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This post is a review of the quaint little (156 pages) popular science book The Periodic Kingdom by P. W. Atkins . When I was an undergraduate, I had loved the clear expository style of his textbook on quantum mechanics. Though he is a chemist (retired from Oxford) the book was very accessible for a physics student like me. Atkins is in fact an excellent pedagogue and has written about 20 books, some of which are considered market leaders (e.g. Physical Chemistry is a classic). So when I saw a popular science book by him, I picked it up suspecting that the writing would be good. A second reason for buying the book was that most popular science books address topics like cosmology, astronomy, particle physics, string theory, etc. I haven't seen too many popular science books on chemistry, so my interest was piqued. As its name implies, the books presents the periodic table of elements as a kingdom. This means that Atkins identifies the 'geography' of the kingdom with the layout of the various elements in the table; 'products' from various regions as applications (iron for steel; carbon for diamonds); 'history' of the kingdom with the discovery and naming of the elements (we learn sulphur was named using Sanskrit) and their cosmological origins (the Big Bang, nucleosynthesis etc.); 'government' with the laws of physics and chemistry which underlie the systematics of the atomic arrangement (Aufbau principle) and so on. The idea of representing the periodic table as a kingdom is a quaint and colorful conceit and may work well for laypersons. For me it was a mixed experience. Some of the descriptions of the lay of the land using physical properties (color, stability, texture) were disorienting as I am already doctrinated in the organizing principle using atomic number and shell structure (which does show up eventually - so the heavy lifting is not avoided, including some spectroscopic notation). What the book is rich in is Atkins' storehouse of knowledge about individual elements, their origin, naming, use, appearance and abundance. I learnt a lot of trivia, such as: francium has no practical applications as there are fewer than 20 atoms of it on the planet at any moment; phosphorus is essential for neuronal health; all elements beyond bismuth are radioactive, etc., etc. Where I think some more work may have been put in the book is the matter of diagrams. There are some: a 'map' of the kingdom, a few molecular orbitals, a graph of ionization energies, a plot of atomic diameters, etc. - a total of 14 figures. Not all the figures are well labeled - some of these tasks have been given to the captions, using which the reader now has to parse the diagram, feeling a bit lost. More generally, I think an imaginative illustrator could have added a lot of substance and style to the book. This is true especially given the extensive references to the topography and directions of the 'kingdom' which made me flip back and forth a number of times before I gave up. A lot of the colorful suggestions in the prose could have been pictorialized with good effect. A visual guide for each section/repeating icon for each page would have been useful. Summary Overall, an entertaining and informative read that does not shy away from necessary details and essential arguments of the relevant science. The writing is crisp for the most part, but some of the technical sections may need plowing through. Something makes me suspect the book would work even better for non-STEM folks who can just ignore the more technical parts (unlike me, who felt obliged to read through them and then got confused).

This post is about review articles in physics. Below I will put down my philosophy about what reading and writing such articles involves. What they are : Review articles are useful but somewhat unusual objects, in that they do not represent original research, like most published papers, but rather a summary of (usually recent) developments in a field. Why they are useful to the reader : Review articles are useful to researchers looking to get into a new area of physics. This may be a graduate student trying to learn a field for the first time or a seasoned researcher looking to expand their expertise. Review articles are useful in these cases as they typically include i) an introduction to the basic ideas ii) a modern understanding of the relevant concepts and iii) a survey of the relevant literature, e.g. the main theoretical formalisms, the milestone experiments, etc. No review article is fully comprehensive, of course. But a good one can form a starting - and reference - point for systematic exploration. Why they are useful to the writer : The review article allows its author(s) i) to revisit the roots of their subject, ii) assemble their thoughts on the latest ways of thinking about the subject iii) survey the landscape (which clarifies the gaps and challenges in the field) iv) impose their own interpretation and understanding of the material, etc. What kind of journals publish them : A variety of peer-reviewed journals publish review articles. In physics, some journals are almost entirely dedicated to publishing review articles, such as the Reviews of Modern Physics (which also publishes colloquia and Nobel prize lectures). However, others, like the Reports on Progress in Physics and Review of Scientific Instruments publish both review as well as research articles. What kind of topics are appropriate : The most consequential review articles concern themselves with an area of physics that has emerged or produced energetic advances over the last (half a?) decade or so. A number of leading groups around the world usually contribute to such advances, a flurry of papers appear in the high impact factor journals on the topic, a number of these papers have hundreds if not thousands of citations, etc. etc. Having said that, some professionals also write review articles focused around their own contributions. The relevance of such reviews depends on how impactful their research is perceived to be by the community. Generally speaking, if there is something that only you - and perhaps your friends - are working on, then the community might not be waiting eagerly to hear that work summarized. Unfortunately, many people try to game the system: by the very fact of being reference points, review articles