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December 22, 2006.
Terrific.
Rating: 5
The Master The Police Officer Exam does an excellent job. The tests are very helpful!
December 22, 2005.
In a class of its own .
Rating: 5
I closely scrutinized a half dozen cop test prep Books and purchased another besides this one. 'Master the Police Officer Exam' is significantly above the others. Its greatest strength is that it seems to be written by someone who knows specifically about cop tests- not just tests in general. There is above and beyond detailed information not just on the many aspects and types of written exams, but also the different video tests. In addition, its many practice tests are authentic and are from different sources (NYPD and NCJOSI).
December 15, 2007.
Could have been at least 100 pages shorter.
Rating: 3
A lot of insights from the book but at the same time a lot of non-insights.
The book covers the movement of Chinese people from the farms to the cities and the attitude towards rapid modernization including piracy. However, you cannot FEEL it from first person point of view. You feel very detached reading the book.
It could have been more straight to the point and a lot of pages bored me.
December 24, 2007.
The Tom Wolfe of China.
Rating: 5
This a kaleidoscopic view of the most dynamic country today on the planet. Sit down, strap up, and read the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test of the 21st Century. For a harder analytical edge, read my own volume The Coming China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won
December 11, 2007.
Please blame everything on China, is this a new trend to cover up American "disastrous" foreign policy? .
Rating: 1
So with all due respect:
1) If China is so bad, don't do business there, no one is forcing you
2) All American CEO who deals with China are unpatriotic Americans
3) All American CEO who outsource to China and India are immoral capitalist
4) All American CEO who deal with China should pay a fine or go to Jail. -But they are not! And as matter of facts, they are getting big bonuses.
5) Don't blame the Chinese, they are providing a service (cheap) but American consumers and executives are the ones knocking on their doors.
6) You can't have both ways; you can't try to use cheap labor in 3rd world countries and then turn around and point fingers at the people you are doing business with.
7) Stop bringing up the WWII theory on some of these comments, just because the USA fought and won WWI -which is GREAT! It does not mean the USA is correct FOREVER...common sense.
December 11, 2007.
Excellent reference background......
Rating: 5
My team at work does a lot of business with China and after one of the engineers read the book, we ordered about 15 copies for the entire department to read, we felt it was so worthwhile!
December 01, 2007.
Wow!!! What an eye opener....
Rating: 4
This put the whole thing into prespective. Slow reading, but very interesting and very well presented
December 02, 2007.
Enter the World of Derivatives.
Rating: 4
An insight to the somewhat strange world of derivatives trading, the greed, the risk and the people. I cant say I agree with every word of Satyajit, but it is a real page-turner, the kind of book you finish in a day.
"Derivatives dont kill people, people kill people"
December 12, 2007.
An Entertaining and Educational Reading Experience.
Rating: 5
I really enjoyed reading the book Traders, Guns, and Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives by Satyajit Das. It is an interesting book in that it is a fictionalized autobiography of Das. As the book outlines the author's professional life in finance, it describes how he got involved in financial derivatives. The primary purpose of the book is to give a primer on derivatives, how they were created, how they are used, their benefits, and their dangers. The author's use of humor along with the hilarious vignettes of his finance associates (Nero, Clem/Crem, Adewiko, Budi, etc.) and funny anecdotes from his career made the book fun to read.
The book really helped explain what exactly derivatives are (giving me a good review of some of what I was taught in college) and how they are used today. I also appreciated the in-depth analysis of several well-known instances where derivatives were used by investors and companies which really helped to demonstrate their application in the real world as well as the oftentimes hidden dangers of using these financial tools. I found his discussion of the currency swap done by the Walt Disney Company in the 1980's to be of particular interest to me. Despite the fact that I previously read the HBS case study during a Derivatives and Risk Management course which I took as a student at Harvard, Das's explanation of the incident really gave me an even better understanding of how exactly the transaction was structured and how it eventually went wrong. His explanation of why Disney's financial advisors made the deal so complex was also amusing. (You will have to read the book to find out.)
Moreover, Satyajit Das really underscored the complex nature of derivatives and their use in either speculative bets or in hedges. Previously, I had considered these financial tools as an efficient and safe way to hedge. However, the author points out that there are significant risks even when they are only utilized as a hedge.
Hence, I really enjoyed this entertaining and informative book. The author explains complex concepts in a clear, readily understandable, and comical way. I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to learn more about financial derivatives or the world of finance in general and who does not mind being entertained at the same time.
