The Disappearing Spoon
Sam Kean (The Violinist's Thumb)
ISBN: 9780316051644
Read February 2, 2016
Microhistory of the elements of the periodic table, focused on interesting stories about the scientists and science surrounding each element.
I really enjoyed Kean's voice in this book. I didn't realize (despite the nearly identical covers) that he was also the author of The Violinist's Thumb, but as I read, there was a niggling familiarity with how the stories were arranged and how they called-back and referenced each other as the narrative built up. It's a neat trick, and one that I imagine is difficult to manage, and he's done it cheekily and with a lighthearted flair.
Microhistories are one of my favorite types of nonfiction, and this one is no exception. I enjoyed learning about all the weird coincidences and correlations that lead to the development of the modern periodic table and of all the elements in their current arrangements, and of the potential paths for future development. If this book had been part of my chemistry education, I might have had half a chance of figuring any of it out and being interested in it all.
Showing posts with label popular science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label popular science. Show all posts
Monday, February 8, 2016
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Nonfiction: ASAPScience, by Mitchell Moffit & Greg Brown
ASAPScience: Answers to the World's Weirdest Questions, Most Persistent Rumors, & Unexplained Phenomena
Mitchell Moffit & Greg Brown
ISBN: 9781476756219
Read March 16, 2015
I haven't been reading much lately - between being busy at work and home, and sick as a dog the last two weeks, I've been doing good to put one foot in front of the other. However, I'm feeling better now and what better way to dip my toes back into the lovely world of reading than with a great little book of random science facts.
Sadly, I just read What If. Darnit. If I hadn't, this would have been excellent, but as it is, the answers to the questions were glossy and surface, and don't actually go into the furthest reaches of science and research and related facts of the questions at hand. Which was frustrating for me.
On the one hand, they include several questions that in my opinion they ought to have just left out, or admitted up front are unanswerable because of how they are set up, like "The Chicken or the Egg" which is a question of definitions, or "Which hurts more, childbirth, or being kicked in the nads?" which deals with individual pain tolerances and the differences between sharp instant localized pain and long-term systemic pain - and is therefore unanswerable.
On the other hand, they also have fun questions like "What is brain-freeze" and answer the question without talking about how to fix it (recently studied; firmly press a warm washcloth (or your tongue in a pinch) to the roof of your mouth to force the nerves and blood vessels to re-acclimate to the correct temperature) or "Is binge-watching TV bad for you" by dealing entirely with the physical ramifications of being sedentary and indoors, without addressing the very real social and psychological implications of obsessive or anti-social behavior, both of which have been in the news recently.
That said, several questions are very interesting, and are handled more fully. I enjoyed learning more about the 5-second rule (real deal - anywhere from less than 1 second to more than 20 seconds depending on the surface and how wet the food is), about the disconnect between mirrors and photos of yourself (the key is in the "mirror-image" - and if you tell your phone to reverse the image, you can freak out your friends instead of yourself), and the freaky connection between smells and the potential for a real zombie uprising (nerve connections are weird, y'all.)
Overall, quite fun. For more in-depth treatments, I'd go for What If, but for more mundane curiosity, this book was a fun surface romp through science trivia.
Mitchell Moffit & Greg Brown
ISBN: 9781476756219
Read March 16, 2015
I haven't been reading much lately - between being busy at work and home, and sick as a dog the last two weeks, I've been doing good to put one foot in front of the other. However, I'm feeling better now and what better way to dip my toes back into the lovely world of reading than with a great little book of random science facts.
Sadly, I just read What If. Darnit. If I hadn't, this would have been excellent, but as it is, the answers to the questions were glossy and surface, and don't actually go into the furthest reaches of science and research and related facts of the questions at hand. Which was frustrating for me.