are highly cited, and writing them is a way to raise your own metrics (such as the h -index). I am not in favor of such activity. Who should write them : To my knowledge, review articles are published mainly through two routes. The first route consists of a journal inviting some professionals to write on a topic that the journal itself has identified as important and timely. The second route consists of groups of professionals who have assembled a review article by themselves and are looking for a venue to publish their paper. The rejection rate is much lower for the first category, though I have seen some such papers be eventually rejected if the peer review is largely unfavorable. In all cases, the review article is mainly written by professionals (academics or industrial researchers) who are distinguished in the field. What does it mean to be distinguished in the field? This is a subjective question. I like to say that the person i) must have worked in the field for at least 10 years ii) published at least 10 papers iii) at least 5 of these papers must be in high impact factor journals and iv) at least 5 of these papers must have more than 100 citations. All these conditions and numbers are to an extent arbitrary, but they give a flavor of how high the bar should be, in my opinion. Who should not write them : I should perhaps say 'who should not expect to write them'. It should be clear from my exposition above that undergraduate and graduate students and postdocs should not expect to generally figure as authors in such articles. This is because they are early career academics and not leaders of the field. Of course, there are exceptions: I have been part of review articles where a postdoc has been added to the author list as the professors are too busy to draw figures, get permission from journals to reproduce diagrams/data, add references, or knock the prose into readable form. A much more distinguished exception to the rule was Pauli, who at 21 years of age, wrote a 200-page review of relativity that dazzled even Einstein. But generally I consider it inappropriate for even postdocs to suggest to professors that the time for a review article is due, because i) the professor has a much better idea of the timing and appropriateness (they might be waiting for verification of theoretical predictions, or better theories, or a more impactful era) ii) the prof might have to negotiate with collaborators (academic politics is often involved) to decide who should be the authors iii) the postdoc has not had a decade to make contributions or the experience or knowledge to call time, and many other reasons.

This post is a review of the book Ludwig Boltzmann: The Man Who Trusted Atoms by Carlo Cercignani (329 pages), and includes a preface by Roger Penrose. Boltzmann was one of the all time great physicists, and the founder of the discipline of statistical mechanics. He showed how to quantify the second law of thermodynamics, with the equation named after him. He was the first to give a statistical definition of entropy, a formula famously inscribed on his gravestone. He was also a philosopher who anticipated the theories of Kuhn and Darwin. The book is part biography, part popular science, part a description of Boltzmann's contemporary scientists, part a transcription of Boltzmann's visit to California in his own words, and partly some substantial technical appendices with numerous equations. The biographical part is written with detail and feeling. Vienna, as one of the great cities of the world figures in the text as a fertile ground for Boltzmann's upbringing. He attended the University of Vienna (the book seems to suggest that Boltzmann did not write a thesis; but he did, on the kinetic theory of gases). His doctoral advisor was Stefan; together they have a law named after them. As a professional academic, Boltzmann worked at the universities of Graz, Munich, Vienna and Leipzig. In Graz he lived on a farm, from which his Alsatian dog descended to the university around noon after which they would go off together for lunch. The blackboard on which Boltzmann wrote in Vienna was used by Nobel laureate Anton Zeilinger in his book Dance of the Photons: From Einstein to Quantum Teleportation . Boltzmann was in touch with scientists such as Loschmidt, Bunsen, Kirchoff, Ostwald, Lord Rayleigh and Helmholtz. (The title of this post comes from the abbreviated name for Boltzmann used by a visiting scientist from Japan; the visitor also referred to Helmholtz as Professor Hel). Among Boltzmann's distinguished students were Ehrenfest, Meitner, Nernst, and Arrhenius (the last two received Nobels in chemistry). Schrodinger and Wittgenstein both had wanted to study with him, but were too late. Boltzmann's dazzling ability as a lecturer, his polymathic interests and his delicate sensibilities (a poem by him is quoted in the book) prefiguring his mental health struggles are emphasized in the book. On the scientific side, the book recounts the status of mechanics, electricity and magnetism, and heat just before Boltzmann. This is followed by a detailed exposition of kinetic theory, from initial considerations of heat and energy, to Boltzmann's work, the objections by Mach, Loschmidt and Zermelo, the contributions of Maxwell, the implications for the irreversibility of time, the philosophical criticisms of Popper and Feyerabend, the extensions of Gibbs, and the mathematical proofs of Birkhoff and von Neumann. Overall, it is a grand sweep of many powerful ideas that touch upon larger philosophical issues such as time, irreversibility, the atomic nature of reality and free will. Among the trivia I picked up I learnt that Lenin approved of Boltzmann, who then became an exemplar of scientific materialism in the former Soviet Union. Boltzmann traveled to US several times; the closest he came to Rochester was Buffalo. Boltzmann's early and tragic death by his own hand is addressed in some detail; we also get to learn that suicide was apparently not uncommon amongst Viennese intellectuals of the time. Summary The book is of reasonable length and written with clarity. A substantial amount of research has gone into it. Those looking for popular science will not be disappointed; neither will those who are searching for more technical detail. The issues that Boltzmann wrestled with and the concepts he gave us are both given good treatment.

