Book Review: A Brief History of Infinity

I read "A Brief History of Infinity: The Quest To Think The Unthinkable" by Brian Clegg at Book Xcess and ended up buying a different book since I finished reading this one there (it's not long, only 243 pages). 

As a propitiatory gesture for not buying this book, I offer this hopefully favourable review. Since childhood, I have been awed and fascinated by the concept of infinity. What lies beyond infinity? How can be know something to be infinite if we haven't gone to the ends of it? How do we know infinity to be the most vast thing in existence if there is nothing we can compare it with? Is infinity merely a human concept, an idea that exists only in our minds? Why does the idea of infinity evoke such strong emotions in us? Brian Clegg explores this topic in a gently entertaining and accessible way, introducing everyone from St. Augustine and Georg Cantor to Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz along the way as though they are familiar, friendly, well-loved characters in a play. 

Clegg does not, unfortunately, possess the scintillating wit and bold insight of Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley or Richard Dawkins. His style is more like that of Jostein Gaarder in his whimsical little primer on philosophy, Sophie's World. I have to constantly remind myself that Clegg, did, after all, truthfully describe his book as "A Brief History of Infinity" and not "A Comprehensive Essay on Theoretical Physics." Just as "Sophie's World" is not intended for the Philosophy major, "A Brief History of Infinity" is for the casual lay reader, not the reader with a background in Mathematics or Physics. What Clegg's book ultimately does is not provide you with solid answers to the questions of whether "Can humans grasp infinity?", "Does infinity exist outside of the human mind?" or "What are the distinctions between mathematical, physical and cosmological infinity?", but provide the reader with the basic ideas of how mathematicians, philosophers and physicists have introduced, described, utilised and applied the abstract concept of infinity, and invite the reader to think, question, challenge, consider and appreciate that for which we have no direct observational evidence. 

 Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5.

Bentos for World Book Day

April 23 was World Book Day,and I observed it by creating a series of book-themed bento lunches based on my favourite books and authors. Many people have asked me about the illustrations. It's really very easy and quick to do -- I painted the illustrations on flat tortilla using a fine paintbrush dipped in natural black food dye, and then cut out the shapes using a small sharp blade, and baked the illustrations to set the dye.  The blue, red and green tints are done using food writing pens.

 

 

 

World Book Day Bento #1 is inspired by Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird".

 

 

  

 

World Book Day Bento #2, inspired by E.B. White's 'Charlotte's Web'. Favourite quote from the book: "You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."

 

 

 

 

World Book Day Bento #3, inspired by 'A Raisin In The Sun' by Lorraine Hansbury. There's a little 'potted plant' in the top left compartment because gardening is a leitmotif in the book/play.

 

 

 

 

World Book Day Bento #4, inspired by 'War of the Worlds' by H.G. Wells. I am a fan of old-school science fiction, in particular, the works of John Wyndham, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. My original intention was to feature Wyndham's triffids, but I forgot what triffids look like and ended up illustrating something that looks like the toothy plant in Little Shop of Horrors, so I scrapped it and did the Martian Tripods from WotW instead.

 

 

 

 

World Book Day Bento #5, inspired by Iris Murdoch's "The Sea, The Sea." Iris Murdoch is an incredible novelist, but she is also first and foremost a philosopher and ethicist. I love her protagonists because they are flawed, in particular the protagonist in "The Sea, The Sea", only he doesn't know how flawed and mistaken he is, which of course gives the whole story its element of dramatic irony.

 

 

 

World Book Day Bento #6: And finally, we arrive at the original inspiration for World Book Day... Good ol' Bill Shakespeare. Shakespeare is still considered one of the greatest, most popular and most influential dramatists in history for good reason. His themes of heroism, justice, political intrigue, friendship, loyalty, love, betrayal, prejudice, human fallibility and complex family relationships remain relevant to all generations and across cultures. Shakespeare wrote for the masses, and that is why his plays lack pretension. They weren't moralising or instructive plays, and yet we never fail to learn something from each play. Shakespeare's popularity lies in the fact that his plays are bawdy, ribald, witty, accessible and oh-so-human. So here's to old Will S., one of the greatest philosophers, psychologists, social commentators and writers to have ever lived.

