Jeffrey L. Smith, PE

Great history of early ballooning

Revisado: 11-30-24

I love all things aviation and space related, and I’d been looking for a ballooning book on Audible. Because the title didn’t include “balloon” or “flight” I didn’t immediately know it would be a titled I’d enjoy. But, I’m glad I found it and enjoyed it thoroughly.

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Great way to learn/review a LOT of material

Revisado: 05-02-23

If you’re studying for the FOI, this is a great way to get the background. I used it in conjunction with King Schools FOI course (they follow the same outline) and it really reinforced their material that is more focused on the FAA knowledge test.

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I wish it were longer!

Revisado: 07-08-22

I was expecting a simple discussion of simple devices and how they changed life in medieval Europe, but it’s so much more.

The basic devices get covered and their historical origins along with variations among different locations. It makes you see a proto-Industrial Revolution occurring with water and wind power a thousand years before the age of steam.

Not only are devices covered, but how IDEAS moved around. The section on the translation movement of ancient texts, and the following section on the rise of universities are fantastic. The sections on the astrolabe, compasses and ships are also important for understanding the coming Age of Sail.

I’ve read specialized books on many of these topics, but few try to tie these different ideas together (it’s a tough job). I wish this book were 2-3 times longer! I was afraid that a shorter book like this wouldn’t cover much in the way of specifics, instead it left me wanting more.

The change from the ashes of the Roman collapse to the familiar modernity of the Renaissance deserves more study. It’s a rich period of Europe reintegrating ancient thought with Arab improvements and how these connections led to our modern world.

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A strange disappointment

Revisado: 06-25-22

This was not what I was hoping for. I was looking for a Malcolm Gladwell, Dava Sobel or Bill Bryson treatment about how people through history needed more complex and accurate time keeping methods, how they solved those problems, and then how those solutions in turn affected societies and the world.

This is not that book.

This book is a strange travel log of clocks that then describes the history of the locations where they were built. The books jumps around in time and place with no overarching story that connects the clocks, the peoples or the technology. How do any of the clocks in this book work? I still don't know. What problems did the clock makers need to solve to build larger and more accurate clocks? Not discussed. What local problems compelled each society to commission what were the super computers of their day? The reason is either never stated for, or is vaguely ascribed to the vanity of a ruler or the need to have signs of imperial domination in foreign countries. How did people's lives change after they funded a local city clock? Never stated. How was clock technology imitated and improved upon by other groups? No idea.

There is much more attention paid to the building the clocks are housed in, or the artwork around the clock than to the actual clocks themselves. No one ever benefits from the clocks in this book. Either people hate how their time is controlled, or they are used by empires to enforce their will on the people. It makes you wonder why cities throughout the world have commissioned large clocks as a show of technical ability and local wealth!

As the other review states, this a very British-centric book. The author has worked for British museums, but the singular focus is on evils of the British Empire, and how clocks were somehow the primary tool of imperialism is brought up at every turn.

The entire book could be easily summarized thusly: here are 12 civilizations, each one had a big or interesting clock, the British Empire was bad.

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Foundational text that’s still relevant!

Revisado: 06-23-22

Tainter did a great service to the study of history, economics and archeology (ancient history) by cutting through centuries of nonsense about the collapse of civilizations and combining disparate ideas into a single theory. He systematically shows how systems collapse is based in the simple, universal concept of marginal cost exceeding marginal benefit. He also shows how other theories are either a subset of the overarching marginal cost model, or he correctly banishes romantic (but goofy) concepts that civilizations just get too old and then “give up.”

The book feels ever so slightly dated for 2 reasons:
1) it was written was ‘88 and so refers to the Soviet Union and the Club of Rome (their ideas still keep popping up though!). Some of the impending problems he refers to have been largely solved (which I suppose goes to strengthen his argument that successful societies find solutions to their problems).
2) this work was so impactful that it has led to A LOT of great research since its release! Some of the discussion about specific civilizations have come a long way in 34 years, and the details are much better understood. Studies into economics, trade, climate, agriculture, demography, warfare, language, etc. since the original publication shine so much more light on these civilizations than was available at the time.

Regardless, understanding Tainter creates the framework to understand the similarities and differences between collapsing civilizations and allows those same principles to be applied today. Having a scientific approach to systems collapse is still VERY important (I keep hearing some of the nonsense reasons for collapse that he disproves). And even within the text, certain doomsayers were predicting our own collapse by now (hint: it didn’t happen).

Authors from Jim Diamond to Peter Zeihan owe a lot to Tainter, and if you want to understand their work, get this book!

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Archeology has office politics!

Revisado: 01-23-22

In case you were wondering, every job has office politics, even if the office is a dig site in the desert!