This post is about one of my favorite topics: academic peer review. I have written about it before, comparing different fields , and suggesting alternatives . Today I will state my analysis of some classic characteristics that I think most reviews of low quality share. I am writing this in the hope that it will be helpful to people just entering the process. It is often not until much later in their careers that they begin to analyze the defects and recognize them and acquire the decisiveness to call them out. Too often authors are simply paralyzed by the inequality of power in the review process, and by how much they have at stake in the proceedings. It's all wrong : This type of review provides detailed evidence that everything, absolutely everything, in the entire grant proposal/paper (which one or more competent scientists have spent more than 6 months writing) is totally wrong. In fact if the review is to be believed, not only the paper/grant that was sent in but the entire life of the author(s) is wrong. It is of course obvious (most fair and balanced reviews have both criticism and approval mixed in them) that the referee has a conflict of interest with the author(s). They want to make sure that not a single approving word is put in, even by mistake. They want to take every pain to ensure that the grant/paper is killed completely and has no chance whatsoever of being awarded/published. Remarkably, I have never seen any pushback from the editors on such reviews. They are happy to side with the referees on everything they say. This probably because the editors are swamped with submissions and have no time for nuance. Moving the goalposts: This is a kind of review which in the first round has some specific criticisms. If the authors' rebuttal looks like it essentially satisfies those criticisms, the referee in the next round immediately switches to a new, unrelated, set of objections and rejects the paper on the basis of these new objections. For example, a theoretical proposal for an experiment may first be criticized on the validity of the mathematical approximations it invokes. Once the authors show these approximations to be valid, the referee then says the proposed experiment is unrealistic (usually without saying why) and the paper cannot therefore be accepted. If the latter objection is important enough to justify rejection of the paper, should it not have been mentioned in the first round of review? What is happening of course is that the referee has taken an intuitive dislike to the paper/has a conflict of interest, etc.; now they are now casting about for any reason to reject it. And they know they can do so. They know all too well that the editor is not going to step in and enforce fairness - the editor has no time for that: they are simply looking for a yea or no. Denying the fundamentals : There is scarcely a better trick to reject a grant or paper than to deny that its subject does not exist. Whether it is true or not, this argument takes all the air out of the authors' bag, and ensures that the limited (2 or 3) rounds of review are all spent in philosophical arguments which are usually inconclusive enough for the editor to reject the paper (only enthusiastic approvals from the referees result in acceptance). For example, you may write a paper on the quantum theory of the laser (about which topic many papers have been written), but your referee could claim that the laser is essentially a classical device - happy arguing. Being/pretending to be stupid/incompetent : A damping mechanism leading to rejection is for the referee to be 'slow'. E.g. not checking the references originally provided in the paper; not even reading them when the references are pointed out in the rebuttal; responding only when relevant excerpts from these references are cut and pasted in extenso in the rebuttal. By which time you are dead meat, my friend. A variation on this theme: 'talking past' or not paying attention to what the authors argued in the rebuttal. Blatantly false statements : "Papers already published in journal X cannot be used as an example for the type of papers that should be published in journal X in the future." Huh? Even if the luminous contradiction in this statement is not clear to the referee, did they not read the journal X masthead? It (typically) says "Authors should familiarize themselves with previous issues to see what kind of papers are published in journal X". Where else can we find papers suitable for publication in journal X? Judging without back up evidence/arguments : Making statements like "I don't think this topic is of interest to the community." Really? Do you have the citation figures to prove it - or at least to make the criticism justifiable? Personal insults : While several journal mastheads allow strong language for critical purposes, referees often overstep this into the personal realm, taking advantage of their incognito status. For example, one of our referees said something like: "I can understand the authors have had trouble publishing their work on this topic before". This is not only false - a quick look at the available literature would have disabused the referee of their notion - it is irrelevant, vicious and cowardly. Not to say, unprofessional. If it were solely up to me, I would decide after the first round of reports if I should carry on rebutting (one can usually tell if the referee is dead set against the work and no rebuttal is going to change their mind) any specific paper. Then I would just try submitting to a different journal: play, what I like to call the 'referee roulette'. But typically I publish not just by myself but with students, postdocs and collaborators. They have their own reasons for pushing ahead with the process, and I do not interfere. There is also a chance that pulling the plug at a journal might incur the displeasure of the handling editor; essentially I would be telling them that their selection of the referee was incorrect. This might have consequences for our future submissions. Summary The review process is loaded against (most - maybe not if you are from a big group/famous university, though I have heard such people gripe as well) authors. The current method has no checks and balances against the inequities listed above. I have suggested alternatives elsewhere.

