Tag Archives: science

BOOK REVIEW: Unbelievable by Stacy Horn

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Unbelievable: Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology LaboratoryUnbelievable: Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory by Stacy Horn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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For 50 years a laboratory operated at Duke University that studied extra-sensory perception (ESP), ghosts, and other paranormal events. Today one can’t imagine an academic laboratory devoted to paranormal activity surviving, especially at such a prestigious university. Horn’s book takes one through the life of this lab. It describes phenomena debunked as either fraud or poor methodology, but it also discusses events and outcomes that have remained unexplained.

The central character in the book is J.B. Rhine, Director of the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory. Rhine was a botanist by training, but he developed an interest in parapsychology– eventually becoming the foremost expert in the, albeit dwarf, field.

When the lab opened in 1930, the universe of unknowns was much greater than when it closed in 1980. This was exemplified by Albert Einstein’s correspondence with Rhine, and the author of relativity’s attendance at a séance on one occasion. By 1980, having recorded some unexplained phenomenon, but having produced neither well-validated results nor explanations, the lab was looking increasingly like a boondoggle.

The phenomena studied included some that could be systematically studied  in the laboratory, as well as others that could only be observed in the field. The former being exemplified by the use of cards with shapes on them to study telepathy (as depicted by Bill Murray’s character in Ghostbusters.) The latter included the study of poltergeists or interviews of children about the lives of people who lived before their time (e.g. as Tibetan lamas are selected).

One of the questions confronting the investigators was whether those phenomena that could be studied in the lab were best studied there. While telepathy studies sometimes showed a weak but positive result, some thought that more robust results could only be attained under real world conditions.

In the 60’s, Timothy Leary came to call on Rhine. Leary, of course, thought hallucinogens were the key to unlocking the hidden powers of the mind. Rhine apparently took LSD on a couple of occasions before concluding that there was nothing but vivid chaos coming out of the experience. Still, there remained adherents to the notion that mind-altering drugs might unlock hidden potentials. Horn devotes several pages to the work of Sidney Gottlieb, the head of the CIA parapsychology program. It should be noted that the government programs were not stopped until the mid-90’s, fifteen years after Duke’s Parapsychology Lab shut down.

The last gasp of parapsychology was an attempt to determine if quantum entanglement might have any ramifications for ESP. Quantum entanglement is the situation in which two particles separated at great distance can influence each other instantaneously. Could the particles in two minds behave accordingly, and, if so, to what result?

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Who Am I?

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“I” am a collection of cells.
some  expressly invited by “my” genes
others are interlopers,  “my” guts their cross-town bus
but these interlopers defend “me”  daily
fending off worse marauders
thankfully
so “I” let them stay inside “me”
“my” greatest shame? “I” am a slave owner.
the  mitochondria in “my” cells  are trapped and  forced to serve “me”
all this begs one fundamental question,
am “I” really just a “me?”
or  a  whole society?

If “my” parts
needn’t be fully integrated
where do “I” end and “you” begin?
can “I” say that “I” have been everywhere?
well, everywhere on this tiny, spherical-ish speck of galactic dust?

BOOK REVIEW: Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

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Cat's CradleCat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Cat’s Cradle is Vonnegut at his most brilliant and witty.

The book follows a writer, John/Jonah, as he does research for a book on the Hiroshima A-bomb. To learn about the (fictitious) inventor of the bomb, the deceased Felix Hoenikker, he interviews  Hoenikker’s children and former supervisor. In the process he becomes entangled in global catastrophe in a way he couldn’t have imagined.

As it turns out, Hoenikker had invented another weapon of mass destruction, one that would make the H-bomb look like a firecracker. However, ice-9, as the weapon was designated, wasn’t intended as a weapon at all. Ice-9 turns all water into ice at temperatures below 114 degrees Fahrenheit. The idea was to make marshes crossable by Marine Corps units. It’s the failure to anticipate the ramifications of using such a chemical, i.e. the hydrologic cycle, that’s the central premise of this book.

A lot of the book deals with a fictitious religion called Bokononism. Bokononism is the cynical faith of the Island of San Lorenzo, and it perfectly reflects Vonnegut’s mildly misanthropic attitudes. The first sentence of the Book of Bokonon says it all, “All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.”