Thank you for your time.
December 30, 2007.
Fascinating intro to the world of derivatives.
Rating: 5
Satyajit Das has performed a great service to all of us who have heard talk of derivatives and wondered what all the fuss was about. It is both an entertaining and informative read and an indictment of the investment banks that crank these financial products out. He shows first how Wall Street fools its clients by creating incomprehensible products chock full of profits to them as seller but markets them as the financial cure for cancer, without including the long and unwelcome list of potentially deadly side effects in their sales pitch. Second, he shows how Wall Street has fooled itself into believing they understand and have properly hedged their own exposure. The system will inevitably blow up, but the traders will already have moved on with their gigantic bonuses made using other people's money and someone else will be left to hold the bag and clean up the mess.
December 03, 2007.
Fun ahoy, but shameful joy.......
Rating: 5
Laugh out loud funny. Well-known characters on nearly every page, often thinly disguised. Transparent retellings of trade horror stories pad out the material (P&G, Orange County, Metalgeselenshaft AG) which the author had nothing to do with, but his front line tales of bogosity, cretinousness and horrifying stupidity passing as brilliance, only to end in tears is the kind of shadenfreunde this reader cannot deny enjoying. A must read.
December 09, 2007.
A double agent's account of his life as a spy.
Rating: 4
As a derivatives trader I've seen many of my colleagues who just enter the field paying hundreds of dollars for thousands of pages of Mr. Das highly unreadable and stupefying compendiums on the subject of structured products. It is impossible to imagine a more serious and devote approach to derivatives than that exuding from his technical volumes. In comparison this new book feels like a gush of fresh air and while demystifying and ridiculing what used to be his bread and butter Mr. Das may look a bit cynical it is an honest book full of interesting and plausible examples and stories. For novices it can be very educational and for experts quite entertaining. It is like a memoir of a spy who turned out to be a double agent on his lifetime in secret services. When a guy knows so much who cares what side he was serving on?
December 18, 2007.
Hmmmm..
Rating: 3
I was so excited about getting this book and started reading it as soon as I get it out of the box. However about 2/3s of the was through I started realizing that so much of it was circumstancial evidence and hearsay.Then after reading several paragraph about Lee Oswald driving Judyth Vary Baker around New Orleans (by the way what ever happened to the other Judyth Vary Baker) in his Uncle's car and also being a runner (driver) for his Uncle and members of the mob a big cloud of doubt started to descend over the whole story. Every book I have read that mentions Lee Oswald and driving states he did not know how to drive and had never gotten a license.
I agree there are a lot of seeming sound facts in the book but I am just not sure now about how they are put together. Also, it seems a lot of the former "Bad Guys" now have excuses for their actions.
December 13, 2007.
Great book.
Rating: 5
Loved the book. I couldn't put it down. Wow, what a lot to think about.
December 12, 2007.
Excellent.
Rating: 5
The best book I've read in a long time, I could not put it down. One of history's mysteries yet it explains so much. Anyone in the medical field or a JFK enthusiast or history buff would enjoy this book.
December 01, 2007.
A real page-turner.
Rating: 5
This is a fabulous book. A fascinating unraveling of overlapping mysteries. Any student of the JFK murder and/or cancer and/or HIV will find information here to fill in blanks left out from other investigations.
Ed Haslam is an excellent writer. I was captured as much by his use of words as the incredible story he tells.
Fascinating. Fascinating. Fascinating.
December 21, 2007.
A cold case murder investigation links to the JFK assassination and the soft-tissue cancer epidemic.
Rating: 5
This is a significantly updated version of Mr Haslam's 1995 book, "Mary, Ferrie & the Monkey Virus". If you only have the older version, you will want to get "Dr. Mary's Monkey".
This book covers many areas of interest for a wide reader audience. Readers interested in new information about the JFK assassination will likely be the main audience, but other topics receive a lot of well-documented attention as well. These include epidemiology (polio, soft tissue cancers, AIDS), cold case murder investigations by an 'amateur sleuth', vaccines, New Orleans history, US medical research history, and scientific topics--linear particle accelerators in particular. Readers interested in any one of these topics should find this book interesting and credible.