This post is a review of the book Lise Meitner: A Life in Science by Ruth Lewin Sime. Meitner was the first woman to be a full professor in Germany, a post she later lost due to being Jewish, and was also unjustly denied a Nobel prize in chemistry for her work on nuclear fission. The book is quite substantial, at 417 pages. It divides naturally into three parts. The first part deals with her birth and childhood in Vienna. The author does a great job of describing the milieu of those days in Vienna: the stimulating intellectual atmosphere and the political ferment (Hitler was just being influenced by the mayor Karl Lueger, who preached a mix of nationalism and anti-Semitism, although he was also responsible for transforming Vienna into a modern city). Meitner and her siblings were brought up in an atmosphere which was intellectually alive. Lise loved playing the piano and kept math books under her pillow even at 8 years of age. She and her siblings were all good students. The second part deals with her higher education and professional life as a researcher. She studied under Boltzmann (his charismatic lectures and intellectual battles with Mach over the reality of atoms is described in some detail). She was mentored by Planck (with whom she played tag in his garden; and became friends with his twin daughters). Over time, initially employed with no pay, and eventually as a subordinate, she rose to become the first woman professor in Germany at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. It was here that her long collaboration with Otto Hahn took place. The book describes in a lot of detail the technical aspects of Meitner's work, the back and forth between the scientists she collaborated with, and specifically her role in the identification of nuclear fission (the name was given by Otto Frisch, her nephew and collaborator) by the correct interpretation of Hahn and Strassmann's experiments. The sole award of the chemistry Nobel to Hahn did not acknowledge Meitner's contributions but did not irreparably damage their relations either. The third part of the book describes in much detail the gradual process by which the Nazi regime removed Meitner from her position and her exile to Sweden where she spent the remainder of her career. We learn about the role of Manne Siegbahn, director of the institute where she worked, in marginalizing her professionally (he was prejudiced against women in science). The post war years resulted in much credit being restored to her and many honors came her way: the element Meitnerium (atomic number 109) is named after her. Meitner lived a long life of 90 years. Although she never married she had many deep friendships as well as professional relationships with scientists who populate the pages of the book: James Franck, Einstein, Niels Bohr, Max von Laue, Peter Debye, Max Delbruck (her assistant who later became a biophysicist and won a Nobel for Physiology and Medicine)... The book is extremely well researched. This can be seen from the long list of interviewees in the introduction and the last hundred pages of the book which include tables of radioactive atoms, chapter-wise notes, a bibliography, and an index. Summary Very well written, about one of the scientific greats; especially important as an inspiring example of how women excelled in science even when there were significant barriers to their entry (Meitner overlapped in time with Marie Curie; they met a few times). The writing is accessible and moving on occasion. The technical aspects are covered in a lively manner. Essential reading for any scientist.

This is a post about my spring break trip to Dublin, where I was visiting the physics department at Trinity College. My first time in Ireland, and though I did not get to see the beautiful countryside, I was most impressed by Dublin city itself. There's a lot to see, the culture is preserved well and proudly, and the people are very friendly. My tourism could be categorized into three classes: Science : The great mathematician Hamilton was Irish and he is commemorated in several places (there's a building named after him on the Trinity campus). Most famous is Broom bridge on which he inscribed his formula for quaternions as it struck him. The original scratchwork is gone, but there's a plaque marking the event (and apparently an annual walk from a nearby observatory). Ireland has one Nobel laureate in Physics, Ernest Walton , who won in 1951, along with Cockcroft, for the first transmutation of atomic nuclei (they split lithium nuclei into helium particles). There is a metal sculpture on the Trinity campus celebrating his work. Fitzgerald, who suggested length contraction in relativity, was also an Irishman. The grand St. Patrick's cathedral (I missed St. Patrick's Day by a few days) is where Robert Boyle - often called the father of chemistry - is buried. Honorable mentions: There is a wonderful collection of scientific instruments and biological specimens (incl. the skeleton of a king cobra) in the National Museum; Viking skeletons in the National Gallery (no, I do not have a thing for skeletons); and some neat optical tricks in the Museum of Illusions . Art and Literature : I visited the homes of Shaw and Wilde (apparently Hamilton used to attend parties at the latter), and a museum dedicated to Joyce. Samuel Beckett has a cool-looking bridge named after him and an equally cool looking convention center is located nearby. The National Gallery has a good collection of European masters (Titian, Caravaggio, Rodin, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough). I found a number of extremely well-stocked bookstores in the city, both of mega- as well as middling size. The fact that there have been four Nobels in literature (Yeats, Shaw, Beckett, Heaney) from this small country is often traced down to the extensive reading habits of, and importance of literature to, the people. History : The National Gallery and Dublin Castle have a lot of historical artefacts, with prehistoric samples dominating the former and the history of the Irish independence struggle in the latter. The room in the Castle where the Irish prime ministers are sworn in is really grand. The EPIC museum of Irish immigration shows a lot of connections to America (going both ways - Eamon de Valera, a president of Ireland, was born in New York; James Hoban, an Irishman, designed the White House). The Long Room at the Old Library at Trinity College is perhaps already familiar to readers as a famous screensaver . When I visited. it was being renovated (after Notre Dame caught fire, concern had grown about the fact that the Library was not fireproof). The famous symbol of Ireland, the harp of Brian Boru is also contained here, in addition to the perhaps equally famous Book of Kells, a lavishly illustrated copy of the New Testament. Summary The university campus is beautiful, and the area around it is buzzing with student energy; there are several beautiful parks in the city. I found the place very walkable, which is my preferred mode of discovering a place. Among the things that I overlooked: this is also the land of Thin Izzy , U2 , Van Morrison , Sinead O’Connor, etc. I did not have the time to track these musical greats, though, prompted by a friend, made sure I got a photo with Phil Lynott . I also could not find time to visit the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies , where Schrodinger had worked for 17 years (he was invited by de Valera). Next time!

