“Higgs Discovery: The Power of Empty Space” By Lisa Randall

Since the last science book was such a dud, I wanted to pick another one specifically about something I am curious about.  I know that recently the scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) confirmed the existence of the Higgs Boson, sometimes known as the so-called “God Particle.”  Now, the reason the Higgs Boson has that unfortunate nickname has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with sensationalist journalism.  The Higgs Boson does not confirm (or deny) the existence of God.  All it does is give things mass.

I knew all this going into Lisa Randall’s Amazon single, “Higgs Discovery,” but I just wanted to get that short rant out of the way.  It is hard to read or write about the Higgs Boson without dealing with the “God Particle” nickname.

For those who do not know what the Higgs Boson does, or why it is so important, I will try to explain.  Emphasis on try.  I am not, and do not claim to be, a physicist, or even a scientist.  I am just a girl interested in these sorts of things.

For a while, physicists have been wondering why photons have no mass.  Or rather why most things do have mass.  According to the math, everything should be traveling at the speed of light, which obviously is not what happens. Then one day, a man named Higgs (and some various other men) came up with the idea of a field, like the electromagnetic field without the electrical charge, that gives particles mass.  The best analogy i have heard, the one that helped me understand it best, was about a cocktail party.

Say there is a cocktail party with lots of people milling around, talking.  All over the room, there are people.  Joe Schmoe walks in, looking for his friends.  He doesn’t really know anyone there, so no one stops him as he walks through the room.  Then, a celebrity walks into the room.  Everyone gets excited and wants to talk to this famous person.  The celebrity wants to find the bar to get a drink, but all the enthusiastic fans are impeding her way.  The people milling around and stopping the celebrity are the Higgs field.  Joe Schmoe is a photon (a particle of light), and the celebrity is a particle with mass.  The more a particle interacts with the Higgs field, the more mass it has (The more guests wanting to talk to the celebrity).  If a particle does not interact with the field, like with Joe Schmoe, the particle does not have mass.  Photons do not interact with the Higgs field, which is why they do not have mass and are thus able to travel at the speed of light.

I hope that was clear.  If you didn’t follow that, let me know.  I can try to explain more clearly.  But anyway, I was curious about real world applications of the Higgs boson discovery.  Alas, the discovery is still too new for that, but I did gain a better understanding of what the people at CERN did and why they are confident that they actually made a discovery.  Apparently the Higgs Boson is super mega unstable, so they could not actually measure it, but they were able to predict what particles it would break down into (thank you math!), and they found those.  This was a dense read, but fascinating.  Randall is not as good at explaining complex concepts as Brian Greene, but that’s okay. As long as you commit to the book, and are comfortable rereading the harder passages, the explanation is all there.

“The Art of War” by Sun Tzu

I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I started reading this.  Movies and TV reference “The Art of War” all the time, usually in a metaphorical context.  So I expected a lot of vague military stratagems  and flowery language (because it is a Chinese text),  But this is a book about war, and most of this can not be applied to everyday life.

The version I read was the one Amazon has for ebooks.  I am not sure if every version has this, but my copy had a few chapters of set up before delving into the actual text.  Some of this was fascinating, like some of the stories about Sun Tzu himself; and some of it was dreadfully boring, like the discussion of whether there actually was a person behind the legend of Sun Tzu.

There was a cool story about Sun Tzu when he presented his 13 chapters to one of the Chinese emperors.  The emperor asked Sun Tzu if his precepts could be applied to women.  Sun Tzu was like, “Pfff Of course! Women respond to these rules, same as men!”  At this point, the feminist in me is going “Way to go, Sun Tzu!”  He trains the women, mostly the emperor’s concubines, and then when they are ready, he trots them out to show them off.  Sun Tzu gives a really simple order, but the girls just break down in giggles.  “Sun Tzu said: ‘If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, then the general is to blame.'”  So he spends more time training them and then gives another simple order.  They giggle again, so he says: “If his orders ARE clear, and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their officers.”  He beheads the officers, the emperor’s favorite concubines,,much to the emperor’s chagrin.  The emperor was obviously upset, but when Sun Tzu gave the order again, his words were followed, and the emperor ended up appointing him general. That story is alternately awesome and terrifying.  It shows who Sun Tzu really is, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Not a person you want to mess with, but definitely someone you want in charge of your troops.