I am not going to review this book in detail. Readers already know if they're basically interested or not, and additional detail is available from links I list below. I merely provide a shoppers' guide by addressing three points:
1. I believe that both the specialist and the general reader will find this book interesting, if not fascinating.
2. Ed Haslam is a credible author.
3. You can find out more about this book and its author for free with some links I provide.
This book is very well written and organized. It contains dozens of black and white photographs, charts, graphs and maps. These graphics, while unfortunately not indexed, are nonetheless placed strategically in the text to aid readers' understanding of the text. As a former New Orleans resident, I appreciated the historic photos and maps of New Orleans. While Mr. Haslam does provide a lot of information, a strong, page-turning narrative style underlies the information.
Seasoned JFK assassination investigators may be wary of YAKAB (Yet Another Kennedy Assassination Book). The publisher's decision to include a foreword by Jim Marrs, while possibly attracting additional buyers, may raise some people's skeptical antennae. Mr. Haslam was raised in New Orleans and spent much of his educational and professional career there. You will probably agree with me after reading this book that Mr. Haslam was uniquely placed to write this book. To the two-part question, "Is the author credible, and will I learn anything new from his book?", I answer, "Yes and yes." For example, a possible motivation for Oswald's well documented visit to Clinton, LA is found in these pages. In a brief epilogue, "The Perfect Patsy - Rethinking Lee Harvey Oswald", Mr. Haslam presents three well-considered scenarios concerning Oswald's involvement in the JFK assassination.
It is easy to find out more about Ed Haslam and this book. The obvious first thing to do is to Google his name. Mr. Haslam's late father was also named Edward T. Haslam, so you will find links related to him, as well as another unrelated Edward T. Haslam. I see that URLs are technically forbidden in Amazon reviews, so I will just tell you what to search on to be sure to find links I consider to be important and useful.
Browse the book, including sample chapters by searching on drmarysmonkey.
Find links to video interviews with Ed Haslam and an important witness interviewed for his book, Judyth Vary Baker, by searching on themonkeyvirus.
Last but not least, especially since this is how I first heard about Ed Haslam, is the extensive archive of Dave Emory's radio programs. Mr. Haslam appears on eight Dave Emory "For the Record" programs. Do a search on:
wfmu "Dave Emory"
There's a main page and an archive page. Look for "For The Record" FTR # 577 and 526 on the main page, and dx-FTR-019 (six separate files, a-f) on the archive page.
(Technical note for owners of mp3 players: you can record Real Audio files on PCs (Linux or Windows) in MP3 format by recording them as they play with the freely available Audacity player/recorder/editor.)
I see that a book mentioned by Mr. Haslam, "Lee Harvey Oswald: The True Story of the Accused Assassin of President John F. Kennedy, by His Lover (Paperback)" by Judyth Vary Baker is now available through Amazon. The book (as yet unread by me) was unavailable (temporarily suppressed?) at the time that Mr. Haslam wrote about it. Ms. Baker's book is regarded with varying skepticism (no pun intended), according to the reviews I have read on Amazon. Reading about Ms. Baker in Mr. Haslam's book may assist potential buyers of Ms. Baker's book.
December 10, 2007.
Excellent book ... for beginners only.
Rating: 3
If you have some understanding of finance - even basic - don't expect to learn anything out of this book. I was expecting much more than that given the target audience - "managers" - and the publisher. I doubt that in today's world, a manager wouldn't have some sort of understanding of finance. Nonetheless, the book is well written, explained and organized. I had my analyst read it as an introduction and he liked it a lot.
December 30, 2007.
Clear, interesting, fun.
Rating: 4
I had to buy this book for a fiscal management class. It is probably one of the best management Books that I've read. It is really clear. I don't really have a head for finance, but this book makes it simple and entertaining. There are lots of examples from real life. This is a great book if you want to know more about financial vocabulary and basics. Also might be a good brushup, though I was starting from scratch so I wouldn't know.
December 10, 2007.
A good beginning....
Rating: 4
This is an overview of what to look for in balance sheet and income statement as a manager. However, better information resides with cost based accounting around activities(ABC/M). This book is an excellent read for simple information. Not bad for the price!
December 09, 2007.
Fun with managerial accounting.
Rating: 4
I really enjoyed reading "Financial Intelligence" by Karen Berman and Joe Knight. The authors use a fairly casual tone (often humorous) to combine a semester's worth of managerial accounting with a healthy dose of private sector application. The book is a quick read and should be great as an introduction to managerial accounting or a refresher for anyone responsible for managing a P/L at any level.
December 11, 2006.
Very valuable!.
