Richard A. Muller (2)Reseñas

Imperfect and sometimes irritating, now bit out of date but an important book to understand energy policies in the US. The author does a good job to focus the key decisions ahead and their complexity. The opportunities and costs of different technologies and what to expect from them going ahead.

The incredible aspect of this is how unlikely any future president might read and actually understand the claculations here.

I would love to read a critique of this text by another as brilliant physicist.

2609

Provocative. Almost wish I had taken notes so I could remember all his arguments. Seemed like a balanced approach to the issues, but I'd like to see some responses from people like Al Gore. Also, he strayed from science, I felt, when he used words like "propaganda" to describe how Gore presented climate-related information in "An Inconvenient Truth." I can buy that maybe Gore did not use good judgment in the inclusion and presentation of the information, but to suggest that there was political motivation behind it requires more evidence.

It’s ridiculous to attempt to lay out the conceptualization of time throughout recorded thought, to present a primer on the physics (including but not limited to quantum theory and a large part of Einstein’s career) behind theories of time, and to give an account of the ways one’s thoughts on time evolve throughout a career in physics and relate to personal achievements. But this is what Muller attempts, and though it’s an admirable project, it rather predictably fails in thoroughness.
His thinking style is engaging, but his writing does not keep up with his rapid-fire jumps from topic to topic. His summaries of complex quantum theory for pedestrian non-physicist rubes like myself are obviously well-intentioned, but didn’t quite do the trick for me; all the same I appreciated the intention to explain rather than dismiss material as too complex for the common audience. I’d agree with other reviewers that his actual addressing of the topic of “Now,” postponed until the last 6 pages of the book, was inadequate.
The most significant part of the book, the idea on which he built his ideas of experiencing “now,” was the work he had done at Berkeley. He observed precisely identical particles behaving differently, and deduced that because statistical and quantum physics cannot predict different behaviors for identical particles, they cannot predict the full future, and free will is therefore possible. His history of the philosophical and scientific analyses of time were interesting, and could have been expanded into an interesting book in their own right. This also would’ve provided a more solid foundation for the last two chapters, which explain his personal views on free will, which seemed a bit out of place after several hundred pages on specific physics theories.

While I appreciated Richard Muller's book "Physics for Future Presidents", I would no longer recommend it to others. Unfortunately, it's now become too dated. He discusses the benefits and safety of nuclear power, but since the book was written before 2011, there's no discussion of Japan's Fukushima accident. I'd say no discussion of that topic is complete today without some mention of that accident. He talks about Global Warming, but states that the hottest year on record was 1998. That record has been exceeded several times since then, as have carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere which he discusses in the book. He talks about renewable energy, but his information on solar technology and costs are no longer valid.
I think his background information is good, and the underlying science is basically unchanged, but technology changes rapidly, and I suspect that readers today, some nine years after the book was written, could be misled by some of the old information. The exception would be for physics teachers who've stayed current with today's technology, who will be able to weed out the old facts from the newer facts. I also wouldn't recommend this book in the audiobook format. There are too many references to graphs and figures, and if you're going to have to refer to a print copy, you might as well be reading the print book.

Muller may well have been (sort of) right! Scientists today (2019) are seriously searching for one or more additional planets in solar orbit way out there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Nine#Orbit
Since it has been 40 years since I read this, I don't recall the details of Muller's argument. He is not mentioned in that Wikipedia article.
Muller's primary data rested on periodic extinctions every 26 million years presumably from a non-terrestrial source such as the disturbance of comets in the Oort cloud. His proposed villain was a distant dim dwarf star companion to the Sun. Most stars in the night sky are binaries.
Latest observations and calculations cast doubt on both that extinction cycle and the existence of a companion star.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(hypothetical_star)
But the search for long-period planets goes on.

Interesting up until the point where it goes all whiny about how free will must exist because we really want it to exist. Have you considered the alternative of not believing in it and yet acting as if you believed in it? Because it works for many other problems where something isn't true which we wish it was. Like living forever, life being fair etc.. Just because you want it so doesn't make it so but you can still act as if it did. In fact it's advantageous to do so.

REVIEW NOTES: (blog review)
From a leading scientist now off the fence about Global Warming; see an excerpt from his video lecture at http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/03/028625.php

Now: The Physics of Time is quite thorough in its scope. Written by Richard A. Muller, the book discusses his personal theories of why time possesses a direction. The question is harder than it seems at first since you must define all of your terms. For instance, what is the past? Why do we remember what has happened rather than what has not happened? This might seem elementary, but it almost requires a tautology to explain. We don’t remember what hasn’t happened because it hasn’t happened yet.

