Jim Al-Khalili

Paradox is an interesting book that could have been much better with a stronger editorial hand. Al-Khalili really wants to share his knowledge and must be a very effective teacher, but a book is not a classroom. The chapters suffered from too many tangential discussions that while related to the topic at hand, were ultimately distracting asides to the path he was walking the reader down. In a classroom you could raise your hand and ask "I don't get it--how does this relate?" But in a book, you just have to be patient. For me there was just too much jumping around, which made it harder to understand the final solutions to the paradoxes he was presenting. Still, the issues themselves, including the tangential ones, are fascinating, and his writing style is pleasant enough.… (meer)

Jim Al-Khalili has a gift for making complex science seem understandable. I learnt all sorts of things from this book, understood them as I read Jim Al-Khalili's words but don't stand a chance of being able to explain to someone else evenn 50% of the ideas here. That said, even 50% is more than I knew before and I am glad I picked this up to read it. Some chapters were better than others. The Achilles and the Tortoise paradox seemed fairly straightforward. The Schrodinger's Cat paradox and the Pole in the Barn paradox were fascinating and illuminating. Others were more difficult to grasp. An accessible science book that isn't one for those who have studied physics but for those who thought it was boring at school, like me you'll be wondering how it could ever have seemed boring!… (meer)

CONTENTS

1. List of Figures - pag. ix
2. List of Plates - pag. xi
3. Preface - pag. xiii
4. A Note on Names, Pronunciations, Spellings and Dates - pag. xxii
5. A Note on the Term "Arabic Science" - pag. xxv

6. A Dream of Aristotle - pag. 3
7. The Rise of Islam - pag. 18
8. Translation - pag. 35
9. The Lonely Alchemist - pag. 49
10. The House of Wisdom - pag. 67
11. Big Science - pag. 79
12. Numbers - pag. 93
13. Algebra - pag. 110
14. The Philosopher - pag. 124
15. The Medic - pag. 138
16. The Physicist - pag. 152
17. The Prince ans the Pauper - pag. 172
18. Andalusia - pag. 189
19. The Maragha Revolution - pag. 204
20. Decline and Renaissance - pag. 223
21. Science and Islam Today - pag. 241

22. Notes - pag. 253
23. Glossary of Scientist - pag. 271
24. Timeline: The Islamic World from Antiquity to the BEginning of the Modern World - pag. 289
25. Index - pag. 291… (meer)

This book made my brain hurt. Seriously. I simultaneously realized how smart and creative theoretical physicists really are, and my little brain pales in comparison.I really couldn't rate this book in all fairness because I'm way too conflicted about it. The author had a wonderful voice, and the book is beautifully illustrated. I seriously give him five stars for effort. He really, really tried to make this stuff understandable. He used examples. He used pictures. He didn't use sophisticated language.

Nonetheless, I just couldn't really understand a whole lot of it. I was doing pretty good in the first few chapters -- and only because I have taken a couple of years of calculus. But later on, I was just lost and also a bit bored because some of the concepts were just eluding me, and you needed those concepts to understand the latter part of the book.

I did come away with incredible admiration for folks who actually do understand this stuff and can apply it to real world applications. Because it seriously is the most counterintuitive thing I've ever come across.

A part of me would like to try another book on the subject to see I would come away any more enlightened.

A part of me would like to remain blissfully ignorant.

Another very strange thing about this book is that some of the concepts are so counter to reason that it really casts doubt in my mind on my own atheistic beliefs which are seriously derived from reason and rationale thought.

Quantum physics really seems to highlight the limits of our understanding while simultaneously showing how brilliant we are. We can create predictive mathematical formulas that WORK under all sorts of experimental conditions. But we don't know why they work.

Brain. hurts. bad.

All in all, hats off to the author for even attempting to bring this subject down to layperson's terms even if he wasn't 100% successful with this particular layperson.… (meer)