Using the electric light as his focus, the author guides the reader through one of the most creatively rich periods in human history. After a brief discussion of what was used for lighting before electricity - particularly gas, the author presents the evolution of the electric light from the latter half of the nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth. Although Thomas Edison is shown to have played a pivotal role in the development of the incandescent light, those whose related work came before his are also highlighted, including those involved in developing arc lights. In subsequent chapters, the evolution of electric light is portrayed from different perspectives: light in public areas, lights used in work environments, light used at home, etc. Also discussed are ways to improve lighting to suit specific needs, the professions created due to electric lights, lighting rural areas, etc.

On a somewhat disappointing note, there is very little in this book that covers the more technical side of electricity and electric lights. For example, there is no information on the number of watts, volts and amperes involved and the temporal evolution of these numbers, as they pertain to electric lights. This is unfortunate for the more technically-minded readers like me. Simply including such information in an appendix or in footnotes would have been quite sufficient.

But despite this shortcoming, I did enjoy this book very much. I found the writing style to be clear, highly accessible, lively and quite captivating. I believe that this entertaining book should appeal to a fairly broad readership. Those with an interest in the rapidly evolving human lifestyle during this age of invention should be particularly pleased with it.

As the title suggests, in this book, bestselling author Lowell Green passionately argues in favour of the concept that conservative-minded people have a more solid/realistic view of the real world than those leaning towards the political left, i.e., socialists and liberals. His arguments are all backed up with plenty of facts, figures and published data - information that he uses to clearly illustrate his points. But the book is much more than just a coldly logical text. Throughout, the reader is treated to a great many fascinating stories - rendering this book, for me, a real page-turner. Many of these stories made me laugh, some made my blood boil while a few even brought the odd tear to my eye. But for a given reader, the relative proportion of each of these reactions will likely vary according to his/her political stripe.

Mr. Green's writing style is never boring. It is lively, extremely witty, continually captivating and always has a hearty helping of humour. The book is written in plain understandable English with no obscure political jargon, so it is accessible to a very broad readership. Since I found every page dripping with good old common sense, I believe that everyone would benefit from reading this book - regardless of political stripe (really!). In short, I found the book to be a rare gem that's impossible to put down.

In this interesting book, the author points out several situations where humans have failed to learn important lessons from history and, as a result, seem doomed to repeat some of the tragic errors that have occurred. The topics include Afghanistan (geography, politics, invasions), terrorism, language, socio-political issues in Africa, world plagues and a lot (over 50% of the book) on economics and finance. Although the chapters on this last topic each have a particular focus, each goes through a lot of the same material/events; consequently, there is a certain amount of repetition. However, I did not find that too distracting.

I have read a number of this author's books. I found them to be quite entertaining, especially due to his priceless tongue-in-cheek prose complemented by a careful choice of words to suit each situation. This made for pleasant light-hearted reading. This work, on the other hand, is serious - very serious - even scary at times. It is clear, accessible, lively and quite captivating. I believe that this book can be enjoyed by anyone; however, those with a special interest in history and economics will likely appreciate it the most.

I wish I had this book many decades ago when I was taking classical mechanics courses in university. The authors have accomplished something that is very rare from my experience. They have taken a difficult subject and presented it with all of its formalities but in a style that makes it a pleasure to read. The explanations that they give are models of clarity, and they provide a sufficient number of worked out examples to illustrate how the presented techniques can actually be used. In short, the book provides details and friendliness that one wishes one could find in standard textbooks on this topic. Now, there certainly were a few head-scratching moments for me but nothing that a second careful reading won't fix. Also, it's been my experience that typos can be quite frequent (and frustrating) in books as mathematically detailed as this one. However, in this particular case, I found remarkably few.

The writing style, as noted, is very clear, authoritative, engaging, even lively and occasionally light-hearted. This is a book that should appeal the most to university students who are taking classical mechanics courses, to very interested (but well informed) general readers and to physicists, like me, who learned the stuff a very long time ago and never used it but who appreciate the opportunity to review the material presented in such an elegant, relatively painless and friendly way. I am really looking forward to the sequel on quantum mechanics.

This book is not quite what I was expecting; it's a lot more. Using Noah's Flood as his focus, the author takes the reader on a historical journey in which science and biblical scholarship confront each other. Beginning in the ancient world and continuing on to the present day, the progression of religious beliefs pertaining to the origin and evolution of humans (and of the world), is carefully followed in the face of mounting scientific discoveries (especially in the field of geology) that seriously challenged those beliefs.

I found this book to be generally clear, often lively, frequently captivating and relatively accessible. A few of the detailed geological processes described were a bit hard for me to follow; but the historical evolution of scientific thought and that of theological concepts (most of the book) were quite engaging from my perspective.

I did find one error: On page 5 it is stated that carbon-14 decays to carbon-12. This is incorrect: carbon-14 decays by beta (-) emission to stable nitrogen-14. This is correctly explained much later in the book (p. 192) where carbon-14 is discussed in more detail. Consequently, the fact that this error crept in is rather odd.

I think that this book should especially appeal to those interested in the history of science, the evolution of religious thought, the birth of creationism and the interactions between science and religion.