Rating: 5
I highly recommend this book! It's an easy read for non-accountants! This should be in every manager's desk for quick reference. This has helped me a lot in making day-to-day decisions.
December 25, 2007.
Stupid habits companies develop in order to create opportunities for their competitors.
Rating: 5
We have all seen it happen. A company is on top of the world and its future success not only seems assured, but inevitable. Yet, before anyone sees it coming, the wheels come off and the company is fighting for its survival, gets bought out, or broken up. How does that happen? And why does it happen with such seeming regularity? It is the rare company that can stay on top of its game for extended periods of time.
The companies profiled in the business classic "In Search of Excellence" would not be selected for such a book today. Nor could the same lessons be drawn from their current position and behavior in the marketplace. This book talks about what happens to successful companies that leads to their getting into serious trouble.
When I was in business school and heard stories of this method or process or success story that led to success, I was always wondering about the limits of such methods and where the limits of applicability were. Sometimes my questions and doubting annoyed my professors and classmates, but subsequent events have, I believe, proven the benefits of good hearted doubt.
Jagdish Sheth uses a good number of real life business stories from well known companies to illustrate his points. I also like the way he summarizes his points about how things go wrong and some suggestions on how to get things right at the end of each chapter. He begins the book talking about Digital, IBM, and Intel. Bigger names representing blue chip success would have been harder to find in the 1980s. Digitial is gone, IBM had to bring in an outsider (unthinkable before the crisis), and Intel fumbled its way into letting AMD become a major competitor in its core marketspace.
The seven mistakes Sheth points to are: Denial (the cocoon of myth, ritual, and orthodoxy), Arrogance (pride before the fall), Complacency (success breeds failure), Competency Dependence (the curse of incumbency), Competitive Myopia (a nearsighted view of competition), Volume Obsession (rising costs and falling margins), and the Territorial Impulse (culture conflicts and turf wars).
The discussion of each of these is quite interesting and I am sure you will recognize them from your own work experiences over the years. It is too bad how we are prone to such errors, but humans are quite fallible. We tend to stick to something we think is working until we are forced to change. Unfortunately, things are changing around us, and the very habit of "sticking with" actually deadens the abilities to see why our approach is no longer working.
The last chapter discusses why it is better to never need the "cures" he describes in each of the chapters. It is much better to wake up before the crisis and keep your company alive and thriving by preemptive action. I agree with him. However, I expect that the culture of business will require that too many companies have to go through these wrenching trials in the future as they have in the past.
Recommended.
December 18, 2007.
The Seven Deadly Sins, Corporate Style.
Rating: 4
Maintaining the success of a corporation over the long term has a lot to do with the fortunes afforded by healthy market forces, but there can be debilitating factors afoot that do not allow companies to take advantage nor insulate themselves during inevitable downturns. These factors may be obvious from a conceptual standpoint, but as Steven Covey has proven with his bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, sometimes the most obvious things have to be laid out in an easy-to-absorb manner that resonates with people who are most prone to such behavior. Whereas Covey identifies positive habits on an individual level, Emory University's Jagdish N. Sheth takes the more daunting task of identifying the self-destructive habits of corporate leaders as proven by renowned companies experiencing very public failures. Not coincidentally, Sheth limits himself to seven to make the comparison with Covey all the more clear. Like Covey, the author trumpets them like the Seven Deadly Sins, and four of the seven especially take on that aura.
The most obvious is hubris. Unexpected success, especially at the magnitude that brings widespread media attention, can inflate the egos of an unprepared leadership exponentially. Key examples we have seen recently have been Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling at Enron; Bernard Ebbers at WorldCom; and in the related political arena, the Republican Party circa November 2006 when the leadership forced their own value system upon constituents unwilling to accept such rhetoric and legislation unconditionally. On the other end of the outward behavioral model is complacency where success is taken for granted, so much so that monopolists lose their grip on the market forces far earlier than potential competitors think about entering it with their own niche strategy. Especially guilty are monopolies of distribution and regulation, the latter in cases where the government owns the business as in the case of Air India. The territorial impulse is the third factor, the tendency to develop functional silos around a company's perceived value, which ultimately comes down to a level of unnecessary in-fighting that results in suboptimal performance. What happens here is that insulation from an uncontrollable market becomes a greater priority than looking at encouraging new avenues for value.
