Category Archives: Reviews

What if? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

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what-ifThis is a wonderful book by Randall Munroe that was loaned to me by a Grandson who correctly judged that I would be impressed. I was so impressed that I bought copies for other grandchildren and friends. It is easy for someone to learn whether they would enjoy the book by checking out Munroe’s xkcd.com web site. He says that just over half of the questions analyzed in the book are new and that the rest had been posted on the web site. Munroe, who has an obviously strong background in physics, uses clever descriptions and illustrates the book with stick figure drawings.

The book presents detailed scientific answers to questions people have posed to Munroe. As to the accuracy or wisdom of the answers, the disclaimer exhorts, “Do not try any of this at home. The author of this book is an Internet cartoonist, not a health and safety expert. He likes it when things catch fire or explode, which means he does not have your best interests in mind.” I found the frequent humor to be a wonderful addition to the often serious science being discussed. One person had asked “What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool?” Munroe discusses the question and concludes that you’d be safe as long as you didn’t dive to the bottom of the pool and pick up something. He decided to check with a friend who works at a research reactor. The answer was, “You’d die pretty quickly, before reaching the water, from gunshot wounds.” Continue reading →

Glory on Mars

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glory-on-marsThe subtitle of this book by Kate Rauner is “Colonization Book 1.” For full disclosure, the author is a frequent contributor to this web site. This book is her third “speculative fiction” book (if I’m counting correctly). You can see all of her publications on her Amazon page. I’ve read all three of the books, and I judge that this is the best. She has a sequel to “Glory on Mars,” which I haven’t yet read.

To get on with the review, the short description on Amazon begins with the sentence, “A one-way journey to Mars may be a mistake.” I’d say that summarizes the prominent feeling I had from reading the book. One of the characters talks about the emotional difficulty of living in tight quarters with a few other people and struggling to keep up with the constant challenges while “living in a culvert.” I think the book should be required reading for anyone considering making a one way trip to Mars. It paints a bleak picture of the living conditions and there isn’t much excitement unless something life threatening has happened. There are the hints of being deprived of things we take for granted. There is one unexplained reference to the fact that the settlers use toilet paper for the last time before beginning their trip that eventually delivers them to the Mars colony.

The book follows Emma, the main character, from the time she is on Earth making final preparations to leave on the third mission of the colonization process carrying. She and three others join settlers who had been there expanding the habitat by making blocks from Martian sand. Thick walls are required to protect the settlers from radiation. One of the eight already there, the colony doctor, had tragically and unexplainably died by walking out into the hostile environment without a protective suit. She had announced a delusion of “going to see a huge old oak tree.” The incident was causing the controllers to realize they didn’t understand the psychological stresses on the settlers. Emma’s boyfriend appeals to her to back out of the flight. Of course Emma decides to proceed despite that and appeals from her parents.

One of the most intriguing aspects is that the mission takes a kitten to Mars that was born on the moon. It is fun to read that the cat learns to cling to special pads on the walls while in the zero gravity of the trip to Mars. The cat often shows up to entertain by chasing bits of material floating around, scratching the fingers of settlers playing with him (no “cat scratch fever,” I assume) swiping at the tilapia that are being grown in a tank, and just acting like a cat in general. Adding a cat to the mission is a nice touch, although the cat depicted on the cover looks large and mean and the cat in the story is small and friendly.

The book is filled with wonderful descriptions of science and technology that will be required for space travel, building a colony on Mars, and exploring. It also has colorful descriptions of emotions experienced by the settlers. Frustration and anger show up more frequently than fear and joy. There are instances of satisfaction when something new is accomplished. I particularly liked the fact that the botanist is proud to show off her new cannabis plants; she had brought the seeds with the intention of using the plants to make a soothing tea for times when there is excess stress.

There are also moments of tenderness and hints of romance. The women have chips implanted to prevent pregnancy unless they chose to deactivate them. There is no sex described, but embryos have been transported to mars that can be used when it is time to begin populating the colony with children. One mission includes four women who can either chose to become pregnant with an embryo implant or “the old fashioned way.”

I intend to post a review on Amazon with a five star rating. “Glory on Mars” is worth your time if you have an interest in space travel, the possibility of colonizing Mars, or just want some fun and interesting reading.

