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Short Book Reviews
Short notes 1994
Title THE COLLECTED WORKS OF JOHN W. TUKEY. Volume VIII. Multiple Comparisons: 1948-1983. Author H.I. Braun (Ed.). Publisher New York: Chapman and Hall, 1994, pp. lxi + 475 + i + 10, US$62.95. This is the eighth volume in a series which will contain the published and previously unpublished papers of John W. Tukey. The original papers have been re-typeset and indexed. As in previous volumes, this volume includes a biography by F. Mosteller, a bibliography and a foreword by J.W. Tukey. Comments on individual papers in this volume are given by H.I. Braun.
Title HANDBOOK OF STATISTICS. VOLUME 9. COMPUTATIONAL STATISTICS. Author C.R. Rao (Ed.). Publisher Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1993, pp. xix + 1045, US$190.00/Dfl.360.00. This, the ninth volume of the Handbook of Statistics, is divided into seven parts, these being, 1. Computing: An overview; 2. Mathematical programming and applications to statistics; 3. Least squares estimation; 4. General estimation problems; 5. Artificial intelligence and statistics; 6. Simulation and re-sampling; 7. Statistical graphics.
Title HANDBOOK OF STATISTICS. VOLUME 11. ECONOMETRICS . Author G.S. Maddala, C.R. Rao and H.D. Vinod (Eds.). Publisher Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1993, pp. xx + 783, US$180.00/Dfl.340.00. This, the eleventh volume of the Handbook of Statistics, is divided into seven parts, these being, 1. Endogenous stratification, semiparametric and non-parametric estimation; 2. Limited-dependent variables; 3. Time-series; 4. Likelihood methods and Bayesian inference; 5. Alternatives to likelihood methods; 6. Computerintensive methods; 7. Other problems which in-clude articles on the identification of outlier and influential observations, calibration in macroeconometrics, panel data and continuous time financial models.
Title ESSAYS IN HUMANISTIC MATHEMATICS. Author A.M. White (Ed.). Publisher Washington, D.C.: Mathematical Association of America, 1993, pp. xii + 212, US$24.00. Humanistic mathematics includes those things mathematics share with other disciplines in the humanities, for example, an appreciation of the role of in-tuition in understanding and creating concepts and an understanding of the value judgements in the growth of the discipline. The idea of humanistic mathematics goes back to Plato. This volume includes many papers on the subject.
Title 100 STATISTICAL TESTS. Author G.K. Kanji. Publisher London: Sage, 1993, pp. 216, ,37.50 Cloth; ,12.96 Paper. In this volume, one hundred statistical tests are given. After some introductory material and examples, a chart is given which classifies the tests. Thirty-nine tables of critical values of the relevant distributions are given.
Title CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE. A LIFE. Author J. Brent. Publisher Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. xvi + 388, US$35.00. This is the first biography of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), the noted 19th century American philosopher. Peirce made significant contributions to many disciplines including mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, geodesy, surveying, cartography and engineering; he was also an inventor, a student of medicine and a philosopher. In 1877, Peirce wrote "[I intend] to make philosophy like that of Aristotle, that is to say, to outline a theory so comprehensive that, for a long time to come, the entire work of human reason, in philosophy of every school and kind, in mathematics, in psychology, in physical science, in history, in sociology, and in whatever other department there may be, shall appear as the filling up of its details." Much of Peirce's work remained unpublished in his lifetime.
Title WILLIAM HENRY WELCH AND THE HEROIC AGE OF AMERICAN MEDICINE. Author S. Flexner and J.T. Flexner. Foreword by T.B. Turner. Publisher Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, pp. xiv + 539, US$29.95. This biography of William Henry Welch (1850-1934) was first published in 1941. From the book jacket "During American medicine's "Heroic Age", when medical training and practice underwent revolutionary change, William Henry Welch emerged as a singular, revolution-ary hero. The first full-time faculty member at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, he became the undisputed leader of American scientific medicine and the greatest shaping force in American medical eduation. He won international fame as America's pre-eminent authority on medical issuesCC"our greatest states-man in the field of public health," in the words of Herbert HooverCCand earned the enduring affection of generations of colleagues and students as "Popsy," a brilliant, charming, and dedicated mentor." An interesting and still pertinent quotation of Welch's is: "In no other department of natural science are to be found problems awaiting solution more attractive, more significant, than those in medicine; and certainly these problems do not lose in dignity because they relate to the physical well-being of mankind."