Along the way, Muller talks about Relativity and Quantum Physics. Einstein thought of something we take for granted, namely time and simultaneity and threw that notion out the window. According to Relativity, there is no such thing as a universal frame of reference that allows for two events to occur simultaneously under all reference frames. Einstein even had to explain what he meant by “Now,” but he found that difficult as well. How do you explain the concept of Now and not sound like you are talking to a five-year-old?

In the main portions of the arguments Muller makes, he points out that a lion’s share of physics contains equations that don’t have a preferred direction in time. You may say that time plays a role in the equations and I would not argue with you there, but think of simple mechanics. If you throw a baseball from the top of a tall building, aren’t there technically two solutions? One doesn’t make sense only because of the frame of the problem. We don’t accept negative time. Many physicists argue that this is because Time is an intrinsic quality of the universe and point to the idea of entropy and how it can only increase.

Entropy for those of you not in the know is a concept that I am only familiar with because I read a few books on Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics. Even so, I don’t entirely get the idea of Entropy, so I will turn to a dictionary definition. In Thermodynamics, Entropy is a quantity representing the unavailability of a system’s thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work. Basically, you take gasoline and use it to run an engine. You get waste products from that simple combustion that equal the masses of the gasoline and oxygen put into the system. This is the first law of thermodynamics. The second law states that the process of this is irreversible. Things tend toward disorder and chaos. So many physicists point this out and use this to say that this is why time has an arrow.

Professor Muller disagrees though. He comes up with some alternative theories and tells us that Entropy does not determine the arrow of time, it is the other way around. Muller then begins to discuss ideas outside of science, which I found to be fascinating. I have heard of a lot of these arguments before, so none of it was really new to me. Take the idea of teleportation. There is nothing in physics to rule it out as a possibility, but doing so would destroy your original body. Even our perceptions are beyond the realm of physics. Muller illustrates this by talking about how people perceive the color blue. Is my blue your blue? To be more convoluted and precise, is my perception of the color blue the same as yours? It is a question that goes beyond physics. It is like “What is it like to be a bat?” We don’t know how our perceptions would change as a bat. I mean, you can think about what it would be like to have echolocation and fly around eating mosquitoes and other insects but that isn’t the same as having a Chiropteran brain.

The final part of the book is a set of six appendices that add to the background of the theories and ideas. The book is really quite enjoyable and interesting, at least to me. I don’t know if it is right or wrong, but the idea is rather compelling.

Molto interessante,una visione oggettiva su argomenti spesso "vittime" di luoghi comuni lontani dalla verit?� scientifica.Pregio e difetto: sono presenti tanti numeri. Pregio perch?? permette di quantificare l'efficacia delle varie forme di energia e i costi/benefici connessi; difetto perch?? rende la lettura "arida" e a tratti faticosa.

Informative and confronting. This challenged a bunch of my views on energy policy and conservation, which was a little unsettling at times. I'm reminded from other books I've read to remember that even science isn't free of personal biases, but I'd like to hope this was fair and balanced. Very thought provoking.

The science behind the headlines

Richard A. Muller is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. For years, he taught a course entitled “Physics for Future Presidents” to undergraduates. Much of that course was condensed into a highly regarded and favorably reviewed book of the same name.

Muller has employed his formidable explication skills in a new book, Now, subtitled, The Physics of Time. In it, he sets forth his theory of why time - the fourth dimension - flows, proceeds, or progresses inexorably into the future. The extremely elusive concept of NOW is how we perceive time. Early on, Muller refers to the concept of now as “indescribable.” He even reprises Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous [to lawyers] bon mot: “I can’t define [it]…but I know it when I see it.” Stewart was trying to define “obscenity,” but his sentiment aptly characterizes most efforts to define time.

Muller, on the other hand, has a definite concept of time that he wants to impart; but before he does so, he wants to bring the reader “up to speed” with a crash course in modern physics. He then segues into his personal musings on the concept of free will, intertwined with the laws of physics.

The first 250 pages of the book might serve as a pretty decent undergraduate Physics 101 course for liberal arts majors who aren’t afraid of a little algebra. Most of it is very comprehensible, even to those with no affinity for math. However, he occasionally inserts sentences like:

"Energy is the canonically conserved quantity corresponding to the absence of explicit time dependence in the Lagrangian."

and

"Entropy is the logarithm of the number of quantum states accessible to a system."