52 Books in 52 Weeks: Mission Accomplished

Too many things going on in my life, and no opportunity to blog about all of it. Still trying to keep up with my goal of reading 52 books in 2016, as I had in 2015. I actually surpassed my goal of reading 52 books in 2015. List of books I read in 2015 as follows. 

1. The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad 

2.  The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne 

3. The Comedy of  Errors - William Shakespeare 

4. This Side of Paradise - F.  Scott Fitzgerald 

5. The Winter's Tale - William Shakespeare 

6. Anthony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare 

7. No Logo -  Naomi Klein 

8. Coriolanus - William Shakespeare 

9. Love's  Labour's Lost - William Shakespeare 

10. Company Meetings: Law and Practice in Malaysia -- Priscilla PY Yap 

11. Beyond Good and Evil -- Friedrich Nietzsche 

12. The Merry Wives of Windsor -- Shakespeare 

13. The Dhammapada, translated by F. Max Muller 

14. The Two Gentlemen of Verona -- Shakespeare 

15. Twelve Years A Slave -- Solomon Northup 

16. The General and Special Theories of Relativity -- Albert Einstein 

17. The Last of the Mohicans -- James Fenimoore Cooper 

18. Anthem -- Ayn Rand 

19. At Home -- Bill Bryson 

20. Gulliver's Travels -- Jonathan Swift 

21. The Riddle of the Sands -- Erskine Childers 

22. The  Island of Sheep -- John Buchan 

23. The Moonstone -- Wilkie Collins 

24. Palms of Controversies: Oil Palm & Development Challenges -- Alain Rival and Patrice Levang 

25. Walden -- Henry David Thoreau 

26. Siddhartha -- Herman  Hesse 

27. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined -- Steven Pinker 

28. The Golden Age -- Kenneth  Graham 

29. The Art of War -- Sun-Tzu 

30. Diary of A Nobody --  George and Weedon Grossmith 

31. Greenmantle -- John Buchan 

 32. The Origin of the Species -- Charles Darwin 

33. She -- H. Rider Haggard 

34. The Pilgrim's Progress -- William Shakespeare 

35. The Life and Death of King John -- William Shakespeare 

36. Tao Te Qing -- Lao Tzu 

37. 12 Steps To A Compassionate Life -- Karen Armstrong 

38. The Portable Atheist -- Christopher Hitchens 

39. What Should We Be Worried About: Real Scenarios That Keep Scientists Up At Night -- Edited by John Brockman 

40. Some Turns of Thought -- George Santayana 

41. The Valley of Fear -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

42. American Standard Version Bible, Book of Genesis. 

43. The Enemy of the People -- Henrik Ibsen 

44. Civil Disobedience -- Henry David Thoreau 

45. The Mystery of Cloomber -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

46. We Can Be Heroes -- Catherine Bruton 

47. Bhagavad Gita 

48. War of the Worlds -- HG Wells 

49. Pericles, Prince of Tyre -- William Shakespeare 

50. The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare -- G.K. Chesterton 

51. Dear Enemy -- Jean Webster 

52. The Lost Continent -- Edgar Rice Burroughs 

53. The Home and The World -- Rabindranath Tagore 

54. The Mystery of the Yellow Room -- Gaston Leroux 

55. The Prince -- Niccolo Machiavelli 

56. My Man Jeeves -- PG Wodehouse 

57. Deliverance -- AJ Adams 

58. The Age of Reason -- Thomas Paine 

59. This Explains Everything: 150 Deep, Beautiful and Elegant Theories of How The World Works -- Edited by Jon Brockman 

60. Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic -- Oliver James