A lively account of the men and their times and a brilliant exposition of the scientific circumstances and significance of...
Forbes (Imitation of Life: How Biology Is Inspiring Computing, 2004, etc.) and Mahon (Oliver Heaviside: Maverick Mastermind of Electricity, 2009, etc.) offer a compelling new interpretation of the seminal importance of the discoveries of Michael Faraday (1791–1861) and James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879).
The authors explain “the way that Faraday and Maxwell's concept of the electromagnetic field transformed scientists' view of the physical world,” beginning with Faraday's anticipation of a unified field theory that would include the force of gravity as well as electromagnetism and the propagation of light. His ideas were so advanced that not only did he reject the Newtonian concept of action-at-distance, then prevalent among scientists, but also the existence of an ether. “From today's perspective…Faraday, the bold theorist, was making an advance announcement of a scientific transformation that has given us not only electromagnetic theory but special relativity,” write the authors. Faraday is credited as the brilliant experimentalist who “discovered the principle of the electric motor,” while Maxwell, with his groundbreaking Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, laid the groundwork for modern field theory. Forbes and Mahon show that Maxwell adhered to Faraday's hypothesis that the propagation of electricity and magnetism in space occurred through the vibration of lines of force. He developed his famous equations by first adapting the mathematical treatment of fluid flow and a mechanical model of spinning cells with minute ball bearings as heuristic models. Only then did he dispense with these models and directly employ the “mathematical laws of dynamics” to electromagnetism, thus laying the basis for modern field theory. The authors emphasize that, for Maxwell, his use of models “didn't purport to represent nature's actual mechanism, it was merely a temporary aid to thought.”
A lively account of the men and their times and a brilliant exposition of the scientific circumstances and significance of their work.Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61614-942-0
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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