Customer Reviews:
A bio-paean to one of America's greatest giants.......2006-05-20
Linus Pauling was indisputably one of the greatest Americans of the last century. He revolutionized chemistry, helped to start biochemistry, was a well-known political activist, and later put his energies into health science research. For these accomplishments, he became the only person to win two unshared Nobel prizes. There are, indeed, those who claim that he was very close to being the first person to determine the structure of DNA, but did not do so because he was unable to attend a crucial meeting, at which some pivotal discoveries about DNA were reported. The two scientists who did discover the structure of DNA were, of course, rewarded with the Nobel Prize.
Any biography of such a prodigy must suffer under the dearth of biographers able to do their subject justice. Hager, who knew Pauling before his death, has done a very good job of making Pauling come to life; the book, which bears close reading, is easily worth five stars.
Nevertheless it has a few deficiencies. One is that Hager barely explains Pauling's scientific accomplishments. Obviously excessive detail is beyond the scope of the book, but a hundred or so pages devoted to the basic concepts and the ramifications of Pauling's work would have made for a vastly more interesting book. Hager, as is to be expected of one of Pauling's friends, is somewhat protective of Pauling. He describes how Pauling repeatedly made fools of many American "Anti-communists" who were, at times, paranoid and ignorant, at times, vindictive, and, at times, outright liars. The climate of "loyalty oaths" and of various government agencies suspecting anyone who had ever had anything to do with anyone under suspicion was chilling.
And yet Hager doesn't adequately describe the other side of the coin. The United States certainly had warts, but he utterly neglects the Soviet Union's abject disregard for human rights, its forced labor camps, and its many other flaws. Neither does Communist China's self-genocidal Cultural Revolution merit a single mention, not even when Hager describes Pauling's controversial visit to the Chinese attempt to create a "Worker's Paradise." Pauling, who was drawn into the demimonde of fringe left-wing politics, and Utopian political ideas by his wife, appears to have been completely oblivious to these unpleasant realities. By neglecting to duly describe these rather poor judgments on Pauling's part, which did so much to discredit him, Hager doesn't portray Pauling as the political knight errant he so clearly was. All the same, this biography is well worth reading.
Force of science and humanity.......2005-03-24
There are very few scientists in history who can truly be called 'giants'. Two times Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling was undoubtedly one of them, and also a great humanitarian. In this biography, Thomas Hager brings a fine perspective to the life of this remarkable man.
Hager puts every part of Pauling's life and science in the spotlight; growing up in Oregon among difficult times without a father, attending college and university through sheer grit and determination, learning the new sciences of x-ray crystallography and quantum mechanics, and finally applying this knowledge to an amazing array of fields in chemistry, physics, biology and medicine, in the process becoming one of the greatest scientists of the century.
Pauling's life can really be divided into two parts, both of which Hager discusses in detail. In the first part, he became the foremost chemist in the world and made contributions to an almost unbelievable variety of topics; the chemical bond and quantum chemistry, inorganic and organic chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology, and medical research. In at least two of these, quantum chemistry and molecular biology, he became their founding father in the true sense of the term.
In the second part of his life, Pauling became a great humanitarian, relentlessly protesting against nuclear testing in the face of great troubles brought about by McCarthysm and the Cold War. After World War 2, Pauling's life was a constant struggle as he waged war against nuclear weapons, was accused of having Communist sympathies and denied a passport for travelling to England by the State Department (thus possibly missing out on winning the race to discover the DNA structure), and had to leave his beloved Caltech of many years because of tensions between himself and the administration. When he received the Nobel Peace prize, a prominent newspaper called it 'a weird insult from Sweden'.
In spite of all this, Pauling still found time to make the great discovery of protein structure, and make decisive contributions to molecular biology and medicine. He was the first person to describe a genetically inherited disease, sickle cell anemia, in molecular terms. This is one of the harbingers of the modern age of drug discovery and gene-therapy. Hager portrays both Pauling's scientific as well as political crusades in an excellent way. He also manages to put the man in context, and discusses the general changing political and scientific scenario of Pauling's times. This includes the beginning of 'big science', the permanent moulding of science and politics, and the coming of age of American academia and industry.
