2013: books 6-10
Mar. 12th, 2013 05:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_siobhanI finished Taking the Quantum Leap and I'm not even going to pretend I understood all the science in it. But it was pretty fascinating stuff nonetheless. I'm keeping this one, I suspect it's one of those subjects where I will gradually absorb more information upon each exposure.
(I found out he has a website. It's awful. But it does have pictures of him as the cartoon character "Dr Quantum". Which is awesome.)
After that I read Chaos: Making A New Science by James Gleick. Unlike Wolfe, Gleick isn't really focusing on the science as much as how chaos theory came to exist as a distinct feild. (Although he does talk about what the various people were working on when they stumbled into the theory - folding mathematically derived figures into horseshoes, wait what?) Instead he talks about the scientists all over the world studying physics, mathematics, weather systems, animal populations, fluid dynamics and biology who all found themselves investigating non-linear systems. Introduce a little cross-discipline leakage and a few individuals who like to play in more than one sandbox and that's basically how the field of Chaos theory was born. Of course my favourite story was about the grad students who abandoned their theses at Santa Cruz campus and set up what was basically an anarchist collective for practicing acts of physics.
I am now reading Whole-Brain Thinking: Working from Both Sides of the Brain to Achieve Peak Performance by Jacquelyn Wonder and Priscilla Donovan.
I have no idea why I have this book. I have no idea why I have most of these books. Doing this has been a really weird glimpse into who I was back when I was buying all these things. (And my name is in a lot of them, so it's not like I can pretend I don't have them on purpose.)
Anyway it was printed in 1984, when maybe the difference between the hemispheres wasn't as common knowledge as it is now? I don't know, I'm guessing. I find it kind of simplistic (with bonus gender essentialism) but that may be just because there has been a lot more work done on brain function in the last 29 years since it was published. It has some exercises that purport to train you in the ability to switch hemispheres at will which are kind of interesting, so I'll finish reading it and then it goes on the give-away pile.
Next I'm switching to reading some brand new books for a change - I just bought this, this, and this. The first one because I am once again looking for a job and lamenting the fact that I have to learn how to be some kind of used-car salesman in the process. And the second two because I have decided that I want to learn How Money Works and this is how I plan to start.
(I found out he has a website. It's awful. But it does have pictures of him as the cartoon character "Dr Quantum". Which is awesome.)
After that I read Chaos: Making A New Science by James Gleick. Unlike Wolfe, Gleick isn't really focusing on the science as much as how chaos theory came to exist as a distinct feild. (Although he does talk about what the various people were working on when they stumbled into the theory - folding mathematically derived figures into horseshoes, wait what?) Instead he talks about the scientists all over the world studying physics, mathematics, weather systems, animal populations, fluid dynamics and biology who all found themselves investigating non-linear systems. Introduce a little cross-discipline leakage and a few individuals who like to play in more than one sandbox and that's basically how the field of Chaos theory was born. Of course my favourite story was about the grad students who abandoned their theses at Santa Cruz campus and set up what was basically an anarchist collective for practicing acts of physics.
I am now reading Whole-Brain Thinking: Working from Both Sides of the Brain to Achieve Peak Performance by Jacquelyn Wonder and Priscilla Donovan.
I have no idea why I have this book. I have no idea why I have most of these books. Doing this has been a really weird glimpse into who I was back when I was buying all these things. (And my name is in a lot of them, so it's not like I can pretend I don't have them on purpose.)
Anyway it was printed in 1984, when maybe the difference between the hemispheres wasn't as common knowledge as it is now? I don't know, I'm guessing. I find it kind of simplistic (with bonus gender essentialism) but that may be just because there has been a lot more work done on brain function in the last 29 years since it was published. It has some exercises that purport to train you in the ability to switch hemispheres at will which are kind of interesting, so I'll finish reading it and then it goes on the give-away pile.
Next I'm switching to reading some brand new books for a change - I just bought this, this, and this. The first one because I am once again looking for a job and lamenting the fact that I have to learn how to be some kind of used-car salesman in the process. And the second two because I have decided that I want to learn How Money Works and this is how I plan to start.