On the one hand, they include several questions that in my opinion they ought to have just left out, or admitted up front are unanswerable because of how they are set up, like "The Chicken or the Egg" which is a question of definitions, or "Which hurts more, childbirth, or being kicked in the nads?" which deals with individual pain tolerances and the differences between sharp instant localized pain and long-term systemic pain - and is therefore unanswerable.
On the other hand, they also have fun questions like "What is brain-freeze" and answer the question without talking about how to fix it (recently studied; firmly press a warm washcloth (or your tongue in a pinch) to the roof of your mouth to force the nerves and blood vessels to re-acclimate to the correct temperature) or "Is binge-watching TV bad for you" by dealing entirely with the physical ramifications of being sedentary and indoors, without addressing the very real social and psychological implications of obsessive or anti-social behavior, both of which have been in the news recently.
That said, several questions are very interesting, and are handled more fully. I enjoyed learning more about the 5-second rule (real deal - anywhere from less than 1 second to more than 20 seconds depending on the surface and how wet the food is), about the disconnect between mirrors and photos of yourself (the key is in the "mirror-image" - and if you tell your phone to reverse the image, you can freak out your friends instead of yourself), and the freaky connection between smells and the potential for a real zombie uprising (nerve connections are weird, y'all.)
Overall, quite fun. For more in-depth treatments, I'd go for What If, but for more mundane curiosity, this book was a fun surface romp through science trivia.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Nonfiction: Stuff Matters, Mark Miodownik
These treatises on stuff and materials and interesting items or snapshots in time are called "microhistories" and I have to admit that they're really one of the only nonfiction that I actually look for to read. I'm not alone - they're hugely popular. This one should be a lovely addition to the library's collection.
Stuff Matters
Mark Miodownik
ISBN: 9780544236042
Read September 27, 2014
Miodownik starts with a traumatic childhood experience - getting slashed across the back by a homemade razor knife weilded by a would-be-mugger - and uses that as his starting point for his fascination with materials sciences and with the properties of the natural and built environments we surround ourselves with.
Each chapter deals with a different material, although the chapters themselves are named for a property that the author associates with that material (minor quibble: it would have made it easier to reference and cross-check if he'd included both association and metal)
For reference, the chapters are:
Indomitable (Steel)
Trusted (Paper)
Fundamental (Concrete)
Delicious (Chocolate)
Marvelous (Aerogels)
Imaginative (Plastics, specifically collodion)
Invisible (Glass)
Unbreakable (Carbon/Graphite/graphene/Diamond/Carbon-fiber/nanotubes)
Refined (Porcelain)
Immortal (Bio-materials and "cyborg" parts)
Synthesis (Materials Science 101)
Miodownik has a fun and breezy writing style, his examples are delightful, and the chapters are just long enough to get his point and his fascination (obsession?) across without being belabored. It's obvious that he's English, but that's a bonus for me, and doesn't impact on the universal nature of scientific and material interest. I finished this slim collection off with the hope that it sells well and the author enjoyed the writing process, so that perhaps there will be a sequel!
Stuff Matters
Mark Miodownik
ISBN: 9780544236042
Read September 27, 2014
Miodownik starts with a traumatic childhood experience - getting slashed across the back by a homemade razor knife weilded by a would-be-mugger - and uses that as his starting point for his fascination with materials sciences and with the properties of the natural and built environments we surround ourselves with.
Each chapter deals with a different material, although the chapters themselves are named for a property that the author associates with that material (minor quibble: it would have made it easier to reference and cross-check if he'd included both association and metal)
For reference, the chapters are:
Indomitable (Steel)
Trusted (Paper)
Fundamental (Concrete)
Delicious (Chocolate)
Marvelous (Aerogels)
Imaginative (Plastics, specifically collodion)
Invisible (Glass)
Unbreakable (Carbon/Graphite/graphene/Diamond/Carbon-fiber/nanotubes)
Refined (Porcelain)
Immortal (Bio-materials and "cyborg" parts)
Synthesis (Materials Science 101)
Miodownik has a fun and breezy writing style, his examples are delightful, and the chapters are just long enough to get his point and his fascination (obsession?) across without being belabored. It's obvious that he's English, but that's a bonus for me, and doesn't impact on the universal nature of scientific and material interest. I finished this slim collection off with the hope that it sells well and the author enjoyed the writing process, so that perhaps there will be a sequel!