In later years, Pauling was even more bitterly criticized for his espousal of unorthodox ideas in nutrition and medicine (especially his insistence about the benefits of unusually large doses of Vitamin C as a puported cure for almost everything, from the common cold to cancer). However, the last words on his medical theories has not yet been said and research continues.
From very early on in all of Pauling's endeavors, he was constantly supported by an extraordinary woman; his wife, Ava Helen, and Hager very rightly gives due and important attention to her in this book; many times, the essential strong and silent women behind the men are forgotten and fortunately Hager does not do this.
There are many biographies of Pauling ( the ones by Serafini, Goertzel and Mead being the main ones). In its scope and comprehensivenes, Hager's is probably the best. All in all, a great read about a truly important scientist-citizen of the last century
Pauling's Life?.......2003-11-20
The Hager book is not bad at all, though I would not rank it above the Serafini book. Probably the motivation for saying this is that there is less of Pauling's science in the Serafini book and more in Hager's book. However, many reviewers miss the point that the purpose of a biography is to delve into a subject's life and personality -- not the details of his work. And, in any case, Pauling stopped doing any serious science before the 60's began and in fact left Caltech near the beginning of that decade, thereafter devoting his life mainly to silly peace crusades, vitamin C hokum and such things. So in this respect the Serafini book is actually more in proportion to Pauling's serious work in science and does a fairly good job. In this respect also, the Goertzel book in my view also does well, although the latter is a bit too "psychoanalytical" for my taste .
correction.......2003-06-17
Editor: I wrote one of the reviews of this book already included on your website. But there was a typo in my original version. I wrote "21st century" when I obviously meant "20th century" in describing the century in which Linus Pauling lived. Do you think you could correct this typo? Thanks.
William Ott
Montgomery Village, MD
If you liked the movie, Forest Gump, you'll love this.......2003-05-06
Linus Pauling loved America. Born in the USA in 1901, of humble, working parents, he was a winner of two Nobel Prizes and a witness and participant in almost all the grand events of the 21st century: the discovery of quantum physics, the gradual understanding of how chemistry works, the discovery of DNA, the development of the atomic bomb, two world wars, the cold war and McCarthyism, the emergence of big science and super-universities like Cal Tech, and the social activism of the 60s. Pauling, like the fictional character, Forest Gump, had a remarkable life in which he encountered and influenced almost all the major characters of 21st century science, politics, and society. A loving husband and father, Pauling was devoted to his wife of 60 plus years, which provides another fascinating undercurrent to his life. This is one book I was sorry to have finished -- I found it relaxing AND educational. Author Tom Hager has an enviable ability to explain complex, scientific concepts in everyday language, whether they come from the world of physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, or drug development. He expertly weaves the science in with the modern history of our country, from life in rural Oregon where Pauling was born and raised, to the capitals of the world where he influenced presidents and national leaders, to Hollywood and university campuses where his gregarious, fun-loving personality, communication ability, and liberal politics turned him into a media darling. With short, snappy chapters, this book is hard to put down.......
Average customer rating:
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Force of Nature : the life of Linus Pauling - Parts 1 AND 2
Thomas Hager
Manufacturer: Books On Tape
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
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ASIN: B000NJY2OS |
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Parts 1 and 2 (the entire book). Unabridged. 20 audio cassettes. The life of Linus Pauling, distinguished scientist, committed activist, and dual Nobel Prize winner.
Book Description
The birth control crusader, feminist, and reformer Margaret Sanger was one of the most controversial and dynamic figures of the twentieth century.
Volume 2 chronicles Sanger’s efforts during the Depression years to legalize contraception. These significant and engaging letters and writings, constructed to be read as biography, tell the story of Sanger’s frank discussion of birth control before an uneasy Congress, her quest for a judicial test case, and her ongoing public relations campaign in the face of powerful opposition from the Catholic Church, to convince Americans about the benefits of birth control.