Title THE MAN WHO COUNTED. A COLLECTION OF MATHEMATICAL ADVENTURES. Author M. Tahan. Illustrated by P.R. Baquero. Translated by L. Clark and A. Reid. Publisher New York: Norton, 1993, pp. 244, US$9.95. This book contains thirty-four fictitious stories, each comprising an adventure story in mathematics. This volume is the creation of the Brazilian mathematician Julio Cesar de Mello e Souza who used the stories as an entertaining way to teach mathematics.
Title "MOST OF THE GOOD STUFF". MEMORIES OF RICHARD FEYNMAN. Author L.M. Brown and J.S. Rigden (Eds.). Publisher New York: American Institute of Physics, 1993, pp. 181, £25.00. Richard Feynman was a legend in his time. This volume is a collection of essays by his friends and co-workers including J. Wheeler, F. Dyson and H. Bethe.
Title THE SEARCH FOR E.T. BELL ALSO KNOWN AS JOHN TAINE. Author C. Reid. Publisher Washington D.C.: Mathematical Association of America, 1993, pp. x + 327, US$35.00. Eric Temple Bell (1883-1960) was a distinguished mathematician and a best-selling popularizer of mathematics. His books include Men of Mathematics, Mathematics. Queen and Servant of Science and The Last Problem. Under the pseudonym, John Taine, he wrote and published science fiction novels. Constance Reid has written another engaging story. Her other biographies include Hilbert, Courant in Göttingen and New York and Neyman, From Life.
Title THE FERMI SOLUTION: ESSAYS ON SCIENCE. Author H.C. Von Baeyer. Publisher New York: Random House, 1993, pp. 172, US$19.00. This volume is a collection of stories of science and scientists which show the joy of the discovery and the desire to conquer the unknown. The author was awarded a National Magazine Award for three sections of this book. The citation said: "With uncommon literary grace, von Baeyer draws the reader beyond the literal meaning of computation, experiment and formula, to discover the mysterious beauty of science, to find poetry in reason."
Title THE TWO CULTURES. Author C.P. Snow. Introduction by S. Collini. Publisher Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. lxxiii + 107, ,5.95/US$9.95 Paper. It was C.P. Snow's lecture in 1959 that began public debate of the split between two cultures, arts and the humanities and the sciences. This is a re-issue of The Two Cultures and its successor A Second Look, Snow's reply to the controversy four years later, along with an introduction by S. Collini which gives the history and context of the debate and the implications.
Title IN THE WAKE OF CHAOS. UNPREDICTABLE ORDER IN DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS. Author S.H. Kellert. Publisher University of Chicago Press, 1993, pp. xiv + 176, US$19.95. From the book jacket: "Like quantum mechanics and relativity before it, chaos has an irresistible appeal as a radical new vision of reality. But how solid are its claims? Has chaos been oversold? How far can the science of chaos take us? These are just some of the intriguing questions Kellert sets out to answer.
Kellert describes the challenge of chaos to traditional science-from its power to thwart the search for universal laws to its unsettling effect on such essential concepts as fact and event, cause and control. And he paints a suggestive portrait of what knowledge-with science as its source-might have to be in order to account for the profoundly counter-intuitive findings of chaos.
This is also the story of the coming of age of a new science. Chaotic phenomena have been observed for ages, but only recently have scientists begun to study chaos systematically. Kellert points to the deep biases for order and control that have kept the study of chaos in the background. In today's culture, how-ever, chaos flourishes as a powerful organizing principle for those seeking to expand the boundaries of the knowable and redefine what we mean by legitimate know-ledge itself."
