Skip to main content

The Upright Thinkers - Leonard Mlodinow ***

Leonard Mlodinow is probably best known as co-author of a pair of books with Stephen Hawking (for example, The Grand Design), so it was interesting to see his writing away from the great man's shadow. Generally his style is light, slick and enjoyable, though he sometimes tries too hard to be witty, peppering the  book with a jokiness that gets wearing. I could do with a little less of remarks like
The first cities did not arise suddenly as if nomads one day decided to band together and the next thing they knew they were hunting and gathering chicken thighs wrapped in Styrofoam and cellophane.
However, what we have here is an easy reading and a sometimes inspiring gallop through the development of human thought and particularly the way that science has emerged from our questioning nature. As the subtitle puts it 'The human journey from living in trees to understanding the cosmos.'

 It's interesting to compare this book with Steven Weinberg's To Explain the World, which has related aims, though it lacks the first part about the development of humans. Without doubt Mlodinow's book is by far the more readable. And Weinberg has been slated in some sources for being unforgiving of the lack of modern insights in the likes of Aristotle, where arguably they should be allowed to be people of their time. But for me, Weinberg delivers a more challenging and stimulating read. Even so, Mlodinow's book is certainly more of a natural read for a popular science audience.

The Upright Thinkers is divided into three sections, and for me the beginning and end work far better than the middle. As an author, I can see the sense behind the low point being the middle section, but the worry might be that some could give up part way through. The first part shone brightest for me. This is the most original section, with really interesting consideration of the very early development of maths and culture. Despite that intrusive Styrofoam, I challenge anyone not to find this section genuinely fascinating. In the middle we plod rather heavy handedly through the likes of Galileo and Newton. Then things liven up with quantum theory (oddly there is very little about understanding the cosmos per se). There isn't a huge opportunity to gain insights into quantum physics itself, but there is plenty of context and a good feel for the way that modern science has moved away from hands on science to the indirect and theoretical. 

 Like Weinberg, one of Mlodinow's failings is  not putting across the best understanding of history of science. He doesn't seem to realise, for instance, that Newton's 'If I have seen further' comment in a letter to Robert Hooke was not supposed to be a compliment. And, yes, there's the hackneyed old claim that Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for the heresy of declaring 'that the earth revolved around the sun.' (He wasn't, it was common or garden religious heresy.) And, for that matter, the family of Gilbert Lewis will be surprised to discover that Max Born introduced the term 'photon'.

 Overall then, a solid overview with some interesting novelties on early civilisation, but probably more a book for those who don't generally read popular science than those who do - and that's not a bad thing. 
Hardback:  

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

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Battle of the Big Bang - Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Harper *****

It's popular science Jim, but not as we know it. There have been plenty of popular science books about the big bang and the origins of the universe (including my own Before the Big Bang ) but this is unique. In part this is because it's bang up to date (so to speak), but more so because rather than present the theories in an approachable fashion, the book dives into the (sometimes extremely heated) disputed debates between theoreticians. It's still popular science as there's no maths, but it gives a real insight into the alternative viewpoints and depth of feeling. We begin with a rapid dash through the history of cosmological ideas, passing rapidly through the steady state/big bang debate (though not covering Hoyle's modified steady state that dealt with the 'early universe' issues), then slow down as we get into the various possibilities that would emerge once inflation arrived on the scene (including, of course, the theories that do away with inflation). ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics - Frank Verstraete and Céline Broeckaert **

It's with a heavy heart that I have to say that I could not get on with this book. The structure is all over the place, while the content veers from childish remarks to unexplained jargon. Frank Versraete is a highly regarded physicist and knows what he’s talking about - but unfortunately, physics professors are not always the best people to explain physics to a general audience and, possibly contributed to by this being a translation, I thought this book simply doesn’t work. A small issue is that there are few historical inaccuracies, but that’s often the case when scientists write history of science, and that’s not the main part of the book so I would have overlooked it. As an example, we are told that Newton's apple story originated with Voltaire. Yet Newton himself mentioned the apple story to William Stukeley in 1726. He may have made it up - but he certainly originated it, not Voltaire. We are also told that ‘Galileo discovered the counterintuitive law behind a swinging o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ctrl+Alt+Chaos - Joe Tidy ****

Anyone like me with a background in programming is likely to be fascinated (if horrified) by books that present stories of hacking and other destructive work mostly by young males, some of whom have remarkable abilities with code, but use it for unpleasant purposes. I remember reading Clifford Stoll's 1990 book The Cuckoo's Egg about the first ever network worm (the 1988 ARPANet worm, which accidentally did more damage than was intended) - the book is so engraved in my mind I could still remember who the author was decades later. This is very much in the same vein,  but brings the story into the true internet age. Joe Tidy gives us real insights into the often-teen hacking gangs, many with members from the US and UK, who have caused online chaos and real harm. These attacks seem to have mostly started as pranks, but have moved into financial extortion and attempts to destroy others' lives through doxing, swatting (sending false messages to the police resulting in a SWAT te...
Post a Comment
Read more