In this captivating book, the authors recount ten legal cases, one per chapter, in which mathematics was used in some way. Although this book was in the mathematics section of my bookstore, it would not be out of place in the true crime section. Each chapter begins with a page or two describing a type of "mathematical error" that commonly occurs; that error is illustrated through the real-life legal case that forms the main body of the chapter. These errors all pertain to the misunderstanding and resulting misapplication of certain mathematical concepts, the consequences of which are described. All of the mathematical errors presented in this book pertain to the field of probability and statistics. Finally, in the conclusion section of the book, the authors have included a general discussion on the use of mathematics in trials and the debate concerning the pros and cons of doing so.

The mathematical analyses in the cases that are presented only occupy a couple of pages of each chapter. These mostly involve words, logic, tables and some simple calculations; clear theoretical formulas are generally absent. And this leads me to the only characteristic of this book that I found a bit annoying: the lack of formulas and, in some cases, the lack of more detailed calculations to illustrate where a given number came from; these could have been simply included in footnotes. In some cases I found myself sidetracked by trying to derive how a certain number was arrived at.

But despite this minor shortcoming, I really enjoyed this book, in no small part because it illustrates the application of mathematics to real-life situations. The authors allude to the fact that they intend to write further books like this - on the use of mathematics in the courtroom; I really look forward to reading them! Hopefully they will be a bit heavier, in some way, on the theoretical side.

Written in a prose that is clear, quite lively, very fast-paced, highly accessible and often quite captivating, this book covers the rise of Rome from earliest times to the end of the Republican period. Especially highlighted is the evolution of Roman political and military systems - political intrigues are particularly prominent. The Roman way of life is also briefly discussed and some military campaigns are described in varying degrees of detail. In recounting this ancient history, the author clearly differentiates between what he considers to be myth, fabrication and reliable fact. As a result, he often elaborates on the likelihood of the events described by the various ancient writers.

I believe that this book can be enjoyed by any interested reader. Although ancient history enthusiasts will likely appreciate this book very much, some may be annoyed at the fact that some important events, e.g., the battle of Cannae, are given a relatively limited amount of space - this likely in favor of covering the requisite number of centuries within a sensible number of pages. Overall, I found this book to be largely a page-turner that gave me a good overview of the early centuries of Rome - something that, despite being an ancient history buff, I knew surprisingly little about.

I love books like this. A large number of topics are discussed; each is short (a few pages), well presented and the main points are clear and concise. I found the book to be very difficult to put down.

In 27 chapters, the author discusses mysteries of a wide-ranging variety: from the origin of the universe, the puzzles of dark matter and dark energy and the origin of the moon to mysterious disappearances, various issues on UFOs and communication with the deceased. The author simply presents the information as well as is currently known and when some topics are contentious, and most are, he presents the most important (opposing/alternative) arguments without (most of the time) taking sides. Although I found most topics to be quite captivating, I must admit that a couple of them, e.g., the Montauk Project, time slips, were a bit too abstract and more difficult for me to follow.

The author writes in a prose that is clear, lively, accessible and immensely spellbinding. This book should appeal especially to those who enjoy reading about strange mysteries of the non-fiction variety.

This whole topic of untangling skill and luck in as quantitative a way as possible is completely new to me. Consequently, I learned a great deal from this book. The author defines a luck-skill continuum, with all skill at one end and all luck at the other, and explains how one can recognize where on this scale a certain activity is likely to be, i.e., what proportions of skill and luck. Once that is estimated, impending decisions can be made in a more informed way.

Once the author has established the theoretical basis and developed the necessary tools, many real-life applications are provided. These applications center mainly on business, sports and investing, as the book's subtitle indicates. Although I have no expertise worth mentioning in any of these fields, I was still amazed to see how much can be done using the author's guidelines. But also - again for the same reason - I did find some of the terminology, especially that in investing, to be a bit unfamiliar. So, for me, re-reading at least parts of the book would likely be a good idea.

I found the author's prose to be clear, lively and often engaging. It is my impression that the author assumes some basic knowledge on the part of the reader in the headlined topics. Consequently, I believe that those who would enjoy, indeed benefit from, this book the most are those with a serious interest in understanding how the relative contributions of skill and luck can be scrutinized in business, sports and investing.

This book is a major and important contribution to the growing library of books aimed at explaining complex scientific issues to the general reader. But more than that, the authors have picked a field that sparks fear in the minds of many and that is also plagued by controversy.

Remaining strictly objective and adhering to nothing but the facts and the observed data, the authors have done an absolutely wonderful job in explaining, in plain language, the history, nature, sources, uses and (particularly) biological effects of radiation as well as the terminology used. Although non-ionizing radiation and its sources are briefly covered, the book is mainly concerned with the ionizing variety. One of the authors, Dr. R.P. Gale, is a world-renowned medical expert in this field and several experiences from his career are described.

The prose is a model of clarity, quite lively, clearly authoritative and highly engaging; I found the play-by-play description of the Goiania incident to be particularly gripping. Ending with a useful question and answer section and amply referenced, this is a book that should appeal to anyone, especially those concerned about all aspects of ionizing radiation.