Title EIGHT LITTLE PIGGIES. REFLECTIONS IN NATURAL HISTORY. Author S.J. Gould. Publisher New York: W. Norton, 1993, pp. 479, US$22.95. Eight Little Piggies is the sixth volume in a series of essays begun in 1974 in Natural History. The author says the series will continue till the millennium in January 2001. In this volume environmental deterioration and extinction of species is stressed with some very interesting examples.
Title THE ECOLOGICAL VISION. REFLECTIONS ON THE AMERICAN CONDITION. Author P.F. Drucker. Publisher New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction, 1993, pp. vii + 466, US$34.95. From the book cover: "The chapters in this volume range over a wide array of disciplines and subject matter. They are linked by a common concern with the interaction of the individual and society, and a common perspective that views economics, technology, politics and art as dimensions of social experience and expressions of social value. Included here are profiles of such figures as Henry Ford, John C. Calhoun, Soren Kierkegaard, and Thomas Watson; analyses of the economics of Keynes and Schumpeter; and explor-ations of the social functions of business, management, information, and technology. Drucker's chapters on Japan examine the dynamics of cultural and economic change and afford striking comparisons with similar processes in the west."
Title TELLER'S WAR. THE TOP-SECRET STORY BEHIND THE STAR WARS DECEPTION. Author W.J. Broad. Publisher New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992, pp. 350, US$13.00. Edward Teller is known as the father of the H-bomb and the discoverer of the X-ray laser. His research led to the foundation for the Strategic Defense Initiative. The author William Broad, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, shows how Teller led the United States astray on an expensive exercise by not having scientific checks and relying on politics.
Title THE COLD WAR AND AMERICAN SCIENCE. The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford. Author S.W. Leslie. Publisher New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, pp. xiii + 332, US$44.50. The author uses MIT and Stanford University to illustrate the misplaced priorities and missed opportunities that have characterized the recent history of science and technology in the United States of America.
Title ELEMENT OF RISK: THE POLITICS OF RADON. Author L.A. Cole. Publisher Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993, pp. ix + 246, US$29.95. Radon gas is a decay product of radium; radon can pose a health hazard. Professor Cole raises many questions concerning the U.S. Environment Protection Agency's risk-cost assessment of radon levels. His answers should be of interest to all, not only to scientists and policy makers.
Title STUDIES OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND IN HIGHER EDUCATION. Author C.T. Clotfelter and M. Rothschild (Eds.). Publisher University of Chicago Press, 1993, pp. x + 294, US$45.00. In this volume, the authors apply economic analysis to topics such as the nature of competition in higher education, higher education's use of re-sources, and the very complex problem of who chooses what education and why.
Title FREEDOM AND TENURE IN THE ACADEMY. Author W.W. Van Alstyne (Ed.). Publisher Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1993, pp. xiii + 429, US$39.95.
This volume was originally published as a special issue of Law and Contemporary Problems (Summer 1990). It includes articles by scholars of law, philosophy and higher education who assess the founding principles of academic freedom and define it anew for the 1990's. The volume includes also the reprinting of the full texts of the 1915 and 1940 statements of academic freedom and tenure as well as an extensive bibliography.
Title SCIENCE POLICY AND POLITICS. Author A.J. Morin. Publisher Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1993, pp. xii + 195, £19.50. This volume describes the relationship between sciences and the federal government of the United States of America. The distinction is made between "science policy" and "policy for science", the former being concerned with matters that are political or administrative but depend on the technical factors, the latter being concerned with the development of policies for the management and support of science.
Almost fifty years ago, the then president, Harry S Truman, wrote: "No nation can maintain a position of leadership in the world of today unless it develops to the full its scientific and technological resources. No government adequately meets the responsibilities unless it generously and intelligently sup-ports and encourages the work of science in university industry and its own laboratories." This summarizes succinctly what is still true today.
