The Elegant Universe (book)

Brian Greene The Elegant Universe (1999). About string theory. Excellent overview of Newton --> Einstein --> Planck, and summary of problems with the Standard Model: The incongruity between general relativity and quantum theory. Although Greene goes to great lengths to stress what isn't known, he more than half convinces me that string theory (or one of them, anyhow) is right. For one thing, he explains the hidden dimensions so well. However, absent experimental data, and absent any near future likelihood of getting any, the whole thing is beginning to look suspiciously like medieval scholasticism, spinning elegant and consistent theories about matters that can't be observed. Except of course that in principle string theory is experimentally confirmable, unlike theories about angels.... Oh well, it's fun, and it suggests all sorts of SF story ideas. *** (1999)

The American Dream: the 50s (book)

Richard B. Stolley & Time-Life Books editors. The American Dream: The 50s (1998) In Our American Century series. Very Ameri-centric. Touching, in some ways: the T/L editors avoid anything that might seem like taking sides or making moral judgements (with one exception -- see below). Decisions are generally presented as natural events, that just happened. Fallout shelters are shown, but their utter uselessness is not mentioned. The McCarthy era is shown as a Bad Man doing Bad Things, but with no attempt at analysing why McCarthy was so successful for so long. And so on.
     The photos are all interesting, and some are superb. The book is best at conveying the naive optimism of a society that has just discovered the joys of consumerism. The consequences of this lifestyle are a long way off – and the few who are warning about it are shown as endearingly weird avant-garde artists, and therefore not serious critics. In fact, the whole notion of criticism is absent (except in terms of the inexplicably bad people). That the social structure itself might be founded on illusions and lies is never hinted at. I guess when you don't want to take responsibility for the society that you participate in, the only way to explain evil is that it is the result of bad men doing bad things. That social change is an ongoing critique of the past is an idea that one may draw from the evidence of this book, but it is not an idea that it is in the book. A book of great strengths and great weaknesses. **1/2

Science Fiction: The illustrated Encyclopedia

John Clute, et al. Science Fiction. The Illustrated Encyclopedia(1995) A coffee table book: thick glossy paper, beautifully printed, lots of pictures, well designed. And quite reliable and informative. It appears the text is by Clute, and he had a team of people helping out with the pictures, fact checking, etc. It is of course not as scholarly and inclusive as a true encyclopedia would be, but within its limits it's well done. It should have a more complete section on authors (the ones included get mini-critiques, so there was obviously a space problem.) Clute's judgement of films is defective IMO; among other things, he just doesn't like Star Trek, and over-values Star Wars. He has a bias towards hard SF, and gives high marks for humour - which makes his omission of Spider Robinson curious. Maybe he just doesn't like Robinson's smart-alecky tone. The tone of the book is a bit too earnest for my taste. All the same, it's a book any serious reader of SF should have. A similar book on (science) fantasy would be welcome. *** (1999)

Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning. Vol. II: Patterns of Plausible Inference

George Polya Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning Vol. II: Patterns of Plausible Inference. (1954). I skipped Vol. I, which deals with mathematical induction. The two books are intended as texts, either for self-study or for a course. This purpose of this volume can be seen in this example. Given A -> B and B, what can be deduced? By formal logic, nothing; i.e., the truth of A cannot be inferred from the truth of the consequence. (However, if B is false, then A is false.) Polya shows that in fact the truth of A will be more or less credible depending on a number of relevant factors. For example, if the truth of B is less credible without the truth of A than with it, then B supports A. Or, if B is more credible, then A is more credible; and so on. IOW, the truth of A lies somewhere between 0 (false) and 1 (true).
     Polya notes that credibility of A depends in part on the judge's experience and background. He is very close to fuzzy logic here, but he doesn't take the next step because he can't see any supportable way to compute that value. Fuzzy logic formalises that personal judgement, and so can provide computations (which are used to control machines, e.g.) Polya uses probability theory, interpreting probability as credibility, and thus provides strong support for his POV. He's also interested in the use of plausible reasoning in mathematical research. An interesting book. I like its assumption that its subject is worth pursuing. Polya writes very clearly, and I was able to follow about half of the math. The general principles of plausible reasoning seem to me to be obvious. *** (1998) Update 2012-12: It seems to me that Polya was a pioneer of what became fuzzy logic, but I can’t recall any acknowledgement of this in the fuzzy logic text I read.

