Book and Movie Reports by Ed

Book report: Is God a Mathematician?, by Mario Livio First off, this book has nothing to do with God. When scientists – and mathematicians – say “God”, they don’t mean God, they mean something like “nature” or “the universe” or “the laws of physics”. So, the title of this book actually means something like, “Why is the universe so mathematical?” As Mario Livio points out, this question actually has to do with a couple of connected questions. You see, mathematicians split into two philosophical camps: some mathematicians believe that mathematics has a kind of independent existence of its own, and that we discover its pre-existing truths; others believe that mathematics is invented, something that we create as we go along, like the rules of a complex game. So, which is it? Is mathematics discovered or invented? There’s a related question: why does mathematics describe the universe so well? When you took physics or chemistry classes in school, you probably had to learn a jillion for...

Book report: Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson Snow Crash contains at least 7,000 clever ideas, any one of which could form the basis of a personal philosophy, a system of government, a business plan, a religion, a video game, an action movie, a floor wax, or a dessert topping. How can an author include so many ideas within the plot of a novel? Well, he can’t: they stick out of the actual story like Post-It notes on book pages. Neal Stephenson has never heard of the writer’s motto “Show, don’t tell”, so instead you get “conversations” that consist of character X asking, “What do you know about Sumerian mythology?”, to which character Y responds with a 6-page encyclopedia entry. In other parts of the book, the author can’t even be bothered with that meager illusion of story-telling, and simply presents large slabs of information directly to the reader, without bothering the actual characters, who presumably have other things to do. Oddly, there are characters in this book. The hero, ...

Reading Report: William Gibson On Wednesday night, I went with my son and his girlfriend (who I just met) to a reading-with-book-signing by William Gibson, one of my favorite authors. I’ve read his novels Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Virtual Light, Idoru, and The Difference Engine (co- with Bruce Sterling), as well as his short stories in the Burning Chrome collection. Virtual Light is one of my all-time favorite books: I own it on cassette and re-listen to it about once a year. I also name most of my computers Wintermute, after his AI character in Neuromancer. So, yeah, I’m a fan. The event was in the Coolidge Theater in Brookline, an old-fashioned theater with some style and elegance, not like the mall movie theaters of today, which look like they were extruded out of sheet aluminum. He’s a tall, slender guy, obviously both shy and mild-mannered. He looks like someone you might see feeding the birds in the park, or leafing through old magazines on the quiet sidel...

Book report: The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho What are your dreams in life? Santiago dreams of traveling to the pyramids in Egypt and discovering a great treasure. But how can this possibly happen? He’s a young shepherd in Andalusia with no money. He has no idea how to get to Egypt. And yet he has this dream. His dream is enough to induce him to take the first steps of a journey. Along the way, he meets many people, some good, some bad, but their influence – whatever their intentions – helps him on his way. And as to where he ends up – well, it’s not where he thought originally. This story is written very simply, like a parable. I kept having the feeling that certain characters were symbols for grander things, but I’m not clever enough to puzzle it out. There is a fable-like quality about it, a bedtime-story simplicity about details of where the story takes place and when. One of the recurring elements of the story has to do with omens. Omens, in this story, are little signposts th...

Book report: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, by James W. Loewen First off, this guy deserves a medal, because, to write this book, he had to read TWELVE high school American History textbooks in their entirety, a feat I’ll bet has never been attempted before or since. My guess is that his goal was to read an even twenty, but after he woke up in the hospital with his eyes bleeding, he decided to scale back his plans a little, to preserve his health and sanity. Lowen’s goal is to expose all the information that is incorrect or missing from American History textbooks, which leads to the first amazing fact this book presents: information is incorrect or missing from American History textbooks. My first reaction to learning this was outrage: you mean, they force us to learn this crap and it’s not even true? That’s right, it’s wrong. A lot. My second reaction was: how is this possible? How can you tell people things that aren’t true? Until I ...

Book report: Sleights of Mind, by Stephen L. Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde, and Sandra Blakeslee I love magic tricks. Even when I know exactly how the trick is done, I’m amazed by the skill of the magician. If you think about it, the whole idea of magic tricks is fascinating. We KNOW that they are not doing what they pretend they are doing. We KNOW that they can’t get the jack of clubs to rise to the top of a deck of cards, or pull a rabbit out of an empty hat, or make a person vanish. But we still watch, we’re still fooled, and we still enjoy it. How is this possible? We are watching what they do the entire time. Why don’t we SEE what they are really doing? Why do we believe that something impossible has just happened? This book answers those questions, and many more. The first two authors are researchers and experts in human perception and neural processing, especially about illusions. The third author is a professional writer, who I believe is largely responsible for the very...

Book report: The Escapists, written by Brian K. Vaughan, various artists, characters created by Michael Chabon Why does “escapism” have such a negative connotation? So much of life is built around escaping. What else are movies, theater, music, sports, TV, books, and margaritas about? We are blessed with brains that enable us not only to deal with reality, but also pretend that it doesn’t exist. Who doesn’t enjoy a good story of escape? So, why does escapism get such a bad rap? How can I explain The Escapists? A few years ago, Michael Chabon wrote a great novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. That was about two Jewish young men, Kavalier and Clay, who write a comic book about their original character, The Escapist, who helps people get out of dangerous situations. This current graphic novel, The Escapists, takes place in the world of Kavalier and Clay. Max, another Jewish young man discovers his deceased father’s collection of Escapist memorabilia. The young man beg...