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December 13, 2007.
THE Book for Oilfield Newcomers.
Rating: 5
In attempting to get quickly up to speed on the oil business for the purpose of participating in a few wells as a (very) small investor, I bought about ten Books of various sorts. This is one of them, and has turned out to be the one I refer to the most.
First, let me say that there are two different types of Books on drilling for oil/gas. Broadly, they are Books that concentrate mainly on the financial and legal structure of oil deals and Books that concentrate on where it is and how to get it out of the ground. This book is of the second sort.
The "nontechnical" part of the title is only partly true. Some of the descriptions are sufficiently technical to impart a working understanding of the operations in the field. I, for instance, have been going to our rig (now drilling) and asking questions ("What's that blue thing?"), then coming home and reading about what I was told ("The jar is a section of pipe that either mechanically....").
Same with the drilling reports I receive.... I can look up that part of the drilling operation (ie, "sliding") and get a much better understanding of what's happening. A book comes in handy, after all, the tool pushers out on the rigs seem to be men of few words.
There is also a pretty good basic course in petroleum geology in the first thirteen chapters. And, the science (art?) of geophysics gets a good once-over, too, though I confess I've not paid much attention to it yet.
There are chapters on reservoirs, completion, offshore, production, workover, and more, all of which is written at the same level, and much of which I've not read in depth, only scanned. I'll read it as we get there out in the field.
This is a sufficiently information-dense book that actually sitting and reading it from cover to cover won't realistically happen for most folks, no matter how involved. It's more of a textbook and reference resource.
There are lots of diagrams and drawings and pictures (probably three hundred) and they help a lot. The lengthy glossary is OK, though I've not found a petroleum business glossary that seems to be truly comprehensive. (That was written before I found, and ordered, the comprehensive "Dictionary of Petroleum Exploration, Drilling & Production" by who else but Norman J. Hyne, Ph.D.,.... and nope, I have no axe to grind here; and yes, I have noticed that Norman seems to favor long titles). The folks in the oil business rely very heavily on their own language that is a combination of truly technical terminology, oilman slang and everything in between. A glossary is handy. Also be forewarned that the business uses lots of abbreviations, and they seem to change somewhat from company to company, so that a glossary won't ever have all of the abbreviations in use in the field.
There are some other Books that do a pretty good job on a more basic level, including "Money In The Ground" by John Orban, III (which also includes deal structure), but, if you are looking for a book that is deep enough to give you a good understanding of the many various aspects of drilling for oil, this is the book.
December 05, 2007.
Excellent primer for anyone interested in the oi patch.
Rating: 5
I am considering investing in onshore domestic oil and gas exploration, and sought a book to begin learning about the technical side of the industry. This is the book. Hyne does an excellent job reducing what is clearly a highly complex and tecnhical field down to near-layman's terms. Be forewarned; just like reading descriptions of meats, vegetables and seasonings won't make you a chef, this book won't make it any easier to make a go-no go decision regarding any particular prospect. It will, however, teach you some basic building blocks to help you understand where the risks come from, and really help you understand what a promotor or operator tells you. It is almost mandatory reading if you wish to drill down deeper into other, more technical texts. I have, and would have been lost if it had not been for Norman Hyne's book.
December 14, 2006.
Oil for Dummies - Even I got it!.
Rating: 5
I work for a MAJOR oil company, but in Government Relations, not on the technical side of the house. Our company has courses such as "Refining for non refiners" and "Drilling for non drillers" meant to give an overview of the operations to people that need to be able to talk intelligently about the industry. This book gives among the finest overviews of the industry that I have seen and makes it easier to do my job. When I first joined I didn't know the difference between upstream and downstream, and the overviews offered in Mr. Hyne's book make me more able to speak intelligently to colleagues, management, customers and partners about our stake in this industry. A must read for anyone who works on the fringes of of oil production. After reading this book, I am somewhat amazed that gasoline does not cost three times its' current price considering all the work it takes to find it, drill for it, extract the stuff from rocks, and get it through a pipeline to a ship to a refinery and then to our gas tanks. This from a guy that gets dirty looks as I drive my Hybrid car into the parking lot of an oil company every morning.
