Books of Note Archives
Listed alphabetically by title.
Burkhard
Polster
Q.E.D.:
Beauty in Mathematical Proof
Walker
& Company, 2004, ISBN: 0-8027-1431-5, $10
The latest in a series of small books about big ideas. Originally published in the UK, Wooden Books is a series of concise, accessible introductions to timeless sciences and vanishing arts, recreating the essence of medieval texts through elegant designs and writing. Q.E.D. presents some of the most famous mathematical proofs for nonmathematicians and math experts alike. Grasp why Pythagoras's theorem must be correct. Follow the ancient Chinese proof of the volume formula for the frustrating frustum, and Archimedes' method for finding the volume of a sphere. Discover the secrets of pi and why, contrary to popular belief, squaring the circle really is possible. Study the subtle art of mathematical domino tumbling, and find out how slicing cones helped save a city and put a man on the Moon.
Frederick
Hess, Andrew Rotherham & Kate Walsh, eds.
A
Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom? Appraising Old Answers and
New Ideas
Harvard
Education Press, 2004, ISBN: 1-891792-20-2, $22.95 (paper)
Under the No Child Left Behind Act, states will have to ensure that every public school classroom is staffed by a highly qualified teacher. This mandate--and the fact that many children, especially low-income and minority students, are taught by underqualified teachers ill-equipped for the challenges ahead--gives new urgency to debates over teacher recruitment, preparation, and induction. For several years, these debates have been dominated by competing groups of partisans. One denies that teaching requires a professional base of knowledge and skill, while the other tries to promote professionalism by ensuring that traditional programs retain their control over licensure and formal certification. The conflict confuses policymakers, frustrates educators, and stifles potentially promising solutions.
In this volume, eleven contributors with rich experience in policy and teaching take a fresh look at a number of issues, including:
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Current systems for preparing and licensing teachers, and how they affect the quality and supply of teachers in the work force;
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An array of reform models for teacher preparation and licensure, and what they would mean for the profession;
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Questions of rigor and ideology in the core curricula of education schools or programs;
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The federal role in teacher preparation and licensure, especially in light of NCLB.
Johnjoe
McFadden
Quantum
Evolution: How Physics’ Weirdest Theory Explains Life’s
Biggest Mystery
W. W. Norton & Company, 2002, ISBN: 0-393-32310-2, $16.95
Four billion years ago, the molten earth cooled and formed a crust. Even as a particularly harsh period of meteoric bombardment tapered out, carbon-fixing life quickly sprung from the primordial soup. Considering the mind-boggling odds against the formation of the chemicals needed to start terrestrial life, how did the inanimate amino acids, indeed very abundant in the primordial soup, defeat the axioms of thermodynamics and leap from the chaotic soup into ordered life? McFadden maintains that life started too fast, and has been too successful, for the blind chance of classical mechanics to explain. Quantum mechanics has some powerful explanations.
Barry
Parker
Quantum
Legacy: The Discovery That Changed Our Universe
Prometheus Books, 2002, ISBN: 157392993X, $29
Today we all take for granted the many technological marvels that have sprung from quantum physics without ever appreciating the radical paradigm shift that led to these discoveries. The story of the physicists who made the quantum leaps that have so altered ours is a provocative and intriguing one.
Parker introduces us to all the major players in this history, offering interesting biographical details that shed light on their important discoveries: Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Paul Dirac, Richard Feynman, and Julian Schwinger. Parker also discusses Einstein's objections to quantum theory ("God does not play dice with the universe."), philosophical implications and "quantum weirdness," as well as the seemingly miraculous practical applications of quantum theory — in lasers, transistors, integrated circuits, computer technology, nuclear energy, and genetics.
Andrew
Watson
The
Quantum Quark
Cambridge University Press, 2004, ISBN: 0-521-82907-0, $30
The world you can feel and touch is built of atoms, the smallest identifiable chunks of matter. Yet the heart of each atom is itself a whole new world, a world populated by quarks: indivisible, vanishingly small, the ultimate building blocks of our Universe. This inner world where quarks reign is subject to new and unfamiliar rules, the rules of the quantum world. Colossal particle accelerators enable physicists to bring this inner world into focus, and have helped them to shape a theory respectful of quantum rules that explains how quarks feel one another's presence. The Quantum Quark is the story of that theory: quantum chromodynamics.
Roland
Omnès
Quantum
Philosophy: Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Science
Princeton University Press, 2002, ISBN: 0-691-09551-5, $16.95
(paperback)
One of the world's leading quantum physicists, Omnès reviews the history and recent development of mathematics, logic, and the physical sciences to show that current work in quantum theory offers new answers to questions that have puzzled philosophers for centuries: Is the world ultimately intelligible? Are all events caused? Do objects have definitive locations? Omnès addresses these profound questions with vigorous arguments and clear, colorful writing, aiming not just to advance scholarship but to enlighten readers with no background in science or philosophy.
Jonathan
Allday
Quarks,
Leptons and the Big Bang, 2/e
Institute of Physics Publishing, 2002, ISBN: 0 7503 0806 0, $25
From the Preface to the First Edition: "This is a book about particle physics (the strange world of objects and forces that exists at length scales much smaller than the size of an atom) and cosmology (the study of the origin of the universe). It is quite extraordinary that these two extremes of scale can be drawn together in one book. Yet the advances of the past couple of decades have shown that there is an intimate relationship between the world of the very large and the very small." The second edition incorporates results established over the last few years, especially in the cosmology sections that give more balance to the two aspects of the book.