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Nonfiction: Curious, Ian Leslie
Curious: the desire to know and why your future depends on it
Ian Leslie
ISBN: 9780465079964
Read Sept 7, 2014
Interesting read about curiousity, how it works, why it's important, and how it's been regarded historically-speaking.
The author gets a little fired up about "progressive" ideas about education and how they all totally miss the point, which seems to be a bit of axe-grinding. (I'm not contesting his premise that curiosity needs to be fed with regular and quality applications of knowledge, but I am a bit iffy on his emphatic extrapolation that all forms of "progressive" educational policy (montessori, child-led, etc.) are total rubbish that are ruining children's minds.)
The most interesting idea that was presented is a dichotomy between puzzles and mysteries; puzzles having a solid answer, and mysteries being more amorphous or complex or potential-filled to be locked down into something so simple as "an answer."
The notes at the end are also worth checking out - the author doesn't rely on them to explain the book contents (which are taken care of IN the book, a practice I heartily endorse) - but to enhance or travel further down a particular rabbit-hole of interest. I LOVE it when notes are interesting and further the context and information presented.
Finally, a shout-out to the cover. Nicole Caputo should be congratulated for her sparse and striking design, as should Michael Duva of Getty for the picture itself. Simply brilliant.
Ian Leslie
ISBN: 9780465079964
Read Sept 7, 2014
Interesting read about curiousity, how it works, why it's important, and how it's been regarded historically-speaking.
The author gets a little fired up about "progressive" ideas about education and how they all totally miss the point, which seems to be a bit of axe-grinding. (I'm not contesting his premise that curiosity needs to be fed with regular and quality applications of knowledge, but I am a bit iffy on his emphatic extrapolation that all forms of "progressive" educational policy (montessori, child-led, etc.) are total rubbish that are ruining children's minds.)
The most interesting idea that was presented is a dichotomy between puzzles and mysteries; puzzles having a solid answer, and mysteries being more amorphous or complex or potential-filled to be locked down into something so simple as "an answer."
The notes at the end are also worth checking out - the author doesn't rely on them to explain the book contents (which are taken care of IN the book, a practice I heartily endorse) - but to enhance or travel further down a particular rabbit-hole of interest. I LOVE it when notes are interesting and further the context and information presented.
Finally, a shout-out to the cover. Nicole Caputo should be congratulated for her sparse and striking design, as should Michael Duva of Getty for the picture itself. Simply brilliant.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Nonfiction: Happiness by Design, Paul Dolan
Happiness by Design: change what you do, not how you think
Paul Dolan, PhD
ISBN: 9781594632433
Read Sept 5, 2014
First off, it is an excellent premise, and I totally agree. We think about "being" happy, but what makes us happy (or contented, or purposeful) is what we're doing, and how we think about what we're doing. We need to figure out what we think about the most, and DO things that correlate with those thought-patterns (and also provide pleasure or purpose) to work with the architecture of our minds to become happy as a habit, or as a life-pattern, rather than trying to find interesting special occasions or special activities which take effort and often don't work as well as anticipated to impact our happiness.
Secondly (and on a much less happy note) I feel like this book wasn't as powerful as it might have been. My two main concerns are the content value, and the advice value.
For the content, it very strongly feels that this was a series of lectures or inspirational speeches that was heavily padded out into a book. There just wasn't enough substance here for me to really feel like it deserved a full book, and I was shocked at how little was actually in there. The book starts with explaining the study of happiness, the ideas of public policy, and the science behind what we do and how we think. At the halfway mark, we finally get into the "change what you do, not how you think" bit, and I was very ready for the author to get on with it. I would have liked a broader and quicker brush over the current state of affairs and why it isn't working, and a much more robust section on the neuroscience and behavior studies supporting specific ideas for maximizing happiness.