At the beginning of Cat’s Cradle we find out that John is a Bokononist, but that he’d grown up a Christian. Bokononism is prohibited on the island by the dictator, Papa Manzano. The reader comes to discover that not only is the prohibition a fraud designed to give the religion more sex appeal, but also that Manzano is a practitioner himself. This is just one of the quirky oddities that defines life on San Lorenzo.

It’s when John and all the Hoenikker children are assembled in San Lorenzo that the action really unfolds. Manzano is dying and turns the presidency over to Franklin Hoenikker (the non-midget son of the father of the bomb); Manzano later commits suicide in the oddest imaginable way. Franklin convinces John to take the presidency, but it becomes moot as the book approaches climax.

I’ll leave you with my favorite piece of Bokononist wisdom, “Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.” By the way, you should go to San Felix island off the coast of Chile. [Picked via a spinning globe.]

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BOOK REVIEW: Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

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Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and SpiritIshmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A man answers an ad that says, “Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.” Expecting to find a charlatan, the man is surprised to find his new teacher is, in fact, a gorilla.

Like Socrates, this gorilla, Ishmael, uses questions to guide his pupil toward crucial knowledge. Ismael teaches his student to challenge some of his most deep-seated beliefs such as, the world was made for humans, humans are the ultimate culmination of biology, humans are inherently separate from (and above) nature, and that humans are fundamentally flawed in such a way as to make ruination of the planet inevitable.

The core of the book differentiates two human cultures. The author calls them the “takers” and the “leavers,” but they correspond to what we might call “us” and the “aboriginal peoples.” Takers are specialized, agricultural, and technologically advanced (if you’re reading this review on a computer and not chiseled on a cave wall, you, my friend, are a taker.)

The lives of “Leavers” aren’t that different from those of humans 10,000 years ago. They are tribal as opposed to (to borrow Desmond Morris’s term) super-tribal. [In a tribe everyone knows everyone else. Morris suggests that things go to shit –re: war, crime, and deviant behavior– in super-tribal societies.] Leavers live like animals in that they tend towards equilibrium within their ecosystem. Takers do not.

If you long for thrillers or potboilers, this isn’t the book for you. It’s a thinking person’s book. The nice thing about Ishmael’s use of the Socratic method is that one can think through the questions in parallel to the narrator’s discovery. In this way, the reader can install himself or herself into the conversation.

At the most generic level, the book’s value is in showing one how much one takes for granted. We can’t see forests for trees.

One may agree or disagree with the author, but either way one will be subjected to powerful food for thought. Some of the discussion may evoke a visceral emotional reaction that one may have trouble reconciling with logic, such as the discussion of the morality of feeding the starving.

The downside of the book is that the dialogue can be strained in places and it can get a bit repetitive. The latter serves to reinforce key concepts, but some of them feel as though they are reinforced inordinately. In making the narrating protagonist struggle, Quinn creates a lead who seems a bit dense sometimes. Also, as I indicated, the journey is by-and-large in the mind, and so the tension is limited. There is some drama when the narrator shows up one day to find that Ishmael has been evicted. However, this is resolved without too great a difficulty and they resume lessons with  Ishmael’s irritability being the only change to be seen. There is drama at the end that will remain unspoiled herein.

I’d recommend this book as a thought-provoking exercise for the mind.

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TODAY’S RANT: Hyper-relativistic Mathematical Zones: or, When Will my Car be Done?

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Albert Einstein theorized that distance and time are relative depending upon one’s speed. In everyday life we rarely notice this because of a little-known tenet of General Relativity that says, “Whenever one attempts to approach the speed  of light, there will be an octogenarian in the left-hand lane.”

Since the early 20th century, physicists have thought they were this close (author holds up hand with thumb and index fingers about 3/4 of a centimeter apart) to being able to explain the whole shebang. Figure out why very small things behave differently from very big things, and, Bob’s your uncle, we’ve got your Eureka moment.

I, however, think physicists will find that they have yet another hurdle to solve (mixed metaphor intended, smartypants.) This has to do with certain zones in which conventional measurements of space and time break down even when one is only moving at the speed the planet is revolving (24 hours/day, I think, no that sounds wrong somehow.)

I don’t think physics is quite prepared to explain why an hour in a mechanic’s shop is equal to about 4.33 hours on the outside. We’ve all experienced the inverted time-dilation effect of the Department of Motor Vehicles. According to Einsteinian relativity, time slows as one approaches the speed of light. However, time slows even more when one is in the slowest state of movement possible, the DMV line.

