Category: Reading

Huth opens by lamenting our current, sad state of inability to navigate based solely on observation of non-electric devices. He then spends the rest of his very generous book identifying and explaining various ways one can use observations to reliably navigate over land, sea and through air.

Interesting tidbit: If one sits on a beach on a clear even and watches the sun set then rapidly jumps up one can catch a second sun set. Interestingly enough though, in both case the sun has already set and is below the horizon. What we see as the sun set is actually light being refracted around the horizon for our viewing pleasure.

Another interesting tidbits: Ants on stilts.

A scientist got funding to glue stilts to ant legs to test their sense of pacing.

It is true.

“Behold the Squid!” That is not said nearly enough. Williams delves into the world and science of squid including much of the research we are doing concerning them. She also includes many interesting insights into the life of these fascinating animals.

Interesting tidbit: Neurosurgeons and scientist frequently learn how to extract neurons from common squid because they have a comparatively large neuron that is easy to extract (and the squid and common enough to make good test subjects).

Another interesting tidbit: The colossal squid has bioluminescent patches behind its eyes that shine light out, like headlights in the cold ocean deep.

Kluger has collected a variety of interesting research regarding the operations of complex and simple systems. There are a lot of very interesting connections between these systems.

Interesting tidbit: Mammals, regardless of size, live an average of 1 billion heartbeats.

There is a lot of effort that goes into researching happiness. Layard has gathered much of that research and presents it in an engaging narrative.

Interesting tidbit: It is easier to be happy when you surround yourself with people who are poorer than yourself.

Often I grab books that look like that might be interesting but then decide they are not worth my time to read. This was one of those books. I, in fact, put it down shortly into it: the book is too far out of my league. I started reading another book but could not finish it quickly enough and so returned to ‘The Light’. I am still not sure what three quarters of the things the book discusses even mean.

Wilczek dives into the evolution physics and quantum sciences over the last several years and he includes a roadmap for future developments.

Interesting tidbit: magnetic and electrical fields travel at the speed of light.