Rising Force – James D. Livingston ****

James Livingston examines the various uses of magnetic levitation in modern technology, from medicine to the production of nuclear weapons, having first considered the historic fascination people have had with levitation, and the basics of gravity and electromagnetism.

As well as covering the science of magnetic levitation (which includes us gradually being able to reduce the number of supports needed to keep an object ‘up there’ and to keep it from being displaced in any direction), there’s much more. We have biographical information on some of the key players in the development of the science of maglev, fascinating stories of bitter copyright feuds between makers of maglev toys, and humorous examples of maglev products whose sales have failed to get off the ground (sorry) – there’s the levitating bed, for instance, which, costing thousands, has yet to have one buyer.

I must admit to having some concerns when starting the book about whether the topic of maglev could keep me interested for 250 pages. Because of the deviations mentioned above, however, and the gentle, easy to follow way in which the book is written, it kept my attention throughout.

The most interesting section, that which the book builds up to, is the one on maglev trains. (And given that I read much of this book whilst on a slow, bumpy train journey, the notion of high-speed, frictionless travel felt particularly exciting.) The science behind the trains is a little more complicated than I had previously believed. It’s unlikely you’ll be travelling on one soon, however. There are a limited number around and, unfortunately, as the book explains, many plans around the world for maglev trains to be rolled out have ultimately gone nowhere.

There are concerns over safety (largely unwarranted, the author suggests), but mainly the problems is cost, meaning that, though we have the technology, most high-speed trains rolled out in the next few years will still run on rails. The scrapping of two projects in Germany seemed particularly disappointing, for instance. Both cases reminded me of, and seemed similar to, what happened to the Superconducting Super Collider planned for Texas, cancelled in 2003. After so much effort and money spent on the project, in the end the plans went nowhere.

I can easily recommend this title, then. It’s a good insight into an aspect of much of modern technology, with enough surrounding material to keep it entertaining to read.

Hardback:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Matt Chorley

Comments

The Laws of Thought - Tom Griffiths *****

In giving us a history of attempts to explain our thinking abilities, Tom Griffiths demonstrates an excellent ability to pitch information just right for the informed general reader. We begin with Aristotelian logic and the way Boole and others transformed it into a kind of arithmetic before a first introduction of computing and theories of language. Griffiths covers a surprising amount of ground - we don't just get, for instance, the obvious figures of Turing, von Neumann and Shannon, but the interaction between the computing pioneers and those concerned with trying to understand the way we think - for example in the work of Jerome Bruner, of whom I confess I'd never heard. This would prove to be the case with a whole host of people who have made interesting contributions to the understanding of human thought processes. Sometimes their theories were contradictory - this isn't an easy field to successfully observe - but always they were interesting. But for me, at least, ...

Einstein's Fridge - Paul Sen ****

In Einstein's Fridge (interesting factoid: this is at least the third popular science book to be named after Einstein's not particularly exciting refrigerator), Paul Sen has taken on a scary challenge. As Jim Al-Khalili made clear in his excellent The World According to Physics , our physical understanding of reality rests on three pillars: relativity, quantum theory and thermodynamics. But there is no doubt that the third of these, the topic of Sen's book, is a hard sell. While it's true that these are the three pillars of physics, from the point of view of making interesting popular science, the first two might be considered pillars of gold and platinum, while the third is a pillar of salt. Relativity and quantum theory are very much of the twentieth century. They are exciting and sometimes downright weird and wonderful. Thermodynamics, by contrast, has a very Victorian feel and, well, is uninspiring. Luckily, though, thermodynamics is important enough, lying behind ...

Nanotechnology - Rahul Rao ****

There was a time when nanotechnology was both going to transform the world and wipe us out - a similar position to our view of AI today. On the positive transformation side there was K. Eric Drexler's visions in the 1986 Engines of Creation. Arguably as much science fiction as engineering possibilities, it predicted the ability to use vast armies of assemblers to put objects together from individual atoms. On the negative side was the vision of grey goo, out of control nanotechnology consuming all in its path as it made more and more copies of itself. In 2003, for instance, the then Prince Charles made the headlines when newspapers reported ‘The prince has raised the spectre of the “grey goo” catastrophe in which sub-microscopic machines designed to share intelligence and replicate themselves take over and devour the planet.’ These days the expectations have been eased down a notch or two. Where nanotechnology has succeeded, it has been with the likes of atom-thick mat...

Search This Blog