Book Review: The Milky Way Smells of ...

 By Jillian Scudder

• Pub Date: 2024

• Genre: Non-fiction, Astrophysics

• Where I bought this book: Joseph-Beth Bookstore, at Books by the Banks, Cincinnati 

• Why I bought this book: The author talked me into it

• Bookmark used: Astroquizzical, another book by Dr. Scudder   

 ****** 

    When I first asked Dr. Scudder at the Books by the Banks Bookfair which of her books I should buy, she asked me if I wanted serious or silly. Of course, my first response was serious, because I wanted to be that important, consequential guy who respected science.

    But then she talked up the silly book as carefully detailed, even profound, if a bit light-hearted. She said she had fun writing and researching it.

    So I grabbed it, and I'm glad I did. 

    It provides a wealth of information and oddball facts, as well at the significant science behind the details. You want proof? It has 45 pages of notes referencing peer-reviewed papers, most of them published in top-rated scientific journals -- with links to those  original works.

    So while the facts may seem outlandish, they have important scientific bases. 

    For instance, the fact that parts of Pluto are mostly crater-free -- discovered during a New Horizon flyby in 2015 -- was a shocking unknown until then. Astrophysicists assumed that Pluto was covered with up to 40,000 craters up to 30 kilometers wide, because, well, because lots of celestial bodies fly around out there, and they have been known to crash into each other.

    But Pluto, and in particular, the surface of Sputnik Planitia -- that's the heart-shaped feature found on the dwarf planet -- is practically devoid of craters of any size. The current thinking is that some of Pluto's surfaces are newly created by the way nitrogen bubbles up to the colder surface and freezes like icebergs, which erases or covers the craters. 

    Or this: Venus also has few craters. But the current thinking here is different: Volcanoes on Venus regularly erupt, and what is erupted covers up the craters. Thus, parts of the surfaces of both Venus and Pluto are much younger than other parts, but for entirely separate reasons.

    All of this is important, because it helps us better understand our solar system, and the universe, more each day. And, because it's fun to know.

    One more thing: Whenever one reads books by astrophysicists, always read the footnotes. They are complementary to the tale and often amusing, like a smirky, knowing aside from a knowledgeable companion.

    This books is no exception. Dr. Scudder enjoys ragging on her fellow scientists for the way they name the stuff in the universe. Usually, it's boring, like a Very Large Crater. But she notes that one darker section of Pluto was originally named Cthulhu Macula, and in a footnote, explains: "Yes, astronomers are nerds. Charon, Pluto's moon, has a region named Mordor Macula."

    In another section, she talks about how it's difficult to grow anything in Martian regolith because it's considered "highly deleterious to cells." She said she'd rather write something like "Mars is great as long as you don't want anything alive to stay that way," but editors of scientific journals frown on such unscientific language.

    Her footnote reads: "It's too bad. It'd really liven up a paper."

Book Review: Orbital

  By Samantha Harvey

• Pub Date: 2023

• Genre: Space, Science fiction, Literary fiction

• Where I bought this book: Oblong Books, Millerton, N.Y. 

• Why I bought this book: It's the 2024 Booker Prize winner

• Bookmark used: Top 10 Most Challenged Books, from Roebling.com  

 **********

    Samantha Harvey's love letter* to planet Earth reverberates with rapid-fire brilliance on every page. 

    But it's much more than that. It's a paean to the solar system, its exploration, and our humanity. 

    It's there in the description of the astronauts and cosmonauts watching in wonder at seeing the aurora australis** from above.

    It's there as they travel down east from the North Pole, past the Alaskan and Canadian coastlines, over the Pacific and South America, before swinging across the South Atlantic to Africa and up to the Middle East before watching the "first crack of silver" marking their fifth or sixth sunrise of the day. 

    It's there as they watch, helplessly, as a typhoon bores down on and eventually assaults the Philippines.

    It's there as author Harvey shows the blackness of the deep oceans and the color palettes of the land: The field of gold of Polynesia, the blues of the Indian Ocean, the purple-green of the Nile River. 

    It's in Uzbekistan, an expanse of ochre and brown. It's in the apricot desert of Takla Makan,*** It's in the rose-flushed and snow-covered mountains of Asia. It's there as Astronaut Nell looks down during her spacewalk: Cuba pink with morning, the turquoise shallows of the Caribbean; her left foot obscuring France, her right foot Germany.

    More than a mere novel, the 2024 Booker Prize-winner reads like a dazzling think piece in the best literary journal, At 200 pages, it ends too soon. But as you set it aside, you agree with some of her final words about life on a minor planet revolving around an ordinary star in an obscure part of the Milky Way: "The past comes, the future, the past. It's always now, it's never now."

    Its plot is simple: A single day, 18 revolutions around the Earth in the lives of four astronauts, Nell, Chie, Shaun, and Pietro from America, Europe and Japan, and two cosmonauts, Anton and Roman, from Russia, as they live, work, and play in the International Space Station. In small snippets, we learn about their lives at home, growing up. Learn about their families. Learn about their travels on earth. Learn why they wanted to go to space.

    They reflect on life in the cramped quarters, the state of the planet, and their place in the universe. They note how from 250 miles above, the Earth is "just a rolling indivisible globe which knows no possibility of separation, let alone war." They see no borders except for the land and the sea. Countries are indistinguishable.

    Except when the sun is on the other side, they see the lights of their hometowns below: Seattle, Osaka, London, Bologna, St. Petersburg, Moscow. 

