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qatsiBook Review: Euclid's Window - The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace, by Leonard Mlodinow
This is a re-read from many years ago. A book on geometry - or a biography of five significant people in the history of geometry - sounds like a very dull read, but Mlodinow really brings his subject alive. The story begins, more or less, with Euclid, although little is known about the real origin of his work. Even Euclid had difficulty with parallel lines, recognising that the parallel postulate didn't have quite the same stature as his other axioms. Descartes combined geometry and arithmetic, in a way that hadn't been apparent to earlier thinkers, even though maps and cartographers had been at work for centuries. Gauss thought the unthinkable, and considered what abstract geometry might be possible if the parallel postulate didn't hold true. Einstein returned the favour, taking the mathematics back into the realm of the physical universe. And Witten - the final figure in Mlodinow's canon, whose reputation is not yet assured - dissembles everything into strings and branes, bizarre nothingness out of which everything is somehow formed. This final chapter would need revision, as efforts to find supersymmetric particles have so far come to nought, and M-theory is not the only present candidate for a "theory of everything".
Mlodinow's writing is clear and relaxed, without being dumbed down. He's more effective than Dawkins in addressing the harm of anti-science theism - because instead of attacking the idea, he provides evidence in the form of results - the destruction of the Library of Alexandria and the fate of Hypatia, although his treatment is, as a part of the story in a short book, no doubt simplified. At the very least it's a warning that progress is not inevitable or irreversible.
This is a re-read from many years ago. A book on geometry - or a biography of five significant people in the history of geometry - sounds like a very dull read, but Mlodinow really brings his subject alive. The story begins, more or less, with Euclid, although little is known about the real origin of his work. Even Euclid had difficulty with parallel lines, recognising that the parallel postulate didn't have quite the same stature as his other axioms. Descartes combined geometry and arithmetic, in a way that hadn't been apparent to earlier thinkers, even though maps and cartographers had been at work for centuries. Gauss thought the unthinkable, and considered what abstract geometry might be possible if the parallel postulate didn't hold true. Einstein returned the favour, taking the mathematics back into the realm of the physical universe. And Witten - the final figure in Mlodinow's canon, whose reputation is not yet assured - dissembles everything into strings and branes, bizarre nothingness out of which everything is somehow formed. This final chapter would need revision, as efforts to find supersymmetric particles have so far come to nought, and M-theory is not the only present candidate for a "theory of everything".
Mlodinow's writing is clear and relaxed, without being dumbed down. He's more effective than Dawkins in addressing the harm of anti-science theism - because instead of attacking the idea, he provides evidence in the form of results - the destruction of the Library of Alexandria and the fate of Hypatia, although his treatment is, as a part of the story in a short book, no doubt simplified. At the very least it's a warning that progress is not inevitable or irreversible.