December 05, 2006.
Nontechnical Guide to Petroleum Geology,Exploration ,Drilling and Production (2nd Edition) by Norman J. Hyne.
Rating: 5
An outstanding , very lucid, overview of the petroleum sciences ranging from petroleum generation, migration ,and entrapment , exploration technology ,land leasing , drilling and development , to reservoir estimation and enhancement technology . This book is highly recomended for those who have little or no understanding of the field ,for students and ,perhaps ,for some non geologist ie. geophysicists .
December 06, 2006.
Nontechnical Guide to Petroleum Geology, Exploration, Drilling and Production (2nd Edition) .
Rating: 5
I am a new Environmental Planner to the oil and gas industry, this book has been an integral part of my learning process. Easy to read and quite thorough- I am very satisfied and haven't found the need for another book.
December 07, 2007.
in remission, thanks to Dr Swank.
Rating: 5
I started the diet (very strictly) 4 years ago, right after being diagnosed with MS. I said 'no thanks' to the interferon drugs the neurologists wanted me to take. I haven't suffered any new exacerbations since, I can even say I feel better than ever before (this is a most healthy diet) and would go on eating this way even if they found a cure. Because there is no cure for MS (yet) and Dr Swank never suggests that the diet he advocates is a cure, he merely states it will slow down progression (which is also what the drugs claim). It's not about money either, as you can find the guidelines to the diet for free online: [..]
The medical community (at least part of it, because Dr Swank is a neurologist himself) claims the diet has never been proven to work, but the main reason for this is that it is impossible to conduct a double blind placebo test on a diet (you cannot give fake fat free food to a group of people and hope they will not notice). While the diet is the fruit of extensive and well documented research. A great companion read is Dr George Jelinek's Taking Control of Multiple Sclerosis (more up to date and confirming Dr Swank's conclusions).
So, if you have MS, like me, give the diet a try (but don't expect to notice a difference over a couple of days, give it some months), in the worst case it won't help your MS condition (though it helped mine and that of many other people), but it won't cost you a penny, it is healthy and has no side effects.
It's your body, don't leave it all to the pharmaceutical industry to take care of it.
December 27, 2007.
The Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book.
Rating: 4
this is a comprehensive book that gives the reader a deeper understanding of what is happening to the body and how to minimize exacerbations of the symptoms. This diet would be extremely difficult for anyone who is not already comfortable with a diet consisiting of low-fat foods, fresh fruits and vegetables, and minimal amount of dairy.
December 15, 2007.
Thank you Dr.Swank!.
Rating: 5
Dr Swank's MS Diet Book has been a God send! It's informative, constructive.....I treat it like a bible! Would recommend it to all MS patients! Thank you Dr. Swank!
December 10, 2007.
Not what I expected....
Rating: 2
As someone with extensive nutritional knowledge and little money for MS medications, I thought this book would offer me some kind of method to fight my MS. I was wrong. If you are already an extreme health nut like me, not overweight and you eat right this book wont tell you anything you dont already know.
As soon as I bought it I went home and read through it a few times. All I could think was...Thats it? I am a nutritionist and I found outdated info on almost every page!
Please keep in mind that this book does seem to help many people but it is outdated information. Eat right.... thats not exactly revolutionary.
December 04, 2006.
Life saver..
Rating: 5
My wife has had MS for 9 years now. It has been a slow and steady downward spiral. This book has slowed that and we are starting to see improvements in areas. Maybe not for everyone, as MS is so individual, but for my wife it may be a life saver.
December 26, 2006.
Fallen from grace.
Rating: 3
I've used this book for years with happy results. I've often impressed friends with my knowledge of planetary positions in the night sky by using the "planetary longitude" table in the appendices.
However, this year marked the end of the usefullness of the planetary longitude table(which is something I use a lot). It only has information through 2005. Audubon should offer an update to this so I don't have to purchase the book again just to get the P.L. table.
December 28, 2005.
