Book Reviews May 2006

Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines Jim Al-Khalili Institute of Physics ISBN: 0750305606 Mentioned in stretchy space Black Holes Wormholes This book is created from a series of lectures that Jim Al-Khalili gave to teenage schoolchildren. As such it is entirely non-technical, but succeeds very well in linking the science of the theory of relativity with sci-fi concepts such as wormholes and time travel. It also includes an introduction to cosmology and a discussion of the philosophy of time. I would recommend it to any reader wanting a gentle introduction to these subjects or to more advanced readers who will enjoy it as a little light reading. Continued..

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The equation that couldn't be solved Mario Livio Souvenir press, 2005 ISBN: 0285637439 Symmetry has always played a large part in the development of mathematics. This book shows how ideas of symmetry were used to settle a long standing question - for which polynomial equations could a formula be found for their roots? The book gives biographical details of the mathematicians working on this problem, and in particular the tragic story of Evariste Galois who was killed in a duel at the age of twenty, having spent the night before hurriedly writing down some of his most important mathematical ideas. Thus Livio makes an abstract mathematical topic accessible to the reader with no previous knowledge of the subject. Continued..

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Dawkins vs Gould Kim Sterelny Icon books ISBN: 1840462493 The names of Richard Dawkins and Stephen J Gould will be familiar to readers of popular science books, but sometimes its difficult to place the two in context. Dawkins is responsible for some provocative work, such the idea of the 'selfish' gene, but his view seems to be the one adopted by the mainstream. Gould on the other hand seems more moderate and conciliatory in his books, but has sometimes been seen as a thorn in the side of the scientific establishment, with his ideas of punctuated equilibrium. This book summarises the positions of these two famous biologists and does an excellent job in providing the required context. Continued..

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Warped Passages Lisa Randall Allen Lane, 2005 ISBN: 0713996994 Some of the ideas floating around in theoretical physics seem a bit far out, and the non-expert might wonder whether there is any real substance to them - string theory sounds weird enough, but multidimensional branes seem to be stretching credibility to the limit. In this book an expert physicist describes the work she has been doing on this subject, but does so in a way that is accessible to the novice, skillfully using metaphor to explain each point. Thus we hear about the development of string theory and the standard model, leading on to the latest ideas of why space might seem to be three dimensional when in reality it has more, 'hidden' dimensions. Continued..

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Biography of a germ Arno Karlen Victor Gollancz, 2000 ISBN: 0575066059 Anyone who goes for a walk in the woods in the USA should know about the need to guard against Lyme disease. But thinking about deer and their ticks tends to obscure the organism which is actually responsible, a bacterium called Borrelia burdorferi or Bb for short. This book tells its story, and of the challenges it faces as it moves between its various hosts. The book requires no previous knowledge of the subject, and teaches the reader a fair amount of biology along the way. Despite the nature of the subject, it makes an excellent choice for a little light reading. Continued..

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Realspace Paul Levinson Routledge, 2003 ISBN: 0415277434 In the 1960's we thought that the human exploration of space would soon reach Mars and elsewhere. But it didn't happen. Paul Levinson thinks that we have become too inward looking, tied to our web browsers, at the expense of travelling and seeing the universe. Personally I think that too many people are going backwards and forwards for no particular purpose and the online revolution has further to go. The trouble with this book is that it does nothing to deal with such arguments, rather it consists of vague generalities. While there are a few interesting points made in this book, like the idea that when the movement west had reached its limit in California, people had to find somewhere else to go. But if you want persuasive arguments then you should look elsewhere. Continued..

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Gnomes in the fog Dennis Hesseling Birkhäuser ISBN: 0817665366 Mentioned in Excluded muddle This book looks at the development of Brouwer's Intuitionism, and its reception by the mathematics community. Is mathematics just axioms, or is there more to it? How are we to think of infinite sets? The book will certainly be of interest to students of the history of mathematics. It might also be of interest to those wanting to know about the culture in the 1920's - how the war had introduced uncertainty everywhere. It certainly requires some knowledge of university level mathematics, but was more readable than I expected. Readers who topped up what they learned at school with some reading about mathematical axiomatics would probably be able to follow it, in particular chapters 1, 2, and 6. It would also be of use to those considering research into the foundations of mathematics - possibly as a warning of the quagmire that this can become. Continued..

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