    And politics below sometimes intrudes on the international mission of peace above. Because of "engaging political disputes" on Earth, they must use their "national toilet" in the Soviet-built module or the American one. Americans, Japanese and Europeans on one side, Russians on the other.

    They follow the rule but find it amusing. "I'm going to take a national pee, Shaun will say. Or Roman: I'm going to go and do one for Russia." 

    In 1969, while piloting Apollo 11 alone, Michael Collins snapped a photo of the lunar module taking off from the moon, with the Earth hanging in the background. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were in the Eagle, and the rest of humanity was on Earth.     

NASA photo

   

Michael Collins is the only human being not in that photo, it is said. ...(But) what of all the people on the other side of earth that the camera can't see, and everybody in the southern hemisphere which is in the night sky and gulped by the darkness of space? ... In truth, nobody is in that photograph, nobody can be seen. Everybody is invisible. ... The strongest, most deductible proof of life in that photo is the photographer himself. ... In that sense, the most enchanting thing about Collins's image is that, at the moment of taking the photograph, he is really the only human presence it contains.

    Sublime. It's thoughtful, soulful, and mindful. It shows the earth being "wired and wakeful." You want to read it slowly, mark every other paragraph, then read it again. Read it with a cup of tea on the table and cat in your lap, poking at your skin, the pinpricks making you feel alive, if Earthbound.

    It is truly a book for the ages.

------------------------------------------------

* I'll admit to stealing this term from a friend

** The Southern Lights

*** A desert in the Xinjiang province in northwest China. Often spelled in English as Taklamakan

Book Review: Bitch

 By Lucy Cooke

• Pub Date: 2022

• Where I bought this book: Left Bank Books, Saint Louis. 

• Why I bought this book: I heard a Science Friday interview with the author, and I was fascinated

 ********

     Lucy Cooke takes on a lot in this wide ranging study, from Charles Darwin himself, to the male scientists who ignored female ingenuity over the years, to the female scientists who are seeking to right those wrongs, to Disney's ignorant portrayal of the natural world. She does so with a sharp eye, a sharper wit, and mountains of research and interviews to back her up.

    I'm not sure what is more impressive about her work -- her thesis that the females of the species have been wrongly portrayed over the past two centuries, or the staggering amount of research, field trips, and people she has interviewed while working on this book.

    It results in wide ranging factual discussions about animals from the tiny spiders who engage in all kinds of kinky sex -- including oral sex, cannibalistic sex, bisexuality, and bondage -- to the great orca whale, one of five species on earth -- including humans and three other toothed whales -- who undergo menopause.

    She starts by blaming Darwin as a man of his Victorian times, the founder of evolutionary science, who believed it dictated the activities of the two sexes. Males take advantage of the abundance of sperm and mimic it by being active, aggressive, and promiscuous in their sex lives. Females, who have to protect their limited supply of eggs, became coy, passive, and selective. These traits were projected onto humans. So it was, and so it ever shall be.

    Bollocks, says the Oxford educated Cooke.

    As just one example of misguided illusions she cites: In the animated movie Finding Nemo, the anemone mother, Coral, dies while laying her eggs during a barracuda attack, leaving just one hatched egg to survive. Years go by, and we are shown how the overprotective father, Marlin, goes to search for his missing son, Nemo. But clownfish such as Marlin and Nemo are female-dominant species. Should the mother die, the male father would switch to female. The son would quickly mature and mate with her, producing more young.

    I'm guessing Disney did not find evolution particularly family friendly in that case.

    (Also, penguins do not exist in Madagascar, and ring-tailed lemurs have a queen, not a king, because they are a female dominant species.)

    But Cooke takes down more than pop culture's assumptions. She offers, sometimes gleefully, the many female-dominant species that are promiscuous and cunning in their sex lives. Take the female songbirds, long thought to be monogamous for life, who often slip away for a little extra sexual relations on the side before returning to the nest. They may be socially monogamous, but they seek out and enjoy the extra male attention.

    Why all this happens is still being debated, investigated and researched. It's a lot of work, and example of contradiction abound. For instance, chimps and bonobos, our closest primate evolutionary mates, are total opposites.

From the book: An image
of a female bonobo
in the throes of passion

    Chimps are male dominated, aggressive, and violent. Bonobos are female-led, aggressive only in sharing sexual activities -- they enjoy frottage as foreplay, for helping them reach decisions for the group, and as a social diversion -- and peaceful. (And yes, bonobos are believed to be one of several species in which females enjoy orgasms.)

    A few quibbles here: Cooke tends to repeat herself over the chapters. And sometimes, she provides too much information, such as telling us how she interviewed a scientist over Zoom or Skype, which honestly felt irrelevant. 

    But her research is impressive. After a book of 288 pages of heavy if enjoyable reading, she has 90 pages of acknowledgements, notes, and an index. There are also numerous footnotes in the text, and you should read them. How else would you learn that a 16th Century Catholic priest with the unlikely name of Gabriele Falloppio was the first to identify and describe the clitoris -- and invent the first prophylactic sheath to shield against syphilis?

    Cooke hopes her book's reception will lead to more research, more equality between the sexes in human culture, and a greater acceptance of gender fluidity, which is rampant in the natural world. The transitional anemonefish "rocked my world," she said in closing.

    Discovering that biological sex is, in truth, a spectrum and that all sexes are basically the products of the same genes, the same hormones, and the same brains, has been the greatest revelation of all. It's forced a shift in my perspective o recognize my own cultural biases and try to banish any lingering heteronormative assumptions about the relationship between sex, sexual identity, sexed behaviour and sexuality.

