Dmitry Rubinstein

A fresh and brilliant look at history

Revisado: 10-16-24

I can imagine that the inspiration for this book came from the well known saying attributed to Einstein, who reportedly claimed the cosmological constant as his biggest blunder (there's a surprise in this regard in the book). What other famous scientists committed blunders that may have been no blunders at all - or that inspired others to brilliance? The book answes this question in a magnificent manner, bringing to life the well known stories of the discovery of the theory of evolution, of the age of the Earth and the Sun, of the structure of the DNA, of the early origins of the Universe and of the general theory of relativity. It takes a fresh and sometimes surprising look at these stories, focusing on the mishaps rather than successes, and analyzing these mishaps in minute detail, but in an extremely engaging way. The reading is also well done - for the most part I even loved the various accents and affectations attempted by the reader in order to represent the characters.

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Wonderful book on a variety of topics

Revisado: 04-15-24

Allow me to start by expression frustration with Audible's arbitrary limitation of 50 characters for the review headline. Can't for all that is sacred express my intent in that many characters.

Ok, now to the book. It's a wonderful book, exploring the variety of topics. The 3 main themes of the book are the polynomic equations of a single variable and the history of attempts to solve them, the group theory, and symmetry. Those who are not familiar with these topics at least a superficial familiarity, or are not at least extremely curious about them, are likely not to enjoy the book very much, although it's full of entertaining anecdotes and creative metaphors. They are likely to get bogged down in the mathematical parts. Those who are somewhat familiar will enjoy learning in depth the history of the mathematical and physical ideas they are accustomed to, including the lives of people who gave names to all these tools and ideas. All the people whose names fly around during the calculus and algebra lectures come to life in this book.

That's as far as the content of the book is concerned. I do question the decision to release the book in the audio format, as is. First, it's pretty old - published in 2005, yet the audio version was released in 2018 with seemingly zero alterations. The Large Hadron Collider, launched in 2010, so 8 years before the audio version was published, is mentioned as a planned event. Second, the mathematical bits, when read aloud, are simply unintelligible. I do know some group theory, so I just phased out while the narrator read the various multiplication tables row after row, in a monotonous tone, but for those who are not familiar with these topics - good luck to you, you're going to need it. Clearly, a more imaginative approach to transferring the content into the audio format was called for, but it seems the author was not involved in the process, so it didn't happen. The narrator is doing as good a job as can be done, except mispronouncing some of the names (such as that of Henri Poincaré), but the result is useless. Which is a pity since the story parts are excellent.

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one of the very best

Revisado: 03-22-24

An absolutely amazing course by my man Bob. extremely engaging, informative, stimulating. Really, the two Bobs - Brier and Greenberg - rule the teaching company unchallenged.

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Hopelessly outdated, not well delivered

Revisado: 12-11-23

This course is now 20 years old, if I understand it correctly, delivered shortly after 9/11, but before the rise and fall of ISIS, Charlie Hebdo shooting and many other events. Even so, its attempts at whitewashing Islam, by marginalizing the extremists and the backwards stances of the mainstream Islam, are transparent. The lecturer keeps reminding the audience that other religions had their extremists too, but at no point addresses the issue of why is there such a wide support for terror and violence in the muslim community, at this juncture in time. The lecturer claims that for many women the hijab is not a symbol of oppression but rather of freedom, but fails to mention the punishment women face if they don't wear it in public. The lecturer mentiones Muhammad's wife Ayisha, but apparently the fact that she was married to him at the age of ten is not important enough to be mentioned. More importantly, the history of Islam is presented in such a cursory manner, as to be of no use for a beginning learner. And the delivery is rather bad - it seems as if the lecturer is just reading from a book, making random lengthy pauses, which makes following the train of thought an arduous task. I think less random pauses and less finding justifications for the oppressive policies would have left plenty of time for more in-depth exploration of the history of Islam.