For the advice, to my surprise, even though the title practically promised concrete advice, there was actually very little there as well. In fairness, there was a lot of general advice, which perhaps was what the author preferred, but I've found that people like specifics, especially in what are essentially self-help books. If we were as savvy about our happiness as to already know what we needed to do to be happy, perhaps we would not be reading a book about it for advice, no? Despite having a very intriguing and promising premise, it gets bogged down into digressions on public policy or on attention limits and attention deficits. I think that a breakdown of his advice into more concrete, action-oriented sections, with specific suggestions for activities in each (perhaps geared towards different "personality types" to fine-tune the approach) would have made the second half of the book a lot stronger. An irony is that the author specifically and repeatedly brings up the point that we remember the last bits of something and judge the entirety by the feelings sparked by the ending.
Those are my two main quibbles, and I do think there is a lot of potential here - it just seems to me like potential that would be better met with a TED Talk or a lecture series, or perhaps a Q&A with the author to brainstorm specific ideas for happiness creation, or perhaps a judicious hard edit and restructuring.
Paul Dolan, PhD
ISBN: 9781594632433
Read Sept 5, 2014
First off, it is an excellent premise, and I totally agree. We think about "being" happy, but what makes us happy (or contented, or purposeful) is what we're doing, and how we think about what we're doing. We need to figure out what we think about the most, and DO things that correlate with those thought-patterns (and also provide pleasure or purpose) to work with the architecture of our minds to become happy as a habit, or as a life-pattern, rather than trying to find interesting special occasions or special activities which take effort and often don't work as well as anticipated to impact our happiness.
Secondly (and on a much less happy note) I feel like this book wasn't as powerful as it might have been. My two main concerns are the content value, and the advice value.
For the content, it very strongly feels that this was a series of lectures or inspirational speeches that was heavily padded out into a book. There just wasn't enough substance here for me to really feel like it deserved a full book, and I was shocked at how little was actually in there. The book starts with explaining the study of happiness, the ideas of public policy, and the science behind what we do and how we think. At the halfway mark, we finally get into the "change what you do, not how you think" bit, and I was very ready for the author to get on with it. I would have liked a broader and quicker brush over the current state of affairs and why it isn't working, and a much more robust section on the neuroscience and behavior studies supporting specific ideas for maximizing happiness.
For the advice, to my surprise, even though the title practically promised concrete advice, there was actually very little there as well. In fairness, there was a lot of general advice, which perhaps was what the author preferred, but I've found that people like specifics, especially in what are essentially self-help books. If we were as savvy about our happiness as to already know what we needed to do to be happy, perhaps we would not be reading a book about it for advice, no? Despite having a very intriguing and promising premise, it gets bogged down into digressions on public policy or on attention limits and attention deficits. I think that a breakdown of his advice into more concrete, action-oriented sections, with specific suggestions for activities in each (perhaps geared towards different "personality types" to fine-tune the approach) would have made the second half of the book a lot stronger. An irony is that the author specifically and repeatedly brings up the point that we remember the last bits of something and judge the entirety by the feelings sparked by the ending.
Those are my two main quibbles, and I do think there is a lot of potential here - it just seems to me like potential that would be better met with a TED Talk or a lecture series, or perhaps a Q&A with the author to brainstorm specific ideas for happiness creation, or perhaps a judicious hard edit and restructuring.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Nonfiction: Blue Mind, Wallace J. Nichols
Blue Mind: the surprising science that shows how being near, in, on, or under water can make you happier, healthier, more connected, and better at what you do.
Wallace J. Nichols
ISBN: 9780316252089
Nonfiction: popular science: the therapeutic benefits of various interactions with water.