    All I can add is, #MeToo. 

Book Review: The Cat's Meow

 By Jonathan B. Losos

• Pub Date: 2023 

• Where I bought this book: Left Bank Books, Saint Louis, Mo. 

• Why I bought this book: The cover has a cat

*****

Asked to help me review this book, Callisto had but one word

    Cats are pretty much unchanged in the 20 million some years they've lived on earth.

    Plop an African wildcat down in your backyard, and you'd take her for your neighbor's cat or one of the community cats out for a stroll. The wildcat  -- from which  domestic cats evolved -- may be a bit bigger, with longer legs, and perhaps a bit more leery if you reached out to pet it. But that's it.

    Even through their 3,000 years hanging out with humans, cats have stayed the same. Perhaps they are a little friendlier, with humans and with each other. Other than that though, you'd have a hard time distinguishing them from their ancestors.

    They will easily revert to their feral ways if left alone -- and many modern cats are unhoused and wild, and scavenge our towns and cities for their food and reproductive needs. And cats are both fertile and promiscuous -- when a female is in heat, she will have a string of males lined up waiting for their turns. It's one of the few times male cats hang around with each other, and the females will take on all comers. It's not unusual for a litter of cats to have kittens with different fathers.

    So cats know how to reproduce, and this book explains it, sometimes to a fault. That's because the author is a evolutionary biologist (who normally studies lizards) and took up this study as a labor of love.

    But ...  

    Sometime he goes a bit overboard on the evolutionary science. And when he gets into the breeding section, it all starts to get a bit creepy. Humans have changed small, "domestic" cats more in the past 70 years than natural selection did in hundreds of thousands. And many of those changes seem to be for the vanity and whims of humans, and do more harm to the animals for the sake of a cuter cat.

    Take, for instance, the Persian or Siamese breeds, which no longer are recognizable.

... thanks to selective breeding, modern Siamese and Persian cats are unlike any feline species that have ever existed, either today or in the past. They are more different from each other than a lion is from a cheetah or a domestic cat.

    Indeed. Today, the vain include people who want to make a cat into a smaller version of the tiger. Getting the stripe pattern down is difficult, but they cross-breed various cats to get the look they want. They are not there yet, but they are trying. And Losos writes about them with scholarly disinterest.

   The failures are handled -- for instance, for the breed to be called the "toyger" -- rather obliquely, in a footnote at the bottom of page 222, quoting Darwin quoting Lord Rivers, who bred greyhounds back in the 18th Century: "I breed many, and hang many." That may not be happening, but let's not kid ourselves.

    Breeding cats for our pleasure is certainly not in the cats' best interests.

Book Review: The Light Pirate

•  Author: Lily Brooks-Dalton

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: My first daughter strongly recommended it. 

*******

   

    The story here is excellent -- futuristic fiction that is a cautionary tale of where society is headed, and in some cases, may already be.

    The characters, particularly the protagonist, Wanda, who we see grow from an infant to old age, are well drawn and realistic. Even the supporting roles, the minor characters who round out and give depth to the story, are whole people, even if we wish we could know more about them.

    But ... but ... but -- it does have some flaws. It gets to be, in certain places, just a wee bit more melodramatic than I care for. And the ominous narrator who appears at the end of some chapters to deliver a foreboding message is unnecessary, and quite frankly, a bit annoying.

    Still. 

    The book is set in a Florida where the effects of climate change are seen daily in the climbing temperatures, rising ocean levels, and raging storms. Indeed, the state is going under, both literally and figuratively. Infrastructure is disintegrating, and government, with no money and few people left, are being shut down. People are getting out. Miami has been abandoned. The small town of Rudder is breaking down as the gulf waters encroach on the land.

    Meanwhile, the Lowe family is also falling apart. Kirby, a lineman who is vainly trying to keep the lights on in and help save his hometown, is not dealing well with his pregnant wife, his two boys, and the oncoming Hurricane Wanda.

    Afterwards, we follow Wanda from her birth during the storm, as she grows up while Florida and the country fall apart around her. She is portrayed as a survivor who adapts to a different lifestyle than the one we know, but one that brings constant challenges and devastating losses. 

    She also has a special glow about her whenever she touches water -- again, both literally and figuratively. Whether it's science or magic -- and after all, isn't science just magic with an explanation -- is yet to be told.

    One of the messages that I -- an aging geezer who is set in his ways and dislikes change --got from the book is that I'm glad I have lived most of my life when I did. And I am sorry my generations really, truly, screwed things up.

Book Review: Gwendy's Final Task

 

•  Authors: Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio

• Why I bought this book: King is my favorite writer 

*******

    As the title hints, this is the final book in the Button Box trilogy. It's only the second I have read; I skipped the middle one because King wasn't involved.

 

    And make no mistake, this is a King story. I am not quite as familiar with Chizmar, but all the King trademarks are there: the strong if ordinary characters put in an extraordinary situation, the fate of good versus evil played out in the plot, and the references to the King universe -- including the city of Castle Rock, Maine, which plays a prominent role.  

    Heck, even the men in the yellow coats make an appearance.

    I don't think I missed anything in the second book because it's not a complicated story, and this one quickly brings you up to date.

    In short: When she was 12, a stranger gave Gwendy Peterson a special box to watch over. It looked like a normal box with buttons and switches, but it had extraordinary powers. In Book One, Gwendy's Button Box, she finds out what those powers can do.

