James McCormick

Book Review — Marchant, Decoding the Heavens

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Marchant, Jo, Decoding the Heavens: A 2,000-Year-Old Computer–and the Century-Long Search to Discover Its Secrets, Da Capo Press, 2009, 328 pp.

Defining the Word “Anachronism”

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the sponge divers of Greece lived through a technical revolution … the appearance of the diving helmet. After many centuries of free diving to harvest local sponges, the new equipment suddenly allowed access to much more of the Mediterranean sea floor and previously unexploited sponge beds. The industry boomed. Inadvertently, the diving helmet also led to the discovery of a shipwreck off the coast of the small island of Antikythera. Amidst the spectacular bronze and marble statues at the wreck site was a strange lunch box-sized lump, covered in a limestone coating from centuries of immersion and distorted by the effects of decomposition and corrosion. Here and there were visible bits of wood and corroded bronze, faint inscriptions of ancient Greek and what appeared to be thin loops or gears.

Compared to the glamorous artworks it was found with, the “lump” was rather unprepossessing and, indeed, it spent most of the 20th century in obscurity. Not knowing what it was, the curators made little effort to preserve the object, and increasingly, it broke into a more and more fragments in the storage rooms of the Athens’ National Archaeological Museum. The early 20th century descriptions made their way into the hands of a physicist and historian of science named Derek De Solla Price. In the 1950s, he made serious efforts to fully explain what it was, culminating in a 1974 book Gears From the Greeks. And it was partly through his efforts that people as diverse as Arthur C. Clarke, Jacques Cousteau, and Richard Feynman took an interest in the enigmatic archaeological find.

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Stephenson — Anathem (A Review)

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Stephenson, Neal, Anathem, William Morrow, 2008, 937 pp.

Author Neal Stephenson has forged a substantial body of fiction in the last 15 years by combining elaborate narratives and witty, humourous dialogue with a more serious consideration of scientific and philosophical issues. Having covered nanotechnology, cryptography, and the early stirrings of Newtonian science in his more recent books, Stephenson turns now to cosmology and the nature of human consciousness in Anathem. The biggest of big pictures.

Set thousands of years in the future, Anathem is an adventure story that fits perfectly into the science fiction genre. The conflict between science and culture has led to intermittent but repeated civil conflicts, resolved finally by isolating the scientific and mathematic minds into the equivalent of walled medieval cloisters (maths). Outside the walls society waxes and wanes, prospers and collapses, while inside the walls the life of the mind continues, year after year. Comparisons with the famous 50s science fiction novel A Canticle for Leibowitz are inevitable.

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Get a Jump on Christmas! – Put Michael Yon in a Soldier’s Stocking

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Just a note that combat blogger Michael Yon has made arrangements with his publisher to offer his book Moment of Truth: How a New ‘Greatest Generation’ of American Soldiers is Turning Defeat and Disaster into Victory and Hope free of charge to soldiers through the Soldier’s Angels organization.

You can purchase Michael Yon’s book online, directly from the publisher, and the copies will be given to soldiers as a gift. It’s hard to imagine a book that would be better received and more thought-provoking for soldiers in the field. Michael Yon is one of the few voices committed to putting in the time to learn what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, supported only by citizen-contributors.

To quote Michael:

This project is dependent entirely upon private donations. Without your help, it won’t happen. For folks who wish to put one book in the hands of a soldier, it’s just $10. For five books, it’s just $40. Ten copies are $75. A donation of $150 will put a copy of Moment of Truth in Iraq in the hands of 30 American soldiers; that’s just $5 a book.

As a Canadian who’s donated to Michael’s efforts directly in the past, I’m particularly appreciative of the fact that he’s starting to report on the efforts of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. Those guys are getting far too little credit for their courage and skill over the last seven years (Canadian special forces and snipers were engaged since the beginning). In any event, I’m hoping that Michael gets a chance to interact with the Canadian troops as he did with the Brits in Basra. Their story needs telling.

And in the wider context, putting an exciting insightful book on Iraq into the hands of a soldier for Christmas, seems like a really good idea. I’ve chipped in $150 from the Great Non-White (just yet) North.

For the direct publisher link, please go here.

UPDATE (for commenter Seerov): Great White North is a term of endearment used by Canadians for their country, first appearing in a skit on the comedy program SCTV. It refers to snow. Being as it’s early September in Alberta, we have snow on the tops of the Rockies, but not “just yet” in the foothills … not yet, but soon.

Sykes — Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots …

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Sykes, Bryan, Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland, Norton: New York, 2006. 306 pp. [published as The Blood of the Isles in the UK]

Oxford University professor of human genetics, Bryan Sykes, follows up his best-selling popular books on recent European DNA studies with a book specifically about the “Isles” — England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Casting a wide but useful net, he provides a grounding not only in the geography, climate history and human prehistory of the two islands … but describes the mythology about, and early scientific investigations into, the origins of the people there. These are far from just academic preoccupations. In past centuries, English kings made their claims for sovereignty based on tales of Trojan settlers and Arthurian prowess. Every medieval commentary and discovery was followed with intense royal interest. Well into the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the rights of kings were linked to ancient origins. Not surprisingly, later Victorian efforts at phrenological and morphological interpretation of the island’s peoples (the shape of their skulls and features of their bodies) comes in for some hard knocks in this book. But Sykes gives those pioneer scientists full points for effort, thoroughness, and a methodical approach. Their efforts might now be dashed upon the rocks of genetic information, but their tables, charts, line drawings and descriptions of hair colour, skin tone, and body shape across the British Isles reflect the sincere interest of generations past, attempting to answer the question “who are we?”. In many ways, Professor Sykes continues their efforts.

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Gawande — Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance

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Gawande, Atul, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, Henry Holt & Co., New York, 2007. 273 pp.

Several years ago, Dr. Gawande published a best-selling book on his experiences as a young surgeon called Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science. In the intervening years, he’s written a number of elegant essays on medical topics for the New Yorker while maintaining a surgical practice at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. In a further embarrassment of talent, he was a MacArthur Fellow in 2006 and now also teaches at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School for Public Health.

Notably, he’s a rare voice of humility amongst his profession in reflecting on the day-to-day practice of medicine. Not just on the larger issues of “what we don’t know” or “what we can’t do” but on the oft-overlooked issues of “what we do poorly, every day, merely out of habit.” That honesty adds particular strength to his writing. In his latest book, he’s assembled his essay-chapters into three larger themes (diligence, doing right, ingenuity) all tied around his reflections on how he wants to improve his own practice as a doctor.

The results are fascinating. As befits a writer for the New Yorker, Gawande makes good use of anecdote and the background research for each topic covered. He writes well and writes for a general audience. A few months ago I listened to a podcast interview with the author and he mentioned that it’s a real struggle for him to get writing done because of his professional obligations. To some extent, that time limitation is reflected in this book. The subject area, improving individual doctor performance, could cover a lot of ground. Gawande doesn’t pretend to do so exhaustively. Instead, we have a series of vignettes on the limitations and successes of medical practice. For any reader interested in a particular chapter’s topic, the results are excellent. Those interested in the “gaps” between chapters may need to head for the academic literature and something closer to a textbook. More’s the pity.

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