Well, if you already knew that, you can probably skip much of the first two thirds of the book.

Muller begins by summarizing what physicists know about time before he speculates about the definition of and nature of now and why time seems to flow. Spoiler Alert! Muller argues that the cause of the flow of time lies “not in the concept of entropy, but in the physics of cosmology.” [Entropy is a property of physical systems. It is often calibrated in joules per Kelvin, that is, energy divided by temperature. It is a measure of the extent of disorder of the system.]

The concept of time permeates classical physics in subtle ways. For example, Emmy Noether proved that the law of the conservation of energy could be derived from the principle of time invariance. Emmy Noether was a German female mathematician known for her landmark contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. Time invariance means the laws of physics don’t change with time. But then Einstein (who referred to Noether as one of the most significant and creative mathematicians of all time) showed that time itself varies with relative velocity.

Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity imply many counterintuitive aspects of time without explicitly defining it. The first startling idea from the special theory of relativity is that not just velocity, but time itself, depends on the reference frame. Observers in relative motion perceive time differently, but they agree on how it would be perceived in the other’s reference frame.

Muller provides the most lucid explanation of the famous Twin Paradox that I have ever seen. Why does Twin #1, Mary, who takes off in rocket and travels at very high speed, age more slowly and return to earth at a younger age than Twin #2, John, who remains on earth? After all, both were moving at high speed relative to one another? The flippant answer often given is that Mary had to accelerate (change speed) to return to earth. I never understood why that mattered until I saw Muller’s answer (provided in the Appendix) that actually does the math and provides an insightful graph showing how the two actually age at different rates.

A key transition takes place when Mary must stop and turn around to return to earth. While she has stopped (even if only instantaneously), her reference frame makes a discrete jump and becomes the same reference frame as that of John because the two of them are no longer in relative motion. So, if one has been traveling at great speed and suddenly stops, her proper time frame jumps to a different reference frame and so does the time of a distant event, namely what is happening back on earth!

Unfortunately, Einstein failed to account for the fact that time moves. Arthur Eddington observed that the second law of thermodynamics was the only principle of physics that operates in only one direction of time. Under the second law, in the absences of outside forces, physical systems unavoidably evolve from less probable (more ordered) states to more probable (less ordered) states, not the other way around. Think of getting older (alas) or the shattering of a tea cup dropped on the floor. We do not get younger and broken tea cups do not reassemble themselves. Physicists characterize these phenomena as increases in entropy. From those facts, Eddington concluded that the second law caused the motion of time in the direction of what is called “time’s arrow.”

But Muller thinks Eddington got things backward — Muller argues that time’s ineluctable forward movement is the cause of the Second Law, not vice versa. He points out that Eddington’s “theory” makes no predictions that would make it falsifiable. It merely explains. Moreover, Muller contends that if increasing entropy caused the direction of time, shouldn’t the rate of time passage change locally when there is a local decrease in entropy, as when the entropy of the Earth’s surface decreases at night?

Muller’s concept of time fits in nicely with modern cosmology and the Big Bang theory. Astronomers infer from the red shift in starlight that galaxies are all moving rapidly apart, the greater the distance, the more rapid the velocity difference. The observable universe is expanding. In the standard formulation of Einstein’s general relativity and the Big Bang theory, the galaxies are not so much moving through pre-existing space as the three dimensions of space itself are expanding. In Muller’s view, time is a fourth dimension, expanding right along with the other three. Now is the leading edge of that expansion—the furthest extent of the dimension of time.

Muller also discusses some of the counterintuitive aspects of quantum physics, not so much because of their relevance to the physics of time but because they affect other issues he raises later in the book. He describes the wave function that characterizes atomic particles as “ghostlike.” He says the wave function of an electron:

"…isn’t really the electron. It is the amplitude, the spirit of the electron, its apparition, its soul."

[Muller likes the concept of souls. He employs it later in his discussion of free will.]

In what was a revelation to me, he also shows that Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle follows from the fact that particles display wave-like properties:

"Virtually all waves will have some uncertainty in both their velocity and their position….The math of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle follows exactly the math of classical waves….The mathematical statement of Heisenberg’s principle…is identical (except for the multiplication by Planck’s constant h) to the equation that describes classical waves, including water waves, sound waves, and radio waves."

