Skip to main content

Authors - I

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Quantum Supremacy - Michio Kaku ***

Douglas Adams in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy points out that the guide starts off frenetically, commenting on how mind-bogglingly big space is, but 'after a while it settles down a bit and it starts telling you things you actually want to know…' Quantum Supremacy is written in this style. To begin with, the reader is battered with all the amazing things quantum computers will (or at least might be able to) do, but eventually things calm down and we get onto some useful content. What you won't find here is any detail on the nature of quantum computers, how they work or on the very significant challenges faced in achieving anything that is to become mainstream. This is all treated at even higher level than a serious newspaper article would. What Michio Kaku is interested in is the potential applications, and the book takes us through a significant number of these. You will read how quantum computers have the potential to transform our understanding of biology

The Future of Geography - Tim Marshall ****

Geography is a strange subject. Parts of it - physical geography - are definitely scientific in nature. The rest - political and social geography is far more removed from anything that could be described as hard science. What Tim Marshall, an expert in foreign affairs, covers here is a strange hybrid - it's all about the political side, but because Marshall is here not considering geopolitics but astropolitics, it has a science and technology aspect. The Future of Geography ( Astropolitics in the US) is about the politics that applies in space, and space inevitably comes with plenty of STEM baggage. The majority of the book is a very effective exploration of how different space-going blocs - notably US, China and Russia, plus significant others like the EU and UK - are likely to take on the potential benefits and risks of space over the next 30 years or so. There is a relatively short consideration of the commercialisation of space (I would have liked a little more on this), but

Experimenting with Religion - Jonathan Jong *****

The idea of experiments related to religion may seem more than a little odd, but Jonathan Jong's exploration of a small but significant corner of the psychological landscape is genuinely fascinating. The aim is not to somehow prove or disprove religious beliefs, but rather to get a better understanding of what we really believe and what, if anything, influences those beliefs. Since the replication crisis, which has showed that the results of many classic psychology experiments were dubious, I've been suspicious of all claims for new discoveries in the field. What's excellent about the way that Jong approaches it is that he doesn't cover things up (all too often, pop psychology books don't even mention the crisis), but rather openly discusses it. In fact, several of the studies discussed here have proved unreproducible - this is what makes the book particularly interesting. It doesn't just operate at the level of the findings - it tells us how the experiments wer