Guests of the Ayatollah

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guests-of-the-ayatollahThe subtitle of this book by Mark Bowden is “The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam,” and I think a better subtitle would have been “The Iranian Hostage Crisis.” This book was recommended to me by a Great Nephew who is studying to be a high school history teacher, and it is a very worthwhile book. I was worried when I saw it is well over 600 pages and decided I could probably skim some of it. I asked myself something to the effect, “After all, how could the lengthy hostage situation have interesting information for several hundred pages?” I was wrong. I found myself reading the details each time I thought of skimming. There is very little information in the book that isn’t interesting, and I learned why someone beginning a career as a history teacher would recommend it to person who has given himself the title of “amateur historian.”

The book begins with a description of Iranian students who had become more interested in the revolutionary politics of opposing the United States than in university studies. They began planning a siege of the American embassy in Tehran, and many of them expected to die. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the hated Shah of Iran, had been a staunch ally to the U.S. against Soviet expansionism. He had been put in power by a CIA-funded coup that had been masterminded by Kermit Roosevelt, Theodore’s grandson that overthrew the elected government in 1953. The shah had to flee to the United States when the Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers landed at the Tehran airport, revolution swept the country, and the United States became the “Great Satan.” “The prosperous middle and upper classes of Iran prayed that they weren’t going to be abandoned to the bearded clerics, but they were in the minority. To the great stirred mass of Iranians, afire with the dream of a perfect Islamic society, the U.S. embassy was a threat…What plots were being hatched by the devils coming and going from its gates. Why was no one stopping them?”

A dozen young Islamist activists who named themselves, “Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line” to differentiate themselves from those they thought were not completely loyal to the Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, planned to take advantage of a large planned demonstration against the embassy. The students knew Khomeini had a stake in preserving the provisional government, and they feared he might order them to not carry out the assault. That was probably the most brilliant part of their plan.  The activists planning the assault decided they would not harm the Americans. They expected to have some attackers killed, and decided they would pass the bodies of any martyrs killed by the Marines out to the crowd. Continue reading →

America in the Cold War: A Reference Guide

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america-in-cold-warThis book by William T. Walker is exactly as advertised in the title. It has a very useful chronology of events in the front. The main body is contains “Clift Notes” versions of important events and has much to recommend it as a reference book. The Preface leads, “On Christmas night, December 25, 1991. George H.W. Bush addressed the American people to report the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and a new Commonwealth of Independent States and several new countries, including Russia, had been recognized immediately by the United States. On January 28, 1992, in his State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress, Bush proclaimed the United States had won the Cold War.” The reality was that the remnants of the Cold War lingered in China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam. Historians began the debates about whether the Soviet Union collapsed because of internal corruptions and inefficiencies, whether American wealth and power had defeated them, or whether the Soviet Union was “…an artificial state that succumbed to the nationalist identities and ambitions of its own people.” The answer is undoubtedly a combination of all of those plus some other reasons. Regardless of the reason, it was a remarkable event.

A section titled “The Beginning: Allies Become Antagonists” is a good example of how the book presents complicated history briefly and precisely. It begins with the Americans providing Lend Lease to the Soviets as they reeled under the Nazi invasion. The alliance the World War II alliance with the Soviets began to fray before the Potsdam Conference. The Americans decided they had to step in to stop Communist advances in the later 1940s with the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and the Soviets responded by blockading Berlin. All of that in less than two pages.

The Soviet government had been given full diplomatic recognition on November 17, 1933 under the FDR administration. The Soviets promised in return that they would “…abstain from conducting propaganda within the United States.” The Great Depression moved FDR further left, and several “…Americans were attracted to the Soviet experiment, entered the federal government, and provided secret information on American policies and interests to the Soviet Union.” By the end of World War II the Soviets had focused on establishing hegemony in Eastern Europe. Some historians blame the beginning of the Cold War on the use of the atomic bomb in Japan. Stalin decided the bombings were done to intimidate the Soviet Union. He pushed his scientists to build an atomic bomb to counter the American monopoly. Continue reading →

The National Security: Its Theory and Practice, 1945-1960

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national securityI was able to get this book on an interlibrary loan, but the book wasn’t available on Amazon. The United States Military Academy at West Point held a symposium April 21-23, 1982 with the above title. It has some crucial information about why the decision was made to build a site for construction of more nuclear weapons, which is the subject of my quest to write a book about the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. The book comprises seven essays presented at the symposium with an introduction and conclusion prepared by the editor. The “…burgeoning fears of the U.S.S.R…determined character and magnitude of American security policy.” “What began as a cautious and contested move toward nuclear power in the Truman years evolved under Eisenhower into a massive nuclear arsenal of almost incomprehensible proportions.”