This is a review of the Princeton Companion to Mathematics. This book was forwarded to me by a friend. It is about a thousand pages long, so not a quick read, and in fact perhaps a book to be dipped into only occasionally (the book claims the original aim was to provide bedtime reading). The writing is highly accessible. Most of the material should be clear to high school graduates, some of it might require a college education. The book is divided into eight chapters. The main features I liked are as follows: Introduction : There is a lovely introduction which deals with the language, grammar, and goals of mathematics. I have not seen this kind of material discussed in too many other places. For example, here I learnt that math is broadly divided into the study of algebra (symbolic manipulation), geometry (shapes) and analysis (limiting processes). Of course, they have large overlaps also, such as the work of Descartes, which reduces geometry to algebra. Origins : This part deals with the historical development of the subject, emphasizing the notion of proof, algorithms and the upheavals in its foundations (refer Godel). Concepts : About a 100 specific mathematical concepts are described, such as the Fourier transform, groups of different stripes, categories, algebras, etc. Branches : 26 branches of mathematics are enumerated, for example harmonic analysis, set theory, algebraic geometry. A table of the major algorithms (Gaussian elimination, simplex, Monte Carlo, etc.) and their originators is provided. The stars : Short biographies of 96 great mathematicians are supplied. They start from traceable antiquity and end at around those deceased before 1987, so no contemporary mathematicians are included (e.g . I looked for and did not find Maryam Mirzakhani ). A large number of juicy tidbits are scattered throughout this part - e.g. Cayley wrote a paper as an undergraduate which has since set the notation for determinants. Another one: Dirichlet went to study in Paris because he found the level of math instruction in German universities to be too low. Implications : There is a substantial chapter on the applications of mathematics, in other disciplines like chemistry, biology, finance, art and cryptography. In fact the book acknowledges that there is no clear distinction between pure and applied math. Outlook : The last chapter talks about the future of math, with a nice section that gives advice to a young mathematician (from heavyweights such as Sir Michael Atiyah). Summary This is a monumental work, designed to present the width (and some depth) of mathematics. I found it to be a useful introduction to areas which I am not very familiar with (almost everything). It was not so useful for fields that I am reasonably acquainted with (very few). I keep the pdf on my desktop and dip into it now and then. In that sense it is like the Arabian Nights - it's not really possible, or perhaps even desirable, to read it in a single sequence. But in the same sense, it is a treasure trove of mathematical gems. Most highly recommended.

This is a review of Henri Poincare: A Scientific Biography , written by Jeremy Gray and published by Princeton University Press (592 pages). Poincare was a great mathematician and physicist. He invented the theory of automorphic functions and the field of algebraic topology, and made distinguished contributions to partial differential equations, celestial mechanics (chaos), special relativity (Lorentz and Poincare groups), number theory, and the famous conjecture in geometric topology named after him and eventually proved by Grigori Perlman . The book also describes Poincare's work on distortionless telephony and his crucial role as a consultant in the Dreyfus case (conducted by Monsieur Bertillon, immortalized by Conan Doyle in The Hound of the Baskervilles). The introduction declares that the book only addresses Poincare's contributions to mathematics, physics and philosophy. That it does, and in doing so covers large swathes of nineteenth century science, scores of other scientists, and many profound issues of our existence which occupied Poincare: What is the relationship between rigor and understanding? What do the laws of mathematics and physics tell us about the universe? What does science say about ethics? The book is mainly a scientific biography. It provides a minimum of personal detail and confines itself to Poincare's public life. Even so, the book reveals his intimate scientific and philosophical thoughts (e.g. he held that the principles of physics were human inventions; and that rigor in mathematics is necessary but not sufficient. Poincare's intuitionist approach led him to oppose Hilbert's program of axiomatizing mathematics). Nonetheless, there are some sections, which deal with occasions on which Poincare allowed himself to be psychologically analyzed, where we learn about his stances on religion, politics, women's rights, and patriotism; about his sleeping and eating habits; his ambidexterity; his custom of thinking all the time. From other places in the book we learn that he was not a prodigy - he published his first results in his mid-twenties; that he never took notes at university, but remembered the details of every course; that he never worked in the evenings, as he found it hard to switch off; that he liked music, especially Wagner; that his cousin Raymond became the Prime Minister as well as President of France; that his brother-in-law Boutroux was the prominent philosopher of the day. Poincare had no close collaborators or adherent students. However, he interacted with a large number of scientists. Among them: Bertrand Russell (with whom he had protracted arguments), Boltzmann, Darboux, Einstein (whom he met only once), Hermite (who came from the same region of France as Poincare, and was a crucial mentor), Hertz, Hilbert, Klein, Langevin (with whom he traveled to the US), Lie, Lorentz, Minkowski, Mittag-Leffler (who played a crucial role as founder-editor of the Acta Mathematica in publishing Poincare), for example. Poincare was nominated many times for the physics Nobel, but never successfully. The absence of any single spectacular contribution to physics seems to have been the hurdle to his being awarded. He was an ardent popularizer of science. Summary The book reads smoothly and up to its midpoint may be read even by a popular audience. At this stage, the discussions become technical and focus on his mathematical and physical contributions. Still, a non-expert in math such as myself was able to follow to quite an extent. The text is well researched and reveals a wealth of detail on European mathematical and physics culture during the middle and end of the nineteenth century. A person with a bachelor's degree in a STEM discipline should be able to read the book with profit.

