Skip to main content

What if the Earth had two Moons? – Neil F. Comins ***

There is a great idea behind this book. Why not, as a thought experiment, change the parameters of our solar system and see how things would be different, using this to explore cosmology on a wider scale. So, for instance, the book goes through the title scenario, but also what if:
  • the Earth were a moon?
  • The Moon orbited backwards?
  • The Earth’s crust was thicker?
… and so on for a total of 10 scenarios. Along the way we’ll find out more about everything from black holes to the Big Bang, but particularly lots about how planets and solar systems form and function.
In principle this is wonderful, but the execution has three problems.
Firstly there’s the way that the ‘What if’ concept is approached. Although the title specifically says ‘What if the Earth had two Moons?’ the chapter actually describes a planet called Dimaan that’s a bit like the Earth and has two moons. This is frustrating, as I really want to know what the actual Earth would be like, not a planet like Earth. This approach means Neil Comins is always flipping between describing the Earth and Dimaan (etc.), which irritates. I also find the science fictional naming a bit painful – so, for example, the second chapter has a system where the Sun is called the Zon. Why?
Speaking of fiction, the second problem is that each chapter begins with a rather painful bit of fiction set on the world that chapter is dealing with. The people who feature in the stories are human, and sometimes even are real people like Galileo or Columbus. This is both confusing and twee. Some of the storylines are bizarre. In one two children are presenting alternative theories at the Royal Society. Why would children be presenting at the Royal Society? And worse still, there’s an elementary plotting error: the second child doesn’t even get a chance to present her theory because she gets an asthma attack. Why? It doesn’t go anywhere. This is just self-indulgence.
Finally, I have to confess that by about the third chapter it all gets a bit samey. Ok, each of the scenarios have interesting implications and we keep getting extra snippets about the universe as a whole, but in the end we keep reading about how various parameters of the Earth (or rather, the not Earth) would be different, and what started as a fascinating concept ends up as a rather nerdy detailing of information that isn’t of great interest unless you specialize in planetary behaviour. The best science writing can take the mundane and make it exciting. This takes the dramatic and makes it mundane.
There’s no doubt that there is a lot of good stuff in here. Comins knows his astronomical onions and packs in lots of information in his 10 interesting scenarios. It’s a great idea. But even the best ideas don’t always work as you hope – and that’s what I found with What if the Earth had two Moons.

Paperback:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Antigravity Enigma - Andrew May ****

Antigravity - the ability to overcome the pull of gravity - has been a fantasy for thousands of years and subject to more scientific (if impractical) fictional representation since H. G. Wells came up with cavorite in The First Men in the Moon . But is it plausible scientifically?  Andrew May does a good job of pulling together three ways of looking at our love affair with antigravity (and the related concept of cancelling inertia) - in science fiction, in physics and in pseudoscience and crankery. As May points out, science fiction is an important starting point as the concept was deployed there well before we had a good enough understanding of gravity to make any sensible scientific stabs at the idea (even though, for instance, Michael Faraday did unsuccessfully experiment with a possible interaction between gravity and electromagnetism). We then get onto the science itself, noting the potential impact on any ideas of antigravity that come from the move from a Newtonian view of a...
Post a Comment
Read more

The World as We Know It - Peter Dear ***

History professor Peter Dear gives us a detailed and reasoned coverage of the development of science as a concept from its origins as natural philosophy, covering the years from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. inclusive If that sounds a little dry, frankly, it is. But if you don't mind a very academic approach, it is certainly interesting. Obviously a major theme running through is the move from largely gentleman natural philosophers (with both implications of that word 'gentleman') to professional academic scientists. What started with clubs for relatively well off men with an interest, when universities did not stray far beyond what was included in mathematics (astronomy, for instance), would become a very different beast. The main scientific subjects that Dear covers are physics and biology - we get, for instance, a lot on the gradual move away from a purely mechanical views of physics - the reason Newton's 'action at a distance' gravity caused such ...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's On You - Nick Chater and George Loewenstein *****

Going on the cover you might think this was a political polemic - and admittedly there's an element of that - but the reason it's so good is quite different. It shows how behavioural economics and social psychology have led us astray by putting the focus way too much on individuals. A particular target is the concept of nudges which (as described in Brainjacking ) have been hugely over-rated. But overall the key problem ties to another psychological concept: framing. Huge kudos to both Nick Chater and George Loewenstein - a behavioural scientist and an economics and psychology professor - for having the guts to take on the flaws in their own earlier work and that of colleagues, because they make clear just how limited and potentially dangerous is the belief that individuals changing their behaviour can solve large-scale problems. The main thesis of the book is that there are two ways to approach the major problems we face - an 'i-frame' where we focus on the individual ...
Post a Comment
Read more