Factoring Humanity (book)

Robert Sawyer Factoring Humanity. (1998) SF. The premise is that the Alpha Centaurans have sent a message to Earth. Apart from the first four pages, it's indecipherable. Heather Davis, a psychologist working on it, figures out that the rest of the message represents a plan for tiles which are assembled into squares which are assembled into a 3D projection of a tesseract. She discovers that the chemicals specified in the early part of the message are piezoelectric, so that the unfolded hypercube is in effect made of circuit boards. The device transports her into 3D space, but the 4th dimension is in fact psycho-space, and human beings are 3D projections of parts of the Overmind, which is all of humanity, past and present. Cute ideas, and the science isn't too far out in left field.
     Heather's voyage through psycho- space enables her to determine that her husband Kyle is not guilty of the molestation his daughter accuses him of. The family is healed by each member being able to see the world as the others see it. There is also a Centauran Overmind, and when Humanity makes contact with it, it becomes capable of genuine empathy, which percolates into the psyches of actual humans, so that we get peace and loving kindness everywhere.
     The ideas in the book are interesting. There are obvious parallels with heaven as union with God, etc. Sawyer quotes geneticists' objections to Chomsky's theory of the language instinct, but seems unfamiliar with M Gopnik's work. The writing is generally workmanlike, and moves the story along, but the most alive bits are the everyday scenes, eg, of Kyle on his way to the office buying a hot dog. The exposition is sometimes well handled through dialogue, but on the whole the characterisation is not as well done as Sawyer apparently thinks it is. I read a review of his subsequent novel, Flash Forward, in last Saturday's (Aug. 14, 1998) Globe. It was unnecessarily snarky and petty. Sawyer is not a great novelist, but he writes decent SF. ** (1998)

A Sleeping Life (book)

Ruth Rendel A Sleeping Life (1978) A Wexford mystery. Well-written, but a bit light on the police procedures (as Rendell herself has admitted.) Wexford is more of a private eye than an inspector. Murdered woman turns out to have led a double life as male author of quasi-historical novels based on Elizabethan plays. Female secretary, in love with male persona, discovers the role playing, and kills woman in a fit of confused shock and rage. Wexford's elder daughter is going through a bad patch in her marriage, and her comment about women's success requiring eonism puts Wexford on the right track. Well-plotted; but Wexford's private life seems grafted on, and the link with murder plot seems a little too pat. The TV show based on this novel had a more consistent p.o.v. I think a lot of this kind of fiction works better on TV or film; these media can tell the story faster, and the visuals can create atmosphere and character more completely. **1/2 (1998)

Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity book)

John Manners, ed. Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity (1990) Survey from the early Church to present. A frustrating read. Very patchy. Several authors contribute: unfortunately, they assume varying amounts of knowledge in the audience, and most write in academese, not English. The result is an often impenetrable narrative, that obscures where it should clarify.
     The excellent and very detailed chronology refers to events and people not mentioned by the authors. Major heresies and doctrinal positions are not explained - one is supposed to know them I guess - nor are the reasons for them elucidated, and there is a slew of specialised jargon, often limited to a particular tradition, used without explanation. There is very uneven treatment of social and political influences and effects: some authors focus on these, others ignore them almost entirely. Major world events are often ignored, oddly enough: e.g., I'm sure the two world wars had a lot to do with the loss of faith in Europe (just listen to people of a certain age!), but they are hardly mentioned.
     There is no attempt at relating the pictures to the text (the pictures in many ways are more informative than the text!) Some authors are obviously rehashing an academic controversy; unforgivable in this context. The best chapters are the last two, but they hardly make up for the rest. All in all, well below the expected standard of an Oxford history. Not worth buying, hardly worth reading. * (1998)