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Tuesday, February 11, 2003
posted by gbarto at 10:37 AM:
Updated Book Review (original review here): Faster Than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation, by Joao Magueijo. I earlier noted:[The book] has gotten decidedly mixed reviews, the most charitable saying that the introductory part on the history of the theory of relativity was pretty good but the part about academic backbiting and the process of getting something published in academic journals was too bitter, sarcastic, etc.Having now finished the book, I would say that the academic backbiting rests with the reviewers, whose nitpicking seems of a piece with Magueijo's criticisms of academe. Magueijo says he wanted to give us a picture of what really goes on in science, and he seems to have done his best. If the petty squabbling of big egos, etc., is a part of his story, it ought be recorded. Grownups can decide, in reading, whether they buy his version. I can't vouch for science, but I didn't hear anything that seemed to me implausible in a university context, and I have been around universities more than a little bit.
However, you don't buy this book for the academic dramas, but for Magueijo's love of the science, delight in seeing what crazy idea just might work for figuring out just what Einstein meant and if it was right, and impatience with anything that gets in the way of that, and the way they all come through loud and clear. A nice effort.
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