Title WHATEVER POSSESSED THE PRESIDENT? ACADEMIC EXPERTS AND PRESIDENTIAL POLICY, 1960-1988. Author R.C. Wood. Publisher Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993, pp. xiii + 208, £38.00 Cloth; ,15.20 Paper.
Robert C. Wood worked for four American presidents, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson, and watched the performance of five others. He answers the questions "Who are the experts who talk to the president, provide him with information and ideas, and advise him on policy issues?"
The book ends with the sentence, "It is better that presidents be possessed of what knowledge we have, however incomplete, than to act on beliefs and convictions that simply cannot come to pass."
Title GLOBAL WARMING UNCHECKED. Signs to Watch For. Author H.W. Bernard, Jr. Bloomington, Publisher Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. xi + 186, ,27.50 Cloth; £11.99 Paper. The author discusses the likely climatic, environmental, economic and societal impacts of the greenhouse effect on the United States of America over the next fifty years.
Title TOXIC RISKS. Science, Regulation, and Perception. Author R.G. Gots. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Lewis, 1993, pp. 277. Seventeen chapters comprise this volume. Their titles include: Toxic fears: A case study; Science and the pursuit of biological truths; The scientific method; Principles of toxicology; Selected applications of sciences to environmental toxicology; Quantitative risk assessment: An attempt to link science to cancer policy; Litigation; Dioxins and agent orange: "Sick buildings"; Asbestos; Lead; Agricultural chemicals and cancer: The case of alar; The balance between risk and reason.
The final paragraph of the book states: "In the next 10 years, attitudes will inevitably change as people are asked to pay for impossible cleanup. Low-level asbestos in public buildings and minute levels of various waste chemicals raise immense fiscal considerations. But if the public is to accept the inevitable fact that elimination of all chemicals and eradication of all risk is not possible, they must be let in on the regulatory and scientific paradigms. They must be helped to understand the differences between perceptions, regulatory assumptions and scientific truths. It is ultimately the responsibility of all of us with professional involvement in these fields - scientists, physicians, industrial hygienists, regulators, legislators, and attorneys-to help facilitate these paradigm shifts. People cannot be left to believe erroneously that environmental cleanup comes down to two either-or choices: bankruptcy or universal cancer. Rather, there is wide room for maneuvering and for making decisions that are effective from both financial and health standpoints. If the public sees only two possibilities: trading health for money, we are in for societal trouble. The inevitable result will be con-fusion, widespread public anxiety, the rise of medical quackery, vastly misdirected energies, and a loss in confidence in our public institutions."
Title THE UNNATURAL NATURE OF SCIENCE. Author L. Wolpert. Publisher London: Faber and Faber, 1993, pp. xiv + 191, £6.99/Can.$12.99 Paper. [First published, 1992]. Lewis Wolpert is a research biologist and also a popularizer of science. He explains what science is and what it is not.
Title THE LITERATURE OF SCIENCE. Perspectives on Popular Scientific Writing. Author M.W. McRae (Ed.). Publisher Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1993, pp. ix + 321, US$45.00.
In this edited volume, the fifteen authors discuss the literacy and cultural interpretation of popular scientific writing.
Title SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. LOGIC AND TINKERING. Author A. Kantorovich. Publisher Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1993, pp. xii + 281, US$17.95. From the back cover: "Kantorovich analyzes the notion of discovery. He views the process as inference and questions whether there is logic or method to discovery. He provides an alternative perspective on scientific discovery that explains the difficulties in finding a satisfactory method of discovery. Within the framework of evolutionary epistemology, discovery is treated as a phenomenon in its own right having psycho-logical and social dimensions. Science is viewed as a continuation of the evolutionary process whereby creative discovery plays a role similar to blind mutation in biological evolution. From this perspective, serendipity and tinkering are key notions in understanding the creative process."