Despite its title (and subtitle), Now isn’t only about the physics of time. I’m guessing that in Muller’s mind, his most important points are his thoughts about free will and the incompleteness of physics. He agrees with Immanuel Kant, of whom he says:

"[Kant] felt that he had nonphysics knowledge, true knowledge, of ethics and morality and virtue. Given his certainty of this knowledge, free will must indeed exist….But it would take advances in physics, particularly in understanding its quantum aspects, to see the true compatibility between physics and Kant’s thoughts on free will."

As an example of an issue beyond physics, he asks, “What does blue look like?”

Muller attacks what he calls “physicalism,” a belief that science says all that can be said. Physicalism reaches its extreme when it asserts that all nonquantifiable assertions are illusions. He takes on deterministic philosophers and atheists like Richard Dawkins:

"Dawkins makes a fundamental error in his unstated but implicit postulate that logic requires us to ignore nonphysics reality."

After discussing the uncertainty principle in quantum physics, Mueller says:

"The philosophers’ key assumption that the past completely determines the future is not supported in modern physics. Their arguments that free will does not exist were based on a false premise. We can’t conclude that free will exists, but we can conclude that nothing in science rules it out."

Muller proposes his own test to determine whether free will exists:

"If humans always follow the laws of probability, then free will does not exist. If humans regularly do highly improbably things, things that are not predictable based on external influences, then such behavior constitutes free will."

As a physicist, Muller perceives improbable acts as decreasing entropy, at least locally. As you can imagine, he argues forcefully in favor of free will. You may ask, “What does all this have to do with the physics of time?” My guess is that Muller might answer that the importance of now is that it:

"…is the only moment when we can exercise influence, the only moment when we can direct the increase the increase in entropy away from ourselves so that we can orchestrate local entropy to decrease."

Muller concludes with some musings about the human soul, free will, and personal responsibility. As he says, “Free will can be use to break a teacup or to make a new one. It can be used to start a war, or to seek peace.” In his sixth, and final, appendix, he cites several quotations from leading physicists expressing their personal beliefs in God.

Evaluation: Now can be viewed as two books in one. The first is a lucid presentation of issues in modern physics dealing with the notion of time. Muller’s writing is comprehensible for the nonphysicist-lay-mathphobe, and in the Appendix he includes real equations (quite a lot of them) for the adventurous who seek a deeper understanding. This first book is exceptionally well done and pretty much incontrovertible.

The second is more controversial. Muller is highly critical of physicalism, and he argues that physics is incomplete in the way Gödel showed us all logical systems were incomplete. Although he is careful not to espouse any religious beliefs in the main body of the book, he sets forth his own semi-religious beliefs, a mild sort of deism, in the final Appendix. I wasn’t offended by his statement of belief, but I wonder what it has to do with the physics of time, besides perhaps motivating an interest in answering the big questions about existence. Nonetheless, this book was good enough to pique my interest in reading Muller’s Physics for Future Presidents.

(JAB)½

Purposeful explanations of relativity, thermodynamics (with strong rejection of the notion that the arrow of time is connected with entropy), and quantum mechanics (conservatively sticking to the Copenhagen Interpretation), ending with a proposal that time's apparent flow and the idea of "now" stem from four-dimensionality of the (ongoing) Big Bang. But the book is seriously marred, if not downright spoiled, by parts that are heavy with mysticism, Cartesian dualism, and a recurring insistence that the philosophical position known as physicalism is a religion. (No it isn't, Dr Muller, because there is nothing supernatural involved in physicalism, and supernaturalism is the _sine qua non_ of religion.)

Not a perfect book, but a must-read for politicians, activists, voters, teachers, pundits, SF writers.... It's accessible, fascinating, and sometimes even humorous. And it's truly important. Now, if you know of a similar but even better (or even newer) book, please let me know.

Meanwhile, if you have any concerns about terrorism (including the policies of Homeland Security), or energy (including climate change and pollution and the rapid growth of China and India), space (including satellites whether as spies or for popular communications), or the variety of potential nuclear applications, read this.

Muller tried very hard to be objective, but since so much of what passes for science in the popular media is propaganda, sometimes his corrections also come across as propaganda. Readers who doubt anything he explains should do their own careful research... I recommend that you don't just say I already know that such'n'so is true' but rather explore any discrepancies you think you find.

Muller developed this book from his Berkeley course on physics for non-scientists, so the material has already been vetted by those students.