It's an unwritten rule in science that to attract funding for a project or organization, or to promote a scientific technique or relevant software among its users, etc., its name has to condense to a catchy acronym. People spend serious time thinking about these; I myself have been part of such (formal) brainstorming sessions. Over time I have collected some of the acronyms that stood out to me. Hope you find some of them amusing: ABRACADABRA : A Broadband/Resonant Approach to Cosmic Axion Detection with an Amplifying B-field Ring Apparatus, a project at MIT aimed at detecting Axions. AMANDA : Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array, a neutrino detector at the South Pole. AMBER : Astronomical Multi-Beam Recombiner, a telescope. ATLAS : Australia Telescope Large Area Survey, this is a program. BICEP : Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization. BLAST : Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope. BOOMERANG : Balloon Observations of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation and Geophysics. BRAINS : Biobehavioral Research Awards for Innovative New Scientists, an award set up by the National Institute of Mental Health. BREAD : Broadband Reflector Experiment for Axion Detection, a scaled up version of ABRACADABRA. CANGAROO : Collaboration between Australian and Nippon for a Gamma Ray Observatory. CAOS : Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. CIAO : Coronagraphic Imager with Adaptive Optics. EGRET : Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope. FAME : Full-sky Astrometric Mapping Explorer. FLAMES : Fibre Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph. FLIRT : Fast local infrared thermogenetics. FORTE : Fast On-orbit Rapid Recording of Transient Events. FPI : The Future Photon Initiative, an optics center at my university. All emails from the director go out to the 'FPI agents'. FROG : Frequency Resolved Optical Grating. GANDALF : Gas AND Absorption Line Fitting, software for spectroscopy. Refers to the Tolkien character from Lord of The Rings, etc. GLIMPSE : Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire. HAYSTAC : Haloscope At Yale Sensitive to Axion Cold dark matter. MADMAX : Magnetized Disc and Mirror Axion eXperiment. MAGIC : Media, Arts, Games, Interaction and Creativity center at my university. MUSTANG : Multiplexed SQUID TES Array at Ninety GHz. OWL : OverWhelmingly Large Telescope. This has only been proposed, and does not exist. PATRIOT : Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept on Target, it's the radar component of the famous missile. PINEAPPLE : Physics-Informed Neuro-Evolution Algorithm for Prognostic Parameter Inference in Lithium-Ion Battery Electrodes. POLONAISE : Probing Oscillations using Levitated Objects for Novel Accelerometry In Searches of Exotic physics. QROCODILE: Quantum Resolution-Optimized Cryogenic Observatory for Dark matter Incident at Low Energy. RABBITT : Reconstruction of Attosecond Beating by Interference of Two-photon Transitions. SPIDER : Spectral Phase Interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction. SQUID : Superconducting Quantum Interference Device, a machine for detecting magnetic fields. STORM : STochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy. TRIUMF : TRI-University Meson Facility . Canadian national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, including the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and the University of Victoria.

