Ian Stewart. Visions of Infinity. The Great Mathematical Problems.

Great book. How many good popular science books are there now! Mario Livio (see my review) is slightly surpasses him in style and historical erudition but Stewart may be even better in explaining mathematics in layman's terms.

D. T. Max, Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace, Penguin.

The bio of possibly the greatest American author of his generation (unless you are editorial assistant, reading his "Infinite Jest" requires a grant, which I did not receive) is more an D. T. Max' advertisement (For his parents? For Penguin editors?) that he graduated from Harvard.

An example: "But Kari encouraged him in his investigations [voluminous footnote], and by the time that he left for Syracuse he had blossomed into a committed therapand, as eager to ferret out the roots of his personal malaise as he'd once been to crack logical paradoxes."

Antony Padgen, The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters, Random House

Padgen gives quite a spirited description of Kant and surprising modernity of his political views. Otherwise, it is an obsessive screed declaring global political evolution of the last two centuries the brainwork of (Western) intellectuals. Had industrial revolution, two World Wars, revolutions in France, Russia and the third world had something to do with it? Silence.

Lawrence Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, The University of Chicago Press, 2012.

Erudite nonsense.

The author through collecting specious evidence, suggests that alchemy was as rational as a premodern science. This is nonsense. While premodern scientists were mystically inclined etc., they published their manuscripts for everybody to learn and maintained active correspondence, frequently international, with their colleagues. The majority of alchemists supplied their mystico-philosophical treatises with chemical magic/experiments but they were supplied essentially as "proofs" that the author had some secret knowledge. Chemical side of alchemy did not evolve throughout many centuries and it remained a cultural phenomenon totally separate from the emergence of modern science. This is not to say that some serious scientists (Newton, Boyle) were also alchemists.

John Freely, Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe, Overlook Duckworth: London, 2012.

Very good book. Heavily relies on Crombie.

Emergence of the modern science, which characterized XVI-XVII centuries (Copernicus. Tartaglia, Cardano, Galileo, Kepler, Ortolanus, etc.) could have happened two centuries before. Yet, the lights of the XIII-XIV century Oxford-Paris school (Bradwardine, Buridan, etc.) who could lead to mechanics, geometrical optics, geocentric theory in astronomy and even calculus, were prematurely extinguished. After the Great Plague, this unique international collaboration lost its significance.

My argument with Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins presumes, as do many other outspoken atheists, that the decline of religion would usher in the triumph of secular humanism. But this is not so. The retreat of organized Abrahamic religions is filled with (beginning with the least harmful)

• unrestrained consumerism and narcisisstic hedonism, threatening economic well-being of nations and the quality of the global environment; 
• the return to the heterodox pre-Christian paganism typical of the late Roman era, particularly in the guises of the New Age and American "Biblical Christianity": the glorification of militaristic state as an apex of male-centric nuclear families; and
• aggressive nationalism.

None of the intellectual/social currents superseding the organized religion is particularly better or humane than the religious bigotry they are assumed to replace.

Mario Livio, The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved, Simon and Schuster, 2006.

M. Livio's “The equation that couldn't be solved” is a work of great erudition and love of the subject. Unlike many popular scientific books, the good, the bad and the ugly, it does not promote his own scientific work or philosophical views. Even now, with the abundance of good popular science writing, his book is outstanding.  

J.-P. Changeux, L. Garey, The Good, the True and the Beautiful, Yale University Press, 2012.

Chaotic narrative, from which I cannot claim to understand more than 25%, polyannish philosophy in the end but absolutely brilliant. It is based on the author's, famed neurobiologist, lectures in College de France, which can partly explain the book's disjointed character as lecture notes. These lectures describe the connection of psychological/behavioral and biological in human mind.

Thomas F. Madden, Venice, a New History. Viking Adult, 2012.

This book is very nicely written and is counted to be quickly swallowed. Yet, it is a piece of Catholic propaganda. I.e. events, which are usually presented as manifestations of power struggles, palace coups, greed, bigotry and territorial rapacity are instead explained by Catholic piety and Christian endurance is the face of the infidels. Ugliness, such as Inquisition, extradition of Giordano Bruno to Rome, assassination attempts on Paolo Sarpi and ghettoization of the Jews are either omitted or glossed over. Thomas Madden stoops to accuse historians imputing economic motives in Venetian subversion of the crusade to attack Constantinople as rank Marxists, yet in other places he himself is not above assuming economic drives of politics. On the whole, it is revisionist history, insidious because it is written so well.

Forecast of the state of the Russian Air Forces (in Russian)

Abstract

Russian military-industrial commission (VPK) issued a forecast of the build-up of the Russian Air Force to 2020. This forecast presumes acquisition of about 1,000 fixed wing aircraft and twelve hundred of rotary wing aircraft in the period 2012-2020. This plan does not seem to be realistic, nor it seems to conform to the  pressing needs of the Russian Air Force. It could be better served by much more modest plan (and compact airforce). The resources can be reallocated for improved satellite reconnaissance, communications, UAVs and air base infrastructure. 