Volume 2 also documents Sanger’s complicated personal life, her unstable marriage, loss of wealth, and love affairs in middle age. Required reading for anyone interested in the emergence of planned parenthood and the life of its extraordinary leader.
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Persons and Values: Selected Papers Volume II (J.L. Mackie, Vol 2)
J. L. Mackie
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0198246781 |
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This collection of John Mackie's papers on personal identity and topics in moral and political philosophy, some of which have not previously been published, deal with such issues as: multiple personality; the transcendental "I"; responsibility and language; aesthetic judgements; Sidgwick's
pessimism; act-utiliarianism; right-based moral theories; cooperation, competition, and moral philosophy; universalization; rights, utility, and external costs; norms and dilemmas; Parfit's population paradox; and the combination of partially-ordered preferences.
Book Description
Volume 2, dedicated to Barry Hawthorne, presents papers concerned with the genesis of eclogites, the mineralogy of diamond and its inclusions, exploration methods for kimberlite, the geochemistry of the upper mantle and the character of cratons.
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Collected Papers. Volume 1: Quantum Field Theory and Statistical Mechanics. Expositions. Volume 2: Constructive Quantum Field Theory; Selected Papers. TWO VOLUMES
James Glimm , and
Arthur Jaffe
Manufacturer: Birkhäuser Boston
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ASIN: 0817632735 |
Average customer rating:
- Very well written
- Relativity in the style of Feynman's Lectures
- subtle approach to SR and GR
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Essential Relativity: Special, General, and Cosmological (Theoretical and Mathematical Physics)
W. Rindler
Manufacturer: Springer
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The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next
ASIN: 354007970X |
Customer Reviews:
Very well written.......2002-02-16
As a modern textbook in the theory of relativity, this book is rare, in that its goal is to give the reader a conceptual introduction to the theory, and not just mathematical formalism. The author also does not hesitate to include some philosophical argumentation wherever needed. It is written for the advanced undergraduate, and will prepare such a reader for more advanced reading in the subject.
The first chapter of the book is the best, for it is a comprehensive discussion of the origins of the theory of relativity as one that rejected the assertion that space and time were absolute. The author also gives an interesting historical discussion of Lorentz's ether theory, wherein Lorentz hypothesized that bodies moving through the ether undergo a contraction, and he discovered a time transformation that implied that clocks moving through the ether run slow. As the author points out, Lorentz thought such considerations were purely mathematical, and not important physically. In addition, in the section on Mach's principle, the author discusses briefly the work of Dennis Sciama who showed that the 1872 gravitational theory of F. Tisserand included Mach's principle. I was not aware of this work, and it motivated me to do further reading on the subject. The author also gives several examples to show that Mach's principle is not physically vacuous, but has observational consequences.
Chapter two overviews the kinematic consequences of the special theory of relativity. The most interesting part of this discussion was the section on the formulation of special relativity without assuming the invariance of the speed of light. The author shows that the principle of relativity implies that either all inertial frames are related by Galilean transformations, or all are related by Lorentz transformations with the same (postive) velocity (squared).
A discussion of optical effects follows in chapter 3. One unexpected and interesting result in this chapter is that a moving sphere has a circular outline to all observers because of length contraction.
Some of the mathematical formalism needed in special relativity is overviewed in chapter four. The class of four-vectors and four-tensors is defined, and the light cone geometry discussed in detail.
The relativistic mechanics of point particles is covered in chapter five. Such a theory is cast in the language of four-vectors, and the author explains nicely the mass-energy equivalence, analyzes scattering from a relativistic standpoint in the center of momentum frame, and shows how Newtonian mechanics is altered in the relativistic realm. He also spends a little time on relativistic continuum mechanics, via the energy tensor of the simplest continua: dust.
The connection between relativity and electrodynamics is outlined in chapter six. The material is standard and found in most books on relativity.
