BOOK: Lavoisier in the Year One by Madison Smartt Bell

Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution by Madison Smartt Bell, 186 pages plus index

Science Reading Challenge; Paris in July

I know practically nothing about French history. Some things that sound familiar to me include: the Bastille, Let them eat cake!, Napoleon. And that's about it. I've heard of Lavoisier from Chemistry - the conservation of mass in chemical reactions is a pretty basic tenet in science. So, this book combines both of these aspects of Antoine Lavoisier's life - his scientific role, and his part during the time of the French Revolution and I learned a lot.

The history part is kind of boring, quite honestly, but I did get a picture of what happened. Lavoisier was a quasi-noble so he had important jobs although science was also his love. He tried to stay somewhat neutral and felt his job was as a civil servant, not a politician. I liked how important his wife was to his scientific discoveries, and it was good to see a woman get some credit. Describing the background of the theory of what would become elements also was a bit boring, but also the part that I found most fascinating.

Hopefully, most people who have finished high school have a model in their head of atoms, and molecules, and elements. We know that air is made up of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, plus an assortment of other gases. But imagine not knowing that, and figuring out that there were several different types of gases making up the atmosphere, as well as the extra problem of where energy comes into reactions, and connecting it to fire and heat. Lavoisier was one of the first scientists to make progress in the breakdown of the atmosphere. He debunked the phlogiston theory and isolated oxygen. He also developed a nomenclature for chemistry that is still used to this day. Plus the conservation of mass was evident due to his meticulous chemical reactions as recorded by his wife. That history and story was amazing! He battled against the scientific establishment, and scientists from other countries but seldom his own doubts. He won his battle with the scientists, but not the one with the Jacobin rebels.Ooh, bad ending for Lavoisier, but good for science.

BOOK: The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks

The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks, 240 pages
released Oct 26, 2010

Science Book Challenge

I cannot decide whether this is nonsense or profound truth - it is the sort of reef I end up on when I think about thinking. p 226

Oh Mr Sacks, you sum up what happens to me all the time, and this book does get a person thinking. How do we see? How do we read? Is listening to a book reading? Is reading someone's lips hearing? Sacks delves into this world of perception and senses, providing case studies of some very unusual people.

I liked how the people, for the most part, adapt to their situation. Losing, or gaining, a sense (or even just an aspect of a sense, like recognizing faces) causes the brain to adapt and fit the new experience into existing pathways of the brain. Much of the book is quite scientific, referencing studies, and since this isn't my area of expertise at all, I found it a bit deep at times. Being very familiar with the brain sections and its specialties would have helped; but not knowing didn't diminish my interest.

Personally, the chapter on stereo vision was most interesting. I see only with one eye, my left eye is so weak, it never learned to see together with the right eye, a necessity for three dimensional vision. My left eye provides a bit of peripheral vision, but it's quite useless. (But cheaper, as I only need one contact.) So, this means I can't see 3D movies at all. I can, however, drive as I've always viewed the world in 2D, or flat and that is my experience. Just as perspective can be deduced in a picture, so too can I tell mostly where things are - near or far. The woman in the book who regained her stereo vision after 40 years without it, had the ability as a child. Her brain had the neural pathways to be 'awoken' so she could see a new way. Alas, I never will as I never had that capability in the first place.

A large portion of the book is Dr Sacks personal journal as he undergoes a cancer in the eye which leaves him without his 3D vision. Combined with his own experience of not recognizing faces and he appears to be one of his own best patients.I liked when he related his patients problems to his own, but his ability to microanalyze things he saw astounded me. Perhaps that is why I am not a neurosurgeon or neurobiologist.

Sacks has other books, similar I believe, that I would be interested in reading: His memoir Uncle Tungsten, along with Musicophilia, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and An Anthropologist on Mars. He references these books throughout The Mind's Eye. Sacks is also the doctor, and wrote the book, that the movie Awakenings was based on. I loved that movie, and deNiro and Robin Williams in it.

We, or maybe I, often believe that other people perceive the world much as we do. Reading this book has opened my eyes to experiences that I couldn't even imagine, like losing the ability to read, but still being able to write. Others certainly can't envision the flat world I live in. The complexity of the brain to adapt, adapt, adapt is inspiring and overwhelming. 

