Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, and Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking - Charles Seife

This post has 6 comments with rating of 5/56

• 
  BillEBob
  January 23rd, 2021
  

  OK, I get it. He’s not a know-nothing. His credentials seem solid enough. The author appears to be a professional gloomy Gus in the world of science writing.

  Probably a good thing to have such people, but I’m not interested in spending any time with him.

  Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, and Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking - Charles Seife
• 
  pryderi
  January 23rd, 2021
  

  

  Bertrand Russell’s chapter on Pythagoras in his History of Western Philosophy was the first time I came across the notion that Mathematics and Metaphysics had been linked from the earliest times in the Western tradition:- to the serious and permanent detriment of both.
  Seife’s Zero is probably the best full-length work I know to examine how people (even some intelligent ones) confuse a need to know with a wish to believe, and is a useful side-order to - say - Aczel’s Aleph (a work replete with invaluable research, but sadly also drenched in knock-off mysticism).
  Not one for Fox aficionados then, but a valuable byroad for the rest of us.

  Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, and Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking - Charles Seife
• 
  playful808
  January 26th, 2021
  

  Do not tell the author, but China successfully started a fusion reactor on Dec 4th, 2020.

  https://phys.org/news/2020-12-china-nuclear-powered-artificial-sun.html

  Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, and Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking - Charles Seife
• 
  JustRandy
  January 26th, 2021
  

  Balderdash! Scientist have made continuing advances in the study of fusion. So called failures are a necessary part of that process. Science advances, not only by experiments that yield a positive result. We have learned also from the meticulous record keeping generated from experimental research that does not achieve attempt the hoped for result.
  “KSTAR recently maintained fusion plasma at 180 million degrees Fahrenheit for 20 seconds. This device’s previous record was just eight seconds in 2019, and the global record before this experiment was a mere 10 seconds at 100 million degrees or higher.” https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/318680-fusion-reactor-sets-record-by-running-for-20-seconds
  “UK’s first nuclear fusion power plant…is expected to be completed by 2040.” https://www.energylivenews.com/2020/10/30/researchers-achieve-first-plasma-milestone-in-uk-nuclear-fusion-device-testing/
  “A viable nuclear fusion reactor — one that spits out more energy than it consumes — could be here as soon as 2025.
  That’s the takeaway of seven new studies, published Sept. 29 in the Journal of Plasma Physics.” While International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is expected to achieve a fusion reaction by 2035
  https://www.livescience.com/nuclear-fusion-reactor-sparc-2025.html
  “The first large-scale reactors (such as the gigantic ITER in France) are already under construction.” https://www.zmescience.com/science/mit-researchers-confident-their-fusion-reactor-is-very-likely-to-work/

  So, why at this time of tremendous advances in fusion research would the author publish a book with such a patently false premise? Did he receive payment from the Coal Industry? I do not know.
  I do recognize this as another example of anti-science, misleading and inaccurate propaganda of the type peddled by Climate Change Deniers, Big Tobacco, the Coal Industry, and Creationists.

  Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, and Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking - Charles Seife
• 
  lisiva5995
  March 24th, 2021
  

  Zero is a place-holder. A concept, an idea, a logical construct. In math it is the absence of a value. In programming, it is null. In electronics, it is the absence of voltage. I am interested to see how you write an entire book about… nothing.

  Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, and Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking - Charles Seife
• 
  bokeh
  August 3rd, 2021
  

  Zero stars

  Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, and Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking - Charles Seife

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