Category: Reading

In this book, McPhee teams up with a Geology professor to explore what is known as the Basin and Range (the greater Colorado area). He talks about his exploration into the theory behind the unusual formations in the area and adds a bit of intrigue as we learn that the professor is also interested in finding old silver mines and reprocessing the discarded ore to find left behind silver (and he does). In general, this book provides a fascinating insight into a very geologically unique area of the world.

Interesting tidbit: while sand stone and silt stone look very similar to the unaided eye, sand stone is gritty when chewed on while the silt stone is creamy.

(Annals of the Former World is a collection of five different books about geology written by McPhee).

A collection of scientific explanations of things we experience every day but do not usually things much about. Things like a drip of honey, why toast lands buttered side down, why leaves change colors in the fall and why people react negatively when a stranger was starring at them. Ingram is careful to explain the science well enough that a layman can understand it but not so deeply that it feels like a science class.

Interesting tidbit: A drip of honey, as far as we can tell (even looking at the microscopic level), never actually disconnects from the source of the dripping. In fine pictures taken of the process, there is still a thin strand of honey (invisible to the eye) that attaches the drip.

A fun collection of bizarre medical (and mostly psychological) experiences Sacks had while practicing medicine. While few of these tails were of actual benefit to me, it was interesting to see how power the mind can be.

Interesting tidbit: Sacks’ tale for which the book is named after is one where the man, a brilliant music instructor, can no longer identify patterns but only disconnected attributes (i.e. he can see the nose, eyes and mouth but no longer recognizes an face). He is still able to correctly identify his students by their body movements or “body music” as he calls it.

This was a huge book, and in all honesty I only skimmed it. Wolfram talks about the power of building simple systems. Systems so basic that they range from 1 to 256 “rules” along the lines of “when these two things are together then do this.” Even with these very basic rules (especially in computer terms) he was able to build highly complex layouts, patterns and systems. He continues by identifying how this is the way that nature generally works: a very basic “rule” set leads to very complex systems (think of weather patterns, the inner workings of a star, etc).

Interesting tidbit: twisted rope (the form of rope we generally use today) has been around since at least 3000 BC. Crazy fact to find in a math book.

People who have been successful through out history (at least modern history) have been so because of the enormous effort they have put into their success, so argues Gladwell. He suggests that coming from a wealthy background and being born with a high IQ can help lay a foundation for that success but notes that there are more that many people who inherited wealth squander it and that there are more geniuses who have less than noteworthy jobs than those who do. Instead, proficiency and success usually comes after about seizing an opportunity, applying about 10,000 hours of practice and recognizing your cultural legacy. As with Gladwell’s other books, Outliers presents a narrative with a broad collection of story to illustrate his point.

Interesting tidbit: nineteenth century European farmers generally worked about 1200 hours a year. That is 200 more hours a year than hunter/gatherers (and I was always under the impression that we changed from hunter/gatherer to farmer because it was easier). Both of these pale in comparison to the rice farmers of the era who generally worked (and many still do) 3000 hours a year.