CHALLENGE: Science Book Challenge 2010

The Science Book Challenge 2010 is being hosted here. I've tried to participate every year, and have had various levels of success, in 2008 and 2009. That won't stop me from signing up again, and listing great science books I hope to read. I'm afraid I'm turning into that person that Nick Hornby worries he became: buying books because you'd like to be the person who buys and reads those books, not that those books ever actually get read. After being inspired by Melanie, yet again (she picks the best science books, the ones that send me scurrying to the library looking for her books):

• Cold: Adventures in the world's frozen places by Bill Streever
• The Elegant Universe by Brian Green
• The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• 
  

There may be a touch of Literary Feline's approach to book challenges for me on this one. These are the books I'd like to read.

The ones I actually read:
1. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
2. The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks
3. We Need to Talk About Kelvin - Marcus Chown

BOOK: E = mc^2 by David Bodanis

E = mc^2 by David Bodanis, 235 pages + notes
A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation

Nonfiction Five 2009; Science Book Challenge

Have you always wondered what exactly this equation means? Why is it so famous? Are you worried that 'only 12 people in the world truly understand it', and you aren't one of them? Then this is the book for you!

Written as a biography of the equation, the book begins with the 'birth', Einstein's time in the patent office in Switzerland where he originally thought of the relationship. Bodanis then backs up and explains exactly what each of the 5 parts of the equation come from - energy, mass, equals, celeritas, and squared. Each of these comes with some famous scientists and their main contributions. Fascinating, and written in easy to understand terms and analogies. ( I'm pretty sure they are easy to understand, but keep in mind I spend every day in a high school science class, so this is stuff I talk about every day. In that sense, I think it is easy because nothing seems any higher than I would expect my students to be able to understand.) I really liked this section as it broke down energy and mass and the speed of light (celeritas).

The rest of the book traces the results and implications that Einstein's famous equation led to, ultimately in the terrible devastation in Japan. But this book is so much more!

• The unfortunately believable sexism encountered by Lise Meitner (Otto Hahn, that Nobel prize thief!), and Cecilia Payne, who at least was allowed to study for her PhD, even if none of her advisers would believe her results. Miss Leavitt gets an anonymous nod in reference to the 'computers' at Harvard.
  
• The treatment of Jews in Germany and the scientists who refused to work with them, like Heisenberg.
  
• The race between the Americans and the Germans to build the bomb, and the daring operation carried out in Norway to stop the Germans.
• Funny observations and writing. Every hero needs an assistant. Moses had Aaron. Jesus had his disciples. Einstein, alas, got Freundlich.
  
• The fights and stubborn behavior of some well known scientists. The feuds!
• All the biggest names is science: Faraday, Oppenheimer, Rutherford, Chadwick, Fermi, Lavoisier, and Ole Roemer as well as the lesser known.
  

This book will be in my class room, and I can see using this as a reference for years to come. This is what science writing should be - accessible, fun, and informative. It makes you feel smarter when you are done.

BOOK: Miss Leavitt's Stars by George Johnson

Miss Leavitt's Stars by George Johnson, 130 pages + notes
The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe

Science Book Challenge; Dewey Decimal Challenge: 522; Non-fiction 5 2009

Melanie's review at theindextriousreader last year is what first brought this book to my attention. When she recently reviewed another science biography in this series, I remembered about Miss Leavitt. Will I ever catch up to Melanie? My library has a couple more I will have to look into - including Madame Curie.

There isn't a lot of information on Henrietta Swan Leavitt, and this book almost misleadingly is named for her. I think she gets a little more than her due here as a belated apology for her lack of recognition and opportunity. She was a 'computer' at Harvard in the early 1900s, observing the relative brightness of stars from photographic plates. Her job was simply to record, but she was able to make some conclusions, even developing a relationship, that then allowed the other astronomers, the men, to determine the distances of the stars. This was a starting point for the investigation of galaxies, their nearness or farness, and for the determining that the Milky Way wasn't the center, or the only one. Miss Leavitt gave the other astronomers a starting point to carry on. PhDs have been awarded for much less.