I have always been a skeptic of anything claimed by people with *any* agendas, and I do have some scientific background. I'm also eager to learn something new, and almost as eager to admit I've been wrong about something. From that perspective: what I did 'already know' about the issues covered by Muller coincided with what he wrote, and what I learned from him (almost always) made perfect sense and was entirely believable. (The only exceptions were when he made claims that coal is 'cheap' in the early chapters, and not until the later chapter did he add 'unless we factor in damage to the miners, the environment, etc., and when he dismissed electric autos as a failed idea.)

So, the rest of the review will be gleaned from my book darts and will be written as if we've established the impeccable objectivity and expertise of the author.

1. The quote that provides a focal point for the book is one we know from Mark Twain: The trouble with most folks isn't their ignorance. It's knowin' so many things that ain't so. "Ironically, this quote isn't even from Twain -- as if to illustrate the aphorism itself. The quote is correctly attributed to Josh Billings, a nineteenth-century humorist."

2. After letting the reader know that the base rate of cancer in an average population is 20%, meaning that "we already have about a 20% chance of dying of cancer, even if exposed to no human-created radiation. Nobody knows why," Muller discusses Chernobyl:

"Was the evacuation of the Chernobyl region wise?... Imagine that unless you left,..your cancer risk [would increase] from 20% to 21.8% If given that choice, would you give up your home in order to avoid that increase?.... This is not a physics question... wise leaders have to make the hard decisions."

3. Two entirely different bombs destroyed Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The former was destroyed by a Plutonium bomb, for which the materials are accessible, but the design & technology to build is well-beyond the reach of terrorist groups and developing nations. The latter was a Uranium bomb, the one that the exemplary 'high school student' can supposedly build, but for which the fuel is well-nigh unavailable. The biggest danger from an 'atom bomb' is that bad guys will buy a ready-made one, 'perhaps from a disgruntled warehouse worker in Russia.'

4. "[I]f the Yucca Mountain facility were at full capacity and all the waste leaked out ... immediately and managed to reach groundwater, the danger would still be 20 times less that that currently posed by natural uranium leaching into the Colorado River. The situation brings to mind the resident near Three Mile Island who feared the tiny leakage from the reactor but not the much greater radioactivity of natural radon gas seeping up from the ground."

Read that again. Note the absurdity of the fallacy of thinking that 'natural = good." Note the "20 times less. Note the word "radon" and try to remember if your home has been tested: http://www.epa.gov/radon/pubs/hmbyguid.html. Note that the Colorado River serves a lot of ppl, including Los Angeles. Don't panic - understand the need to put scary information into perspective.

5. I like the quote introducing the chapter on space. If you're not already playing the videogame Kerbal Space Program, or already a physicist, you probably don't quite understand orbital mechanics. I know I understand it better after reading "Being in orbit is like being infatuated -- you are constantly falling, but you aren't getting closer." (Apparently an aphorism, as there's no attribution in the book nor can I find any online.)

6. "It takes 25 times as much energy to get into orbit as to merely reach a 60 mile altitude." That means that the accomplishments of the winner of the "X Prize" and its 'astronauts' were relatively trivial, and private enterprise is still a long ways from actual space travel.

7. Isaac Newton's 'apple moment' was not a discovery of gravity, but a better understanding of it. He suddenly realized that 'the physics of the Mood was the same as that of a falling apple."

8. Satellites are diverse. LEO (low earth orbit) fly close enough to see large details of the surface, but they fly by at 5 miles per second. Geostationary and geosynchronous satellites are not the same thing, and they are up 22K miles. (Remember, the winner of the X Prize only had to achieve 60 miles). The 24 GPS satellites are at MEO, about 12K, orbiting the Earth every 12 hours.

9. "A world-class sprinter can do the 40-meter dash in 4.4 seconds... about 40% of a g.

10. Fossil fuels are not in imminent danger of being depleted, but we should decrease our reliance upon them. Not mentioned in the book is fracking - but I hope you already know how awful this is. Muller does point out that "About half of the carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuels winds up in the ocean... The acidification of the oceans may be a bigger danger to the ecosphere than a few degrees of additional warmth."

11. One bit interested readers will definitely want to investigate the section that ends "Who killed the electric car? Expensive batteries did." My brother, who lives in the metro area just south of San Francisco, just bought an electric car.... Hmm.... In fact, this is part of his chapter titled 'Nonsolutions." Upon reading each bit, I'm not convinced that the title doesn't exaggerate. These are 'less than ideal solutions" (to the twinned problems of energy and global warming, which Muller differentiates but I don't.)

