G'dday. This message is being cross-posted: science and bookcrossing lists.
I'm just about to release into the wild a book called "Surfing through Hyperspace: Understanding higher Universes in Six Easy Lessons" by Clifford A. Pickover. Just finished reading it, haven't had time to digest it yet (the whole concept of digesting books was, I believe, introduced by Francis Bacon). I found this book by turns very interesting and wildly annoying. I wanted to throttle Pickover. I particularly, malignantly and constantly wanted to throttle his X-files clones. And what is he doing, dedicating a book to an Aussie film director, Gillian Armstrong, anyway?! The X-Files intruded into every single chapter. I wanted to crush, kill, rend, destroy. I know nothing whatever of the subject, but even so the author's own poor understanding of what he was trying to present also made me want to crush, kill, rend and destroy. The whole book is based on trying to tell us what the world would look like if one could perceive a fourth spacial dimension. But he forgets that in our current three-dimensional space, the three dimensions are tied to each other. Later in the book, he posits travel in the fourth dimension as a way of escaping environmental destruction, which is as silly as saying that if we were an earwig living on a book page all we had to do to escape such a calamity would be to learn to fly into the third dimension. Any spacial dimension linked to the other three is going to be subject to any environmental damage the others are, it seems to me, especially the damage caused by the dying out of the stars, the possible cooling and collapse of the universe, the condensation of everything into a single singularity. Yet he thinks teaching ourselves to perceive a fourth spacial dimension will somehow mean our bodies won't be present in the current three. However, in between prize bits of idiocy, there are some very interesting thoughts. They occur only in half-page slabs, but at least they occur. And I particularly liked this portion of the preface, which really whetted my appetite:- By the time you've finished this book, you will be able to understand arcane concepts... impress your friends with such terms as... write better science fiction...[this should have been a warning] conduct computer experiments... understand humanity's rather liited view... STUFF A WHALE INTO A TEN-DIMENSIONAL SPHERE THE SIZE OF A MARBLE [my capitals]. What a skill! Previous self-help manuals are totally eclipsed by this one. I should get my daughter to read it - her room will become uncrowded. Nisaba _________________________________________________________________ Advertisement: Getting married? Tell us why to WIN @ LetsShop http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eletsshop%2Ecom%2FCompetitions%2FLetsMarry%2Ftabid%2F549%2FDefault%2Easpx&_t=751480117&_r=HM_tagline_letsshop_wedding&_m=EXT Have you told a friend today? http://bookcrossing.com/tellafriend Archives and email list settings: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BookCrossing Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BookCrossing/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BookCrossing/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
