Canaday, John

Average customer rating: highly recommended What they read while building the bomb Not Amused

The Nuclear Muse: Literature, Physics, and the First Atomic Bombs (Science and Literature) John Canaday Manufacturer: University of Wisconsin Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback General | Classics | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books General | History & Criticism | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Rhetoric | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books Nuclear | Engineering | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books General | Physics | Professional Science | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books Nuclear Physics | Physics | Professional Science | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books History of Science | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books General | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books Atomic & Nuclear Physics | Nuclear Physics | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books General | Nuclear Physics | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books History of Technology | Technology | Science | Subjects | Books Culture | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books ASIN: 0299168549

Book Description

John Canaday analyzes a variety of texts produced by physicists before, during, and after the Second World War, including Niels Bohr's "The Quantum Postulate"; the Blegdamsvej Faust, a parody of Goethe's Faust that cast physicists as its principle characters; The Los Alamos Primer, the technical lectures used for training at Los Alamos; scientists' descriptions of their work and of the Trinity test; and Leo Szilard's post-war novella, The Voice of the Dolphins.

"Physicists in the first half of this century became caught up in knowledge, ways of doing science, military projects, and social consequences that pushed their means of representation and understanding to the limit. This important study reveals how the Los Alamos physicists adopted literary modes of expression to come to terms with the worlds they were making and transforming."-Charles Bazerman, author of Shaping Written Knowledge

"A revelatory exploration of the relation between literary and scientific languages, which John Canaday analyzes with an exceptional sophistication that combines analytical rigor and a

Psychologie et management

Authors: Philippe Burg, Pierre Jardillier
Catalog: Book
Media: Broché
Release Date: 24 January, 2005
Publisher: Presses Universitaires de France - PUF
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Livres:

1. Questions de mythocritique : Dictionnaire
2. Un abécédaire du socialisme
3. Dictionnaire de la Bande Dessinée
4. Grand dictionnaire des enchères après intervention
5. Le dictionnaire de l'adolescence
6. Dictionnaire de pharmacologie générale : Suivi de Dictionnaire de statistique médicale
7. Atlas de la structure des plantes : Guide de l'anatomie microscopique des plantes vasculaires en 285 photos
8. Nouveau Dictionnaire de Psycho-Socio-Pedagogie
9. Dictionnaire des animaux et des civilisations : Linguistique et symbolique
10. Hypnose : Ou Traité du sommeil nerveux, considéré dans ses relations avec le magnétisme animal (1843)

ringtone88.com deficiencies of this volume would be excessive. This review will concentrate on some illustrative examples.
A recurrent flaw in this book is the author's almost disingenuous failure to recognize the concept of models in science. On page 34, Canaday cites Frisch's Working with Atoms (1965) "Almost two hundred years ago the chemists found they could explain a lot by assuming that all things are made from a few dozen kinds of tiny bits called atoms...." On page 35, Canaday (mis-) characterizes this as "chemists `found' that matter was constructed of atoms." Atomic theory proposed for scientific purposes (as opposed to a philosophical ploy for the advancement of atheism-see The Atom in the History of Human Thought, Bernard Pullman) began with Dalton. It did not become accepted until the early 20th Century. Bronowski relates [The Ascent of Man] that Boltzmann committed suicide in 1906 because he felt that atomic theory would not be accepted. The arguments for atomic theory were based on its utility in explaining experimental facts. Frisch's careful statement reflects this history; Canaday's misses or dismisses it entirely. I would have more confidence in Canaday's exegesis if he showed first that he could grasp the literal meanings correctly.
Another failure to recognize the use of models occurs in Canaday's discussion of the Los Alamos Primer, which he defines as a work of fiction and, therefore, literary, because it contained simplifications and described a thing that did not (yet) exist. A definition should make useful discriminations. Canaday's definition of fiction does not. By his definition, the blue prints for next year's model of Cadillac is as much a work of fiction as Frankenstein. President Lincoln pointed out the problem with such definitions: if you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one. Where models, such as those used in the Los Alamos Primer, simplify, or idealize, they introduce (one hopes) not significant error and as Bacon pointed out "Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion." Chemists even have an old joke on the subject. A ruler, wishing to improve his country's dairy industry hires a physical chemist for what turns into a long and expensive study. Upon opening the first of several volumes of results, the ruler reads the first sentence, "Assume a spherical cow." Clearly, scientists are not unaware of their use of models and do not apply a model without considering limitations arising from the simplifications used in generating them. If one removed the word "fiction" and substituted "model" in much of this discussion, Canaday's writing would make more sense.
While on the subject of the Los Alamos Primer and points missed, the chapter contains a five-page section under the heading "What's in a Name?" in which he discusses "all" the ramifications of the word "primer" with a "short i." Although he discusses the humor in this word choice, he never considers the meaning of "primer" with a "long i:" a device used to detonate the main explosive charge of a weapon. Considering the purpose of the Manhattan project, for which the primer was written, this seems to be either a significant oversight or an hypothesis to be dismissed with an explanation to the reader.
Yet a third disappointing treatment of models is seen in Canaday's treatment (throughout the book) of the problem of the "wave" and "particle" models for the properties of light. Particularly vexing is his failure to reveal to the reader the resolution of this "problem" by de Broglie in the 1920's. His reasons for this omission are, at best, mysterious.
Other examples of "literary" contributions included Arthur Compton's cryptic disclosure to James Conant of Fermi's successful chain reaction and Oppenheimer's reaction to the successful Trinity test. The first was "The Italian navigator has just landed in the new world." The problem here is that this example, despite the five-page discussion of it as a literary reference, is historical, not literary. Oppenheimer's quote was from the Bhagavad Gita. (There are Scriptural references from others cited as well.) Again, this begs the question because the citations are from religious works. One suspects that the strictly observant of the faiths associated with these works would take a dim view of treating their holy writ as wholly lit.
There is another problem with the Oppenheimer quote (p.185). Canaday spends a long paragraph (p. 186) agonizing over the accuracy of the quote-taken from a book, taken from another book, transcribed from a documentary quoting an interview is accurate, especially in light of an alternate version. Oh, which is right and where did the alternate arise? Oh, agony. The documentary in question is available on video tape and Oppenheimer is quoted correctly in Canaday's sources. Why he did not make the effort to find it himself is between him and his notion of scholarship. As to the origin of the variant, Canaday, apparently without realizing it, includes its most likely origin, some thirty-five pages later, in Laurence's account of his talk with Oppenheimer the day following the test.
Finally, one must ask the question of whether the scientific-literary connection is real or merely a fluke. It is hard to argue that Canaday makes much of a case. While making much of H. G. Wells' contribution to nuclear research in The World Set Free because it deals with generating atomic energy, would there not be more examples of such a connection in other fields were it real? Would anyone seriously argue that the poison gas in The War of the Worlds-"...it is possible that [an unknown element] combines with Argon to form a compound...."-contributed to the discover of noble gas compounds? What about the influence of The First Men in the Moon or From the Earth to the Moon on the Apollo Missions? (The closest one is apt to get is von Braun's adopting the practice of counting backwards at rocket launches after seeing it in Fritz Lang's "The Woman in the Moon.") Perhaps a better characterization of the examples in this book would be that scientists, being people, when communicating rely largely on language (with all its shortcomings) and that it is human nature to deal with novel situations in terms of familiar situations. (The extreme example of the latter is the quote: when your only tool is a hammer, all problems tend to look like nails.)
I feel bad about criticizing this book so harshly. Let me make up for it by outlining a topic for Canaday's next book on interactions between science and literature. Mary Shelley's father, who educated her, was an enlightenment philosopher and, thus, had an antipathy toward the Church. The greatest blow recently dealt to the power of the Church (in regard to its infallibility) was the Copernican overthrow of the Ptolemaic geocentric universe. Thus, he was apt to read Copernicus and to have had Mary read it as well. The preface of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (as translated by Jerzy Dobrzyski) contains the suggestive sentence "... taking from various places hands, feet, a head and other pieces ... since these fragments would not belong one to another at all, a monster rather than a man would be put together from them." Clearly, such a sentence could remain in Mary Shelley's subconscious mind and later manifest itself in the dream which lead to Frankenstein.

