Book Chat: Economics

I can honestly say that I'm shocked (and slightly embarrassed to admit) that two books about economics, of all things, would have changed my perspective of the world.  Honestly, you'd think some science book would do that, right?  But alas, in my age of ever-changing perspectives and general teenagehood, books on "the social science of decision- making" rather than "the study of the human brain" have changed the way I think.  Who would have known?

Anyway, all that being said and done, I should talk about the books, shouldn't I?  I'll go from oldest to most recent.  Here are the first two (they're related):

Freakonomics
"A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything"
By Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner


SuperFreakonomics

"Global Cooling, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance"

By Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Simply put, Freakonomics and it's sequel has one basic concept in mind: incentives cause people to do things.  Or, to put in one word, it's about incentives.  It's an extremely popular book, and for good reason-it has wonderful examples, shows surprising (but logical) points to make, and talks about some controversial issues. Even kokopelli1015 has read excerpts, but hasn't read the entire thing.  I do talk about Freakonomics in this post, but I know few of you will read that post, so quick review- has some controversial issues about discrimination and abortion as a heads up, and talks a lot about crime, and obviously, the role of incentives in the crime.  It also talks about a lot of other things, so even if none of those seem appealing to you, there's a whole lot of hidden treasures in that book that's worth reading for.  SuperFreakonomics is the one I read recently, though.  Another heads up: there is inappropriate content in the first chapter, but it doesn't look at it in a you-know-what light, but in more of an analytical view- looking at data and whatnot.  Still, get it checked out by an adult if you want before you read it to be safe.  It's been a little while, but I do know that this book doesn't focus all that much on crime as Freakonomics, but talks about other subjects as well.  It's got a pretty extensive chapter on global warming and some (easy) ways to combat it.  My personal favorite chapter is the last one, on monkeys (that's where the question box came from! I forget what my family and I were talking about to get to monkey hair...).  Both books, though, are honestly quite amazing and will change the way you look at things.  Really.  It did that to a hard-core science fan, and I'm sure that most people will find it a wonderfully fascinating read.  There's even a really interesting blog for Freakonomics that I'd recommend to read as well.

Trade-Off
"Why Some Things Catch on and Others Don't"
By Kevin Maney

This book was amazing.  Really.  It's all about a simple concept that's behind which products catch on- and which don't.  This basic concept is fidelity (quality) vs. convenience.  A product will go off well in the market if it either has super high fidelity or super high convenience.  It is impossible to have both- and trying to make a product have both is chasing the "fidelity mirage," which sounds all too possible but is a fool's errand.  This, along with other spin-offs of the fidelity vs. convenience trade-off is more thoroughly explained in the book.  There are tons of real, vivid, examples of products that have failed- and succeeded wildly.  While some may not be as well-known to us, like the company Tesla Motors, others we are all too familiar with (e.g. the iPhone and some other well known companies).  I don't think that I'll ever look at anything the same after I read this- especially right after reading this, you keep thinking about whether it's high convenience, high fidelity, or a bit of both.  Ever wonder how the whole revamp of the question box rewards system sprang into being?  Well, this book was part of the answer.  Really, it's a great book, and I'd highly recommend you read it.

Admittedly, these three books aren't quite science related, but they're really great books that puts a spin on your perspectives of things.  Try them out and see what you think, and you may be surprised that non fiction books can be just as interesting as Twilight, in different ways.

Book Chat: Economics

Introducing....

Freakonomics

"A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything"

By Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

This book is, quite frankly, amazing. It explores a lot of issues and uses raw data to answer unusual questions that turn up even more odd things about our society. As Kurt Anderson says in his praise: "This is bracing fun of the highest order."

The cover consists of a picture of an apple with a slice cut away to show the inside to be... an orange. True to the cover, the book tries to send the message that not everything is what it seems, and by asking the right questions and using the right data, we can begin to uncover the real truths of our world. This is an extremely popular book as far as I know, which is why I decided to read it- and it was worth it. It's not extremely long, and every page has its own surprises. However, they do talk about some controversial issues, like discrimination and abortion, and if you have strong beliefs about such issues, this book may be a little upsetting. It also talks a lot about crime, since Levitt's chief interest is not really in the economy, but in everyday issues and crime. The way the authors write and explain things using data in this book is alone reason enough to read it, since it is extremely unique.

If you have yet to read a non fiction book, then I'd highly recommend this book for any sort of interest you may have. Being a science and music person, economics don't really strike me as, well, amazing, but this book was definitely worth the read. I have yet to read the next book, Superfreakonomics, and explore their website. If you do read it though, please tell me what you think of it! It's a very thought-provoking book.

Science Book, Take A Look: Time Travel

Anyone curious to know more about time travel? *crickets chirping* Anyway, I'll pretend someone's interested. The book in question is Paul Davies' How To Build A Time Machine.

The best trait of this book I'd say is its short length and articulate English language. It explains things pretty well, although it is a quick moving book. It also discusses other weird stuff in physics like exotic matter (e.g. negative energy, imaginary matter, etc.), black holes, and singularities. The primary route of time travel that this book focuses on is a wormhole, so if you're interested specifically in black holes or wormholes this is a must-read. Otherwise, for those of you who like weird but true stuff or need to look smart, this is a good book. However, I want to point out something that the book doesn't really emphasize a lot- this is all based on theory, we still don't know enough to be sure that it's possible, and even if creating a wormhole to travel in time is possible, it's not going to happen for a looooonnnnng time- as in, don't count on your great-great-great-grandchildren to be time traveling.

