The Sun, The Genome, and The Internet: Tools of Scientific Revolution [Paperback]

_The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet_ covers scientific
revolutions, technology & social justice, and the exploration &
colonization of space: familiar Dyson topics all, and delivered with
his usual grace. The three items in the title are Dyson's hope for
generating wealth in the world's poor villages: the sun for cheap
solar power, the Net to end rural isolation, and genetic engineering
for better crop plants. For example, he presents the hope of
engineering "trees that convert sunlight to liquid fuel and deliver
the fuel directly ...to underground pipelines." A neat solution to
declining oil reserves, if it works. Dyson cheerfully admits his
record as a prophet is mixed, but "it is better to be wrong than to be
vague."

Fresh and unexpected insights are a frequent pleasure in this
(and other) Dyson books. For instance, he describes his
mother and aunts, prosperous British matrons all, who, in the
interval between the World Wars, accomplished such things as
opening a birth-control clinic, managing a large hospital, winning
an Olympic medal, and pioneering aviation in Africa -- "it was
considered normal at the time for middle-class women to do
something spectacular." They were able to do this only with the
support of a large servant class. The introduction of labor-saving
appliances helped to emancipate the servants, but left middle-class
women less free than before, a general pattern, says Dyson: "the
burdens of equalization fall disproportionately on women."

Dyson is a lifelong space enthusiast, though things haven't gone
that well lately for space fans: "we look at the bewildered
cosmonauts struggling to survive in the Mir space station.
Obviously they are not going anywhere except, if they are lucky,
down." But in the long term, prospects are brighter, and await
finding a cheap way up and out of the gravity well (another
enduring Dyson insight). He reports recent successful tests of
a laser-launcher and a "ram accelerator", the latter a proposed 750-
foot gas-gun -- and a direct descendent of Jules Verne's cannon-
launched spacecraft in "From the Earth to the Moon"(1865). As in
all cheap launch methods, the trick is to keep the fuel on the
ground, not in the spacecraft. With cheap spacefight, people will
spread out into the solar system and beyond. Why? "Because it is
there" -- some folks just have itchy feet. Others will belong to
unpopular religions, or be on the run, or... any of the countless
other things that have always motivated emigrants.

Dyson, unusually for a theoretician, has always been more "tinker
than thinker". He cites Thomas Kuhn's classic _Structure of
Scientific Revolutions_ (1962, rev. ed. 1970) as an example of a

fellow-physicist with the opposite bent, emphasizing ideas over
things. Of course, both are important; but some of Kuhn's followers
put forward the idea that science is about power struggles, not new
ideas. Dyson once upbraided Kuhn about this at a conference. Kuhn
reacted angrily: "One thing you have to understand. I am not a
Kuhnian!"

Freeman Dyson is my favorite scientist-writer. I know of no one
else who combines his clarity of thought, graceful use of language,
big ideas expressed modestly, and sense of history. If you haven't yet
read Dyson, _The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet_ would be a
fine place to start. Highly recommended.
He is an emeritus professor
at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University
and the author of many other books.
I would particularly recommend _Disturbing the Universe_ (1979)
and _Infinite in All Directions_ (1989), both among the very best
books ever written about science and its place in history, public
policy, and the exploration of space...

All in all, a good, economical book of lectures which you will finish quickly.