The introduction by Norman A Gaebner discusses how Americans generally viewed the Soviet Union after World War II as “…a valiant ally.” However, diplomats who dealt with the Soviets predicted trouble despite FDR’s assurances that he and Stalin “got along fine.” Events following the war proved the Soviets intended to use the land power it had gained and American politicians took note. Arthur Vandenberg, Republican leader in the Senate wrote in his diary, “FDR’s appeasement of Russia is over.” James Forrestal advocated a showdown with the Soviets in the spring of 1945 rather than later. The United States was in a position of power with its atomic monopoly and two thirds of the world’s capital wealth. The Soviet Union had lost more than 2000 towns and cities, 20 million deaths, and much of its resources. Despite the magnitude of its losses, the U.S.S.R. was becoming increasingly threatening. National Security Council (NSC) documents declared, “The ultimate objective of Soviet-directed world communism is the domination of the world.” Secretary of State Dean Acheson “…developed the promising concept of negotiation from strength.” Consistent with that policy, Truman decided to proceed with the development of the hydrogen bomb.

Richard D Challener wrote that Truman would not have approved a 300 percent increase in the defense budget called for in NSC 68 if the Korean War hadn’t begun. The concept of nuclear deterrence became a key to defense strategy, but the U.S. had only nine atomic bombs in 1946. There were over fifty by the end of 1948. David Rosenberg wrote that Truman viewed the atomic bomb as a weapon of terror and a weapon of first resort. Despite that, he ordered vast increases in production facilities. On July 14, 1949 Truman told his top advisors, “Since we can’t obtain international control we must be the strongest in atomic weapons.” He approved a substantial increase in nuclear production in the fall of 1949 and an additional increase after the outbreak of the Korean War. Those approvals led, in part, to the construction of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant in Colorado. Continue reading →

America’s First War With Islam

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Thomas Jefferson Tripoli PiratesBrain Kilmeade, of Fox News, working with Don Yaeger who receives co-author credit in a much smaller font and may be responsible for the large number of primary sources listed in the Notes, wrote this book about America’s first war as a nation to feature the “relatively unknown, unsung patriots” who fought and died to makes our famous founding fathers’ vision come true.

I’m glad I picked up the book and will, therefore, forgive him for using one of the most famous of those founding fathers in the title: Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates, the Forgotten War that Changed American History.

From the halls of Montezuma,
To the shores of Tripoli…
Hymn of the US Marines

Around 1800, Tripoli (known today as Libya) was the most aggressive of the nations on the North African Barbary Coast: Morocco, Algeria, Tripoli, and part of Egypt, nations beholden to the Ottoman Empire. These nations, each with its own an absolute ruler, controlled the Mediterranean Sea and extended their reach into the Atlantic Ocean. They extorted protection money from nations trading in the Mediterranean, and mostly received whatever they demanded, even from powerful nations like Britain and France (which persisted in fighting each other through the period.) Ships not under the rulers’ protection were routinely captured by “pirates” working for these nations, their crews enslaved, and vast ransoms demanded. It was “a centuries-old practice of building economies around kidnappings, theft, and terror.”

US ships were easy targets
The newly formed United States, untried in the region, found “its status was lowly indeed,” but needed the economic boost from trade. At first, the US paid “tribute” like other nations did, but didn’t have the credit-rating to raise the increasing sums demanded and was still deep in debt from the Revolution. Eventually, the US fought the Barbary nations – especially Tripoli – and won the right to free passage in international waters.

I chose to title this review as a war with Islam, which is a bit hyperbolic.

  • At one point a Tripoli diplomat explained that “all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave.”
  • Later, however, when America supported an exiled prince against his brother who ruled Tripoli (regime change as a tactic is not new) the US emissary “touched upon the affinity of principle between the Islam and American religion. Both taught the existence…of one God… both enjoyed the universal exercise of humanity, and both forbade unnecessary bloodshed… the viceroy had to agree: indeed these were the maxims of his faith.”

Forgive my cynicism, but those seeking wealth and power seem to use religion when it suits their purpose. Continue reading →