    Now, U.S. Sen. Gwendy Peterson, D-Maine, a successful writer and politician, has another visit from Richard Farris. He again gives her the box, this time with another message: Get rid of it.

    How she does so -- and why some people are committed to stopping her and grabbing the box for themselves -- is her final task.

    The writing here is compelling, as it brings you into the story, easily explains what background is necessary for the tale, and gently carries you to the end. The characters are people we know, if a bit exaggerated  -- the good senator from Maine is a bit too thoughtful and concerned, and the businessman is so dramatically evil you expect him to wear a top hat and twirl his mustache.

    At times, the dues ex machina is flagrantly used, and the writers employ other tropes such as excessively helpful characters, to move the plot along. 

    It's a King-driven story, meaning that supernatural or superhelpful things happen at the right time. But it works. It's a good story, well told.

Book Review: The Three-Body Problem

• Author: Cixin Liu 

• Translator: Ken Liu

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio

• Why I bought this book: The title spoke to me, and in retrospect, the cover is cool

*****

     In the end, I think I'm just not smart enough to read this book.

   

    There is some serious science in here, and much of it is over my head, even though I have read and understand the concepts of astrophysics.

    My first concern was chapter 17, which described how a group without access to mechanical computation solved a complicated calculation by building a human computer. Literally. It used 30 million people to stand in for the inner workings: the hardware, the motherboard, and the other elements that mimicked the zero-one method of computer calculation. It sounds fascinating, but I'm not sure I understood how it happened.

    Then, in another section, it works on solving a problem by creating artificial intelligence, which in turn could force a proton to shrink from 11 dimensions to two -- and why three could not work. Again, a brilliant idea in theory, but far above my understanding.

    Like its science, the novel is complicated. It's difficult. It poses existential questions within a closed political system. 

    Now beware of this review. A spoiler alert is coming up. Fair warning -- even though it will be hidden, and you don't have to click on the link.

    Author Liu spends a lot of time introducing the characters and setting the scenes, in many different, confusing ways. The story is set in China, and we know something momentous is going to happen. Something, indeed, is happening, but we don't know what.

    The author -- and his excellent translator, who gives insight into the Chinese mindset at the time of the novel's setting -- provide us with a lot of hints. The three-body problem, perhaps, is a planet system with three stars, Or moons. Or planets. (Understanding how three bodies in space stay in a stable orbit is a pressing problem in physics.) Or it's about earth. Or it's a video games. Or it's aliens. War may be involved. Heck, even religion seems to come into play.

    OK. I can't resist. Spoiler alert    

    Meanwhile, deep in rural China, something else is going on. It's secret, and because we are in the period of the cultural revolution, it's a big secret that people will kill and die for. Or maybe they won't. Like I said, it's a secret.

    If this all sounds very confusing, that's because it is. Complicating matters is that the  characters are Chinese, with Chinese names and backstories. (For a native English reader, with a limited knowledge of the culture and history of China, it's difficult to relate to.) 

    And it jumps around in places and times. It doesn't tell a linear story. We learn about various characters over the spans of their lives.

    

    Still, once you start to figure out who is who and what may be going on, you'll find those characters are an interesting group, and their motives, once revealed, make sense. The story does come together with a (mostly) logical explanation in the end.

    But, of course, it is the first book in a trilogy. So my last question is whether I am smart enough -- or dumb enough -- to delve into the next two.

Book Review: Migrations

Migrations, by Charlotte McConaghy

    Franny Stone is forever seeking, searching, and surviving.

    The budding ornithologist is of Irish-Australian heritage, but she doesn't feel at home in either place. In fact, she rarely feels at home; she only is comfortable in or by the sea -- preferably alone, in the cold, deep ocean water.

    Set again the backdrop of an earth in the throes of a full-blown extinction crisis -- most land animals are gone, birds are disappearing, and the seas are being emptied of fish -- Migration follows Franny as she chases a flock of Arctic terns on perhaps its last migration. She tells us the terns are known for their record-shattering flights.

   That is true. The Arctic tern, a small bird about a foot long with a 2 1/2-foot wingspan, regularly travels the length of the Earth to its breeding grounds. They start up as far north as Greenland, and criss-cross down the Atlantic Ocean in a S-curve, thought to take advantage of the prevailing winds. They can travel some 44,000 miles on their journey. 

    Franny wants to follow them, and oddly, she persuades a fishing boat to take her. A vegetarian and conservationist, Franny dislikes fishermen, blaming them for the destruction of aquatic life. Her pairing up with them and their craggy captain, Ennis, is one of many contradictions in her life. 

    Others include her love for her husband as she always runs from him. She searches for her family, but shies away from releationships. She survives her own reckless life as she follows extinction.

    The story's main arc is the pursuit of the terns and the tale of  her voyage with the raggedy crew she meets and mostly befriends. But pierced throughout are flashbacks to other episodes in her life, which somewhat explain why she is always so antsy to leave those she loves. Some of those revelations can be startling -- those of the "Wait ... wait ... What?" variation. You find yourself re-reading certain passages just to ensure you understood it correctly.

    That is the allure of this sometimes depressing but mostly uplifting novel. It is stunningly beautiful in its story, in its descriptions, and in its warnings about how our actions are killing the planet. Franny is a wonderfully drawn character, with the flaws and fervor of the great heroes and wanderers in literature.