Peter
Ward and Donald Brownlee
Rare
Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe
Copernicus Books, 2000, ISBN: 0-387-98701-0, $27.50
Maybe we really are alone. That's the thought-provoking conclusion of Rare Earth, a book that is certain to have far-reaching impact in the consideration of our place in the cosmos. While it is widely believed that complex life is common, even widespread, throughout the billions of stars and galaxies of our Universe, astrobiologists Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee argue that advanced life may, in fact, be very rare, perhaps even unique.
Ever since Carl Sagan and Frank Drake announced that extraterrestrial civilizations must number in the millions, the search for life in our galaxy has accelerated. But in this brilliant and carefully argued book, Ward and Brownlee question underlying assumptions of Sagan and Drake's model, and take us on a search for life that reaches from volcanic hot springs on our ocean floors to the frosty face of Europa, Jupiter's icy moon. In the process, we learn that while microbial life may well be more prevalent throughout the Universe than previously believed, the conditions necessary for the evolution and survival of higher life — and here the consider everything from DNA to plate tectonics to the role of our Moon — are so complex and precarious that they are unlikely to arise in many other places, if at all.
Jessica
Helfand
Reinventing
the Wheel
Princeton Architectural Press, 2002, ISBN: 1-56898-338-7, $24.95
As inventive as instructive, information wheels — or volvelles — have been used since the fourteenth century to measure, record, predict, and calculate everything form time and space to military history and recipes. In this fascinating book, designer and critic Jessica Helfand offers and in-depth look at these unique artifacts, which are not only clever and amusing — where else could you dial-in ingredients to concoct "Creamed Oysters and Celery"? — but, Helfand argues, relevant as a model for modern interactive design.
From circular mathematical slide rules to Captain Marvel phonetic decoders; from nuclear bomb blast calculators to gestational breeding planners; and from astronomical planispheres to presidential trivia plotters, Reinventing the Wheel demonstrates the astonishing range and remarkable utility of these ingenious "interactive" tools.
Martin
Beech
Rejuvenating
the Sun and Avoiding Other Global Catastrophes
Springer 2007, ISBN: 0387681280, $29.95
This book investigates the idea that the distant future evolution of our Sun might be 'controlled' (literally, asteroengineered) so that it maintains its present-day energy output rather than becoming a highly luminous and bloated red giant star –- a process that, if allowed to develop, will destroy all life on Earth. The text outlines how asteroengineering might work in principle and it describes what the future solar system could look like. It also addresses the idea of asteroengineering as a galaxy-wide imperative, explaining why the Earth has never been visited by extraterrestrial travellers in the past.
Ross
S. Kraemer, William Cassidy & Susan L. Schwartz
Religions
of Star Trek
Westview Press (Perseus Books Group), January 2002, ISBN: 0-8133-6708-5,
$22
Is there a God? What evil lurks beyond the stars? Can science save one's soul? Profound questions like these have consumed human thought over the ages; they also inspired the original creators of the Star Trek canon of TV series and films. Religions of Star Trek tackles these challenging questions head-on and examines in detail the humanistic vision of creator Gene Roddenberry. Analyzing more than three decades of screen adventure, the authors depict a Star Trek transformed, corresponding to the resurgence of religion in American public discourse. The authors analyze Star Trek's many religious characters, tracing the roots of scientific humanism to more contemporary aspects of religion and spirituality. Through it all, the creators' visionary outlook remains constant: a humanistic faith in free will and the nature of dispassionate scientific inquiry. (This book was not prepared, licensed, approved, or endorsed by any entity involved in creating or producing the Star Trek television series or films.)
Ioan
James
Remarkable
Physicists: From Galileo to Yukawa
Cambridge
University Press, 2004, ISBN: 0-521-01706-8/0-521-81687-4, $85/$30
The 250 years from the second half of the 17th century saw the birth of modern physics and its growth into one of the most successful of the sciences. All of the fifty-five physicists profiled have made important contributions to physics, through their ideas and teaching, or in other ways. The biographies are arranged chronologically by the physicists' dates of birth, so that, when read in sequence, they convey how physics developed over time. However, the book emphasizes their varied life stories, not the details of their achievements.
Chris
Mooney
The
Republican War on Science
Basic Books, September 2005, ISBN: 0-46504-674-4, $24.95
Science has never been more crucial to understanding the political issues facing the country and responding to them successfully; yet science and scientists have less influence with the federal government than at any time since the Eisenhower administration. From stem-cell research to the тАЬintelligent designтАЭ debate to global warming, the rift between the Republican leadership and the scientific community grows steadily wider. Chris Mooney ties together the disparate strands of the attack on science into a compelling account of our government's increasing unwillingness to distinguish between legitimate research and ideologically driven pseudoscience.
Rebecca
Elson
A Responsibility to Awe
Carcanet Press (www.carcanet.co.uk),
2001, 1-903039-54-1
Rebecca Elson was an astronomer. Her research involved dark matter–hidden mass which can be inferred only from its influence on observable objects: "As if, from fireflies, one could infer the field." Her poems, too, make inferences and speculate; they set out always from meticulous observation a