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“Moonwalking with Einstein”

June 21, 2012 in Cognitive Science, Memoirs, Pop Culture, Technology, »

I went through a whirlwind of books recently and one of them was the very fun Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer. The book received a lot of positive attention when it came out, so it was on my must-read list for awhile.

Unfortunately, it also received a ton of negative reviews. Due to the sheer volume of complaints from people who were disappointed — and in some cases “furious” — I feel obligated to mention it as a disclaimer: This book is not a self help book on improving memory. It’s not a guide for doing amazing mental feats and although you can glean a fair amount of tips and advice from the content of the book, that isn’t its aim.

Moonwalking With Einstein‘s aim is an overview of the practice of memorisation, in history and as practiced today by “mental athletes.” There are two primary story lines within the book: one following the author from “regular guy” journalist to a participant in the US Memory Championships. The other path traces the history of humanity’s use of memory and the basic science behind it, albeit on a surface level. These two sections are interwoven with each other throughout the text, giving an interesting narrative strengthened with scientific and historical information. I found them to flow well together as I progressed through the book.

Foer’s personal journey begins as a journalist covering the US Memory Championships, where he has gone expecting to see some kind of rainman olympics. He discovers, however, that many of the attendees are not savants and, in fact, most believe that anyone can do these impressive tricks with a little bit of daily practice. His suspicions of this claim are what ultimately lead him to take a wager to begin his own training to find out the truth. We follow him as he interviews and investigates other athletes, and speaks with neuroscientists who study memory and memory advocates who see great potential in maintaining the art we are losing to ever-present technology. Throughout the book, he talks with a great deal of people who are famous in the obscure realm of super memory, and if this is a topic that has interested you before, you’ve probably heard of many of them.

As we journey with the author, we also learn about how humans have used memory in the past from ancient times to recent history. Foer discusses things like oral tradition in cultures, spoken poetry and storytelling, the role that memory has played in education, the lengths some people have gone to to store knowledge, and the thousands of current books that exist on this topic which reflect human’s infatuation with the topic.

The historical coverage is what I found to be most insightful. I knew, for example, that before written language was prevalent societies relied heavily on memory, not just to transmit culture but also for every day tasks. I didn’t know, however, that when the printed word was first becoming available to the common person, that books were initially viewed as “memory aides” – not as a place to store facts in order to forget them, but as a written guide to prod you to remember things you’d already studied.

I found Foer’s discussions with educators supporting memory development in students to be especially thought-provoking. Rote memorisation is often dismissed as a pale shadow to “real” learning, and I would have agreed with this. However, many people through out the book pointed out that we require a foundation of knowledge to build our own ideas and draw influence from, and that the broader that foundation, the more equipped we are to become creative or wise people. I thought that was an important consideration and it shifted my perspective a bit.

If one judges Moonwalking with Einstein based on the merits of what it is rather than what one wants it to be, I think the book is enjoyable and worth the read. You may not be capable of memorising decks of cards once you turn the final page, but you will have gained some insight into the function and amazing potential of memory.


On Amazon: Paperback | Kindle

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“Breakthrough”

April 11, 2012 in "PopSci", Biological Science, History, History of Science, Medical Science, Memoirs, Science

BreakthroughThea Cooper and Arthur Ainsberg’s book Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle is about medical science’s triumph over insulin-dependent diabetes.   Breakthrough follows one of America’s first recipients of insulin, Elizabeth Hughes, but the book is only partly about her personal story.

The book takes you on a journey through through the lives of the scientists, doctors and patients impacted by diabetes mellitus, their lives revolved around the urgency of a cure.  You wonder, sad and anxious, whether particular sick children will survive to see a breakthrough.  I found that the most maddening thing is how very close science was to finding the key for so long.  They knew a lot about the disease, they knew the pancreas and insulin had some kind of relevancy, and there had been studies and experiments done in the area… but nothing conclusive or seemingly worth pursuing.  It seemed like so many people were on the tip of a revelation but no one was able to take those final conclusive steps until Frederick Banting and Charles Best (along with John James Rickard Macleod), who are credited with the cure.

Elizabeth Hughes is only one player in the story and not even really the most interesting one, although following her through the events provides a compelling and personal backbone to the story.  Unfortunately for both the authors and the reader, in adulthood Hughes destroyed all letters, photos and articles pertaining to her childhood illness and with it any additional insight that documentation might have provided. Although it is presented in a positive light of her final step to truly living a “normal life” post-treatment, and couldn’t help but wonder what the book would have been had she let those documents survived.  There are so many unanswered questions, not just about her illness but about her life and relationships from that period.   As a result, the actual information on Elizabeth and her experience is relatively thin for being just a major character within the book. Still, Elizabeth provides the reader with a very particular person to root for rather than another faceless, sickly child and allows the story to feel more emotionally engaging.