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Metropolitan Seminars In Art (What is painting?, 1) Manufacturer: Metropolitan Museum of Art ProductGroup: Book Binding: Board book ASIN: B0007I9X5S

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THE LIVES OF THE PAINTERS 4 Vols 1. Late Gothic To High Renaissance.2. Baroque.3.Neoclasisic-Post-Impressionist 4. Plates and Index John Canaday Manufacturer: W.W. NORTON & CO ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover ASIN: B000HH223O

Average customer rating: Questions de mythocritique : Dictionnaire Authors: Danièle Chauvin, André Siganos, Philippe Walter, Collectif Catalog: Book Media: Broché Release Date: 24 January, 2005 Publisher: Imago (éditions) Rechercher des articles similaires par rubrique: Thèmes - Dictionnaires, langues et encyclopédies - Encyclopédies et dictionnaires thématiques - Littérature, SF et Policier - Généralités Thèmes - Littérature - Livres de référence - Critiques, analyses et essais Thèmes - Littérature - Livres de référence - Divers Thèmes - Sciences humaines - Psychologie et psychanalyse - Pédagogie et éducation - Divers Boutiques - Par prix - De 20 à 45 euros - Dictionnaires, langues et encyclopédies Boutiques - Par prix - De 20 à 45 euros - Littérature Boutiques - Par prix - De 20 à 45 euros - Sciences humaines Boutiques - Brochés (grands formats) Livres: Un abécédaire du socialisme Dictionnaire de la Bande Dessinée Grand dictionnaire des enchères après intervention Le dictionnaire de l'adolescence Dictionnaire de pharmacologie générale : Suivi de Dictionnaire de statistique médicale Atlas de la structure des plantes : Guide de l'anatomie microscopique des plantes vasculaires en 285 photos Nouveau Dictionnaire de Psycho-Socio-Pedagogie Dictionnaire des animaux et des civilisations : Linguistique et symbolique Hypnose : Ou Traité du sommeil nerveux, considéré dans ses relations avec le magnétisme animal (1843) Hypnotisme, double conscience et altérations de la personnalité : Le cas Félida X. (1887) ringtone88.com ctronics88.com/noimage.gif" alt="Richard Estes" border="0"> Average customer rating:

Richard Estes John Edwin Canaday , John Arthur , and Richard Estes Manufacturer: Bulfinch Press,U.S. ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback History | Subjects | Books | Africa | Americas | Ancient | Arctic & Antarctica | Asia | Australia & Oceania | Books on CD | Books on Cassette | Europe | Gay & Lesbian | Historical Study | Large Print | Middle East | Military | Military Science | Russia | United States | World Realism | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books General | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books Estes, Richard | ( D-F ) | Artists, A-Z | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books Canadian | Regional | History & Criticism | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books Similar Items: Richard Estes ASIN: 0878461264

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