Excellent Guide.
Rating: 5
If you're interested in studying the night sky by eye, this is an awesome guide. The explanations are clear, the charts are great, and the background material is interesting. It will tell you what you can see up there, how to find it, and when you'll be able to see it, which was exactly what I was looking for. This book has everything you need to appreciate your backyard view more fully.
December 21, 2004.
'Out on the lawn I lie in bed...'.
Rating: 5
For those who remain spellbound by the canopy of night with all the beauty and mythology and mystery gazing at the stars brings to mind, this book is a godsend. Without requiring previous courses in astronomy and without spending hours cross referencing words to match constellations to match positions to match meanings, this book comfortably and beautifully offers maps and photographs, essays and information that make looking heavenward all the more exciting. The writing is accurate, updated, understandable to the novice, and makes a terrific companion to seeking answers and directions to the stars and the planets. A valuable aide to your appreciation of the universe! Grady Harp, December 2004
December 01, 2003.
A Stargazer's Delight!.
Rating: 5
One of my favorite Books on the bookshelf, simply because of its easy-to-read format, and information for both the amateur stargazer and serious astronomer. The book covers everything that the curiousity seeker is looking for, with an exhaustive selection of sky charts for each month, a detailed section featuring each constellation with its history and details, and an exciting tour of the solar system and its celestial denizens.
Plenty of information, and just the right amount of photographs, too. A handy guide for everyone curious about the world "up there"!
December 04, 2002.
Everything you want to know, and more.
Rating: 5
I'm not astronomer, but I can tell that the volume of information in this guide would impress even a hardcore stargazer. The book includes exhaustively detailed descriptions of all notable phenomena visible with a telescope, lists the entire Messier Catalog with descriptions of each item, has comprehensive starcharts meticulously organized by date, and has a description of all the major star constellations. There is also an in-depth analysis of the solar system and a complete scientific background on all the terminology. A layman reading this guide will come away with enough information to at least sound like an expert on the night sky. There are even some sections on speculative astronomy, such as the nature of black holes and the Big Bang theory. If you are at all interested in astronomy, this is THE guide to get. It will serve as an invaluable counterpart to your telescope, and makes fascinating reading any time. As far as I have seen, there isn't a published guide to compare with this one.
December 08, 2007.
Very enjoyable book of natural and human history .
Rating: 5
_The Secret Life of Lobsters_ by Trevor Corson is an engaging look at the natural history of _Homarus americanus_, the American lobster and the history of the lobster fishery.
The biology of lobsters is well-covered in this book. Lobsters take about seven years to become sexually active (which is also about the amount of time it takes for them to reach harvestable size). Adult lobsters spend the winter far from shore (often 20 miles), frequently on mud plains 200-300 feet underwater, but with the arrival of spring migrate to warmer, shallower, inshore waters, sometimes just 15-20 feet below water, seeking to find the warmest sheltered places so they could safely molt and then return to deeper water. As the lobster molts, the calcium drains out of it shell and is stored in a pair of reservoirs called gastroliths, located to either side of the stomach, which is ingested by the lobster after molting (for centuries humans ate gastroliths in the belief they served medicinal purposes).
Lobsters will seek to evict smaller lobsters from desirable homes and even in some cases several neighboring smaller lobsters to make a larger home (something generally done without much violence if the lobsters are of clearly different sizes but fights occur if they are more evenly matched).
Lobsters are either right- or left-handed, favoring either the right or left claw for crushing and the other for seizing and cutting. Lobsters as adults can fling themselves backwards with rapid contractions of their abdominal muscles, but in their two week-long postlarva stage, for once in their life the can swim forward, with their little claws outstretched (leading some to call this stage the "superlobster" stage).
The techniques of lobster fishing are also covered (the author served for a time as a sternman on a ship). Lobster traps are divided into two sections (a kitchen, which contains a bag of bait, and one or two parlors, which hold the lobsters until the trap is pulled up) and are built using steel rings that corrode slowly in seawater, eventually disintegrating and allowing lobsters to escape from lost traps. The traps are secured to buoys by special ropes, the top half containing lead filament to keep it sunken and away from boat propellers, the bottom half buoyant so as to not be abraded on rocks below).