12. Muller's (and my) favorite solution is conservation. This is not low-hanging fruit; this is an example of "fruit on the ground." As Amory Lovins puts it, " Energy efficiency isn't just a free lunch; it's a lunch you are paid to eat." Autos can be made both lighter and safer. Hybrid is no longer a derogatory term - there was even a hybrid Lexus by 2008. Refrigerators, since their kwh/year usage was made available to shoppers doing comparisons, have become sufficiently more efficient, (and affordable) that we've avoided the need to build 23 big new power plants.

13. Fossil fuels are not only bad for the local environment, and bad for climate change. but they are much more likely to enable warmongers to wreak real havoc than are the industries that contribute to nuclear power plants. An interested reader will have to read the whole book fairly carefully to fully understand that this has been true for seven decades, but even if you're still fearful of bs like 'China Syndrome' please read about the new kinds of nuclear power plants. I am convinced that "pebble bed nuclear reactors" should be adopted more widely. They have already been in use in Germany and attempts have been made elsewhere - but naive & confused concerned citizens have blocked their development.

14. Don't reveal your ignorance by mocking the 'duck and cover' drills of the Cold War. Your school desk was never intended to protect you from radiation. It would help to protect you from the effects of flying debris from the shockwave... this blast radius is many miles long.

I could go on, but I sincerely recommend you read this yourself.

If you're still not sure you want to read the whole book, at least look at the images on p. 256-7, especially the cover of "Amazing Stories" (Hugo Gernsback's "scientifiction" magazine) from the 1950s, showing a glacier invading NYC. And read the 5 end of section summaries, especially (imo) the one for 'global warming.'

"

Light and fun. Learned some really neat stuff in about an hour (or less).

This book covers a variety of topics that include physics and are relevant to politics. Topics included global warming, nuclear power, atomic weapons, conservation, and spying technology. The author appear scientifically knowledgeable and also insightful into the issues. I found the book interesting.

The conceit of this book is, obviously, that it's addressed to whoever would win the Obama-McCain race: here are the bits of physics you need to understand if you're going to make the right decisions on terrorism, energy, nukes (both weapons and reactors), space and global warming. There's plenty of good stuff here as well as lots of fascinating facts that I'm sure I'll find myself tossing oh-so-casually into dinner-party conversations. The text is extremely readable, bouncing along at an exhilarating pace. But there are also some silly mistakes:

In the Manhattan Project, the scientists initially estimated that the amount needed for a critical mass was about 440 pounds. [. . .:] With a tamper, instead of leaking out, the neutrons are reflected back in, so the critical mass needed for an explosion dropped by about a factor four, down to only 33 pounds. (p129)

I've tried and I've tried and I've tried to make sense of that "factor of four" calculation, but I still can't get no satisfaction. The "440 pounds" is clearly a euphemism for 200kg, and I assume "33 pounds" is, in plain English, 15kg . . . but even looking at these somewhat easier-to-work-with numbers, hoping for some sort of four-related relationship between them, I can't imagine what he was talking about. Similarly here:

In 1974, the average refrigerator size in the United States had a volume of 18 cubic feet, and the energy it used was 1800 kilowatt-hours per year. That's 130 kilowatt-hours for each cubic foot. (p315)

If I divide 1800 by 18, I get 100, not 130. I've checked my calculation every which way, and I still think I'm right on this.

I have other concerns. In the long chapter on global warming, Muller adopts the position of being, not a climate change denier, but a denier of the need for draconian action . . . and he claims to produce the physics to support this. He obviously has a beef about Al Gore and the movie An Inconvenient Truth, because he loses no opportunity to carp at them, even in instances where quite clearly Gore's "error" was that the science he presented, while perfectly correct as of 2004, has since been amended. Perhaps Gore once farted in front of Muller's wife, or something. Even so, I was prepared to be educated on the subject, but then . . . well, what's this?

On page 283 we have a couple of diagrams credited to "Pielke & Landsea"? On p294 there's an approving mention of a correction to the climatologists' physics from Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick? The diagrams seem plausible and the correction to the physics may be fine for all I know, but nowhere is there a mention of the fact that Pielke, McIntyre and McKitrick are extremely controversial figures in the climate debate, being champions of the AGW-denialist movement. I for one would trust nothing emanating from any of these three until I had it confirmed in triplicate by independent authorities, and even then I'd be dubious. Yet Muller, who must have known that to much of his audience the names will mean nothing, fails to alert his readers to the fact that the arguments being produced in general on AGW by Pielke, McIntyre and McKitrick (and, again for all I know, Landsea) are, to euphemize, not universally accepted.