This last fact is critical in understanding how the fourth self-destructive habit, volume obsession, festers. Volume is seen as an overriding factor for success, even though the profit margins are eroding with the increasing desire to commoditize. Little if any attention is paid to whether one's output is becoming obsolete in an ever-changing market. According to Sheth, the less obvious factors could be the most damaging because they are insinuative by their very nature. Denial is one such habit where current realities are not even confronted, and he points to the aversion to the Green Movement as a key example of an inevitable need being ignored since short-term benefits cannot be clearly ascertained. Even more common among companies depending on specialty technologies for their profits is an inability to face any advances that would cause disruption to their business models, and this could run the gamut from online social networking to outsourcing.
The remaining two bad habits are competency dependency and competitive myopia, which really strike me as outgrowths of the other five. Sheth defines competency dependence as the inability to re-invent oneself, whereas competitive myopia is when a company starts to align the competition with its perception of their limitations and thus underestimate what they can do. The author's perspective is hardly dire as he concisely outlines what strategies corporate leadership needs to enact to break the cycle of perpetual destruction. As he showed with his recent co-authorship of Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose, Sheth is an engaging writer who easily brings a real-world context to his theories. Although not really groundbreaking, the book is a fast read and an insightful one for those executives and managers looking for guidelines around their company's growth.
December 09, 2007.
Should be considered mandatory reading for all company executives.
Rating: 5
In "The Self-Destructive Habits of Good Companies...And How To Break Them", a respected authority on global competition, strategic thinking, and customer relationship management expert Jagdish N. Sheth (who holds the Charles H. Kellstadt Chair of Marketing Strategy in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University) identifies seven dangerous habits even the most well-run company can fall victim to, as well as how to diagnose and counter these corporate habits before they can cause irremediable harm. These basic faults include the 'cocoon' of denial with respect to problems or issues confronting a company; the stigma of perceived (or genuine) arrogance on the part of management; the 'virus' of complacency; the risk factors of incumbency for a company's present and future needs; the threat of corporate myopia with respect to the competition; an obsession toward volume without proper attention to profit margins; and the 'territorial impulse' as reflected in the creation of factions, fiefdoms, and ivory towers within the corporate ranks and structures. Simply put, Professor Sheth's "The Self-Destructive Habits of Good Companies" should be considered mandatory reading for all company executives, and all business school students aspiring to one day become corporate managers.
December 06, 2007.
How to keep an organization out of the ER.
Rating: 5
In Firms of Endearment, Jagdish N. Sheth and co-authors Rajendra S. Sisodia and David B. Wolfe explain how world-class companies profit from passion and purpose. The focus is on sustainable good habits. In this volume, Sheth takes a different approach in response to the question "Why do good companies go bad?" The focus is on habits that are counter-productive, in some instances self-destructive. Because habits (both good and bad) are learned behaviors, not inevitabilities, it is possible to acquire them or eliminate them. Sheth correctly stresses the importance to any organization of having leadership at all levels and in all areas. Without it, it is impossible to avoid, recognize, or overcome one or more of the seven "destructive habits" that Sheth identifies and then discusses.
Readers will appreciate the format Sheth has selected which includes two sections within each chapter: "The Warning Signs of [X]" and "How to Break the Habit of [X]."He devotes a separate chapter to each of the seven. Then at the end of each chapter, he summarizes key points in greater detail than do most other authors of business books. These three devices facilitate, indeed expedite review of key points later. Throughout the narrative, Sheth examines a number of exemplary companies such as Digital, IBM, Intel, Xerox, A&P, General Motors, Merck, Motorola, and Singer Sewing Machines. In the final chapter, "The Best Cure Is No Cure at all," Sheth correctly notes that breaking bad habits begins with an awareness of them. He advocates what he characterizes as "anticipatory management" (as opposed to "status-quo management") that, if effective, avoids the need for a "cure," hence the relevance of the chapter's title.
Sheth invokes an extended analogy to make several important points. "As in human health, corporate health is better served if self-destructive habits never have a chance to get a foothold. Just as with humans, if the self-destructive habit forms, it may be too addictive to stop. Or it may be allowed to go on until irreversible damage occurs. Or the cure may be so invasive that the company suffers additional negative consequences or never recovers. And the cure may be expensive and require lifelong maintenance. It would be much better, as we know from human health care, to encourage wellness instead of treating illness."
