Nullius in Verba

Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition That Reshaped Our World by Larrie D. Ferreiro

“The Enlightenment” or “The Age of Enlightenment” or “The Age of Reason” was a period of 18th century in Europe that philosophers advocated power of reason to resist the intolerance and abuse from the church and the state. This is a period for great philosophers like Spinoza and Locke and one of the greatest mind in human history, Isaac Newton. The Enlightenment is also a time when countries competed on new science discoveries, especially that between the Britain and France. And the greatest scientific question during the Enlightenment was “what is the earth looked like, how big is it, and what is the shape of it?”

Although it sounds like a useless question and probably nobody will really care about the shape of the Earth unless he or she is an academic. For example, Sherlock Holmes has scolded Doctor Watson for accumulating useless and unpractical knowledge such as the Earth is circling the Sun. He saw this as irrelevant information because whether the earth is circling the sun or circled by the sun has nothing to do with catching a criminal or solve a murder. However, if Mr. Holmes is alive today, he will know how wrong he has been. Knowing the shape of the Earth is in fact very critical for our everyday life. Whether your GPS can correctly guide you to the place you want to go or to a dead end, or whether a missile will land in Taiwan or in the Pacific ocean all depend on our accurate knowledge on the size and shape of the Earth. 

During the  Enlightenment, of course, the primary reason to understand the shape of the earth is greed (to help to navigate  to new territories for exploration and exploitation). And the second reason is pride (which country will be the first to solve the scientific problem). Britain and France not only were at war with each during that time, they were also competing on scientific achievement. So the Britain took up the quest to measure the longitude (east-west direction), and the France picked up the latitude (north-south) problem. Measuring the longitude is in fact much, much more difficulty. To know your latitude on earth, you only need to look at position of the sun during the noon, if the sun is right above your head, you are probably close to the equator; however, if the sun is close to the horizon during the noon hour, then you are very close to the poles.

To know the longitude position was very difficult before the GPS age. For a person sailing along the equator or any latitude by the east-west direction, the sun will always in same position at the noon hour local time no matter how far he has gone along the east west direction. The longitude problem is the reason that Christopher Columbus thought he has arrived at Indian Ocean when in fact it is just South American and India is still thousands of miles to the west. He knew his ships were going west to the direction of India, but he didn’t know exactly how far he has navigated. The British government began the quest for longitude problem in 1714, but it took more than 40 years to finally solve the problem. Actually, all the scientists knew one of the solutions would be to use an accurate clock; the difficulty was how to make accurate and reliable clock that could be carried on a ship. No one thought that was possible, and therefore, all the scientists tried complicated way to determine longitude by triangulating positions of multiple stars. The “star” method is not only complicated, it is also nearly impossible when a ship is moving violently in the middle of the ocean. It took John Harrison 40 years to finally perfect his clocks to use in measuring longitude. The book Longitude by Dava Sobel tells the story about solving the longitude problem.

Even today we are still using clocks to time the position of longitude position. For example, the longitude is divided into 24 hours time zone, so each hour equals to 15 degree (360/24). Each degree of longitude is about 69 miles at equator. So if two persons are at the equator, when one is at a place with local time of 8PM while at the same moment, the other is at 6PM local time, then we know the two persons are 2070 miles apart (2*69*15).

The book “Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition That Reshaped Our World” described France’s endeavor (the French Geodesic Mission) to measure the distance of one degree of latitude at the equator. The single number was to compare with the one degree distance measured near Paris (latitude of about 49 degree) and that measured at the north pole to find out the shape of earth. At that time, most British scientists followed Newton’s idea and believed the earth is oblate shape (like an egg lying down) while most French scientists followed Descartes’ idea that the earth is elongated (like an egg standing up). If the earth is oblate, a degree of latitude would be greatest at the poles, while if it is the other way around, a degree of latitude would be the greatest at the equator. So by comparing the distance of one degree measured at different latitudes, the shape of the earth can be determined. France sent a team to Quito (today’s capital of Ecuador) in 1735 for this mission to measure a distance of about 300km (about 3 degrees in latitude), by using three 20 feet poles step by step. It took the team 7 years to get the single number and several more years for some of the members to get back home, and some never were able to get home as it turns out. It is a fascinating story about the history of South American under Spanish governance, science in 18th centuries, and the scientists who dreamed of and died for the glory.

I started the book mistaken it as a scientific book on psychology. Soon I found out my mistake. There is science in there all right, but science is not the main theme of the book. It is mainly about the person who developed the psychopath test, the psychopathic criminals (or maybe we should call them ‘patients’?), and traits that constitute a psychopath. It is terrifying, hilarious, and alarming all at the same time. It is terrifying because of the crimes perpetrated by psychopath. And it is hilarious sometimes when the author was self-reflecting on the psychopathic traits in himself. And it is alarming because there seems to be some psychopath or at least people with psychopathic traits (like, pathological lying) among those who are making important political and financial decisions of big nations.

