A Little Book of Coincidence

Rating:
Summary: The best book yet on Cosmic Weirdness
Review: I don't know what the previous reviewer was going on about - personally I found the planet-centred pictures fascinating (in particular those involving the small planetoid Chiron which turns out to be highly harmonic/resonant with its neighbours). If I had one criticism of this book it would be that the author does not in fact go into resonance as the likely explanation for many of the coincidences he describes, but hey, since most scientists don't seem to talk about it either (they haven't quite cracked it yet), I can see why he goes for the Harry Potter style instead. This is a great book, leave it by the toilet, read a little every day, and have your brain fundamentally rewired. Why has nobody noticed all this stuff before? Astophysicists, this is your wake-up call!

Rating:
Summary: Some parts are not explained very well
Review: I found the statements on the ratios of planet diameters and orbits to be well presented and pretty straightforward but the "spirograph" images representing the relative motion of the planets in their orbits and the epicycles, which the author calls "kisses", left me a bit confused. The representation of epicycles on page 7 is clear and makes sense but from there the leap to the sort of creative rendition on page 23 appears to be pure artistry with only the smallest connection to observed reality.

Many comments are simply made with little or no explanation at all, e.g. on p.26, "Mercury also displays a harmonious calendar as its day is 2 of its years, a musical octave". OK. And about 365 earth days is one of its years, which probably isn't an octave. So what? Page after page had comments like this that simply left me wanting a more meaningful discussion.

Many of the "coincidences" presented were very intriguing indeed but I would caution the readers who are awestruck by this book to also read, "Numerology, or, What Pythagoras Wrought", by Dudley, Underwood for an enlightening evaluation of numerical 'coincidences'.

Rating:
Summary: AN ENIGMATIC MASTERPIECE
Review: Quite why there isn't more of a storm breaking over this elegant little book I can't work out. Brief, beautiful and to-the-point, it's been my top gift-book of 2004. Good original science wrapped up as magic, I'm still not sure where Martineau is exactly coming from, but there's no arguing with his data (which I have checked). A pity there is no statistical background to the findings he presents, but then this is not the kind of book for that anyway. For what it's worth I think he's probably right (although we won't know for another 100 years) - these kind of patterns may well be a signature of conscious life. I would kind of expect other solar systems with conscious life to also display phi and fibonacci-based relations around their primary 'conscious' planets. We know that liquid water takes an icosahedral structure. Martineau's ideas seem the next logical step. Ahead of its time. Recommended.