Mark Denny's Float Your Boat!: The Evolution and Science of Sailing

Just stumbled upon Mark Denny's (the author of Float Your Boat!: The Evolution and Science of Sailing) website.

It's not much of a site (so far), but the images on his page for Float Your Boat! are both pretty and informative.

As for the book, it's such an easy, enjoyable read for the scientist and the non-scientist, for the 'landlubber' and the experienced sailor. Denny has found the perfect balance between the technical and historical information.

Highly recommended if you love the water (as I do).

Here are a few other great nautical terms that have become common expressions, as written by Denny:

• Fly by night: Unreliable, temporary. A large sail that replaces several smaller sails and requires little attention. Used when sailing downind at night.
• Plumb the depths: Sink very low. Sailors used a plumb line (i.e., a rope with a lead weight at one end) to guage depth in shallow waters.
• Doldrums: Gloominess, stagnation. From Old English dol ("dull"); equatorial latitutdes where low winds often becalmed sailing ships.
• Cut and run: Make a hasty retreat. Cut the lashings that held sails to yard-arms. The sails would unfurl quickly and draw wind, thus enabling escape from an enemy ship fast-approaching or one identified as an enemy ship only when very close by.
• In the offing: At hand, likely to happen. Since the sixteenth century, "offing" has meant the area of sea visible from shore. So a ship that appears in the offing is about to make port.
• Three sheets to the wind: Very drunk. A sheet is a line used to trim a sail. If the sheet was damaged, it blew in the wind and the sail billowed. A ship with three sheets in the wind would look bedraggled and would stagger uncontrollably.
• Skyscraper: A very tall building. Originally a triangular sail at the very top of a mast, set to catch a light wind.
• Binge: Heavy drinking session. Originally a verb describing the rinsing out of a cask (in which liquids were stored aboard ship) prior to refilling.
• Barge in: Intrude suddenly. Flat-bottomed barges were notoriously difficult to control and frequently bumped into other vessels.
• By and large: Overall, on the whole. Sailing into the wind is referred to as sailing "by the wind," whereas a "large wind" is one almost from astern. So a ship that sails "by and large" performs well in all directions.
• Pooped: Exhausted. A ship is pooped when her high stern section (poop) is swamped by a following wave.
• Under the weather: Unwell, run down. A sailor's watch on the weather side of a ship would expose him to wind, rain, and spray.
• Footloose: Free to travel. An unsecured foot line permits the lower edge of a sail (the foot) to flap freely.
• Stranded: Left in an inconvenient place. A ship that had run aground on a beach (strand) was said to be stranded.
• Pipe down: Be quiet. The last call of the bosun's pipe, at the end of the daya, signaling lights out and silence.

Click here to read more about the author (and to contact him directly).

Float Your Boat!

I've just started reading Float Your Boat!: The Evolution and Science of Sailing by Mark Denny and I love it.

Mark Denny is both a sailing enthusiast and a physicist, and he uses his background to teach us the history of sailing (from prehistoric times) and the phyics behind sailing phenomena.

Check out the table of contents to get a sense of the book.

The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces by Frank Wilczek

I'd like to read Frank Wilczek's The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces.

If it sounds familiar and you don't know why, it's probably because you've heard of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Fantastic novel (set in Prague), but totally different.

I didn't realize that Wilczek chose this name partly because his favorite novel is The Unbearable Lightness of Being until I took a look at his website just now.

Wilczek, a physics professor at MIT and a Nobel Laureate, also wrote with his wife Betsy Devine Longing for the Harmonies (which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year) and Fantastic Realities: 49 Mind Journeys And a Trip to Stockholm.

Here's what the publisher has to say about this book:

Physicists’ understanding of the essential nature of reality changed radically over the past quarter century. MIT's Wilczek has played a lead role in establishing the new paradigms. Transcending the clash and mismatch of older ideas about what matter is, and what space is, Wilczek presents here some brilliant and clear syntheses. Space is a dynamic material, the engine of reality; matter is a subtle pattern of disturbance in that material.

Extraordinarily readable and authoritative, The Lightness of Being explores the implications of the newest findings in physics for basic questions about space, mass, energy, and the longed-for possibility of a fully unified theory of Nature. Along the way, Wilczek presents new perspectives on many strange aspects of our fantastic universe. Pointing toward new directions where the great discoveries in fundamental physics are likely to come, he envisions a new Golden Age in physics.

Sounds pretty nerdy huh? It's been some time since I've read a serious science book...

Some of Wilczek theories will be among the first to be tested at the controversial Large Hadron Collider, a $9 billion machine outside of Geneva at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research).

Click here to read an excerpt, click here to view the table of contents, or here to read more about this book from the author's website dedicated to The Lightness of Being.

Also, Wilcek will be speaking about his book on Tuesday, October 28,2008 at 6:45 PM with the Smithsonian Resident Associate Program at the Navy Memorial, 701 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC. Tickets cost $20 for the general public, $13 for seniors, and $15 for members.

Click here to register.

The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot

Last weekend I read Michael Talbot's The Holographic Universe, a New Age book based on the work of physicist David Bohm and neurophysiologist Karl Pribram.

While it was certainly interesting to read, this book and the science behind it was unconvincing. It seemed to me that the book was more interested in describing paranormal phenomenon and stating that the only explanation of such events is that we live in a holographic universe.

I'm open to the idea that paranormal phenomenon (out of body experiences, near death experiences, psychokinesis, past life memories, etc) may exist, but Talbot's writing did not make it clear how such phenomenon proves the holographic universe idea.

Also, Talbot explained basic quantum physics as I learned it in high school and at MIT but I did not think his use of these principles provided adequate support for his argument.

I'll have to research some of the scientists and their research to better assess the truth of this book.

Click here to read an article by the author that summarizes many of the ideas in this book.