Book Finished:
the address book
Our Place in the Scheme of Things
18/7/2016
Author Tim Radford
Fourth Estate, 2012 paperback edition First published 2011 Purchased at Whitcoulls, 11/08/14 Priced at $29.99, over-stickered to $10, and remaindered at $5 on a two-for deal! |
I'm not going to call this a Major Work, and I have seen dismissive comments on seller's sites, but I did like this.
The author has taken the childhood act of writing in a book the owner's name, followed by address, and going on to include town, country, The Earth, The Universe or similar, and used it as the basis for a book meditating on all the things that make us who we are. In ascending order he looks at how our possessions, dwellings, place of birth, culture, geography, planet and galaxy all have their influence on us. Some people might think this is a bit slight as a premise to hang a book on, but I enjoyed his leisurely and meditative ramblings through the various branches of his life; childhood home, education, career, etc. in the light of how location and history influenced them. As it gets to the higher, more impersonal levels, I enjoyed his efforts to make thoughtful observations and be scientifically accurate. There is no glossing over or dumbing down in his descriptions of astronomy and cosmology, for instance. Instead he tries to make them understandable through interesting parallels and connections, and asides on the scientists who determined the facts. I would actually describe this as a book almost entirely composed of asides. Some readers might be annoyed by this style, but I was entertained as he drew in a fascinating array of connections, serendipity, happenstance and detail to illustrate his meditations. It is not for nothing that I once had a reputation amongst workmates as producer of the "Irrelevant Fact of the Day". and this book is in a like style; except that he makes each seemingly irrelevant observation one in which you are interested to see how it will connect up to his narrative. I was also pleasantly surprised to find the author was born in my own home town, perhaps a few years before me, and I can vouch for his descriptions of the time and place. |
A Little Perspective
(An aside of my own, not in the book!)
It is an interesting happenstance where human beings fit in the spectrum of possible sizes.
The smallest size possible is believed to be the Planck length, roughly 1.61612×10^−35 metres.
The diameter of the Universe is believed to be 8.6 x 10^26 metres.
Halfway between is approx 10^-5 m = 0.01 mm, a human hair being approximately .017 to .18 mm.
Thus we sit very near to halfway between the smallest and largest things possible.
(It has been argued that this size is not arbitrary, but arises naturally from the properties of space-time, see the answer by User "Claudius" rated "4" on this page attempting to answer the question "Are we big or small?" at the Physics Stack Exchange website.)
Below is the excellent nine minute video "Powers of 10" made for IBM in 1977, which I think covers the subject well.
The smallest size possible is believed to be the Planck length, roughly 1.61612×10^−35 metres.
The diameter of the Universe is believed to be 8.6 x 10^26 metres.
Halfway between is approx 10^-5 m = 0.01 mm, a human hair being approximately .017 to .18 mm.
Thus we sit very near to halfway between the smallest and largest things possible.
(It has been argued that this size is not arbitrary, but arises naturally from the properties of space-time, see the answer by User "Claudius" rated "4" on this page attempting to answer the question "Are we big or small?" at the Physics Stack Exchange website.)
Below is the excellent nine minute video "Powers of 10" made for IBM in 1977, which I think covers the subject well.