Lobstermen measure lobsters with a brass ruler called the "gauge," part of a minimum-size law that has been in effect in Maine since 1895 to allow lobsters to survive until breeding age (and starting in 1933 the gauge also delineated a maximum size, a law that Maine pioneered to protect older lobsters, which produce vast numbers of eggs). If a female lobster with eggs showed up in a trap, a lobsterman used a fish knife and cut a quarter-inch triangle out of the tail flipper (a "V-notch," making such a lobster a "V-notcher"); this triangular cut would make it illegal to sell that lobster if it was caught again, whether or not it was bearing eggs. Though at first fishermen had to be forced to throw back egg-bearing lobsters (lobster eggs were a delicacy in 19th century London), eventually Maine lobstermen made V-notches of their own volition starting in the 1950s.
Lobstermen have lots of names for lobsters. In addition to V-notchers, there are "eggers" (those caught while bearing eggs), "shorts" (undersize lobsters, thrown back), "shedders" (newly molted lobsters that now meet the minimum legal size requirement), "chicken" lobsters (or "chix;" lobsters below a pound and a quarter, the size most in demand for clambakes and thought to be saleable at a price most consumers could afford), and "selects" (lobsters with a three-and-a-half inch carapace and weighing a pound and a quarter or more, more expensive than chicken lobsters and the size that many regulators and scientists pushed lobstermen to catch).
There has been much debate over the years on how to manage the lobster industry, with scientists and many government regulators on one side, convinced that the lobsters were in decline, that too many lobsters that had just reached legal size were being taken or in fact too many were being taken before they became sexually mature, and the lobstermen, who didn't believe that scientists and regulators knew themselves just how many eggers and V-notchers were out there (and contended that their detractors refused to either come on the boats and see for themselves or believe the lobstermen's own data).
Lobster research received a great deal of attention in the book as well. Researchers Jelle Atema and Diane Cowan working at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts did pioneering research in studying lobster sex pheromones, sensory organs, and mating practices and the research the author described made for interesting reading. Bob Steneck, working in the wild, did important research on the types of habitat (young lobsters needed areas with small rocks for hiding, while older lobsters needed bigger boulders) and shelters (cataloguing them as either "restricted-fit" or "relaxed-fit") lobsters preferred in the wild. During the course of his research Bob became friends with two lobstermen by the name of Jack Merrill and Bruce Fernald, residents of Little Cranberry Island, one of the fourteen remaining year-round Maine island fishing communities.
Despite an increasing number of traps and lobstermen, the Maine lobster catch totals hovers around 20 million pounds annually. Bob and other researchers concluded that a fixed amount of seafloor shelter may cap the number of new lobsters. This demographic bottleneck would limit the number of lobsters that reached adulthood, regardless of how many eggs were produced.
Interestingly, another demographic bottleneck appears to no longer exist. Once cod in their millions feasted on lobsters of a certain size; "the young adults that today wander freely and supply a vibrant fishery, would have been attacked by cod the instant" they were of a size to attract their attention, surviving only if they outgrew their predators, but with the cod all but extinct, that bottleneck is gone.
December 11, 2007.
Fascinating.
Rating: 5
My wife and I enjoyed this book greatly, and neither of us are "into" science all that much.
December 09, 2007.
How many penises does a male lobster have?.
Rating: 5
This is one of the best Books I have ever read. Besides being about the sex-life of my favorite food (the answer is two), it is a masterpiece of craftsmenship by one of America's best writers. Corson's perspective comes from two years on a lobster boat on the Maine coast. It is a perfectly interwoven story about fishermen, real scientists (not Disneyfied), politics and a successful species survival plan that other fisheries could learn from. So far, I have purchased three copies of this delightful book and will probably keep giving it to lobster-lovers as long as it is in print.
December 27, 2006.
Nice little book.
Rating: 4
A friend told me about this book and suggested I try it.