The primary critique of the book has been the ficionalised aspects of it.  Although the foundation of the book is solid history and good science, there are lots of bits of dialogue and personal thoughts and feelings from [otherwise real] people that are speculation on the part of the authors.  Although I am familiar with nonfiction being written in a novel-esque fashion, unlike other books where the dialogue was based off of real diaries and letters, in Breakthrough is almost entirely fabricated.  Of course, this is largely a necessity because Elizabeth Hughes intentionally destroyed so many things pertaining to those years of her life; there was little remaining for Cooper and Ainsberg to work with.  However, the book is clear and honest about which aspects are speculative, so there is no deception to the reader.  I mention it only because I know this is bothersome to some people.

If that particularly issue doesn’t bother you, the book is very worth the read.  It is well-researched, interesting and quite informative.   Because it is written in the style of a novel, it will be an easy read for even those who are not particularly fond of non-fiction writing.  Although I knew a bit about diabetes, I had never read a book in this area before, so I learned a lot from Breakthrough.  Although I knew that diabetes was a serious illness that could result in death when untreated, I had no idea the full extent of just how fatal Type I Diabetes was before insulin treatments were developed: children usually died within just a few weeks or months of diagnosis, seldom living beyond a year.   It was also horrifying but fascinating to learn about the Allen treatment — one of the few things that could be done to prolong life — where children were literally starved (often to death) in an effort to grant them a few precious additional months to live.  It is a tragic story but luckily one that, for at least Elizabeth Hughes and people today, resulted in a happy ending.

 

On Amazon:  Paperback |  Kindle

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Good Books: on Richard Feynman

May 20, 2011 in "PopSci", American History, Autobiography, Biography, History, History of Science, Memoirs, Modern History, Physics, Science, Technology, »

Surely You're Joking Mr. FeynmanI’m going to break my standard format here and talk about two books in the same entry: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think? They are both collections of autobiographical stories and accounts from famed physicist Richard Feynman’s life. I’m combining discussion of these because they are both very similar books and fit well together in a single entry.

Both books attribute Feynman as the author, however, these are not typical memoirs. Both are a collection of miscellaneous stories from Feynman’s life, some long and some short, some of them serious and some of them amusing anecdotes. Much of these were transcribed from verbal stories and interviews he gave with friends that were edited and assembled into book format. Photos, drawings and letters are also included in the latter book. I have seen What Do You Care listed as a sequel to Surely You’re Joking, although the content is not actually sequential. However, both books cover different topics and events, so if you only read one or the other, you’ll miss out.

Rather than give a detailed outline of all the very specific stories told within each book, I think it’s more insightful if I give a general description of the man they’re about.

Most of the world knows of Richard Feynman as a very famous scientist in the 20th century. They might also know of his famed “Feynman Diagrams,” or his general work in quantum physics, or that he won the Nobel Prize, that he worked on the Manhattan Project, that he helped develop the use of IBM punchcards for computers, or that he was part of the team that discovered the cause of the Challenger explosion. However, just being smart or famous or influential doesn’t necessarily make you interesting. I’m sure there are lots of scientists and scholars who have done amazing work and published great things, but are not people you want to read about.

Richard Feynman is not one of those people. He was not only extremely influential but also a completely fascinating and (pardon the lack of eloquence) totally awesome as a man, someone I have admired for a long time. He was far more than just a scientist and to describe him solely as that feels like selling him short. He had eclectic interests in other fields: from biology to bongos. He fixed radios as a very young child and played with chemistry. As an adult, he was a prankster and a playful troublemaker. He did amateur safecracking and lockpicking, he wrote and deciphered codes. He dabbled in art, biology and other fields. He did crazy experiments with ant pheromones and obsessed over puzzles and finding answers. He crept into the desert at night and danced with local American Indians. When he taught in Brazil, he played the frigideira in a samba group. At Caltech, he used to use a strip club as his personal office, and testified on their behalf when the city tried to shut them down. In short, he was not a very typical guy.