There are aspects of this book that can be applied to civilian life.  Mostly in the corporate world, but also in sports.  The creatively inclined could find ways to deal with a coworker they don’t like, or a group project they are heading.  But any metaphorical application requires a loose interpretation of the text.  For example, there is one whole chapter discussing different types of ground.  Accessible ground, Temporizing grown, Entangling ground, et cetera…  The last chapter is about the different types of spies there are, how to attract them, and how to keep them in line.  Sports is arguably the best civilian analog to war, and the terrain is always the same (except, perhaps, which direction the sun is facing), and you can not use spies.  Especially not doomed spies (these are spies which you send into a trap against their knowledge with false information.  Once the enemy realizes the information is false, they will most likely kill these poor suckers).

All in all, I am glad I read the book.  It opens up your mind to new ways of thinking about problems and obstacles.  However, most of this text will never apply to my life.

“Hidden in Plain Sight: The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics” by Andrew Thomas

I was in the mood for a sciency book, so I followed Amazon’s suggestion that I read this book.  There were a few hundred reviews and 4 stars, so I thought it would be a safe bet that I would enjoy this one. I also noticed that this would provide an alternate view of quantum mechanics from string theory.  I have already read Brian Greene’s “The Fabric of the Cosmos,” where he describes string theory well in layman’s terms.  So I thought, “Great!  I’ll get another perspective!”

Unfortunately, I found this book wildly disappointing.  The only way I got myself through it was the reminder that I would be writing this review.  And bad reviews are always the most interesting ones.  Half of the book was Thomas debating semantics.  He decided to define the word “universe” as “everything that exists.”  This is a traditional definition of the word.  There is no problem with that definition, but he used that definition to attack the concept of parallel universes.  Now, if the universe is everything, than it would include these so-called ‘parallel universes.’  This just means we need a different term for the same thing.  If we replaced every instance of the phrase ‘parallel universes’ with ‘quibbles’ in this book, Thomas’ argument would not have made a lick of sense.  An author’s personal definition for a term is not a strong enough argument against people who use the same term in a different way.

Andrew Thomas also used quotes from Brian Greene’s book to help explain some of the more difficult to understand concepts.  This is problematic for two reasons.  One, Thomas obviously was unable to come up with his own way to explain these elusive concepts.  This shows a lack of ingenuity and a poor level of writing.  The second problem is that Thomas fundamentally disagrees with Greene.  Greene is a string theorist, and Thomas thinks string theory is fundamentally wrong.  And yet, he agrees with Greene for the first 3/4 of the book (after which, Greene might as well have fallen off the face of the universal, or into one of his parallel universes).  I enjoyed Brian Greene’s “The Fabric of the Cosmos” and “The Hidden Reality,” but I was reading this book specifically to get a different perspective from him.

It is incorrect to assume faulty logic precludes a faulty conclusions.  Many people can stumble onto the right answer for entirely the wrong reasons.  So, who knows?  Maybe relations between objects is the key to the problems between quantum mechanics and special relativity.  Maybe, but I have a hard time buying it.  He spends all this time talking about the concepts, and how simple everything is (even though he can’t explain it all in his own words), but absolutely no time talking about the math.  And you can’t talk about physics without talking about the math.  Thomas writes like he is the only physicist trying to unify quantum mechanics and special relativity.  He is not.  Physicists know that there has to be a unifying theory that brings the two theories together.  The problem is, when quantum mechanics is applied to big things, or when special relativity is applied to small things, the math breaks down.  And when the two are brought together, the result is utter nonsense.

Thomas does not ground is theory is math, he doesn’t even try to.  He even says, “The mathematics used by physicists is simply not up to the job of analysing a complex, emergent, universe.”  They might as well just give up now.  It’s not like they have been able to jump seemingly impossible hurdles before.  Oh wait, Newton tied the force felt by an apple falling to the ground to the force that keeps the Earth in orbit around the sun using math.  That was an incredibly complex concept reduced to a mathematical equation.  And they didn’t even have computers then!  Just because you couldn’t back up your hypothesis with math, Andrew Thomas, doesn’t mean real physicists don’t know what they are doing.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

This is not my first Neil Gaiman book.  I have enjoyed his writing for a few years now, since a work-friend introduced me to his “Sandman” series.  He has a beautiful voice, and a refreshing understanding, or at least sympathy, for mental disorders.  Our world shuns and demonizes people with these problems, but Gaiman’s worlds always show great incite to the minds of sufferers.