I was pleasantly surprised by it. Its a nice little read...not overly violent...nor filled with human sexuality nor does it have long boring and wasted filling material.Adults..both men and women ..teens both male and female..can and will get into it.
It has several different storylines which are very interesting..one--the biggest story line is about the LOBSTER.....the other two are the Lobsterman........and the scientists.
This is not a difficult read at all...but it held my attention with its knowledge and education it offers the reader..that I didn't really know...and you probably wouldn't of known either.
I recommend this book highly..for a easy and almost facinating read.
December 09, 2006.
Evocatively and sympathetically written - a balanced account..
Rating: 5
I stumbled across this book after having read Mark Kurlansky's book, Cod, and was really pleasantly surprised not only by the detail of Corson's research into the lobster as organism, but also his balanced and sympathetic account of the lives of lobstermen and lobster fishery. I actually detest shellfish as a food but am now a fan of lobster (how can anyone resist an animal that pees in others' faces as a form of greeting?) - not for eating, mind you, but just in general.
Corson's balanced approach to ecology and the sustainability of lobster stocks in the face of commercial fishing was a joy to read. Being a vegetarian and a pretty green thinker with regard to the use of all animal food stocks, I really appreciated Corson's effort to bring the people behind the lobster fisheries to life and make clear that many who rely on the sea (and, by extension, the land) respect and want to sustain and expand the source of their income without upsetting the balance of nature and thus endangering their livelihoods.
I recommend this book highly as a fun, interesting, and informative read - the lobster turns out to be a more complex and fascinating animal than I ever would have guessed.
December 19, 2007.
Good digest of economics, geopolitics, and technology.
Rating: 4
Writing about societal trends has gotten tougher since the Tofflers published "Future Shock" nearly four decades ago. Aside from the fact that things are moving faster and getting more complicated, the authors also must compete with the vastly expanded information sources available to readers today. The Tofflers still make good use of their impressive worldwide network of movers and shakers, but the rest of us now have access to countless news outlets on the Internet and on cable/satellite TV, as well as subscriptions to trend-spotting magazines like Wired. So if you routinely follow tech trends, geopolitics, international economics, and related fields, you'll find no big surprises here. On the other hand, if you're not familiar with these areas, this book is a good education. It puts a lot of information together in a very understandable presentation.
Much of the book is devoted to illustrating how the "deep fundamentals" of time, space, and knowledge affect our lifestyles and economy, and how these are largely ignored or misrepresented by economists and decision-makers. The discussion is long, but well presented - except for one thing. This may not bother most readers, but I've never cared for the Tofflers' tinkering with the English language. They like to invent their own terms. Prominent ones in this book are "prosumer" (producer/consumer, a term they've been using since 1980) and "obsoledge" (obsolete knowledge). Also, when they mention "globalization" - already a mouthful at five syllables - they insist on calling it "re-globalization" to provide us with an unnecessary reminder that this phenomenon has occurred before. Some readers will find these word games distracting rather than helpful.
One other minor quibble: The Tofflers are fond of using cutesy but uninformative chapter titles (50 of them) and subheadings (hundreds of them). All of these confusing labels are included in the 7-page table of contents, making it almost useless for people who scan the contents to get a feel for what's in the book.
The last 100 pages or so are the book's strength (Part 9: Poverty and Part 10: The New Tectonics). This is where you'll find the best insights on the status and prospects for our world, with special attention on China, Europe, India, and the United States. Optimism is tempered with realism as the Tofflers, like other authors, emphasize that the global community needs to take actions now that take into account where the trends are going instead of trying to preserve the past. An important message backed up by a lot of good information.
December 13, 2007.
Must Read.
Rating: 5
Eye opener on where the world economy is today. It touches on "why the educational system is failing in the US", "the role of China in the very near future", "why the US is failing the smaller countries of the world" and "just how dumb every economist really is" this is just a few points made.
Not an easy read, it is the equivalent of taking 3 economics classes in one book, but the info is unparalleled.
If you want to know what the world has in store this is a must read.
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 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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