions, good for getting the conversation started, surprisingly weak at commiting to practical conclusions that will change the way you go about life. (Maybe it's the underlying philosophical assumptions that mold everything else, assumptions that I may not "buy" into?) As a current article-writer and verbal welder of disparate ideas, Gladwell is unparalleled. Let's just get some real intellectual conflict in there and we'll have real depth.

Free RJP Williams!

A lot of people are interested in the chemical stories of RJP Williams, but mostly they are behind some kind of expensive "wall." But wait ... I just found this 2007 article from the Royal Society and (God save the Queen) it's available free to all (I think ... ). This seems to be a pretty good summary of the 2006 book I reviewed earlier. Check it out here:

http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/4/17/1049.full

Han Solo: Game Theorist?

You have to see this blog post from the Freakonomics blog for yourself. It's about Star Wars Episode IV and Han Solo's decision to fight for the Rebels. I'm trying to figure out how to integrate into the boys' math curriculum. There are advantages to home schooling.

Here's the link.