Title FUZZY THINKING. THE NEW SCIENCE OF FUZZY LOGIC. Author B. Kosko. Publisher New York: Hyperion, 1993, pp. xvi + 318, US$24.95. From the book jacket: "Fuzzy logic mimics the working of the human brain and is used in machines so they will think more like human beings. Japanese and Korean companies already apply fuzzy technology to the tune of billions of dollars a year in such products as air-conditioners (instead of producing an all-or-nothing blast of cold air, fuzzy air-conditioners constantly adjust to the precise temperature in the room and emit a corresponding degree of cooling air); computers; cameras and camcorders; auto engines, brakes, transmissions, and cruise controls; dishwashers; elevators; washing machines and dryers; microwave ovens; and televisions. Fuzzy logic is used in palmtop computers that recognize and translate handwritten characters. On tap are "smarter" computers and such medical advances as smart artificial body parts.
Fuzzy logic even applies to ethical questions. For example, when does life begin?"
Title WATCH THE SKIES! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth. Author C. Peebles. Publisher Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994, pp. x + 342, ,19.50/US$29.95. The author describes the Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) myth that invaded popular culture since the first "sighting" on June 24, 1947.
Title IN THE BEGINNING. AFTER COBE AND BEFORE THE BIG BANG. Author J. Gribbin. Publisher Boston: Little, Brown, 1993, pp. xiv + 274, US$28.95. From the book jacket, "On April 23, 1992, NASA's $150 million COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) satellite made one of the most monumental scientific breakthroughs of our century: the discovery of the long-sought "ripples in the fabric of space-time," brief fluctuations in microwave radiation still echoing from the first trillionth of a second after the cataclysmic birth of creation. The first book to explore and explain the significance of this dramatic discovery, John Gribbin's In the Beginning uses the results to synthesize a startling new understanding of the universe. His portrait gives us a glimpse of the Universe's first birth pangs, the nature of life and the way evolution works, the geography of the Universe and all it contains, and the way in which the "black hole bounce" enables the Universe to reproduce itself. Along the way we learn why the laws of physics should be as they are and whether human beings have a special place in the living Universe."
Title SUPERCONDUCTIVITY. ITS HISTORICAL ROOTS AND DEVELOPMENT FROM MERCURY TO THE CERAMIC OXIDES. Author P.F. Dahl. Publisher New York: American Institute of Physics, 1992, pp. xiii + 406, US$55.00. The author gives the largely undocumented history of the early years of superconductivity. He uses letters and laboratory notebooks of H.K. Onnes and excerpts from the W. Meisner papers.
Title THE STORY OF MATHEMATICS. Author L. Motz and J.H. Weaver. Publisher New York: Plenum, 1993, pp. x + 356, US$25.95.
The origins and developments of mathematics are discussed from a theoretical rather than a historical perspective.
Title THE ATLAS OF AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION. Author J.W. Fonseca and A.C. Andrews. Publisher New York University Press, 1993, pp. ix + 257. This is a reference book on American higher education. It gives an innovative approach to the presentation of educational information in the form of maps instead of the traditional portrayal of such data in tables and charts. The visual approach provides the reader with a clear, concise understanding of higher education in the United States of America and gives an overview of recent trends.
Title INSIDE COLLEGE. UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE. Author R.D. Simpson and S.H. Frost. Publisher New York: Plenum, 1993, pp. xxiii + 275, US$24.95. This volume discusses the educational economic advantages and disadvantages for students and instruct-ors at colleges and universities. The authors also ex-amine national and international issues that define the forces which shape higher education.
Title THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS. The Early Years, 1893-1953. Author A. Muto. Publisher Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1993, pp. xiv + 300. This book has been published to commemorate the centennial of the University of California Press. The Press had its beginnings as a printer of monographs of the University's faculty when commercial publishers were not prepared to publish such works. Later the University of California Press became a full-fledged university press in the Oxford and Cambridge tradition. This history is chronicled in this volume.