    It's more than a good read. It's a great read.

Book Review: Project Hail Mary

 Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir

    Weir's third book, like his first two -- The Martian and Artemis -- is quite good.

     But it's a bit over the top. It suffers from the lone white guy savior complex, turns into a buddy movie, and winds up as a lots-of-things-go-wrong-and-oh-no-how-will-we-fix-this-or-save-this-or-save-us-so-we-can-continue-on-our journey? thriller.

   

    OK. It's a lot over the top. But after you catch your breath and finish rolling your eyes, it's still a good read. The plot is compelling. The writing is superb. The dialogue is witty. The science, I am told, is spot on. (And it is. I think I understand time dilation now.)

    We first meet our intrepid hero, Dr. Ryland Grace, as he slowly awakens in a stupor, unaware of where he is or why. Gradually, he figures out he's in a spaceship in a planetary system that does not include earth -- the sun is similar, but not the same. And he's alone. His two  crewmates are dead.

     Uh-oh.

    We learn through his memory flashbacks what happened and why he is there. It seems that something is slowly dimming the Earth's sun, countering the effects of climate change, but then having the potential to bring on global cooling. Quickly. People will die. A lot of people will die. So the Earthlings try to fix it.

    A Dutch scientist, a woman by the name of  Eva Stratt, is put in charge and given ultimate power and authority. She's not afraid to use it. She is the buddy cop equivalent of the guy who doesn't follow the rules, because the rules were made to be broken -- or they don't apply to her. She's the ultimate libertarian, dedicated to her task and whip-smart.

    Her goal? Find a way to save humanity. Eventually, that means a trip to Tau Ceti, a solar system about 12 light years away, which seems to be the closest place humanity can go to find an answer to its existential problem. (It's also a common star system for science-fiction based travelers.) Scientists figure out a way to get there at nearly the speed of light, build a new spaceship for the trip, and blast off.

    We don't see all of this, but learn about it in the memory flashbacks. It's a decent way to round out the exposition phases and give some personality to the minor players. Stratt is a decent character, but eventually we get back to Dr. Grace. Somehow, the middle-school science teacher with a doctorate winds up as an astronaut on the trip. 

    He turns into the ultimate, if  reluctant hero; the clever man everyone admires. I hear tell  Ryan Gosling is going to play him in the movie. I don't know Gosling, but I'd bet he's young, handsome, self-deprecating, and white.

    There's another character in the book, who comes in later, and telling you more would be a major spoiler, so I won't reveal it. Suffice to say it adds a different dimension to the book, and gives Dr, Grace a separate, more personal reason -- instead of just trying to save humanity -- to figure everything out.

    So pick up Hail Mary. It's a fun read. 

Book Review: The End of Everything

The End of Everything, by Katie Mack

    If you learn just one thing about this book, it is this: Read the footnotes.

    Footnotes generally are boring, giving you a citation, notation, or annotation too dull or obscure for the text. Some readers skip them, viewing them as a way to shorten the page.

    But Mack's footnotes are as good as the main text. They are enlightening and witty. Miss one, and you'll miss a lot.

    Take, for instance, the way they liven up an early story she tells about the discovery that proved the existence of the cosmic microwave background. Briefly -- and I hope I get this right -- scientists were setting up an experiment with a microwave detector when they heard a strange humming noise. They could not figure out what it was, and took to blaming a nearby flock of pigeons. They tested that theory with another experiment.* 

    (*Footnote: Sadly, this line of questioning did not end well for the pigeons, who were innocent of all wrongdoing.)

    Eventually, this group of scientists unknowingly found proof of the cosmic microwave background, and won a Nobel Prize in 1978 for their work. Some 41 years later, she says, the goup that first theorized the existence of the background won a Nobel Prize for coming up with the idea.*

    (*Footnote: So maybe there is some justice in the end. Just not for the pigeons.)

     But of course, it's not just the footnotes that make this book such a good read -- it's her knowledge, presentation, and research skills. She is well versed in her subject of cosmology, and what she doesn't know, she counts on the work of those who came before her -- the legendary giants of the astrophysics world and their historic precepts.

    In this book, she sets out to explain how the universe will end. She gets into several theories of eschatology, and uses them to delve deeper into some of the more esoteric theories of physics and astronomy. It's a fun learning experience about the thought experiments and the larger concepts of where we live, how it came to be, and where it might end up.  

   

    And Mack explains it well. She is an excellent writer, and she has a knack for the perfect analogy or metaphor. Astrophysics has difficult concepts, but after reading this book I think I better understand things such as a singularity, the cosmic inflation, the expanding universe, and the fact that the observable universe is just a small part of the whole -- and why that is true.

    That all being said, I must say the book seems to slow down near the end. At some points, Mack turns philosophical, always a danger for a scientist. And she seems to turn from being the knowledgeable teacher to almost a journalist, talking to others and quoting their thoughts and ideas. It does add perspective, but it comes across as a little extra padding.

    But still, where else can you learn about the "quantum bubble of death," also known as vacuum decay,  which is one of the ways this whole universe could end? It's right there alongside the possibilities of the Big Rip and the Big Crunch.

    My preferred band name, however, will always be the Quantum Bubble of Death.

Book Review: The Hidden Reality

The Hidden Reality, by Brian Greene

I finished this book after about six years of on-and-off reading. Its difficult subject matter and the level of concentration required meant I could take it in only small doses. And that, of course, meant I often had to look back at previous explanations to understand the additional subject matter.

