David Stipp

Confesso di invidiare un po' David Stipp. A differenza del sottoscritto, riesce a tirare fuori una serie di paragoni così estremi - e soprattutto lontani dalla matematica - da catturare il lettore digiuno della materia. Detto in altri termini: se siete abbastanza esperti, questo libro non vi darà nulla di nuovo. Se invece siete semplici curiosi, vi si aprirà un mondo nuovo. Probabilmente non imparerete nulla, il che ha perfettamente senso visto che non stiamo parlando di un manuale; ma avrete un'idea di come un giocoliere dei numeri quale Eulero è stato potesse prendere un concetto nemmeno troppo chiaro al tempo come quello dei numeri immaginari, sfruttarlo per creare un nuovo universo, quello delle potenze immaginarie, e con un salto mortale all'indietro mostrare come si tornasse alle usuali funzioni trigonometriche. Stipp infine termina filosofeggiando, e proponendo la sua personale versione di cos'è la matematica. Afferma di essere un quasi-platonista: in altre parole, è convinto che gli oggetti matematici esistano da qualche parte nell'iperuranio, ma che allo stesso tempo noi esseri umani possiamo prenderli e manipolarli per creare qualcosa di nuovo. Un teorema, insomma, non esiste ab ovo ma solo quando noi lo dimostriamo. La traduzione di Giuseppe Bozzi rende generalmente il senso di stupore di Stipp, ma in qualche punto mi è parsa troppo… (meer)

I did not finish the book, even though I had only about 50 pages to go. I found it somewhat irritating to read- Stipp seemed to be constantly going off topic providing extensive researchers’ bios every time he discussed a research attempt, and then some more bio and anecdotes so that I was frequently losing sight of the issues at hand.

He did discuss interesting research, and I wish he did it in a more linear fashion.
We all age, but animals age at different rates, some die after very short lives, some after very long. Aging is not written in stone, though. Fish, for example, show no signs of deterioration with age, a phenomenon that is called ‘negligible senescence’. A fish (350 pound pike) was pulled out of a German lake that was supposedly 267 years old, and a 405 year old clam was pulled out near Iceland. Some fished out whales have been estimated to be over 100 years old, and one over 200.

So, why must we age? What’s the evolutionary advantage of aging and death? Death is easy - we already know from Darwin- species that don’t change don’t have a survival edge. Aging- that’s a different story. Here is what the going theory is now:
A late-acting gene that causes damage would be heavily favoured by evolution if it also boosts the odds of successful reproduction early in age even if the gene’s early benefit is tiny and the late damage comparatively large. In other words, the vibrancy of youth leads to the decline and fall later in life.

So, the prediction is that those who live past 100 shouldn’t have been very vigorous as young adults as they most probably lacked those genes. Bingo in case of my grandmother who was a rather sickly individual when young – TB in early adulthood- yet she lived to be 101. Very interesting.

Also, according to this principle, organisms that have a lot of babies at an early age should age quickly and those who delay reproduction and have fewer offspring would live longer and age at a slower rate. That’s true about my grandmother too.

There is also the disposable soma theory- our bodies are disposable gene carriers. Once the genes cannot be transmitted anymore we are disposable. If an organism puts a lot of energy into proper protein production (man), that organism lives longer, and has babies later. If it’s hasty and sloppy, it has babies earlier and dies earlier (mouse).

There have been many other promising studies on free radicals, dwarfism, slow metabolism, high and low cholesterol and resveratrol- a compound in red wine that has been found to significantly prolong the lives of mice on high fat diet mimicking our own rich industrial society diet, but nothing of big consequence really. What has really saddened me is that research shows that exercise does not slow down aging. Well, it makes one feel better at least!
The whole research into aging, as presented in the book seems to me a little bit like groping in the dark. Gerontology apparently does not enjoy the same prestige or the same funding as other areas like let's say cancer research, and consequently it seems to be making a bit more haphazard progress as well.… (meer)

Approaches that don't seem as promising as they once did: antioxidants, growth hormone, telomerase boosters, etc. What they're trying to develop now: calorie-restriction mimetics (from resveratrol, rapamycin, etc). "Gerontology will win its first Nobel Prize before 2020" -- p 172. My free-radical-ravaged, telomere-shortened, lipofuscin-laden cells wait with bated breath, and wistfully wonder whether the *real* answer wouldn't be the complete liberation of the mind from its meatware case (uploading).… (meer)