Similarly, on pp104-105 Muller discusses the estimated death toll from long-term cancers in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and tells us that the IAEA/UN best estimate for this number is 4000. I was surprised the figure was so low, since I was sure I'd heard of higher ones, but who was I to argue with the IAEA/UN? It was only by chance, in casual e-conversation with a friend a couple of days later, that I discovered there have been several estimates of this death toll, and the IAEA/UN one is controversial. Many of the other estimates, quick research revealed, have reliability problems of their own -- I mean, I love Greenpeace and have given them money, but they're an advocacy group and everyone knows you take with a pinch of salt the statistics produced by advocacy groups -- and it's quite possible the IAEA/UN estimate may be the best; but, for the sake of honesty, Muller should have indicated the existence of these other, far more pessimistic estimates.

The laffaloud irony is that, elsewhere, he's really quite strong about people who cherry-pick their information . . .

All in all, then, having found a few instances where I did not feel Muller was dealing fairly with his readers, I became uncertain as to how much of the rest of his text I could trust. And that's a pity, because I very much enjoyed the actual process of reading the book.

Title best of it all

Il volume raccoglie una serie di lezioni tenute all'università di Berkeley per studenti non di discipline scientifiche, interessati a capire le principali questioni del nostro secolo. Non solo un futuro capo di stato, ma anche il semplice cittadino ha diritto ad una informazione completa e corretta.

Per chi vuole avere informazioni precise su ambiente, energia, terrorismo..... I concetti sono precisi, equilibrati sempre facili di recepire.

Sometimes I see a book title that is so brilliant that I can't help feel (as a writer) 'I wish I'd thought of that.' This is just such a title. It's a brilliant concept - the physics any decent US president really ought to know to be able to make the decisions that face him or her.

What's more, the contents live up to the title. Physics professor Richard A. Muller delivers some real surprises, separating what many of us think we know from reality. In five sections, handling terrorism, energy, 'nukes', space and global warming he delivers some devastating truths, putting across information that it's hard to believe any president has really grasped - yet it's so important that they do.

I don't want to go into too much detail - read the book - but, for example, in the terrorism section he points out that petrol (and aviation fuel) has more energy per tonne than TNT. This was why the Twin Towers came down on 9/11 - not because of the impact of the planes, but the energy released by the burning fuel. Each section uses the main theme as a starting point, but then pulls in other ideas. So, for example, while the space theme has plenty about the fact that manned spaceflight is not undertaken for scientific reasons (he argues strongly against it, encouraging much more unmanned space work), he also covers the use of gravity for remote detection, and the use of non-visible light (infra-red, radar etc.) in intelligence gathering.

One small gripe and one big one. The small gripe is that it's a shame there isn't a European edition of the book. Muller has used US units throughout, rather than scientific units (Fahrenheit temperatures instead of Celsius, for instance), which is ideal for the target audience of would-be US presidents, but less helpful over here. The big one is I think there is one big section missing - pure physics. It doesn't really come through that there's any need to do physics without an immediate application. In the past this has meant passing the crown for nuclear physics from the US, with the cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider, to Europe with the Large Hadron Collider (due to go live days after this review was written) - future presidents should understand the implications of not putting money into such valuable research.

All in all, without doubt, both the best concept I've seen in ages and an excellent fulfilment of the promise of the title.

This is the book to read to be informed about the scientific issues that confront Obama. From terrorism to environmental disaster Mr. Muller, a physics professor at UC Berkeley, explains the science behind the headlines and the options that a president will have available to choose from. So far Obama has stumbled by closing down the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. Now there really is no solution for nuclear waste, but what to do with all those spent fuel rods ...

Watch for Ocean Acidification to be the next environmental battle cry to hit the headlines.

Richard Muller for Science Advisor!

Easily the best non-scientist's science book I have ever read. Accessible, interesting, thought provoking and relevant. Plus a great conceit that never lets up - the author addresses the President right to the very last page. Highly, highly recommended, especially as a follow up to anyone who's recently read more depressing books like The World Without Us (which I also recommend.) But if I were to own only one single science book, this would be it.