The Rainbow and the Worm: The Physics of Organisms

Rating:
Summary: A new look at life from an untraditional scientist
Review: First of all, Mae-Wan Ho is a woman. The rest of these posts describe the author using "him" and "he," which demonstrates an unfortunate gender stereotype about scientists.

Mae-Wan Ho examines the question, "What is life?" using insights from physics, biology, and chemistry. The author is a professor and research scientist who works outside of the maintream, to say the least. She is best known for her activism against genetic engineering. Her writings take a "holistic" perspective on science; she tries to acheive understanding of the big questions (life, free will, etc) by combining ideas from many different fields.

The book is not flaky or meta-physics. It won't tell you about life energies or world consciousness. It is also not a layman's introduction to any particular established field, as many science books are. Rather, it is a new look at "life," somewhat scientifically rigorous (she is a professional researcher) but presented so that it's accessible to non-scientists. She has a chapter describing how life operates far from the theormodynamic equilibrium, which was very interesting. On the other hand, the final chapter about optics is somewhat far-fetched in my opinion. The book's ideas are generally outside of the mainstream.

All in all, it is a refreshing change from the 10023675th book about superstrings and selfish genes, for those of you who like science books. It's a short book, and worth the few hours it takes to read it. I would highly recommend it as pleasure reading for amateur science fans, or as a book that actual scientists with some time on their hands can read for a new perspective. (I myself am getting my Ph.D. at a top engineering school.) I think it will not appeal to most conservative professional scientists, who tend to reserve their respect for researchers who are experts in a small and established field.

Finally, don't worry about the equations; you can skip them and get the general idea.

Rating:
Summary: A new look at life from an untraditional scientist
Review: First of all, Mae-Wan Ho is a woman. The rest of these posts describe the author using "him" and "he," which demonstrates an unfortunate gender stereotype about scientists.

Mae-Wan Ho examines the question, "What is life?" using insights from physics, biology, and chemistry. The author is a professor and research scientist who works outside of the maintream, to say the least. She is best known for her activism against genetic engineering. Her writings take a "holistic" perspective on science; she tries to acheive understanding of the big questions (life, free will, etc) by combining ideas from many different fields.

The book is not flaky or meta-physics. It won't tell you about life energies or world consciousness. It is also not a layman's introduction to any particular established field, as many science books are. Rather, it is a new look at "life," somewhat scientifically rigorous (she is a professional researcher) but presented so that it's accessible to non-scientists. She has a chapter describing how life operates far from the theormodynamic equilibrium, which was very interesting. On the other hand, the final chapter about optics is somewhat far-fetched in my opinion. The book's ideas are generally outside of the mainstream.

All in all, it is a refreshing change from the 10023675th book about superstrings and selfish genes, for those of you who like science books. It's a short book, and worth the few hours it takes to read it. I would highly recommend it as pleasure reading for amateur science fans, or as a book that actual scientists with some time on their hands can read for a new perspective. (I myself am getting my Ph.D. at a top engineering school.) I think it will not appeal to most conservative professional scientists, who tend to reserve their respect for researchers who are experts in a small and established field.

Finally, don't worry about the equations; you can skip them and get the general idea.

Rating:
Summary: Misguided Physics applied to Biology
Review: M-W Ho begins this book with the question "What is Life?" and then states that the purpose of the book is to "keep the question alive". I believe he has creatively combined some of the deep intricies of physics (thermodynamics and quantum theory) with some fundemental biologic observations to establish an excellent framework for thinking about the nature of life. His descriptions of thermodynamics and quantum theory depend more on intuition than mathematics, and thus are accessible to non-speacialists. M-W Ho addresses observations in the atomic world, molecular world, cellular world up into the world of consciouness and civilization. This book has provided much "food for thought" concerning the deep issues of "Life" at many levels.

Rating:
Summary: A Tough Hike Over Worthy Terrain
Review: This book is not for the faint of heart. While I made it through A Brief History of Time, and The Elegant Universe with only a few major hiccups, The Rainbow and the Worm was tough going. I'm a physician, not a physicist, and my college level calculus is very rusty. Staring down pages of equations was not easy.

That being said, this book repeatedly caused me to gaze off into space, absorbed in a totally new way of looking at an old phenomenon. I can't look at living organisms the way that I did before, and I'm indebted to Mae-Wan for this. Scientists are zeroing in on life, and while they strip away myth and mystery, they are replacing them with levels of awe at the complexity and wonder of the living world around us. Despite Ho's failure as a writer that is able to popularize difficult concepts, she is good enough to repeatedly inspire "Ah hah!" in anyone that takes the time.

Finally, I find it interesting that the first two reviewers on Amazon.com referred to Mae-Wan as a male. It robs the book of a bit of its flavor to work all the way through it not realizing that such intense and creative thought is female in origin.

Rating:
Summary: A Tough Hike Over Worthy Terrain
Review: This book is not for the faint of heart. While I made it through A Brief History of Time, and The Elegant Universe with only a few major hiccups, The Rainbow and the Worm was tough going. I'm a physician, not a physicist, and my college level calculus is very rusty. Staring down pages of equations was not easy.

That being said, this book repeatedly caused me to gaze off into space, absorbed in a totally new way of looking at an old phenomenon. I can't look at living organisms the way that I did before, and I'm indebted to Mae-Wan for this. Scientists are zeroing in on life, and while they strip away myth and mystery, they are replacing them with levels of awe at the complexity and wonder of the living world around us. Despite Ho's failure as a writer that is able to popularize difficult concepts, she is good enough to repeatedly inspire "Ah hah!" in anyone that takes the time.

Finally, I find it interesting that the first two reviewers on Amazon.com referred to Mae-Wan as a male. It robs the book of a bit of its flavor to work all the way through it not realizing that such intense and creative thought is female in origin.

Rating:
Summary: Misguided Physics applied to Biology
Review: While I admire the enthusiasm the author I was shocked by the sloppy physics.His arguments for coherent electromagnic interactions within the lossy tissues of an organism make no sense.His knowledge of quantum mechanics is,at best,that of a diletant.No doubt he has read a great deal ,but given the large number of misstatements and errors, I doubt that he has understood more than a small fraction of the serious material.On the basis of the excellent reviews of the book,(before actually reading it myself)I recommended it to two friends (physicists) who bought it. Both are angry with me.Having read it I can not recommend it to anybody.