Комментарий на прогноз развития ВВС России

В ряде средств массовой информации (в т.ч. ВПК-Ньюс) была опубликована статья российских экспертов Фролова и Барабанова о развитии российских ВВС до 2020 года. Фролов и Барабанов в целом отражают позицию российского ВПК и предлагают планы массированного строительства и закупки летательных аппаратов (более 1000 штук, не считая вертолетов). Сама по себе нереалистичность этих планов не является их главным недостатком. Эти планы сохраняют приоритеты советских ВВС—большое количество летательных аппаратов и, особенно, их типов, принятие на вооружение «сырых» образцов боевой техники, малое внимание к аэродромной инфраструктуре и системе снабжения, и вторичную роль авиационного вооружения и двигателестроения по сравнению с производством летательных аппаратов.

            Альтернативный план предусматривает сокращение плана производства и закупок летательных аппаратов примерно на 50% (подробности; см. диаграммы и таблицы). Кроме того предполагается выведение устаревших и разнотипных образцов боевой техники из ВВС. Освободившиеся средства предлагается использовать на развитие (1) беспилотной авиации и спутниковых систем связи и навигации, (2) аэродромной инфраструктуры, включая средства ПВО и РЭБ авиационных баз, и (3) совершенствование авиационного вооружения. Кроме того, ряд летательных аппаратов предлагается модернизировать для выполнения новых функций (таких, например как gunships для специальных анти-террористических операций, или летающих госпиталей для МЧС). Альтернативный план также предполагает, что приобретение перспективного боевого комплекса Т-50 будет отнесено на последующие декады; ВВС получат лишь несколько опытных образцов для обучения и исследовательской деятельности. Автор считает эту программу необходимой и выполнимой, но ускоренный выпуск самолета без необходимых структурных элементов может лишь скомпрометировать программу производства самолетов 5-того поколения в России.

            В конце десятилетия вместо приобретения проектируемых 900 самолетов и 1200 вертолетов и авиационной группировки, насчитывающей около 4000 летательных аппаратов 43 типов, совершенно невозможной в обслуживании и поддержании боеготовности,  альтернативный план предполагает около тысячи самолетов в ВВС (из них около 400—новых типов) и 700-800 вертолетов армейской авиации. Количество типов летательных аппаратов на вооружении ВВС и армейской авиации будет сокращено до 22. Кроме того, другие силовые ведомства (авиация ВМФ, пограничные войска ФСБ, внутренние войска МВД и МЧС) должны сохранить порядка 300 самолетов и 200-300 боевых вертолетов. Эти ведомства также сохранят значительное количество невоенизированных транспортных вертолетов и некоторое количество самолетов общего назначения.

            В результате Российская Федерация будет обладать к 2020-2021 годам сбалансированными современными ВВС, усиленной авиацией ВМФ и значительными резервами для модернизации. 

M. Orem. Six Days War of 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East

M. Orem. Six Days War of 1967 and the Making of the ModernMiddle East 

This review of Orem’s book was contemporary with its publication in 2007; my current comments will be posted in the end.

His is a brilliant book; but not because of its exposition of Israeli-Arab conflict or the Six Day War, but in precision of his calculation of the intended American audience.

            Imagine a worldview of the grown-up and ageing Greyer (“Nanny’s diaries”): a graduate of elite prep school and an Ivy League University, a reader of “The Wall Street Journal” and, occasionally, a “New Yorker.” This type populates different boards of trustees responsible for invitations to high powered lecture circuit. That is, he is well predisposed towards Israel and considers United States a pillar of the Universe. England is “the Old Country”, for which he feels a kind of condescending nostalgia unless, of course, its leadership disagrees with the US.  The Russians are unwashed barbarians, who are wrong in everything they are doing or not doing; French generally stink but not as much as Russians. War, of which Tom Clancy is a main source, is a glorious affair in which never-failing technology of the West always triumphs against imbecility and backwardness of the East. This gentleman is well-traveled but rarely ventured outside of five star hotels and Michelin-rated restaurants whether in Monaco or in Mumbai. (I wrote this in 2007 but now I am shuddering: I described Mitt Romney.)

            Orem’s book genially fits into this worldview practically assuring its author the status of a talk circuit superstar. Only a weary reader like this one can notice some discrepancies. Orem’s vindictive book vilifies Abba Eban and Moshe Dayan, to the lesser extent. He pretty much removed IDF Chief of Staff Rabin from his storyline. Orem bases his observations exclusively on opinions of Col. Lior, a military adjunct to Prime Minister Eshkol. Only religious conservatives, hardliners and settlers exist in Orem’s vision of Israeli history.

            But even this sketchy performance confirms some pertinent observations. First, in 1967 Johnson (and US) position towards Israel was rather ambivalent and differed little from the position of the USSR, which Orem variously blames for instigating the war and for desiring that Arabs do not provoke a larger conflict. Johnson, tied up in Vietnam War, was worried more about Jewish vote in the US and visceral anti-Semitism of the State Department of the time. French and British simply abandoned Israel, yet Orem lays no blame with the British, who also supported Jordan, one of the combatants on the Arab side.

            Soviet bitterness with Israel and the subsequent cessation of diplomatic relations resulted not from the Israel waging war per se. When USA and USSR put all their diplomatic influence on the line by twisting the hands of Israel and Jordan (USA) and the Soviets—with the Syrians, Dayan initiated an offensive against Syria. This, in Soviet view, was a wanton betrayal of mutually agreed obligations. Unbeknownst to the Soviets, Dayan also double-crossed Johnson and Eshkol, who feared that too much occupied territory will only complicate a future peace settlement.

            Many other books (e.g. Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time) tell the story of the Six Days War more convincingly and some are much shorter. But none will approach Orem’s intimacy with the thinking of the Greyers.