Interesting book, but despite the footnotes and carefully applied various disciplines and sciences (everything from property valuation to fMRI to sensory-deprivation chambers), it felt a little light-weight. I don't know why - perhaps because most of what was covered falls squarely into common sense. I sympathise with the scientific urge to explain and nail down the whys and wherefores of life, but for something as basic and universal as this, it feels somehow cheap to attempt to pin down specific biological responses and say that those are the reason; to me, that is confusing the mechanism with the motive.
Perhaps in humans, the mechanism and the motive are so interlinked as to be one and the same when looked at through a scientific eye, but in the meantime, as much as I enjoyed reading about the science behind emotional responses, and the peculiar human preferences that make ocean-view penthouses millions of dollars more expensive than their city-view next-door neighbors, I just didn't feel like I was any more renewed or enlightened about my relationship with water, or any more able to advocate for it.
Still, it was a nice enough read, much like floating around on a lazy river loop. The journey is relaxing, even if you don't go anywhere new.
Wallace J. Nichols
ISBN: 9780316252089
Nonfiction: popular science: the therapeutic benefits of various interactions with water.
Interesting book, but despite the footnotes and carefully applied various disciplines and sciences (everything from property valuation to fMRI to sensory-deprivation chambers), it felt a little light-weight. I don't know why - perhaps because most of what was covered falls squarely into common sense. I sympathise with the scientific urge to explain and nail down the whys and wherefores of life, but for something as basic and universal as this, it feels somehow cheap to attempt to pin down specific biological responses and say that those are the reason; to me, that is confusing the mechanism with the motive.
Perhaps in humans, the mechanism and the motive are so interlinked as to be one and the same when looked at through a scientific eye, but in the meantime, as much as I enjoyed reading about the science behind emotional responses, and the peculiar human preferences that make ocean-view penthouses millions of dollars more expensive than their city-view next-door neighbors, I just didn't feel like I was any more renewed or enlightened about my relationship with water, or any more able to advocate for it.
Still, it was a nice enough read, much like floating around on a lazy river loop. The journey is relaxing, even if you don't go anywhere new.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
The Science of Happily Ever After, Ty Tashiro, PhD
The Science of Happily Ever After
Ty Tashiro, PhD
ISBN: 9780373892907 (by HARLEQUIN!!!)
Read March 3, 2014
Nonfiction: relationship advice.
In case you wondered, yes I am in a relationship, and yes, it is pretty good as relationships go. I read these for the science of relationships and for understanding how people tick.
This one was not as science-y as I had hoped (yes, I'm that person who actually likes to hear about chemicals and responses and causation vs correlation), but still a good fact-and-research based bit of info about what people DO go for (yay society and evolution) vs what they SHOULD go for (because we've got basic survival in the bag, and what makes you LIVE is very different from what makes you HAPPY).
Also, Dr Tashiro has a really engaging and sweet writing style, and he really gives off the impression that he is just rooting for everyone to find someone to be happy with, and to make their relationship work.
I hope he writes another book - I'd read it in a heartbeat. :)
Ty Tashiro, PhD
ISBN: 9780373892907 (by HARLEQUIN!!!)
Read March 3, 2014
Nonfiction: relationship advice.
In case you wondered, yes I am in a relationship, and yes, it is pretty good as relationships go. I read these for the science of relationships and for understanding how people tick.
This one was not as science-y as I had hoped (yes, I'm that person who actually likes to hear about chemicals and responses and causation vs correlation), but still a good fact-and-research based bit of info about what people DO go for (yay society and evolution) vs what they SHOULD go for (because we've got basic survival in the bag, and what makes you LIVE is very different from what makes you HAPPY).
Also, Dr Tashiro has a really engaging and sweet writing style, and he really gives off the impression that he is just rooting for everyone to find someone to be happy with, and to make their relationship work.
I hope he writes another book - I'd read it in a heartbeat. :)
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