Oh yes, when I use the word "understand," I use it in the widest definition possible. Let's just say I have a nodding acquaintance with the topics. 

But Greene is an excellent writer and teacher. He uses strong yet simple metaphors to explain difficult concepts. He has helped me understand string theory -- to the point that I think I know what it is and how it works, although not enough to explain it to anyone else.

In this book, Greene reaches into whether multiple universes exist. Which, of course, gives lie to the term universe, but allows for some mind-boggling thoughts, ideas, and suppositions.

He dedicates chapters to how and why other universes might exist, sometimes right alongside ours, but in another dimension. There's the inflationary universe, which posits an eternity of Big Bangs --universes coming into being via a massive explosion of a tiny particle, expanding, then some of it shrinking back into another single particle before the entire exercise recurs.

He explains several others, deftly noting how some would prove string theory or black holes, or how some would mimic our universe, with only slight changes. He discusses whether  such universes would follow the same mathematical and physical rules as ours, and even goes so far to debate whether computers could form universes that would then create sentient beings. (Maybe ours is one?)

Greene says it is possible that quantum theory could explain multiple universes -- perhaps in the notion that every possible outcome has occurred somewhere in the infinite number of universes.   

These are universes we may never see because they are in different dimensions, or in a different fabric of time. It's unlikely we could ever prove their existence. This is a dilemma Greene acknowledges. 

"By invoking realms that may be forever beyond our ability to examine -- either with any degree of precision, or, in some cases , even at all -- multiverses seemingly erect substantial barriers to scientific knowledge. ... More distressing is that by invoking a multiverse, we enter the domain of theories that can't be tested."

With this, sometimes the theories in the book seem to swing away from science and more into theology and speculation. Sometimes, the ideas become so complicated that only a select few could  understand -- after all, few of us are Einstein.

But Greene says the answer is to follow the math. Take it as far as it can go, then keep going. He said past scientists who doubted their math -- even Einstein -- committed errors because of it. Those who trusted their math -- again, Einstein and others -- reached great heights because of it.

Believe in math's properties, and believe where it takes you, Greene says, even if those places are remote and temporarily inaccessible. Then let it take you beyond that realm, with the underlying goal to expand the knowledge of who we are and where we live.

Book Review: Middlegame

Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire

At the start of this strange and wonderful book, Roger Middleton, then a young boy who already is a language expert, refers to the word play in a novel as a "meet-a-for." He explains to his new friend, "It's using a thing that's not true to talk about things that are."

Such is a good description for this novel, a combination of science fiction, fantasy, and perhaps a bit of horror thrown in. It also alludes to a vast array of myths, legends, literature, and science, from the Wizard of Oz to quantum entanglement.

The premise of the book is complicated. A fellow by the name of James Reed -- who leads a band of modern alchemists -- wants to bring out the humanity of something called he Doctrine. What the Doctrine is, or is meant to be, is unclear, although it appears to be a perfection of society.

But in bringing it about, Reed needs a perfect pair of siblings. So he creates several sets of twins, then splits them apart. And by create, I mean literally -- he takes parts of various people to form another human. By doing this, he hopes the twins will manifest into one, and become the embodiment of the doctrine.

One of the twins, in this case, Roger, is a language expert. The second -- Dodger Cheswich -- is a math wizard. (And yes, the names of the twins, dubbed as "cuckoos," always rhyme. Almost.) Together, they represent order and chaos.

The math children will die to defend the language children. Many of them have. Most of them will have no capacity for defending themselves. It isn't part of what they are made of -- and Leigh knows very well what they're made of. She was one of the people who did the making, after all.

McGuire, who sadly was unknown to me before this book,  has had a long and varied career as a writer, artist, and singer. She puts it all to use here.

Often, I found that she mimics the best of Stephen King, one of my favorite authors. This is neither a knock or a comparison. But what I like about King, I enjoyed about this book. McGuire creates a few, solid major characters who are unique and well developed. These characters are the sun of the story, the epicenter of which the rest of the system revolves.

She also describes various secondary and tertiary characters, who despite their lesser story arcs are well defined, complete, and fulfill their roles as either good and evil -- or possibly both, and sometimes changing between the two. Other times, a character is introduced to set part of the story in motion, but she is also given a full life and description.

McGuire is clearly a star in her own right, and an author who I plan to read more of going forward.

Book Review: Icarus

Icarus at the Edge of Time, by Brian Greene

One of my favorite science writers -- a guy who has helped me (somewhat) understand string theory and quantum particles -- has written this gem of a children's book. The wonderful pictures come from NASA.

Of course, he wrote it and I bought it 11 years ago, long after the time it would have been age-appropriate for my girls. But the story intrigued me. This week, I decided to read it again.

It was worth it. 

I've always loved the myth of Icarus. It shows how the hubris of man can be devastating. Hubris lets one live and exceed a dream, but cautions against going too far. It skirts the edge of urging one to stop short of perfection, but warns about the harms that can be caused by going beyond what is meant to be. It says just because we can do something -- or can strive to do something -- doesn't mean it's always best to actually do it. 

"Do you know what Angelica said

"When she heard what you've done?

"She said,

"'You've married an Icarus

"'He has flown too close to the sun.'"

                                     Eliza Hamilton
      Hamilton: An American Musical

In Greene's book, instead of flying too close to the sun, Icarus flies too close to a black hole, forgetting how time slows down near the event horizon. The result shows what hubris has cost this futuristic Icarus, along with showing us how correct Einstein was when he wrote about time and space more than 100 years ago.