Another book that kokopelli recommends that is scientific in a sense is Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. This was written by a well established writer who got a little curious about how scientists discover stuff, so he went on a "quest" to learn as much as he could- and wrote a book about it, of course. It's a funny book with lots of really weird (and sometimes sad) tales of scientists. The downsides to this book is that it's really long and that the science gets... pushed to the side at times and is a little unclear. Still, I highly recommend reading at least a chapter or two of this book (you don't have to finish- I didn't either).

Science Book, Take a Look: Going Nuts?

This book is not about psychology, but its somewhat more scientific counterpart: Neurology, or the science of the brain. There are many, many strange tales of patients with diseases of the brain...

Newton's Madness: Further Tales of Clinical Neurology

by Harold L. Klawans, M.D.

I found this a really engaging read. They're basically the stories of patients (well, most) that the author encountered as a neurologist who works in a hospital and diagnoses people. Some of the diseases many people know about, like a stroke, while others aren't so common. He explains how he does things pretty clearly (hey, this isn't for doctors but everyday folk like you and me) although all the chemicals like dopamine and serotonin and other big fancy medical terms (with the exception of morbidly obese, which I think most people know) can make your head spin if you try to keep track of them all (which I didn't). My favorite chapter in the book was chapter 18, "The Girl with the Dancing Eyes," which was simply hilarious- or at least the first half was. I won't tell anything about this chapter except this tidbit: bouncing guinea pigs. An example of the type of diseases, or rather, problems with the brain (by far not the most exotic, though) that the author discusses was a stroke, in the first chapter. While a stroke is pretty basic knowledge, the stroke that the author has to diagnose belongs to none other but one of his mother's very close friends- "Aunt Betty." In this case, the stroke patient was taken to the hospital, but the patient had no idea what was wrong! Aunt Betty had lost all control and feeling in her left arm or hand- in fact, when the author held it up for her to see, she thought it was the neurologist's hand, not her own. The author later goes on to explain this more thoroughly.

Here are some tips if you do read this book:
First, read all the quotes that the chapter starts out with. You probably should for all books, but these are really interesting (same goes for the Michio Kaku books, he has some awesome quotes in there).
Second, read all the author's notes at the end of the chapter. There are hidden goodies in there that are definately worth reading, especially in Chapter 18.
Third, and this goes for most of the books I would put up, this is not a quick read. It is a book written for adults, and while it's not super long, it definately needs you to take your time and read it. If you need a book for Lit, don't read this just for the 10 points- or rather, read a fantasy book for the 10 points and read this for the sake of reading (which you should be doing in the first place).
Fourth, I have a question that I would be very grateful if someone could answer: this book has an entire chapter devoted to Sherlock Holmes, his possible drug addiction, and how he probably visited Dr. Sigmund Freud during the three years that he "disappeared." So, considering that Sigmund Freud existed and real people don't really get visits from fictional characters all that often, was Sherlock Holmes real? Kokopelli1015 said that Sherlock Holmes didn't, but that makes everything make less sense. Not that I don't believe Kokopelli1015, but if you happen to read the book or just know about Sherlock Holmes, feel free to share your opinion on this topic (or anything in the book).

Science Book, Take A Look: "Real" Science Fiction!

Calling all lovers of sci-fi, physics, science, and bizarre facts!

Here are two (non-fiction) books worth reading:

Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku

Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku

(For those who watch the science channel, Michio Kaku is the Asian-ish, probably Japanese, guy with the white hair that shows up a lot.)

I put these two books together because they have a bit of an overlap in what they talk about. Physics of the Impossible is primarily about "impossible" technologies. He classifies them into three groups: class one, or something possible in the next couple of centuries, class two, something that's possible but is so far away that it's basically science fiction to us (well, it all seems like sci-fi anyways) and class three, or the truly impossible (although only two things, telling the future and perpetual motion machines, fall into this category). Of course, being the co founder of string theory, he likes to talk quite a bit about the awe-inspiring "theory of everything," aka string theory or M-theory. However, this is primarily about the "impossible"- time travel, invisibility, force fields, and other things that seem magic to us. For those who like Star Trek (I never saw it), he also makes a lot of references to Star Trek as well. I highly recommend this to people who like science-fiction: it's just as weird, but true as well!

Parallel Worlds delves deeper into the "theory of everything" and all the strings (string theory, get it?) attached. He discusses parallel universes, quantum mechanics, baby universes, and of course, string, or rather, M-theory. (Just to clear things up, the "theory of everything" is like the holy grail of physics. M-theory, the m standing for membrane, is the latest version of string theory, which people hope is the new theory of everything.) This is just as bizarre and a little harder to grasp than Physics of the Impossible, so I recommend you read Physics of the Impossible first if you are interested in both of them. This book's bizarreness comes from all of those wacky theories. For instance, just as a little taste, quantum mechanics can imply that there is a slight probability that we could suddenly disappear and reappear on Mars from the uncertainty principle- thankfully, the probability of this is so small that you'd have to wait longer than the lifetime of the universe for this to happen, so saying that your homework disappeared due to the uncertainty principle is not a reasonable excuse for not having your homework.

Overall, these two books are very, very interesting- but two warnings: first, don't read them one after the other, but put a book in between. They have quite a bit of an overlap in material, so while the info will sink in better the next time, it will be repetitive. Also, don't read too much of this stuff: it gave me a weird dream about disappearing into a parallel universe, and I've been wondering about parallel universes and how we would tell the difference between a parallel universe where we originated from and one where the only difference is something like a butterfly not existing- good food for thought, but still really creepy.