This post is a review of a biography of Marie Curie, written by her youngest daughter, Eve. Translated from the French by Vincent Shean, it won the American National Book Award for Non-Fiction in 1937, became a bestseller, and was first adapted into a movie in 1943 (later there were more films, the latest being Radioactive ) . The biography is written by someone who not only knew Marie Curie well, but was a family member. The book reads true and intimately. Issues are considered in depth. Many letters are quoted, diary entries reproduced, and the foreword claims every conversation reported is genuine. It is one of the better biographies I have read. The book may be divided into three parts: Until Paris : This part describes Curie's birth in Russian-controlled Poland and her early childhood as the youngest of 5 children. Brilliant at school, reduced to giving lessons due to poverty (her father lost his money in a financial speculation), she served as a governess in the hinterland, a place that took several hours to reach by train and sleigh. Curie had patriotic and socialistic urges. The son of her employer wanted to marry her (and she him), but the father wouldn't let them (since she had no money, though clearly she was very accomplished). Eventually, Marie became attracted towards the university in Paris, which was free of Russian rule, and where her elder sister had gone for medical school. Paris and Pierre : Finally, she went to live with her sister and her doctor husband (with visitors like Ignace Paderewski, then already a great pianist, and later to be prime minister of independent Poland) and attended the Sorbonne. Later, she moved out to 3 Rue Flatters, still there today, and other cheap tenements with no light, water or heating. Sometimes she would consume only bread, butter and tea for days on end. In the end, a friend got her a scholarship which allowed her to live better. A chance meeting occurred with the brilliant Pierre Curie (he had a masters degree at the age of 18), orchestrated by a Polish visitor, to whom had Marie had confessed her need for more lab space. She was excited by the work of Becquerel, who had gone looking for X-rays in Uranium (following Roentgen's discovery), but had found radioactivity instead (an unexpected discovery). Marie started looking for radioactivity in all kinds of materials, and in another great example of how scientific investigations can lead to unexpected discoveries, she discovered, along with Pierre, new elements - polonium (which she named after her native country) and radium . I learnt from the book that pure diamond is made much more phosphorescent by exposure to radium than are imitations - giving a way to tell fakes. Of course radium later found many applications in physics, chemistry, meteorology, geology and biology. The Curies never patented the element, which could have made them millionaires, if not more. For their discoveries, the Curies were awarded - thought they did not attend the ceremony due to ill health - the Nobel Prize in physics along with Becquerel. Subsequent fame came to them in unexpected forms - there were skits in the Montmartre theaters about their work; their daughter's conversations with the nurse were reported; their pet cat given publicity in the newspapers; endless demands came for tickets to their talks; letters arrived with sonnets on radium; there were requests for baptizing race horses with their names. I wonder how they would have fared today. Still, they were able to focus and carry on with their work. The Curies, in fact, gave little time to socialization. A few scientists nonetheless showed up in their apartment (e.g. Jean Perrin, Sagnac, Aime Cotton, Georges Urbain, Guoy), and the sculptor Rodin. After Pierre : The death of Pierre at a relatively young age (46), from a traffic accident, and its revelation to Marie is treated in a dignified and moving manner; the book passes on to us the condolences of Lord Kelvin and quotes from the eulogy by Poincare. This stage of the book involves Marie's subsequent appointment and functioning as the first female professor in the history of the Sorbonne; her rearing of her two daughters as intellectuals (no ghosts or fear of thunder allowed!); the anchoring role of her father-in-law (who stayed with them after his son's death); the award of a second (!) Nobel prize to Marie, this time for chemistry. It also includes the first world war and her work on mobile and stationary radiological units that serviced millions. The end of the war, the independence of Poland, and her visits to the US, where she was received by Presidents Harding and Hoover, among other dignitaries, are described in detail. The book ends with Marie's death from pernicious anemia, induced by radium. Summary A great scientific biography. Written with feeling and knowledge about the subject, and yet detached at the appropriate places. The central character is towering yet vulnerable. I enjoyed the personal touches about Marie: how she made scientific notes on the progress of her daughters (when their teeth appeared, when they began to walk, when to pick themselves up after falling, etc.); the fact that she remembered a large amount of poetry in 5 languages; her mountain hikes with Einstein and his son. The book only obliquely refers to the scandal accompanying Marie's affair with one of her husband's students, Paul Langevin, who was married (this happened just before the second Nobel prize was awarded to her). Perhaps that is for the better. A video clip of the great scientist. And another .

Physics presents to us a towering intellectual edifice of knowledge and insight, an immensely deep and powerful way of looking at the world. It may not come as a surprise that human reactions to the structure, organization, nature, demands and implications of this eminent system of thought may sometimes be somewhat off-kilter. As a practitioner of physics, I find these reactions interesting and sometimes revealing of the way non-physicists regards physics. I will consider three categories below: Students : There is a category of undergraduate majors which is attracted to physics by the intrinsic power of its scope (e.g. the ultimate nature of reality, the structure of space and time, the existence of causality), by the magnetic pull of its master exponents (e.g. Newton, Einstein, Feynman to mention the popular ones), and by the desire to obtain some reflected glory by association with the subject (e.g. look cool/smart next to other majors). I don't think there is anything wrong with having any of these motivations. They are human and in the great majority of cases, lead to some - if not a lot of - good. The problem arises when this mixture leaves no space in the student's brain for acquiring the skills and down-to-earth approach that physics demands before it allows anyone to achieve proficiency in the subject. This type of student is often unable or unwilling to cope with