Science
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Gravity’s Fatal Attraction. Black Holes in the Universe, Mitchell Begelman and Martin Rees (ISBN 978-1-108-81905-3, Cambridge University Press)
I just finished reading this book. I found a reference to it in another book I read recently. It is a really peculiar book, I have not read anything like it before. As the title suggests it deals with gravitation and how its unique characteristics lead to black holes. It has no equations in it…
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The Sleepwalkers, Arthur Koestler (ISBN 978-0-141-39453-4, Penguin Classics)
I read about this book in another one about the effort to send people to Mars. I wrote a short post about that book earlier. This book is a mix of history a of science and an analysis of the scientific method. From the latter perspective it presents an alternative to the well known Structure…
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Hanta Virus Cases Linked to Hondius Cruise Ship
Ever since a couple of people that travelled on the cruise ship Hondius died from a Hanta virus the spread of the infection has been in the daily news. The WHO website reports 11 cases of which 8 are confirmed hanta virus infections and 3 are probable. All are linked to the Hondius cruise ship…
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Online Calculators
I have owned many physical calculators over the years and still have around 7 of them at home. I mostly use the HP15C Limited Edition or the HP50G. Whenever I need a calculator and I don’t have one I grab my phone but when I am at home at my desk I will always choose…
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The Little Book of the Big Bang: A Cosmic Primer, Craig J. Hogan (ISBN 9780387983851; Springer)
The title of the book describes the content quite well. In roughly 170 pages the author covers the history of our universe from the Big Bang until today. One reviewer on the back cover goes so far as to claim that Hogan has condensed the story into a pleasurable evening. Although the pages are not…
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Oppenheimer. Portrait of an Enigma, Jeremy Bernstein (ISBN 978-1-56663-569-1, Ivan R. Dee)
The third Oppenheimer biography I have read. Compared to the other 2 this is a very brief one. Jeremy Bernstein is a physicist turned science writer who wrote many biographies for The New Yorker. In the introduction of the book he writes he never got around to writing a biography of Oppenheimer for The New…
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The Mystique of Mathematical Formulae
‘One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulae have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own, that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers, that we get more out of them than was originally put into them.‘― Heinrich Herz
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Dark Sun. The making of the hydrogen bomb, Richard Rhodes (ISBN 9780684824147, Simon & Schuster)
After having read ‘The making of the atomic bomb’ by Richard Rhodes I also had to read this book. It didn’t win the Pulitzer prize although it did make the short list for it. Compared to the award winning ‘The making of the atomic bomb’ I have to agree this book is not as excellent…
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Charles Lauritsen on Oppenheimer
‘This man was unbelievable. He always gave you the answer before you had time to formulate the question.‘― Charles Lauritsen
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