I realize that Dr Cline found a treasure trove of old correspondence. But, this felt like the archeological equivalent of every “and some guy begat some other guy” from the Old Testament.

It’s too heavy on the every twist and turn, and doesn’t do enough for the archeology and history of the site. I saw the other reviews saying much the same thing, and yet I was still disappointed.

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And then 2020 happened...

Revisado: 12-30-20

You just can't control for some things. Emily mentioned how Green Bank was the most spectacular telescope collapse. Well 2020 said "hold my beer" and smashed Arecibo - ON FILM - in a way even more spectacular than any movie.

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Good, but not great

Revisado: 09-16-20

I like that there is a book about humanity’s space stations, and this one does cover all the stations hat for built and those that just got cancelled along the way. The book also benefits from time since books like “Dragonfly” and so it gives time for people to give their side to widely shared space anecdotes. But, I had some issues with this book - both the text and narration.

The book has a heavy astronaut focus (who came and went, when they did it, previous careers, where they went to high school etc.), while much less effort is given to the space stations themselves or what they were doing there. Almost no effort is given to the engineers who designed/built the stations, the controllers who operate them, or the scientists that have experiments there.

Next, it keeps everything at somewhat of a surface level without trying to draw many lessons or principles out of the various experiences. Some effort is given to describe a particular space station or space suit, but there’s not much discussion about how ideas evolved from ship to ship, station to station or method to method. Why does a space station look the way it does? How does form follow function?

Next, there are factual errors that I noticed, and I’m sure there are more that I didn’t. The book says both Mark and Scott Kelly graduated from “the Naval Academy” in the same year. None of that statement is true. Mark graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy in ‘86 and Scott graduated from the New York Maritime College in ‘87. Neither of those is Annapolis.

Finally, the narrator added some “issues”. Words and acronyms have some weird pronunciations. The European Space Agency (ESA) is oddly pronounced “eh-sa” instead of the normal “ee-sa” throughout the book. Other words and acronyms are said weird or spelled out. TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite) is said “t d r s” instead of the customary “tee-dress”.

As a space fan, I’m glad Chladek covered the topic, but there’s more to expound upon.

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An excellent telling of the history of the Plantagenets

Revisado: 02-03-20

This novel blends historical fact with storytelling in a very pleasant and interesting way. It’s definitely a title that I can listen to again and again because of the complexity and richness of its historical storytelling.

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Good interweaving of 4 great astronomers

Revisado: 12-09-19

First off, I don’t understand that 1 Star review at all.

The story of how Brahe, Kepler and Galileo worked together (and sometimes against each other) in the world that Copernicus created is foundational to modern physics. How they broke with Greek thought and led to Newton is an important story that deserves to be told and retold.

I’m not sure if telling the story in sections devoted to a specific astronomer is the best way to tell it - it jumps around, but having so many locations and time to cover might force it. Fauber deserves a lot of credit for returning again and again to each astronomer’s actual work - I’m glad he understands it, because I’ll never take the time to actually understand each dead end theory or goofy philosophy.

I think there are a few places where the book might be strengthened, some fall outside the scope of the book. The first, there’s only the briefest mention of how Islamic astronomers and commentaries began the process of poking holes in Greek thought and set the stage for Copernicus. That’s an area for real scholarly research and not just a popular retelling. The story is there, but the military conflicts at the time between Europe and the Ottoman Empire have served to make it hard for either side to give any credit to the other for anything.

The second, the lead in to Newton should have been stronger at the end. Kepler’s call for a new mathematician to continue the work, and a new math to do it were downright prophetic. In the same way that Brahe, Kepler and Galileo read Copernicus, Newton had read Kepler and Galileo. A more explicit discussion of how Kepler gave Newton the correct geometry and postulated a motive force tie directly to gravity and calculus. Galileo’s work on basic mechanics (pendulums and inclined planes) leads to Newton’s own 3 laws of motion.

Finally, a discussion of Brahe’s ridiculously good eyesight and how it created the data Kepler used probably deserved more discussion. Brahe may have hit the natural limit for human eyesight, and his instruments were the best of the day for measuring stellar positions. Kepler knew the observations were the best available and that Brahe wouldn’t fudge his work, even when he disagreed with his mentor’s conclusions. Brahe and Tycho were the right people at the right time - one to take the measurements, the other to interpret the data.

Overall, VERY good book with lots of insights.

Edit: the two books titled “The House of Wisdom” both discuss the Arabic contributions to Ptolemy and mathematics that led to Copernicus’ work. Of the two, I think I prefer Lyons’ book a bit more. Taking them together shows the gradual progress of scientific thought.

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