the analytical, mathematical and experimental requirements that need to be fulfilled before one can use physics as a method for querying the world. They can be heard talking (using jargon they have heard but not understood) about exalted concepts (free will, time travel, the fate of the universe, the multiverse, entanglement) in a way that does not connect tangibly with any known physics theory or observation. They can be seen, even when their awareness about the difference between a scalar and vector is rather shaky, carrying around thick volumes on string theory. They are particularly hard to dissuade from their way of thinking, especially if their demand is that you assign them a senior project which will impact scientists worldwide. One is reminded here of the perhaps uncharitable definition of a mystic: a person who wants to know the secrets of the universe, but is unwilling to learn mathematics. Eventually, these students get weeded out of the program by some filtering mechanism (like a qualifying exam) or leave with a degree that has little to do with their career that follows. I am not saying that these students are not intelligent; just that their skill set might be one that is different from that required for learning physics and in fact better suited for some other discipline. (In this respect I am reminded of Max Planck, who reportedly moved to physics because he found economics too difficult; in my own case it was biology that was too hard). Amateurs : This is a class of people who have never majored in physics (or in any STEM discipline) in university. Yet, they have a fascination for physics and, especially when they meet a professional physicist, try to carry on a conversation with them on equal terms about the subject. This quickly dwindles into a meaningless exchange, since technical terms and concepts in physics have rather precise and subtle meanings and interrelationships (this would be like me trying to parley on equal medical terms with my doctor, whose knowledge of the structure, function, care and cure of body parts clearly eclipses mine by several orders of magnitude). Although I find myself cringing a bit in the presence of conversations which involve such amateurs (some of them are hosts of podcasts) I must confess that I admire their confidence in running full steam ahead with their views. Again, I am not anti (in fact I am rather pro) science popularization. Neither do I think that physicists should go unchallenged, even in nonprofessional settings, regarding their claims. But I think everybody needs to recognize the limitations of their knowledge - only when we are aware of our own ignorance does the process of learning become meaningful. Crackpots : Finally, we come to this delightful category, which consists of people who do seem to have some technical proficiency in the subject, though they almost always use it in inappropriate ways. Physics attracts more crackpots than any other discipline, possibly due to the grandeur of its aims (e.g. a theory of everything). A scientific crackpot is an individual who puts forward flawed, non-mainstream, or pseudoscientific theories. These proposals contradict established evidence, do not fulfill the requirements of mathematical consistency, and generally fold under peer review. Popular examples are proofs that Einstein's theories were wrong, the construction of perpetual motion machines, flat earth theories, etc. I receive an email from some crackpot at least twice a week (the public nature of physics faculty addresses makes this easy). If they are part of a mass email campaign, I delete them without replying. If they are addressed to me by name, I beg off saying I have no time to pursue the topic (which is true; I have enough crazy ideas of my own). I have never tried David Mermin's strategy of referring one crackpot to another, and absenting oneself in the process. However, not everybody ignores crackpots. Some conferences have dedicated 'crackpot sessions' (every member of the society has a right to present, and almost anyone can become a member if they pay). These are often attended even better than the regular sessions, as they are quite entertaining. I remember, in the age of computers, once, someone explaining to me the possibility of time travel using just a ruler and compasses.

This post is a review of the book ABCs of Science by Giuseppe Mussardo . General review : The author exposes the reader to some of the great concepts and discoveries of science through the lens of personality and history. This is not a bad idea, in my opinion, as it gives the book coherence and the material the fascination and immediacy of story. As may be expected, there are 26 chapters, arranged in alphabetical order of name or topic: the chapters deal with Abel, Boltzmann, Chandrashekhar...you get the idea. The writing is sprightly, making the book a brisk read. Even quite technical and deep philosophical concepts have been exposed with a light hand. Of course, it is impossible to cover all of science in 26 chapters, and there are many important omissions (e.g. relativity, the theory of evolution, the theory of continental drift). But the book's aim seems to be to bring the reader into the business of reading science, and then let them continue with other books if they need more information. In that, I think it succeeds quite well. 15 Fun Facts : I enjoyed the trivia I picked up from this book. Before I read this book, I didn't know that Abel thought Cauchy was crazy Lise Meitner was a student of Boltzmann Boltzmann had taken piano lessons from Bruckner Chandrashekhar and Heisenberg enjoyed drives together on the Madras marina Atle Selberg was inspired by the notebooks of Ramanujan Sophie Germain posed as a man while publishing her papers Fermat's main inspiration was Diophantus The sharp-tongued Irene Curie gave her thesis to Frederic Joliot to read, hoping that 'his reading was less boring than his writing' Kepler earned some side money by practicing astrology Tycho Brahe was the grandson of an admiral Pauli's middle name was kept after Mach Schrodinger had three children from three women, none of them his wife Landau was motivated by Le Rouge et le Noir Roentgen was the assistant of Kundt C. N. 'Frank' Yang Americanized his name after Ben Franklin, whom he admired More : The author has described historical scenes quite believably - e.g. Faraday's lecture at the Royal Society, Roentgen's discovery of X-rays, Lise Meitner's crossing of the war front, Oppenheimer's trial, Kammerlingh Onnes's discovery of superconductivity, Jung's psychoanalysis of Pauli. There are some characters whom I had not met before in popular books on science, such as Thomas Harriott, Rasetti, Spallanzani, Touschek (a particularly amusing persona), and Le Gentil. Summary : The book has a number of amusing quotes, all of which I succeeded in resisting to reproduce except the juicy one above by Irene Curie. All in all, a good read.