It's a brilliant book that showcases a brilliant mind -- in a way that young and old alike can appreciate and understand. And the pictures are extraordinary.

Book Review: The Bees

The Bees, by Laline Paull

In the grand literary tradition of animals taking on human characteristics, Paull has given us a hive of honeybees that are feminist, pro-labor, and loyal. She uses them to tell a tale of love, life, hope, and commitment.

She hits the mark several times over.

The Bees gives us Flora 717, your basic worker bee. She's born to clean up after the other bees, and she does it so well that she uncharacteristically gets a chance to see other parts of the hive -- the egg-delivery rooms, the nurseries, even the queen's lair. But while she stays true to her kin, she does find that she enjoys -- and is really good at -- foraging for pollen and other bee-foods. It's a top hive job. Still, a key element of Flora is that in time or crisis, pain, or adversity, she returns to her kin, working quietly and unobtrusively among them, and proudly standing by their side.

As the books goes on, she also finds something else unusual about herself, but that borders on a spoiler, so you'll have to read the book to find out.

And you should. It's an enjoyable, well-written book. Her descriptions of bee behavior are accurate -- as they should be, seeing that she credits one of the world's premiere entomologists, E.O. Wilson, as an adviser. Bees are clearly a matriarchal society; she even portrays the male drones as exhibiting the behaviour of drunken frat rats. But as will be seen, #notalldrones.

She does take some literary license -- giving the bees speech, a level of sentience that nears anthropological to the extreme, and human thoughts and feelings. All that is fine: It gives us the opportunity to be like the bees, as much as she portrays the bees as being like us.

For instance, Paull's description of the forager bees waiting for the rain to clear so they can take flight is amazingly similar to my feelings as a runner when the weather refuses to cooperate with my running plans. The bees' returning after a long day gathering pollen matches that of a runner after a grueling marathon:

          "It was all (she) could do to latch her wings, then take herself to the canteen and eat whatever was put in front of her. She sat at the foragers' table and drew comfort from their presence, and now she understood why they did not speak, for it was not possible to do anything more than eat, drink cool water ... and find a place to rest. ... She took herself to a dormitory and collapsed."

Hive behavior also borders on the religious. The motto is: "Accept. Obey. Serve." The ceremony and language of Catholicism comes into play. Consider the hive's prayer to the queen: "Blessed be the sisters/ Who take away our sin/ Our mother, who art in labor/ Hallowed be Thy womb."

This book is about bees, but more than that: It's about us. It's about our caste system, and how we are, for the most part, locked into a caste at birth and struggling mightily to improve. It's about how we can be held back not only by those above us, but by those who are our own kin.

It's also about how we can break out of that caste and fly freely.

Book Review: Unsheltered

Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver

A lovely book by a lovely writer.

Kingsolver melds past and present into a sentimental yet unsparing tale, exploring how our present  determines our future and influences interpretations of the past. It's based partly on a real-life place, Vineland, N.J. -- founded as a temperance town by Charles Landis -- and uses historical figures from the area along with fictional characters, to construct a tale of how the foundation of a life can collapse like the foundation of a home.

She does so by juxtaposing the lives and experiences of families living in the same houses as unknown families from 150 years ago. Both families have similar experiences -- with life, with family, with friendships, and with their homes literally falling down around them. They deal with similar political problems of the larger world: Men who want to control their thoughts and actions by stoking fear and resentment, and promising to fix their concerns by shutting out those who think and act differently.

It centers around Willa Knox, a middle-aged woman who appears to be very much like I imagine Kingsolver to be. Knox's life has not turned out as she hoped and expected. She and her husband, Iano, after chasing dream jobs their entire lives, take residence in a dilapidated home inherited from her relatives. The family includes their grown children, daughter Tig, a free-spirited millennial who dislikes and refuses to participate in the current consumer culture, and Zeke, a son who is determined to both reform and take advantage of that culture.

Meanwhile, 150 years ago, Thatcher Greenwood is trying to begin a family life under stress. He has married above himself, and even with the advantage of an inherited house, he struggles to properly provide for his wife and desired family. His life is complicated by his job as a science teacher at a nearby school, run by a man who sees Greenwood's insistence to teach about Darwin and the natural world as being unnatural and against his (and god's) wishes.

Greenwood befriends a neighbor, Mary Treat, a real-life scientist who corresponds with Darwin, and despite the prevailing culture, lives and works as a botanist. He also strikes up a friendship with Uri Carruth, who publishes a newspaper at odds with the town's benefactor and founder.

As the story develops, Knox is trying to rebuild her family's lives, and discover what, if any, connection she has with Treat, Greenwood, or Landis. In her literate prose, with a gift for the narrative of empathy and understanding, Kingsolver touches on what moves us all -- our family, our homes, our beliefs, and our hopes for the futures.

Book Review: Artemis

Artemis, by Andy Weir

I really wanted to like this book -- it's written by the same guy who wrote The Martian, a brilliant novel of science and space. But this time, the setting is in the first colony on the moon, where people live in bubbles built into the dirt near the Apollo landing.

The name of the colony is Artemis -- goddess of the moon and sister to Apollo -- so it fits right into the mythology.

Weir's second novel has some of the same attributes as his first. It's well written; the science is explained well and correctly, without being overbearing, and it has several strong and diverse characters, including the lead -- a woman of color who is young, resilient, and stunningly real. Weir sets up a recognizable, yet unique, lunar culture, society, and economy.