The author begins the study of general relativity in chapter seven with some elementary considerations of the differential geometry of curved surfaces and also Riemannian spaces. The author endeavors, rightfully, to explain the mathematics in a way that is intuitive as possible, rather than hitting the reader with highly abstract formalism.
He then presents the mathematica foundations of general relativity in chapter eight. After a brief review of tensor calculus, the author considers the gravitational field equations in a vacuum, emphasizing their nonlinearity. This is followed by a detailed discussion of the famous Schwarzschild solution. In addition, he considers a particular exact solution of the Einstein field equations in a vacuum, namely a plane-fronted gravitational wave. Although not physical, this solution illustrates some important properties of general gravitational radiation.
The author ends the book with a fairly detailed overview of cosmology. The difficulties in the pre-relativistic cosmology are discussed, one of the more interesting being the consideration of the Newtonian gravitational field inside a cavity resulting from the removal of a finite sphere from a static universe. Recognizing that Poisson's equation does not have a constant solution led to the alteration of the Newtonian potential and thus a modification of the Poisson equation. As the author observes, this move to get a static Newtonian universe is formally the same as what Einstein did via the introduction of the cosmological constant in his field equations (also to get a static universe). The author also considers the Robertson-Walker, Milne, and Friedman universe, and compares these to what is known observationally.
Relativity in the style of Feynman's Lectures.......1998-07-19
This is a wonderful book, very amusing and thought provoking. Without trying to be comprehensive, it sheds much light on the basics of the theory, as well as of the mathematics. His discussion of Mach's principle is brilliant, and ends with a proposal of an experiment to test it with satellites! Very good at computations too, boasting tables for computing the curvature tensor from the metric tensor which are very useful.
subtle approach to SR and GR.......1997-07-15
Although not the most comprehesive text on
the subject (see Thorne's tome, Gravitation),
Essential Relativity is perhaps the most
fulfilling book from which to learn both special and general relativity on a graduate school level.
Flipping through the pages, one cannot help
but notice that it often reads like a novel.
For the student or the adventurous, a wide
variety of problems are found in an appendix.
The author's background in differential geometry
is very evident in his excellent explanations
of difficult concepts.
Average customer rating:
- Excellent.
- Happy Confusion
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Finish High School at Home
Charles Clark
Manufacturer: Writers Club Press
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0595091733 |
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The 60's have flickered into the 70's, and hippie influences have trickled down to the high school. A charismatic young messiah quits college and returns to his old high school to lead the kids in an anti-racism demonstration. The students are catalyzed and rise up to battle the suburban power structure. The trouble starts when this 60's legend is shown to be losing touch with reality. Our narrator struggles to understand the messiah's descent, postponing all planning for college as he and his friends take on the social Darwinist hierarchy of high school. The more comic the events, the deeper the menace grows as this dizzying senior year unfolds.
The clash of forces comes during a seminal era when the anti-war movement, feminism, counterculture and black power combined to singe the letter-sweaters and pom-pons of classic high school culture. "As so often happens when history is being made, youth becomes the conscience of society," says our narrator in his belated college application. "But there were fissures in our ranks — we all hailed from different social categories."
Customer Reviews:
Excellent........2001-02-22
I found FINISH HIGH SCHOOL AT HOME a sharply observed story of high school kids buffeted by the turbulent events of the sixties and early seventies. From hippies to jocks, the whole spectrum of the student community is here, grappling with the turmoil that we, the baby-boomers, fomented. I recommend it to all who lived through those times as well as those who didn't, but want to know what all the fuss was about.
Happy Confusion.......2000-09-10
For Boomers who may have missed some of the excitement and confusion in high school during the radical 70s, Finish High School at Home is just the ticket to the lost past. For others, especially those who are put off or flummoxed by adolescents of any day, the novel offers a way to understand and enjoy high school kids. The narrator thinks he's telling the story of his senior year, but he's telling more than that. He reveals the bewilderment and energy of his generation and of every generation as it makes its passage into adulthood. His confusion becomes the reader's pleasure.
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- General Chemistry: Principles and Modern Applications (9th Edition)
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