Title UNDERSTANDING PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS. A BOOK OF PROBLEMS. Author R. Falk. Publisher Wellesley, Massachusetts: Peters, 1993, pp. xiii + 239, US$39.95. This is a book of problems in probability and statistics. The problems are ordered by difficulty and topic and are such that they help the understanding of the subject. The problems cover the range from high school to graduate level.
Title TEN LECTURES ON THE PROBABILISTIC METHOD, 2nd edition. Author J. Spencer. Publisher Philadelphia: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 1994, pp. vi + 88, US$18.50. Probabilistic estimates are important in fields like graph theory and combinatorics. Various applications of this technique are discussed. Compared with the first edition, the author has added various
recent results. [Original 1986].
Title PRACTICAL RISK THEORY FOR ACTUARIES. Author C.D. Daykin, T. Pentikäinen and M. Pesonen. Publisher London: Chapman and Hall, 1994, pp. xxi + 546, £35.00. This book should be compared with Beard, Pentikäinen and Pesonen's 1984, third edition of Risk Theory. It offers a complete recompilation in the light of recent developments, concentrating in particular on those topics which are oriented towards practical applications. [Original 1969; 1984 edition Reviewed in Short Book Reviews, Vol. 4, p.34].
Title MULTIVARIATE ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS. Author G.P. Patil and C.R. Rao (Eds.). Publisher Volume 12, Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1993, pp. xi + 596, Dfl.310.00. This volume contains the contributions to the multivariate environmental statistics component of the Seventh International Conference on Multivariate Anal-ysis held at Pennsylvania State University in May 1992. From the Preface: "A purpose of this volume is to help with some examples that are of concern and interest today. It is hoped that the book will be a valuable addition to current statistical theory and practice in multivariate environmental statistics, and will be used by researchers, teachers and students alike."
Title RUSSIAN-ENGLISH, ENGLISH-RUSSIAN DICTIONARY ON PROBABILITY, STATISTICS, AND COMBINATORICS. Author K.A. Borovkov. Publisher Philadelphia: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics/Moscow: TVE Science, 1994, pp. viii + 154. This dictionary will help readers to under-stand Russian-language texts in probability, statistics and combinatorics. It contains entries related to these fields which have occurred in the last thirty years. The dictionary includes more than fifteen thousand terms.
Title PROMETHEUS BOUND. Science in a Dynamic Steady State. Author J. Ziman. Publisher Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. ix + 289. John Ziman had a distinguished career in the natural sciences. He now writes about the problems scientists have with governments, administrators etc. From the preface: "Science is reaching its 'limits to growth'. It is expected to contribute increasingly to national prosperity, yet national budgets can no longer support further expansion to explore tempting new re-search opportunities, by larger research teams, equipped with increasingly sophisticated apparatus. As a result, science is going through a radical structural transition to a much more tightly organized, rationalized and managed social institution. Knowledge-creation, the acme of individual enterprise, is being collectivized.
This transition is pervasive, interlocking, ubiquitous and permanent. It affects the whole research system from the every day details of laboratory life to the politics of national budgets. Changes in one part of the system, such as the abolition of academic tenure, have repercussions elsewhere, for example in the commercial exploitation of scientific discoveries. A new policy language of 'accountability', 'evaluation', 'input and output indicators', 'priority-set-ting', 'selectivity', 'critical mass', etc. has become commonplace throughout the world, from Finland to Brazil, from Poland to New Zealand, from the United States to Papua New Guinea. Indeed, science is becoming a truly international enterprise, organized systematically on a global scale.
Many scientists and scholars look back regret-fully to a more relaxed and spacious environment for academic research. But nostalgia is a fruitless sentiment. What all scientists know is that science cannot thrive without social space for personal initiative and creativity, time for ideas to grow to maturity, open-ness to debate and criticism, hospitality towards innovation, and respect for specialized expertise. The real question is not whether the structural transition is desirable, or could have been avoided: it is how to reshape the research system to fit a new environment without losing the features that have made it so productive in the past."
