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THE EDGE OF THE SEA

The Sea Around Us and Under the Sea-Wind introduced Rachel Carson to a reading public eager to welcome a scientist who wrote like a poet. This poetic quality is again dominant in this interpretation of the nature of the shore and the life in which it abounds. All of us brought up near the coast have something of the beach comber in us. Here is a book that will make that beach combing meaningful. The life of the creatures that inhabited the shells we find, the kinds of living creatures that can be sought and found on rugged, rocky shores, on sand beaches, on coral reefs — these are made integral parts of the basic theme of the sea and its forces, its tides and currents. Miss Carson begins with her own Maine seacoast, and with her we explore the surf zone- where barnacles, limpets, periwinkles manage to survive. She identifies for us the zones of life, synchronized with the tides, the animal and vegetable world these rocky shores support. She makes the tide pools seas in miniature... Next on the rim of sand beaches she explores the holes and tracks of sand beach fauna, the burrowers, and the clams and whelks that come out at low tide, the flotsam of the upper beaches. Farther south- geologic history is written in the reefs off the Carolina coast, and the sponges, starfish, the barnacles and shipworm tunnels of the spars and driftwood tell their story. Ocean currents and the variety of mollusks they bring up, from the northeast down to the Florida Keys, chart the geographic areas and limitations. In the Keys one encounters the coral coast — with a new sea world of vast variety. And in this area, too, the mangrove swamps and shore lines, the sea grasses, play host to other mollusks, to camouflaged sea creatures, to fresh evidence of the balance in the life at "the edge of the sea". The Appendix and the Index contribute important data on classification and nomenclature. But for the average layman, the fascination of the book lies not in its scientific value as a hand book, but in the exquisite form in which it is cast. Once again a poet speaks.

Pub Date: Oct. 26, 1955

ISBN: 0395924960

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1955

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WHY FISH DON'T EXIST

A STORY OF LOSS, LOVE, AND THE HIDDEN ORDER OF LIFE

A quirky wonder of a book.

A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.

Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.

A quirky wonder of a book.

Pub Date: April 14, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020

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SEVEN BRIEF LESSONS ON PHYSICS

An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...

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Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.

These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.

An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.

Pub Date: March 1, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3

Page Count: 96

Publisher: Riverhead

Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015

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