But the book has problems. And those result from the story, which mutates from a wondrous start into a average, normal, and typical (three words meaning the same thing) tale of crime and adventure. Sure, it's enough to keep you reading, but if the novel wasn't set on the moon, it would be a lot less compelling.

Weir introduces us to Jazz, a young woman from Saudi Arabia who grew up mostly on the moon, and considers it her home. She enjoys the freedom she has, but dreams of becoming wealthy in the free-for-all that is the lunar economy. When we meet her, however, she is a poor, petty criminal with lots of intelligence and flaws. Her desire to move ahead often is thwarted by her penchant to break the rules and flout authority.

She soon meets up a customer from her smuggling business -- like Red in  Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, she's the one who can get you anything -- who is one of the wealthiest men on the moon. He has a proposition for her that could help her achieve her dreams. Of course, it's illegal -- that is, if Artemis had an enforceable legal code.

It's here where the book gets more into its action-adventure mode. But the moon is the star, and the story, while tedious in parts, remains readable.

Book Review: Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs

Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe, by Lisa Randall

If I have this right, this is what this book proposes:

Dark matter, which we know is out there but cannot see, includes some particles that interact, however weakly, with each other. They also might interact with particles included in regular matter. (These particles are called weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. And you think scientists don't have a sense of humor.)

Assuming these dark matter particles interact with regular matter particles, the interactions are really, really small. So small they cannot be measured except on a galactic scale, and even then, only with precise equipment studied by people who know what they are looking for and what they are doing.

Further assuming these particles interact, they could possibly form a small, flat, dark matter disk in the center of the Milky Way. This disk, which remains theoretical, could then interact, however weakly, with our solar system as it revolves through and around the Milky Way. Over a period of years -- again we are talking large scale, so it's over millions of years -- the dark matter disk causes a wobble in the Oort Cloud, which circles around the outer edge of our solar system. That wobble may knock material out of its orbit, pushing it into the sun's gravitational pull, where it heads toward the earth.

Theoretically, this should happen every 30 million to 35 million years or so -- let's put it approximately at every 33 million years. It could be happening now.

Which means that sometime around, say, 66 million years ago, that dark-matter-caused wobble sent some Oort Cloud matter hurtling toward the sun, and such matter struck earth, causing the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, which snuffed out the life of 75 percent of the earth's plants and animals, including -- you guessed it -- the dinosaurs.

Or, to put it in haiku form:

WIMPs in dark matter

Thin disk in Milky Way, then:
Dino extinction

See how all this is connected? At least, it is in theory. And this is what Dr. Randall explains in her well-written and intriguing book. And she explains the science far, far better than I do.

If this kind of stuff interests you, and you want to know more, go out and buy the book.

Book Review: Grunt

Grunt, The Curious Science of  Humans at War, by Mary Roach

Mary Roach has a talent for finding the seemingly mundane and turning it into bizarre and fascinating reading. As in Bonk (science and sex), Packing for Mars (science and space), and Stiff  (science and dead bodies), where Roach looked at various aspects of the topics, here she researches how noise, dirt, bomb blasts, and water -- among other things -- affects war planning and the people who fight wars.


The book also has chapters on groin injuries and penile surgery. If you are squeamish like me, you can skip these. I did. But if you're interested, go ahead.


In tackling these issues, Roach does so in a wonderful style -- simultaneously lighthearted and thoughtful. As she says at one point, she takes her work seriously, but herself? Not so much.


But this is a wonderful book. Her observations are witty, sometimes irreverent, even snarky. But her science is sound, her research -- both scientific and historical -- extensive, and her writing grand. Her anecdotes and history of events are compelling and to the point. Her descriptions of people are wonderful and spot-on.

For instance, here is how she describes Craig Blasingame, who works in noise research: "... a former Marine with a wide superhero jaw and muscles so big that when he walks in front of the slide projector, entire images can be viewed on his forearm. Though it's ten in the morning, Craig has a five o'clock shadow."

Yeah. She is that good.

Watching the Eclipse

I lay on the bench beside a pond in a suburban Nashville park. Beside me, the ducks were preening and cleaning their feathers.

I watched as the sun disappeared behind the moon. With my special eclipse glasses, I could see nothing else in the dark sky. The effect was weirdly two-dimensional: The moon, appearing as a black disc, slowly covered up the sun's white-disc appearance, and now, a thin crescent remained. The rest of the sky was a deep gray.

Then everything disappeared.

I took off my glasses and looked up. Two minutes before totality, a cloud had covered the sun and the moon.

But the good news was that it was a single, fluffy cloud crossing an otherwise clear sky. And the park had lots of open ground, so moving uphill a few yards was enough to find a clear spot to view the sun and the moon. I put on my glasses, lay down, and looked up.

I found what I was there for, as the moon's disc now covered most of the sun, which now looked like a crescent sun. Only a small sliver of the sun showed behind the moon. Slowly, that crescent grew thinner and thinner, then became a small white dot. Presently, the dot vanished.

I removed my glasses. What I saw brought on a feeling of awe, and a wide grin, as my exclamations of joy joined those of my fellow eclipse watchers. The dark, almost night sky. The birds flying across the sky, seeming confused. The deep dark black of the moon. The dazzling white corona of the sun, flickering and flashing and showing itself around the rim of the moon. It was spectacular, a sight worth traveling hundreds of miles to see.

(By the way, the photos are from the NASA site.)