Title UNCOMMON SENSE. The Heretical Nature of Science. Author A. Cromer. Publisher New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. xii + 240, £15.95. From the jacket: "Most people believe that science arose as a natural end-product of our innate intelligence and curiosity, as an inevitable stage in human intellectual development. But the physicist and educator Alan Cromer disputes this belief. Cromer argues that science is not the natural unfolding of human potential, but the invention of a particular culture, Greece, in a particular historical period. Indeed, far from being natural, scientific thinking goes so far against the grain of conventional human thought that if it hadn't arisen in Greece, it might not have arisen at all."
Title MEN AMONG THE MAMMOTHS. VICTORIAN SCIENCE AND THE DISCOVERY OF HUMAN PREHISTORY. Author A.B. Van Riper. Publisher University of Chicago Press, 1993, pp. xv + 267, US$45.00 Cloth; US$16.95 Paper. Van Riper tells the story of how Victorian scientists, the clergy and the educated public came to grips with the notion that human life extended well into prehistory and that humans had walked the earth with long-extinct beasts.
Title REINVENTING THE FUTURE. Conversations with the World's Leading Scientists. Author T.A. Bass. Publisher Reading, Massachusetts Addison-Wesley, 1994, pp. vi + 249, £20.95. This volume contains eleven interviews with working scientists who have worked in various fields including molecular and cell biology, genetics, chaos theory and new drug research. The interviews show the joy of insight and the questions and doubts which often precede great discoveries.
Title THE ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS. THE SCIENTIFIC SEARCH FOR THE SOUL. Author F. Crick. Publisher New York: Scibners, 1994, pp. xiv + 317, US$25.00. Sir Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA asks the question "What is consciousness?" From the preface: "This book is about the mystery of consciousness - how to explain it in scientific terms. ... What I have tried to do here is to sketch the general nature of consciousness and to make some tentative suggestions about how to study it experimentally. I am proposing a particular research strategy not a fully developed theory. What I want to know is exactly what is going on in my brain when I see something."
Title HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF NINETHEENTH-CENTURY SCIENCE. Author D. Cahan (Ed.). Publisher Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1993, pp. xxix + 666. Hermann von Helmholtz, 1821-1894, was a nineteenth century polymath. He was renowned for his codiscovery of the first law of thermodynamics and his innovation of the ophthalmoscope. He also made important contributions to physiology, physical theory, philosophy of science, mathematics and aesthetic thought. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Helmholtz was revered as a scientist sage in the same way that Albert Einstein was later.
The book is divided into fifteen chapters written by historians of science under three headings: Physiologist, Physicist, Philosopher.
Title PHYSICS AND PROBABILITY. Essays in honor of Edwin T. Jaynes. Author W.T. Grandy, Jr. and P.W. Milonni (Eds.). Publisher Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. x + 284, £35.00/US$49.95. Edwin T. Jaynes has done major work in the fields of statistical physics, quantum optics and probability theory.
This volume contains twenty-three essays. The subjects of these include: the difference in means; Bayesian analysis, model selection and prediction, Bayesian numerical analysis; and quantum statistical inference.
From the preface: "Jaynes is best known for his work in statistical physics and quantum optics. His seminal papers on information theory and statistical mechanics formulated the latter (in the spirit of Gibbs) without an ergodic hypothesis, relying instead on the maximum entropy principle to assign probabilities in a manner least biased with respect to the available information. The "Maxent" principle, along with Jaynes' broader work in Bayesian statistics, has more recently been gainfully applied to a growing number of practical problems including optical image restoration, radar target identification, model select-ion in economics, and others described in this volume. The evolution of these applications from Jaynes' original, purely academic motivations nicely illustrates the truth in Richard Feynman's remark that 'no matter how small a thing is, if it has physical interest and is thought about carefully enough, you're bound to think of something that's good for something else.'"