What Do You Care What Other People Think?If you read accounts from his students, you will hear about what a fabulous teacher he was. Person after person after person says the same things about him: he was so excited about the topic that it made you excited, too. He was inspiring. He made even the most complex things understandable and was well renowned for this ability. He told fabulous stories. He was a great man.

I mention all of these different things because they will give you a better perspective of what these books are about more than anything else I could write. Yes, the critical events of his life are here and yes, you will read about him working on the atomic bomb, about winning the Nobel Prize, about the faulty o-rings on the Challenger shuttle. You will also read many personal stories from his life and about his work, funny and sad and dramatic. But these events are just the backdrop: the more wonderful aspect of these two books is the showcase of the man himself: his personality. The book paints a picture of a man who has a compelling need to solve puzzles, try new things, make discoveries, face challenges, find answers. They portray him doing things with a passionate enthusiasm and charming sense of humour. You understand exactly what those students meant; you become excited about things because he is excited about those things. His drive is contagious.

What ultimately results from all this is an autobiographical account that is far more insightful than a book that simply provides a timeline of events. It might not inspire the same excitement as sitting in on one of his famed “freshman lectures” but I think readers will find Richard Feynman to be as compelling and admirable as he has been described to be.

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feyman! in paperback / kindle
What Do You Care What Other People Think? in paperback / kindle

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“The Wolf”

April 16, 2011 in Asian History, European History, History, Memoirs, Military / Warfare, Modern History, »

The WolfI found The Wolf: How One German Raider Terrorized the Allies in the Most Epic Voyage of WWI (by Richard Guilliatt & Peter Hohnen) pretty worthy of the attention it received last year on various book lists.

If you couldn’t figure out from the subheading, The Wolf tells the story of a German Raider during WWI that stayed at sea for over a year consecutively, mining enemy territories, surviving entirely off of ships it took and serving as a prison for those it captured. I found the book to be fascinating and plowed through it in just a couple sittings. This history text could easily be a thrilling novel, but the factual basis just makes it that much better.

The book is a very human respective of the events through the eyes of those on board. We are told the individual stories of quite a few of the passengers, mostly the various prisoners. The authors allow us to live aboard the ship with them; we know their helplessness as they are captured, their dire living situation, their relationships, conflicts & petty dramas with other passengers, their hunger as the ship is low on resources, their hope for returning home, but the bleakness they feel when it seems unlikely. We also have an intimate look at the ship’s Captain and several other crew members. As easy as it would be to paint the captors as evil, brutal men to fit the “bad guys” role for contrast to the prisoners, but the authors take great pains to keep the story intellectually honest and give us insight into their lives as well.  We hear the logistical issues they faced carrying so many prisoners, their longing for home, and the relationships they forged with some of the captured.  This book is mainly the story of all these people together.

This great insight was achieved through diligent research by the authors. The voyage of the raider is fairly well known historically because many of the passengers — both those taken prisoner and those of the crew — went on to write about their experiences aboard the ship. However, those stories are unsurprisingly heavy with bias depending on the writer (some was used as German propaganda, while the tales from prisoners are understandably less flattering) which made them dubious sources when taken by themselves. For The Wolf, authors Guilliatt and Hohnen have pieced together the story based on not only from these previously published books, but also personal letters, diaries and other evidence, and interviews with the surviving families of passengers. They have made great efforts to make sure that the journey we take into the lives of these people is an accurate one.

However, the book is not just all about the people on board, and it doesn’t just read like a bunch of diaries. It is also about naval warfare and the role of raiders, about wartime propaganda, and the political climate for countries during the first World War.

For those interested in military or navel history, The Wolf describes the technical aspects of the ship in detail. We know how the ship looked, how it was disguised, what guns it carried, and how it functioned. The book has maps and diagrams that show us the path the ship traveled, where it overtook other ships, and the places it mined. On the political front, The Wolf also talks quite a bit about the political scenarios going on simultaneously to the raider’s path of destruction. It focuses in detail on the propaganda and censure-ship that allowed this voyage to continue unnoticed for so long, as countries blamed the disappearing ships and known sinkings to natural causes and internal sabotage. It also addressed the witch hunts for these supposed saboteurs that resulted in the internment of men and women of German origin or descent, particular in Australia.

Someone already familiar with military history might not find any of this information to be new, but for someone who has only heard of it in passing (or not at all), these things paint a very vivid image of the raider and the events along its voyage and the impact it had on the world at war. However, even if you have heard this story before — and especially if you haven’t — I highly recommend this book as a valuable and exciting piece of history.

Buy the book on Amazon – Hardback / Kindle

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