In the “Sandman” series, Delirium is Dream’s youngest sister.  She was once Delight, but at some point in the past, she cracked.  She lives according to her own rules, and rewards and punishes with different forms of mental illness.  She is a pretty little girl or a punk teenager, according to her will.  The “Sandman” series takes a broader view of the world and, at points, the universe.  “American Gods” easily fits into the same literary universe, but focuses on America.

In some ways, “American Gods” is a fantastic understanding of what it means to be an American.  Gaiman wrote this when he first moved here from England, and he wrote it as a meta ‘Coming to America’ story.  No humans are truly native to this land.  Our family histories are all tied to other countries, and this is a novel about what this melting pot does to our beliefs and traditions.  We still perform all the rituals our forebears did, but do we understand the significance?

In other ways, this story is a little too meta.  The ‘new gods’ like Technology, Freeways, and Media are just too metaphorical and on the nose.  Sure, we worship these concepts.  Maybe not with literal sacrifices, but with time and money.  But when your pitting a smarmy boy named Technology against the Norse all-father, Odin, it falls a bit flat. It’s the same but not the same.  People used to look to the gods for answers, for a good crop, for health.  We don’t pray to the freeways for safe passage to work.  We just get in our car and go, without really thinking about the road we are on.

Also, the question of “Where do gods go when they are no longer believed in?” is not a new topic.  I am not sure if he was the first, he was certainly my first, but Douglas Adams delved into this question with panache and style in “Long, Dark, Tea Time of the Soul.”  And he did it using Norse mythology, no less.  To be fair to Gaiman, Adams’ work had less to do about contemplating new gods versus old gods, and more about poking fun at religion in general.  But certain imagery was definitely influenced by the earlier work.

“American Gods” is an enjoyable read, as long as you don’t dwell too much on the places it takes itself too seriously.

“Blood Charged” by Lindsay Buroker

This is the third book in the “Dragon Blood” series, and we are back with Sardelle and Zirkander.  They are on a mission with Ahn and Tolomek, and a few others, but we only get those two POV’s.  Which is so disappointing.  I find their thoughts boring in comparison.  There is some tension, as Sardelle is hiding her magical identity from everyone (except Zirkander, Ahn, and Tolomek), but that issue is resolved easily.  It soon becomes apparent that Zirkander’s team needs Sardelle and Jaxi’s abilities to survive.  And how can you NOT trust something and somebody who is keeping you alive?  Certainly not Apex or Duck, the other two uninformed members of the team.

Their mission is to infiltrate a secret Cofah military research facility and determine if there is any legitimacy to the rumor that the enemy has access to live pure dragon blood.  This is important for a few reasons. Firstly, dragons have been thought to be extinct for centuries before even Jaxi’s time. Secondly, dragon blood is the source of magical powers.  Apparently, dragons were able to shapeshift, and way back when, they mated with humans to create the first sorcerers. The magic of each generation dwindled, so people born today have less ability than those born in previous generations. Thirdly, the Cofah are using the dragon blood to power weapons that have a sophisticated AI component.

Tolomek and Sardelle are along for the mission because they plan to slip away and rescue his sister from an insane asylum. Tolomek’s sister,Tylie, has magical powers, and Sardelle is hoping to recruit her as an apprentice.  She is lonely for her own kind.  Surprise twist: Tylie is gone, taken just two days prior to her would-be escape, but she left a message to Tolomek, showing him where she will be.  It seems she is mixed up with this source of the dragon blood.

It was a cool story, but I would rather have read it through Tolomek and Ahn’s POV. It seems I may get my wish, the fourth installment picks right up where this left off, and uses their perspectives.  I’ll move on from Dragon’s Blood after this, I promise. I just want to see how it ends.