After reading the book, I realized that this is the same author of ‘The men who stare at goals’. I have watched the movie adopted from the book, but I thought it was a work of fiction. Again, it is a hilarious movie, but after realizing that is in fact non-fiction, I am speechless. It shows the extent of self-delusion and irrational that people can be, or as Mark Twain said, sometimes, truth is more of a stranger than fiction.

I found the book very inspring, but I have some issues of the subtitle of the book ”The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science”. Maybe the the subtitle is the doing of the publishers as an attempt to attract readers with very short attention span. There is no terror in the book or of science, instead, there are much sadness and unfulfilled dreams of scientists, explorers and poets of the Romantic age. The Romantic age described in this book is a period between year 1768 and 1831 in England. 1768 is the year Captain Cook set out for his first global expedition where Tahiti was discovered, much to the tragedy of Tahiti people, on the hindsight. But the 1768 expedition also is the beginning of many scientific explorations and paved the road to many scientific discoveries and had incited much imagination for the pre-Victorians. Year 1831 marks the year when Charles Darwin began his long voyage around the world where he stopped by Galapagos Islands, which eventually changed all our understanding about our past, our present, and our future. The book charts several scientists and explorers on their biography, their discoveries, dreams fulfilled and unfulfilled, and how their paths had come arose each other. Some of the scientific discoveries are what we have learned at school, such as nitrogen, electricity, Uranus, but we have not been told of the people who made these discoveries, their love, fear, dreams and disappointment. Several people mentioned in the books died too young, including Shelley, Lord Byran, Mungo Parker, and Humphrey Davy. I couldn’t help to imagine, how much more great achievement they could have made if only they could live a little bit longer. 
 
It was indeed an age of wonder when people were eager to learn new things, when the discovery of a new planet could make a scientist a celebrity instantly. Often I thought the age of wonder will never be again. I doubt most people born after 1990 will have sense of wonder anymore. Computers have made easy of everything. Young people can access information of everything. I don’t think there are many things that can make them feel wonder anymore, not even the 7 Wonders of the World. Kids nowadays can easily access the simulations of the 7 Wonders on their computer, turning the 7 Wonders upside down, inside out, observe them from any angle. How will they have the feeling of ‘wonder’ about anything? Once there was a time when ‘Let there be light’ changes and excites people, such as in the 1893 World Fair in Chicago when Nicholas Tesla first illuminated the Exposition and made Chicago a real ‘White City’ in the night. It is no more now, because now we are exposed to the limelight 24-7. In the Piano Shop book, the author mentioned that the piano today is so much louder than that used by Beethoven or Mozart at their time because there are so much noise today than when Beethoven and Mozart were playing. So, pianos are made more and more louder today, otherwise, people just couldn’t hear the music. Same thing for our sense of wonder. The noise in our mind also numbs our sense of curiosity and amazement. Not many things can hold us in awe anymore. 

 
A story in the ‘age of wonder’ described the explorations by Mungo Parker. He was sent by the Royal Society to locate Timbuktu, a fabled city of gold in north Africa by the river of Niger that was believed to be full of  wealth and all kind of treasures. Parker was believed to be the first Westerner reached the city in his second Expedition. Timbuktu was indeed a splendid city several centuries ago, but now it has been swallowed by the desert gradually. One day it will be covered under sands and probably disappeared without a trace just like those explorers who died trying to find it. But, ‘Timbuktu’ might still be mentioned now and then only because it has been incorporated into the English language to represent a remote place. Just few days ago, I told my boss that she has worked too hard and should take a vacation. She said, maybe I will, maybe I will go to Timbuktu. 
 

This is such an enjoyable book. It is about a piano shop that was discovered by the author while living in Paris. The book describes various brands of pianos, the mechanisms of piano and its history, the passion of the author about music and his childhood experience in learning to play piano, piano teachers, the piano education in general, the somewhat Bohemia-like of life style of the piano shop owner who sells second-hand pianos and his friends and customers who are great enthusiasts of pianos, and also about a little bit about living in Paris. There is a scene in the book where the owner and his friends surrounded the fireplace to burn old pianos for heat, which makes me think of the scene in the opera ‘the Bohemia’ where the poor artists burned their poems, paintings and books to keep warm.

After reading the book, I suddenly have the urge to live in Paris and maybe to start learning play piano a little bit …

Well, everyone knows the ‘Gorilla in our midst’ study and how the study has shown the limitation of our attention. A chapter describes the limitation of our memory (such as false memory). “What is stored in memory is not an exact replica of reality, but a re-creation of it… we integrate whatever details we do remember with our expectations for what we should remember.”

The ‘illusion of confidence’ talks about how we are often over-confident about our ability and knowledge. It is interesting to learn that often we equate confidence with knowledge/ability and aren’t aware that usually the very confident persons are not those with the best knowledge or ability. Some people who are full of self-confidence are actually “Unskilled and unaware of it”.

The ‘illusion of knowledge’ describes the illusion that we thought we have thoroughly understood something when it is not the case. I have personal experience of this. It is only when you have to explain something to other people than you realize that you do not really grasp every nuance of the issue.