Title ELSEVIER'S DICTIONARY OF BIOMETRY. In English, French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian and Russian. Author D. Rasch, M.L. Tiku and D. Sumpf (Eds.). Publisher Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1994, pp. x + 887, Dfl.395.00/US$225.75. This dictionary contains over 2400 entries concerning terms used in the agricultural and medical sciences, clinical and epidemiological studies, ecology, population and quantitative genetics, population dynamics, survival analyses and growth curve analysis. Each entry is defined in English and the translation given in French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian and Russian. Included also are alphabetical indices for all the languages except English.
Title THE TRISECTORS. Author U. Dudley. Publisher Washington, D.C.: The Mathematical Association of America, 1994, pp. xvii + 184, US$27.50. Underwood Dudley is also the author of "Mathematical Cranks" noted in Short Book Reviews, Vol. 13. p.12. This book is also about mathematical cranks, namely angle trisectors.
Title THE RESEARCH FOUNDATIONS OF GRADUATE EDUCATION. GERMANY, BRITAIN, FRANCE, UNITED STATES, JAPAN. Author B.R. Clark (Ed.). Publisher Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1993, pp. xxi + 390. This volume analyzes the state of graduate education in Germany, Britain, France, Japan, and the United States and examines the present condition and future viability of the fusion of advanced teaching and learning with research and research training in academic institutions.
Title ASPECTS OF UNCERTAINTY. A Tribute to D.V. Lindley. Author P.R. Freeman and A.F.M. Smith (Eds.). Publisher Chichester, U.K.: Wiley, 1994, pp. xviii + 392, £45.00. This volume contains twenty-two papers written to honour Professor Dennis V. Lindley on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The first paper is "Dennis Lindley: The first 70 Years" by P. Armitage and contains a bibliography of Lindley's own papers.
Title STUDIES IN APPLIED PROBABILITY. Essays in honour of Lajos Takács. Journal of Applied Probability Special Volume 31 Author A. J. Galambos and J. Gani (Eds.). Publisher Sheffield, U.K.: Applied Probability Trust, 1994, pp. xxiv + 318, ,25.00/US$37.50/A$55.25. This is a special volume of the Journal of Applied Probability published in honour of Lajos Takács seventieth birthday.
Title PROBABILITY, STATISTICS AND OPTIMISATION. A Tribute to Peter Whittle. Author F.P. Kelly (Ed.). Publisher Chichester, U.K.: Wiley, 1994, pp. xxvi + 515, £65.00. This volume contains thirty-six essays written to honour Professor Peter Whittle on his retirement in September 1994 from his position as Churchill Professor of Mathematics for Operational Research in the University of Cambridge. The volume is divided into seven parts to reflect the spread of Professor Whittle's re-search: 1. Probability, 2. Applied Probability, 3. Time series analysis, 4. Neural nets and computational statistics, 5. Statistics, 6. Optimisation of network flow, 7. Optimisation over time. The volume begins with an autobiographical essay by Professor Whittle.
Title HOW TO ASSESS YOUR IT INVESTMENT. A study of methods and practice. Author B. Farbey, F. Land and D. Targett. Publisher Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann (in association with Management Today), 1993, pp. ix + 158, £17.95. The evaluation of IT investment is a continuing problem. This book addresses the critical issues in evaluation, the challenges, and current practice. A simple matching procedure is given which will help evaluators to choose appropriate approaches and tools.
Title AI. THE TUMULTUOUS HISTORY OF THE SEARCH FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. Author D. Crevier. Publisher Glasgow: Basic Books, 1993, pp. xiv + 386, £17.99. This book is a fairly complete history of the field of Artificial Intelligence from its inception in the Fifties to the present day, encompassing early work on automated theorem-proving in the sixties, through the development of expert systems in the late seventies and early eighties, to recent progress in robotics. It includes some fascinating biographical detail about many of the founding figures in the subject.
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