The science is slowly explained, with some good analogies to help us regular folk. The infighting, the sniping, and the downplaying of other's contributions to raise up their own: that was easy to see. Some famous names like Hubble, Einstein, and George Ellery Hale were Henrietta's contemporaries. The information on Henrietta is shockingly slim, but she wasn't around very long as she was sickly, missing many months of work, and then she died early. Whatever could be found about her family and her life seems to have been uncovered. Her boss never really acknowledged her contribution so there was little recorded of what the 'computers' did. They were thought of as recorders, not thinkers, so any ideas they had were scooped up by the bosses. It's a sad story of women's contribution at that point in history, but all too common.

I enjoyed this little look at a time in history as ideas of space and stars and galaxies were developed, changed, refigured, and then adapted. Unfortunately, egos sometimes get in the way of results, but science wins out in the end. Now, if only I had a telescope...

CHALLENGE: Science Book Challenge 2009

Once again, the Science Book Challenge is beckoning me. Actually, JN Shaumeyer invited me to partake again, and I couldn't refuse. Information from the site says:

Read at least three nonfiction books in 2009 related somehow to the theme "Nature's Wonders". Your books should have something to do with science, scientists, how science operates, or science's relationship with its surrounding culture. Your books might be popularizations of science, they might be histories, they might be biographies, they might be anthologies; they can be recent titles or older books. We take a very broad view of what makes for interesting and informative science reading.

Here's a few I have here, patiently waiting to be read:
1. Miss Leavitt's Stars - George Johnson 07/20

2. The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene All the scoop on string theory

3. E= mc^2 by David Bodanis 07/27 All about the famous equation

Check out the cool fractal photo for the button.

CHALLENGES: update

I've finished a few challenges lately, and should update.

I only committed to 2 books, but managed more than that. Only 2 were proper long novels, which was probably why I only thought I could manage two.
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury I am half way through this and loving it.
High Spirits - Robertson Davies (short stories)
The Night Country - Stewart O'Nan
Creepers - Joanne Dahme (young adult)
Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith
Life As We Knew It - Susan Beth Pfeffer
The Borden Tragedy -Rick Geary (graphic novel)

Other books I still really want to read:
Lisey's Story - Stephen King - moves to the next pile of challenges, Book Awards and Genre
Murder on the Strand - Daphne duMaurier - moves to the next pile of challenges
Voices - Arnaldur Indridason - moves to the next pile of challenges as part of a series

RIP is a great challenge, and I easily find books that fit this genre. Likely my most favorite type of book to read. I am in the middle of All That She Was Worth, and Too Close to Home is yelling at me to get started. I think my RIP will continue well into November. Thanks Carl, I love this one.

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Read three books from September 1 - December 1, 2008 that have been turned into movies. Easy peasy.

1. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
2. Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
3. Last Orders by Graham Swift

Good books all in all. I have a few more here my daughter wants me to read: Because of Winn Dixie and Ella Enchanted. I hope to finish them before the challenge ends. Thanks to Callista for hosting this one a second year.

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Here was a great little challenge - read three science related books. Since I teach physics, it seemed appropriate to join in. The Trouble with Physics was the one I learned the most from.

1. The Quirks and Quarks Guide to Space - Jim Lebans
2. The Planets - Dava Sobel
3. The Trouble With Physics - Lee Smolin

BOOK: The Trouble With Physics by Lee Smolin

The Trouble With Physics by Lee Smolin

The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next

nonfiction five 2008, science book challenge, cardathon

I don't know enough about physics to critique the thesis of this book, but I was impressed with the arguments put forth by Smolin. I learned a lot and won't begin to admit I understood everything, but I found it fascinating. String theory, quantum theory, the standard model, and then loops and superstrings, and gauge bosons, my head was spinning. But Smolin writes clearly and easily, and I was getting bits and pieces straight in my head.

The book starts with the Unfinished Revolution and the five great problems in theoretical physics left to be solved. A bit of history and background. The second section was a Brief History of String Theory. This got a lot more confusing and I did some skimming, I confess. Again, the ideas are difficult and I couldn't expect to understand just from reading a few chapters what string theory is all about. (I have The Elegant Universe here to read later, which is the story of String Theory; I also have the DVD, which will probably get watched first.) A third section looks Beyond String Theory at other areas of research, besides string theory, in physics. Ideas got pretty big and abstact here.

