The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex

Thought provoking.

The title says it all in a cryptic kind of way. This book is about the QM world and the macro world we live in and the relationship between the two.

Whilst avoiding much math he does still manage to convey part of his own feeling of wonder at the subject and a notion of what the world really does seem to be like at the subatomic level. I was also pleased to see him railing against many of the more common misuses and usurpations of some "quantum" concepts in an attempt to justify some very unscientific claims of woo woo.

This book refuses to stick to one subject and branches out to cover complexity, the standard model of quantum physics, selection and evolution, diversity and the environment. All in well judged levels of show more details and in a very easy to read style.

A whistle stop tour of the issues of the day (although this was the mid nineties) and so some of his warnings about extremism and talk of cultural diversity just ring an odd note now and again.

Well worth a read. show less

Decepción. Yo creía que el libro iba a tratar sobre los quarks y su descubrimiento (por algo el autor fue quien tuvo la mayor parte del mérito) y resulta que el libro es un conjunto de visiones personales sobre complejidad y simplicidad de sistemas. EN algunos momentos se hace realmente ininteligible (al hablar de decoherencia en historias no detalladas con detalles integrados, sin ir más lejos). Hay partes buenas e interesantes; otras son imposibles. El libro no está mal pero no me ha llamado la atención.

Whilst the author is clearly a very bright spark, he can't hold my attention in this book. Horgan in 'The End of Science' tells us that his agent, Brockman claims that G-M "has five brains, each one smarter than yours". Such a shame that none of these five is a genuine author's brain! I doubt I'll ever get around to finishing it.

Substance: Ruminations over a large number of scientific topics, with biographical notes.
Style: Interesting and accessible.
NOTES:
(use for research in writing projects)
p. 182 on propagating misunderstandings
p. 211: multi-verse bubbles.
p. 264: on creativity
p. 270: Contains the true story of the greatest physics exam question ever: how do you measure the height of a building with a barometer? (Although Gell-Mann's book was not published until 1994, I first heard the story in a college physics class in 1970.)
p. 283: explaining irrational beliefs
p. 296: how maladaptive schema survive
p. 322: on irrational behavior and assumptions
p. 324: blinders in economic theory
Unfortunately, this book does not seem to contain the story of "the Gell-Mann show more Amnesia Effect", which is referenced in Michael Crichton's essay, "Why Speculate?"; however, I know I have read the original story in some book in my library. show less

Right, I'm giving up. This is just too obscure for me. I'm smart, but I'm not THIS kind of smart.

Atomic physics, evolution & conservation from the man who even Feynman thought was scarily smart.
Read Mar 2004

I liked the first few chapters, but will have to come back to this one later.