A book so worthy in its heights that it compensates for its lows.
A collection of short essays from one of the most prominent science writers of our time.
Rovelli is well known for writing small books on big subjects. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and The Order of Time earned a devoted audience through their accessible and elegant communication of the findings of modern physics. Though his latest book extends his brand, it differs crucially from its predecessors. While exhibiting his concise prose and easy erudition, this one lacks the sense of unity of previous works. Such is often the nature of collections of previously published pieces, yet even in that context, the text is scattershot. Intermixed with the author’s trademark astute scientific and philosophical writing are reminiscences, travelogues, and opinion pieces, some of which are mere filler. Even some of the science writing doesn’t hold up. But at his best—and there are plenty of sections that spotlight his best—Rovelli delights. His facility with science and philosophy is exemplary. In a defense of Aristotle’s physics, he writes, “the bad reputation of Aristotle’s physics is also due to the silly gulf that has opened up between scientific culture and humanist philosophical discourse. Those who study Aristotle generally know little about physics, and those who are engaged in physics have little interest in Aristotle.” He offers not just a defense of Aristotle’s physics, but a defense of his physics on the grounds of scientific provincialism. While many scientists write as if their specific expertise earns them general expertise, Rovelli knows enough to know what he doesn’t know. How beautiful and inspiring is his humility when he assesses his own interpretation of black holes: “Is this really the case? I don’t know for sure. I think it might well be. The alternatives seem less plausible to me. But I could be wrong. Trying to figure it out, still, is such a joy.”
A book so worthy in its heights that it compensates for its lows.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-19215-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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