An imaginative but often opaque and unconvincing explanation of how the universe hangs together.
Gravity is actually produced by colossally long, thin, magnetic, ropelike objects, according to this treatise on alternative physics.
Westberg, an engineer, challenges orthodox theories of gravity and instead offers a novel view that regards it as a species of magnetism, in part because of the similarity of the inverse square laws that govern both forces. His model posits fundamental building blocks called Shayliks, whimsically named after his granddaughter Shayla, which are microscopically small, corkscrew-shaped things that, like magnetic poles, can either attract or repel one another depending on the direction and frequency of their coiling. The Shayliks, he contends, assemble into invisibly slender double-helix ropes and pipes, which can extend either for tiny distances or across hundreds of light-years of space. Magnetic forces flowing through the Shayliks and setting off eddy currents give rise to the attractive forces of gravity when they interact with the electromagnetic fields in atoms. Westberg turns to astrophysics for indirect evidence of Shayliks. He argues that there are vast Shayliks connecting the sun with other stars. When planets cross these Shayliks, a range of phenomena results, including solar flares, dust storms on Mars, and fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field. The author’s wide-ranging theory touches in creative ways on everything from Einstein’s theory of relativity to fractals and Darwinian evolution. Westberg’s book—written with Orey—explores a wealth of scientific phenomena in language that’s vivid and accessible to lay readers. (“An ice volcano on Ceres, however, would have no smell or sound because there is no atmosphere. It would initially be like a slushy from a convenience store and then become hard frozen. Earth-based cryovolcanoes would have an oozing sound.”) Unfortunately, Westberg’s own scientific arguments are too sketchily developed for a theory that is so contrary to traditional physics; there are no diagrams to help readers visualize Shayliks and no mathematical equations to impart rigor to his hard-to-follow concepts. (“So the inverse of a ten-inch-long string that has no diameter, and is then by definition one-dimensional, is a sphere because it now has two infinite dimensions due to its continuous surface and one zero dimension, which is its location. This structure would also be invisible. This is mind-boggling.”) Scientists and casual readers alike will scratch their heads over many of Westberg’s pronouncements.
An imaginative but often opaque and unconvincing explanation of how the universe hangs together.Pub Date: April 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66555-470-1
Page Count: 126
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Yes: it's high time for a de-romanticized, de-mythified, close-up retelling of the U.S. Space Program's launching—the inside story of those first seven astronauts.
But no: jazzy, jivey, exclamation-pointed, italicized Tom Wolfe "Mr. Overkill" hasn't really got the fight stuff for the job. Admittedly, he covers all the ground. He begins with the competitive, macho world of test pilots from which the astronauts came (thus being grossly overqualified to just sit in a controlled capsule); he follows the choosing of the Seven, the preparations for space flight, the flights themselves, the feelings of the wives; and he presents the breathless press coverage, the sudden celebrity, the glorification. He even throws in some of the technology. But instead of replacing the heroic standard version with the ring of truth, Wolfe merely offers an alternative myth: a surreal, satiric, often cartoony Wolfe-arama that, especially since there isn't a bit of documentation along the way, has one constantly wondering if anything really happened the way Wolfe tells it. His astronauts (referred to as "the brethren" or "The True Brothers") are obsessed with having the "right stuff" that certain blend of guts and smarts that spells pilot success. The Press is a ravenous fool, always referred to as "the eternal Victorian Gent": when Walter Cronkite's voice breaks while reporting a possible astronaut death, "There was the Press the Genteel Gent, coming up with the appropriate emotion. . . live. . . with no prompting whatsoever!" And, most off-puttingly, Wolfe presumes to enter the minds of one and all: he's with near-drowing Gus Grissom ("Cox. . . That face up there!—it's Cox. . . Cox knew how to get people out of here! . . . Cox! . . ."); he's with Betty Grissom angry about not staying at Holiday Inn ("Now. . . they truly owed her"); and, in a crude hatchet-job, he's with John Glenn furious at Al Shepard's being chosen for the first flight, pontificating to the others about their licentious behavior, or holding onto his self-image during his flight ("Oh, yes! I've been here before! And I am immune! I don't get into corners I can't get out of! . . . The Presbyterian Pilot was not about to foul up. His pipeline to dear Lord could not be clearer"). Certainly there's much here that Wolfe is quite right about, much that people will be interested in hearing: the P-R whitewash of Grissom's foul-up, the Life magazine excesses, the inter-astronaut tensions. And, for those who want to give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt throughout, there are emotional reconstructions that are juicily shrill.
But most readers outside the slick urban Wolfe orbit will find credibility fatally undermined by the self-indulgent digressions, the stylistic excesses, and the broadly satiric, anti-All-American stance; and, though The Right Stuff has enough energy, sass, and dirt to attract an audience, it mostly suggests that until Wolfe can put his subject first and his preening writing-persona second, he probably won't be a convincing chronicler of anything much weightier than radical chic.
Pub Date: Sept. 24, 1979
ISBN: 0312427565
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1979
BOOK TO SCREEN
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