The last section is really the most interesting for a person from the outside of the physics establishment. Smolin examines how the physics community has arrived at its standstill, with an elegant theory of strings that has little to no experimental evidence to support it. A combination of sociology, groupthink, and the politics of academia have lead to what he calls the trouble with physics. He offers some solutions, and doesn't claim to not have been a part of everything, but he certainly wasn't part of the in crowd of string theory, and so he is on the outside, somewhat, looking in. It leads a credibility to his argument.

At times, he reminded me of Richard Feynman, mentioned often in the book. Feynman was a bit of a rebel, and didn't lack any confidence in his abilities. Feynman was awarded the Nobel Prize, so he has the cred to back up his bravado. Smolin includes personal situations he's been involved in, and they are the framework to tell this story, but he seemed to always have recognized the good idea that others didn't, or known the outsiders he admires so much. Not a criticism, but just a feeling I got as I read. But to be able to outline the problems he sees, it takes a big thinker and someone who is a little outside the system. He also acknowledges his role in the systematic problems he identifies.

I wasn't sure whether to read this first, or to learn about String Theory (The Elegant Universe.) I decided on this one, with the hopes it will help me to critically read the other. This was a very interesting book, and should be read my most scientists or people with an interest in science, and physics especially. The writing is very accessible and his arguments are persuasive.

BOOK: Quirks and Quarks Guide to Space by Jim Lebans

The Quirks and Quarks Guide to Space by Jim Lebans

42 Questions (and Answers) About Life, The Universe, and Everything

Science Book Challenge

If you are lucky enough to get CBC radio, you probably already know about Quirks and Quarks, the science show on Saturdays. Host Bob MacDonald explains all the newest scientific discoveries, in everyday language and with humor. I was very excited to see this book released, and it is going to have a prominent place on my desk at school. During physics classes, the most amazing questions can be asked, and I don't know the answer to many of them, astronomy not being my strong suit. I may even start reading a chapter out loud every day or so, because this is the stuff that people want to know.

To give you an idea of the tone of the book, which is very readable, the opening quote is from Douglas Adams, "Space is big. Really big....." Lebans, a producer with the Quirks and Quarks show, tackles 42 questions and then answers them. Where does space begin? (100km above Earth) Can I run fast and jump into orbit? (theoretically, but not really) What moons are worth visiting? ( Jupiter's Europa, and Saturn's Titan might be very interesting) and How fast are we moving through space? (it's all relative to what else is moving, but pretty fast)

Lebans does a great job of explaining why Pluto isn't a planet anymore, and what might happen if you fell into a black hole, which involves 'spaghettifying.' I first heard that phrase when watching 'A Brief History of Time,' the documentary based on Stephen Hawking's book of the same name. I am not up to date enough to know if everything is accurate, but since science changes so rapidly, I'll assume it is good for now. I plan to reread some of the Big Bang Theory questions later, and I hope I'll be lending this out to those inquisitive students who love physics.

CHALLENGE: Science Book Challenge

There's another challenge I hope to participate in, the Science Book Challenge, hosted by Bearcastle.

Here are The Rules to the challenge:

1. Read three nonfiction books this year related to the theme "Living a Rational Life", broadly construed. Each book should have something to do with science, how science operates, or science's relationship with its surrounding culture. The books might be popularizations of science, they might be history, they might be biography, they might be anthologies.
2. After you've read it, write a short note about the book; 500 words would suffice. What goes in the note? The things you would tell a friend if you wanted to convince said friend to read it, too. Naturally, you can read some of the existing Book Notes for ideas.Don't worry if you find that you've read a book someone else has also read; we welcome multiple notes on one title.
3. Get your book note to me and I'll post it with the other Book Notes in that section at Science Besieged.
4.Tell two other people about The Science-Book Challenge.

I'm not completely sure what books I'll read, but as a science teacher, I should be reading science books, so I'll think of this as a bit of professional development, as well as a reading challenge.

Book List:

1. The Quirks and Quarks Guide to Space - Jim Lebans

2. The Planets - Dava Sobel

3. The Trouble With Physics - Lee Smolin