The ‘illusion of cause’ arises when we see patterns in randomness. This is so prevailing especially in news report where the reporters casually infer causality of their observations according to their bias or imagination. Tell me about this! The news report in Taiwan is full of this type of idiocy.

The ‘illusion of potential’ leads us to think that vast reservoirs of untapped mental ability exist in our brains, and there is a shortcut to unleash the potential. Well, this is bad news to many self-help books. But again, truth is not always pleasant.

Finally finished this book. Although this is an interesting book, some chapters are difficult to follow. When the author talked about information theory and entropy, my mind couldn’t help but wandering to somewhere else. The history of information and the last few chapters on information overload are quite interesting. The prose of the book is difficult to understand sometimes, it is terse and often has some implied meaning to be conveyed. It not always ’clicks’, at least to me.

The ‘information overload’ has led to ‘total noise’ in our environment. It is so true, in that, we are now trapped in the noise, and don’t even know how to live with ourselves if we are not surrounded by noise.

” We are all patrons of the library of Babel now, and we are the librarians, too. We veer from elation to dismay and back.” So many books, so little time …

After reading The Mind’s Eye and Tell-tale Brain about visual perception and the neurological mechanisms behind vision, it is very interesting to read the first-person account of how the eye problem changed a person’s perception of the world and a person’s behavior. The author could not see the 3D world because of her strabismus (crossed eyes) since she was an infant. However, all these changed when she was 50 years old. With the help of her optometrists, suddenly she was able to see 3D, which was previously considered as impossible when a person who is unable to do so has passed a ‘critical age’ of 3 or 4 years old. To me, the most important points of the story are 1) the plasticity of brain is far greater than we previously thought, 2) most of us could not understand each other’s perception of the world, for example, we cannot imagine what the world looks like from a stereoblind point of view, but ironically 3) many of us probably think that everyone else sees things and the world just like we do. Neuroscience and perception are complex and difficult, but so is empathy.

The Tell-Tale Brain by VS Ranmachandran is a well-written and very interesting book on new and some updated developments of  neuroscience. I especially like the chapter where he hypothesized the relationship between the neurons in the brain (or evolution of the brain) and our love for art or anything artistic.   

In comparison, the Incognito by David Eagleman does not look so cutting edge and the writing is not as interesting, at least in the first 150 pages or so. I almost decided to stop reading because there is a great amount of overlap between this book and books I read earlier on similar topic. I am glad I didn’t, because I will otherwise miss the most interesting chapter of this book ‘why blameworthiness is the wrong question”. This chapter described the legal ramifications in some neurological finding of the brain. For examples, whether a person should be responsible for a crime if the criminal behavior is triggered by some neurological abnormality, such as brain tumor or hormone imbalance. The author suggests that the punishment of a crime should depend on the ‘modifiability’ of factors that lead to the crime. For example, if the urge of shoplifting is due to some modifiable factor such as unaware of the legal consequences, then the person should be sentenced and educated to correct the modifiable factor. However, if the shoplifting is somehow linked to certain genetic problem that is not correctable, then other arrangement should be made to keep the person from breaking the law again.

“… We will be able to replace the problematic concept of blameworthiness with a practical, future-looking corrections system (What is this person likely to do from here?) instead of a retrospective one (How much was it his fault?). Someday the legal system may be able to approach neural and behavioral problems in the same manner that medicine studies lung or bone problems. Such realism will not clear criminals, but instead will introduce rational sentencing and customized rehabilitation by adopting a prospective approach instead of a retrospective one.”

Thinking about the issues just one day after two prisoners were executed yesterday in Texas and Georgia states and the cruelty that people perpetrate on each other in many places around the world makes me hope that the author is right about the crime and punishment, and the days will arrive soon when science  comes to rescue. 

Recently, I have devoured many books by Bill Bryson. He is the funnist author writing on traveling. This book, although with some funny moments, is not meant to be funny. The book mainly describs a short trip he had to Kenya to visit, mainly, some refuge camp and programs sponsored by CARE. It is sad to see that it looks like there is still a long way for most African to have a decent life for themselves and their children.

African Diary by Bill Bryson

The superb book described the ten great inventions of evolution. The two chapters that I found most enlightening are the last two chapters: consciousness and death. These are also the two areas that have attracted the most brilliant minds and also failed many of them. Interestingly, we actually understand more on death than we are on the consciousness, although knowing more doesn’t mean we can do anything to it, at least as where we stand now.

According to the book, the death panelty comes with being a multicellular organism. In a multicellular organism,

“… life can only be achieved by cells prepared to subsume themselves entirely to the cause. Their comitment must be policed, and any attempted reversions to independence are punishable by death.”

But there is still the diference between the dealth of cells and the dealth of whole organisms. It is a balance between cell life and cell death. When it is balanced, life goes on. But when it is not, such as when cell degeneration is less likely than the cell growth, then it results to unstoppable cancerous growth. Yet, when it is the other way around, the result is a withering away of life.  

Life Ascending by Nick Lane