In reality, of course, most organizations suffer from "organizational illness" in one form or another at one time or another. (Consider developments -- both positive and negative -- at General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler since the end of World War Two.) For various reasons, some companies survive while others do not. Those who read this book probably have ideas of their own as to how to avoid or break each of the seven self-destructive habits. More to the point, each reader has a clearer understanding than Sheth possibly could how her or his own organization can -- and should -- avoid or break a habit such as denial, "The cocoon of myth, ritual, and orthodoxy" or as James O'Toole characterizes it, "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom."
With humans as with organizations, the worst habits are the most difficult to break precisely because they are appealing (i.e. tempting), addictive, and self-sustaining. Those who absorb and digest the material in this book with appropriate care will be much better prepared to help their organization avoid or break its bad habits but, as Sheth would be the first to point out, it will probably be at least as difficult (if not more difficult) to institutionalize "preventive medicine" as it will be to "cure" a pattern of behavior or specific ailment. Sometimes, only a severe crisis can get people's attention and, regrettably, it may then be too late.
December 09, 2007.
An excelent book on physics.
Rating: 5
An excellent book about physics, its history and its philosophy. The concepts are well explained, discussed, compared in a conversational and rigorous style. And done with the contribution of Einstein.
With this book you will understand what physics really is; what is behind the science undertaking; what is science after all. A must book to serious interested readers
December 24, 2006.
Excellent book.
Rating: 5
Outstanding book to understand the way of thinking which resulted in introducing the various concepts associated with Physics. Though written for general audience, this book needs to be read with care, and constant attention to see the remarkable connection between seemingly unrelated concepts like light, heat, electricity. Read this along with the book "Einstein's Heros by Arianrhod" to enjoy a different aspect of Physics.
December 16, 2001.
Science as Human Creation.
Rating: 5
This book provides a still useful account, from 'the horses' mouths', of what Alfred Korzybski called the Newtonian and non-Newtonian views in physics. As Korzybski noted, all human beings form a view of so-called 'reality'. Understanding how scientists do this can have value for the rest of us. In this excellent book, the authors emphasize general formulations and a non-mathematical approach: "Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone" (29). The book includes chapters on "The Rise of the Mechanical View," "The Decline of the Mechanical View," "Field, Relativity," and "Quanta." Readers will be rewarded with clear explanations of some potentially forbidding notions. These are interspersed with useful comments on physico-mathematical method, theory and the goals of science. Einstein's and Infeld's discussion demonstrates their view that "Science is not just a collection of laws, a catalogue of unrelated facts. It is a creation of the human mind, with its freely invented ideas and concepts. Physical theories try to form a picture of reality and to establish its connection with the wide world of sense impressions. Thus the only justification for our mental structures is whether and in what way our theories form such a link" (310).
December 08, 2001.
Science, history, and a bit of philosophy.
Rating: 5
Physics can be difficult to learn when theories and formulae are thrown at you with no historical context. You begin learning about motion, and then electricity and magnetism, and it's almost impossible to see a coherent connection between the ideas. Many people have heard of relativity and quantum theory, but do not have even a general notion of what they aim to explain. Like mathematics, you can learn physics without knowing about the people behind its development (though you will encounter many of their names in important expressions), but it never hurts to study how such ideas began, and how they came to be what they are today. Einstein and Infeld's book is aptly titled. They show how and why certain concepts came into being and what significance they hold. Beginning with "The Rise of the Mechanical View," they describe vectors, motion, forces, and energy. With "The Decline of the Mechanical View," they show how the behavior of electricity, magnetism, and light waves poses problems for the mechanical view. The next two (and most interesting) sections explore field, relativity, and quanta, and how they have proved more accurate in describing physical phenomena than what was previously known. Einstein and Infeld describe everything with a minimum of mathematics so that anyone with an interest in the development of physics can understand the contents. Although such math is necessary for a precise understanding of physics, the aim of the authors, which they frequently repeat throughout, is to give the reader a broad understanding of the general underlying principles. They have succeeded in giving an account of where the human construction of physics started, what has been covered since then, and where it is heading. It is a simply written book, suitable for readers who don't know physics and want to learn, but also helpful for students of physics who want to see a broader picture of its evolution.
December 24, 2001.
A very good book..
Rating: 5
This is a really good book which clearly explains the evolution of physics from Newtons laws to Quantum mechanics in a simple and lucid language. Einstein was not only a genuis mathematician and physicist but also a great author and story-teller and no one else could have told the story of evoultion of physics better than Einstein A book that should be in every phisicists library
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