I won’t go into the distance contraction effects localized to the crotch region of men who wear wife-beaters and gold hood ornaments around their necks.

Are these just zones in which bistromathics trump mathematics (Sorry only readers of Douglas Adams’s Life, the Universe, and Everything will get that reference.)

Any Unified Field Theory must explain these phenomenon before I can accept it.

BOOK REVIEW: Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku

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Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time TravelPhysics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel by Michio Kaku

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Michio Kaku is the master of pop physics writing. While you may find names like Brian Greene or Neil Degrasse Tyson more recognizable, if you haven’t read any of Kaku’s work, this is a good one with which to start.

This book examines the possibility (or lack thereof) of many technologies and scientific concepts prevalent in science fiction.

Why spend time reading about things impossible? It turns out that one’s definition of “impossible” matters greatly. Kaku divides the world of impossible into three classes. The first, and largest class by far, are those technologies that are impossible given today’s capabilities, but aren’t prohibited by the known laws of physics. This class includes technologies that one can readily imagine such as: robots, starships, and phasers. However, it also includes developments that one might think are firmly in the realm of sci-fi, such as: teleportation, telepathy, force fields, and psychokinesis.

Class II impossibilities are those that look impossible now, but which may prove possible as our knowledge increases. They include faster than light travel, time travel, and the existence of parallel universes. The first two require uncovering loopholes in prevailing Einsteinian paradigm. The second also begs the question of why we don’t have time tourists.

Class III impossibilities are those that violate the known, well-established laws of physics. Kaku only puts two items in this bin, perpetual motion and precognition.

Kaku’s book discusses a fascinating topic in a highly readable format and using good science.

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BOOK PLUG: The Nuclear Renaissance and International Security

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The Nuclear Renaissance and International Security 

Edited by Adam N. Stulberg and Matthew Fuhrmann

2013, Available Now

Buy this book

This is not so much a book review as a shameless plug (I have a chapter in this book.)

Nuclear energy has had a checkered past. From the 1950’s to the 1970’s, there was a massive build up of nuclear power reactors– granted among a fairly small number of nations. Recent decades have seen a drop off in the pursuit of nuclear power among all but a few diehards. This decline resulted from both accidents and unfavorable nuclear power economics (the former exacerbating but not entirely responsible for the latter.) With increasing desire to combat global climate change, there has been renewed interest in nuclear energy as part of a strategy to slow carbon emissions without crippling energy output. However, to date this interest has not turned into large-scale development of nuclear power anywhere except China. After the Fukushima Daiichi accident, even some diehards (e.g. Japan) are reconsidering nuclear power.

This book considers whether there will be a resurgence of nuclear power, if there is what shape it will take, and what the security ramifications of future nuclear power development might be.

Among the many questions addressed in the book are:

1.) Will the future bring more nuclear energy states, or will any expansion take place only within existing nuclear power states?
2.) Why do states supply other countries with nuclear energy technologies, and what are the ramifications of such supply efforts?
3.) Can an International Fuel Bank be successful in reducing the threat posed by proliferation of dual-use fuel cycle technologies?
4.) Will climate change drive a renaissance of nuclear power?
5.) What effect will an expansion of nuclear energy have on non-state nuclear trafficking?
6.) Are states with nuclear power more, less, or equally likely to get into wars?

If you are interested in these questions, this book is for you. 

BOOK REVIEW: Blue Zones by Dan Buettner

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The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the LongestThe Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest by Dan Buettner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Blue Zones are places with disproportionately large numbers of 100+ year old folks. Buettner’s book contains case studies on four of these blue zones: Sardinia, Okinawa, Loma Linda (California), and Hojancha (Costa Rica), and provides interesting insights on living from the places that produce lots of centenarians.

Even those who aren’t particularly interested in longevity will find a great deal of valuable information in the book. Not unexpectedly, nutrition is at the fore in this book. However, there are other factors such as family and social life, sleep, and being active that correlate strongly with longevity.

A few things I picked up:
– As in Okinawa, one should say hara hachi bu before each meal as a reminder to stop when one is 80% full– rather than 100% or 180% full.
– Most nuts make a good snack even if they’re roasted in an oil that isn’t particularly healthy (the density means limited saturation.)
– Despite our species’ history, which presumably involved gorging on meat when it was available,vegetarians (and near-vegetarians) live longer.
– When you eat is as important as what you eat.

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