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Eye opening, moving, funny

Revisado: 06-13-20

A few words of very minor criticism. Trevor is a professional comedian, and some of the jokes sound just like that - like pieces, created by a professional: well-polished, probably well worn from repeating use, lifeless. But what can you do. That does not take away the fact that the material is based on author's own experience, or that the jokes, for the most part are, well, funny, even when you're aware of all the above. Another thing is that his mother, who takes a central stage throughout the book, has converted into Judaism when Trevor was 10 years old - surely he was aware of that fact - yet this is not mentioned in a single word throughout the book, and I wonder why. And the last thing - there are things in this book, that are outright gross, like making you gag if you're not the one to enjoy the exotic food contests on Survivor. A fair warning: if you hear the words "goat" and "smiley" (and I do recommend that you buy this book, and I strongly recommend that you buy an audio version of it) - just skip a couple of minutes.

These things aside, this is a great, moving, funny book. Trevor is 10 years my junior yet his life story could have taken place centuries ago as far as my own experience is concerned. The fact that so recently this was a life people led - still lead - is disturbing, and Trevor's portrayal of this life, while filled with humor and love for the people around him, is a real eye opener. Trevor delivers the text impeccably. The characters come to live as he changes voices, accents, expressions, and the dialogs are performed masterfully, some making you smile or laugh out of control - I laughed till I cried quite a few times. Other scenes, while funny, make you think hard about one's own perceptional biases - such was, for example, the chapter on Hitler. I am very thankful to Trevor for this book, both for the educational and humanistic aspects of it, but even more so for the humor.

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Amazing fit of endurance with ambivalent goals

Revisado: 05-21-18

Scott Jurek is out to reinvent himself. His way of doing this is putting together a badly organized attempt at breaking the record of the Appalachian Trail through-hike, on a shoe-string budget, with his wife, recovering from the physical and emotional trauma of a miscarriage ending in a dangerous surgery, as the only crew member. Luckily, friends come to the rescue, and they do manage to rescue the couple - and even to enable the record breaking attempt to succeed. My review so far may appear negative and condescending, but it is not: I have huge appreciation for people, who do things, that appear to be very hard, on the verge of impossible. But the question of price and of performance is always on my mind: what good comes out of such heroics? And at what cost? From Scott's and Jay Lou's descriptions it seems that they both desperately needed this FKT to happen, well, if they did, they failed to explain just why. This question - what for, and for what cost - kept nagging me throughout the book.

Other than that, the book was amazingly captivating. Both Scott's and Jenny's delivery is delightful, especially their impersonations of the various characters: Horty and the Speed Goat stand out in particular. And, of course, listening to Scott's body deteriorating from day to day, and yet him coming through was moving - I've listened to all of the book while running, and it made a delightful, inspirational run.

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This book is fucking awesome!

Revisado: 04-29-18

Any additional comments?

This is an absolutely great book. Large swaths of it are only relevant to professional athletes, but other parts are also relevant to weekend warriors such as myself. The book takes lots of concepts from various scientific disciplines, such as behavioral psychology, physiology, and from the field of hands on coaching, and brings them in an accessible and entertaining way. The authors/narrators directness and sense of humor are making the book fun to listen to.

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A brutally honest and captivating memoir

Revisado: 04-15-18

What did you love best about Running Man?

The author does not hide anything, and spreads before us the depth of the abyss into which his addiction has brought him, and later, when sober, doesn't hide the manic strength with which he drives himself and those around him when an endurance project is at stake. Author also realizes that sometimes one performs amazing feats of endurance without really having a good reason to do it, hoping to find the reason in the process, and, basically, running away from one's own problems: addictions, inability to build proper relationships with one's family, etc. It all really makes one think about the choices one does with one's own life.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Charlie Engle?

Probably not: there was a certain charm in hearing the story from the author, but his is not a very rich voice, or full of expression.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Not sure I would: parts of it are quite hard to hear, and take some processing, listening it all in one sitting would be a bit too much.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona