Week 40, book reviews!

Easy Lessons in Einstein: A Discussion of the More Intelligible Features of the Theory of Relativity

by Edwin Emery Slosson, Albert Einstein (Contributor)

I will start with the end of the book, which contains a fantastic letter written by Einstein himself and published around the same time as the Lenin revolution in Russia in 1918. He claims proudly that he is a Jew from Switzerland and a German man of Science. He explains to a UK audience that he is not attacking their magnificent Newton nor Newtonian physics. His attack is on Euclidean Elements (Στοιχεῖα Stoikheîa) by using the Empedocles 4 Elements of life. In particular uses the addition that Aristoteles made to the Empedoclidian Elements, the 5th element,  Aether.

He comes after 4000 years and 100 billion births to challenge Greek logic with his imagination rather successfully. Im not saying maths becouse Einstein was not good at maths. His teacher in maths, Constantin Carathéodory (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Καραθεοδωρή), didnt do a good job teaching him, only correcting his papers. Einstein's superpower was not maths but imagination and simplifying complex problems.

Aether, used as part of his imagination mix, has now been removed from science books and replaced by Dark matter and Dark Energy. Even though Aether in Greek means Black (Aithiopes, Ethiopians; see Aethiopia, "people with a burnt (black) visage"), it has been replaced with a more explicit term nowadays. 

Back then, only 12 people could understand what he was talking about, which was very simple; however,  the maths proving it are very hard.

Hold a piece of paper with both hands, and ask a friend to add a rock; what happens to the article? It bends. Here you go; time-space BENDS when an external force is applied. That is the basic logic of Einstein, but you need to use advanced mathematics to prove what you observe. You need to add the coordinates of each element and calculate every move and interaction, and the maths equation must match what the eye sees. That is pure Science to test and verify, and he did it.

With this approach, Einstein could imagine the whole Universe around us in his head and then had the will and the courage to try to prove it with maths. Let's not forget that others corrected his math formulas, but it did not matter. Once he solved the maths, he could simplify even further by claiming E=mc².

This book tries to simplify the theory, to popularise,  with examples, by referring to the tests that were made back then. It tries to transfer that wild imagination of the genius to all. I think it does a great job.

I am unsure if Einstein was the first to understand the cosmos and the forces around us. Another Great Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, and his theory of Musica Universalis probably was the first. We have only fragments of that work; many of his papers either burned in the great fire of Alexandria or Christian priests reused the paper and wrote Christian texts on top of them. In the future, Einstein will be challenged back by the same people he challenged, but first, we need to find those lost documents. Even more importantly, we must understand why 4000 years passed and this earth gave us only 1 Einstein.

That, for me, is a bigger mystery than how the outside Universe works. What do you think is the reason? Have we suppressed human imagination, and how? or is it a genetic issue?

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Supreme Personality

by Delmer Eugene Croft

A bit of Yoga, a bit of salty Water in the morning, lots of Water with lithium (wait a minute, is that the famous Kool-Aid?), and there you go...you can build a supreme personality.

Joke aside, some parts of this book are excellent. Establishing habits, stopping smoking and drinking, eating good food, and exercising is always suitable for a healthy body. And yes, the power of smiling is a weapon not well understood. Smiling and laughing is a medicine; now we know that every time we laugh, we release endorphins while screaming release cortisol (that make people fat).

You see, every single behaviour has a chemical counterreaction within our body. Of course, that is not what this book is all about; we learnt about behaviour and hormones over the last 20 years. This book is about good health practices with the mindset people had 100 years ago.

Of course, when I read about Water with Lithium, I wondered how many they got stomach issues after it. The Water with salt recommendation might be suitable for cleaning your nose and avoiding colds in the winter but drinking it? No! We know that Apple Vinegar mixed with Water is a good morning habit of balancing the stomach, increasing metabolism and getting a bit thinner, scientifically proven. But then again, even that comes with side effects; if you do it too much, you might lose your teeth.

It also covers magnetism, like a shorter story of the law of attraction. But then again, if I want to read such things...could go back to the master that invented the whole movement: Hermes the Trismegistus ( Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος, "Hermes the Thrice-Greatest"; Classical Latin: Mercurius ter Maximus) and his theory of Hermeticism. Perhaps he copied some Assyrians, Need to study them a bit more. Hermes' theories are part of Islam, and the prophet Idris shows how far his teachings spread. But then again, the book is not covering him but talks about mystical magnetic powers and telepathy without providing the evolution of the theory itself.

For telepathy will not say anything; if you can read my thoughts, please go ahead and think about what I was about to write here. Otherwise, read this book for the kind words and encouragement but be a bit conservative becouse his words can also sell snake oil if not well-informed.

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Sex: Avoided Subjects Discussed in Plain English

by Henry Stanton

Our happiness depends mainly on a rational solution to our sexual desires. That sounds somewhat Freudian, but I say largely becouse of the western world, we have solved the issue of hunger, which is an even bigger force (however, we have not solved nutrition rightly, but that is another issue).

Animals do sex primarily for reproduction, and humans also for pleasure and hedonism. That is precisely the problem that Henry tried to solve 150 years ago. He saw that there was no good education for one of the most natural functions, one of the most enjoyable and exciting activities we humans do, hopefully somehow daily.

He saw taboos and wrote this book to provide some sexual education. Some parts, like masturbation, could sound moralistic, but then again, I didnt find him highly conservative.

One hundred fifty years after, and by looking around could say that the situation didnt change much. How many of us know that STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) could even cause psychological disorders if not treated fast? How many women need to do operations later on in life just becouse the hygiene of their partner was neglected? Yes, we solved in the west a "gift" that we got from our conquest of Latin America: Sifili (that causes even schizophrenia). Still, we didnt solve HPV, which causes Ovarian cancer. And HPV is such a small particle, a silent killer and is all over the place if you look at the stats.

HPV kills 50.000 people every three years in the USA, that is a serial killer, but you dont hear much about it in the news. You hear, of course, about "My body rights" on abortions caused by the absence of a condom, the same condom that could have saved not only millions of embryos aborded but also could prevent 570.000 per YEAR from getting HPV cancer. There must be something wrong with our rational thinking, dont you think?

Even today, Sex education is taboo, we are focusing on Sexuality education to be free to choose our sexual preferences, but we have skipped the basics, in my opinion.

How many people do they know about Epigenetics? How many know that Alcohol and drug usage will modify the Chromosomes of a man and since always a man will give the gender to a kid (a fundamental rule of Genetic Biology), thus if that man consumes large amounts will indeed affect the hormones and genes of his child? It is funny that parents out there still blame their kids for Gayness without looking into the mirror and asking themselves if that resulted from years of indulgence in medical pills, drugs, poor diet or alcohol consumption.

We still have taboos about Sex and Sexuality in general, and I think this book is an excellent read for all ages. I wish educational systems around the world focused on the essentials first before we enter into more profound subjects that actually will be very painful for parents' "sins", if you understand what im writing above.

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Experiments in Plant Hybridisation (Revised)

by Gregor Mendel

The Right Reverend Gregor Mendel. Is it true that the father of modern genetics has a religious title? Why? Becouse he was an Abbot of a Monastery and then also a scientist.

He focused his research on Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring. I guess he read the start of the Bible about the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and understood the point behind the "story". If you study the old testament rightly, you know that it is a genealogical tree with the traits of humans and their Father and Son hereditary characteristics. Of course, as a scientist, you dont have the time of aeons to repeat the combinations mentioned there; thus, he used flowers and plants to do the same, in my view.

I have to note that many cultures have done selective breeding with arranged marriages. Others entrusted the stars and astrological signs (the Indian); the Jews, a bit more cleverly, had the local Rabi, that knew the families in the village from a young age, to suggest who was marrying whom. If you believe that some casts in India are super bright and that the Jews are constantly producing super intelligent people, look no further than the practice of selective breeding. Perhaps we could do it with a Tinder-like application shortly as more and more people share their DNA in genetics databases, which is a highly probable scenario.

Of course, the topic is rather sensitive for humans, leading to eugenics if applied with force and not smoothly with culturally acceptable practices. Just imagine that they wanted to take back the Nobel from the guy that discovered that DNA/RNA code becouse he expressed similar thoughts a few years back.

Nevertheless, this book is about Mendelian traits, briefly the Mendelian paradox and covers in detail how to produce Dominance and recessive genes.

Highly recommended; it is a bit technical, but with the language used 100 years ago, thus easy to understand if you dont get bored listening to GATTACA type of codes.

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Nature

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson is a Transcendentalist philosopher; that's what they call the movement in America; in Greece, we could call him Anarcho-Christian/Buddhist with Green revolutionary tendencies.

The movement he belongs to started in America with a solid belief in individualism, nature protection and spirituality, all those combined create Transcendentalism. The base is Plato, Neoplatonic and Buddhism. Still, Neoplatonism, in essence, is Christian Orthodoxy, so the two core elements are Nature and Spirit in their movement and through that comes freedom.

Transcendentalism produced intellectuals and artists accused of doing art for the sake of doing art; in essence, they were not productive for the whole but selfish for themselves. Im not explaining how some types of anarchists think, but it is evident to me why this "anarchistic" philosophical movement was created in the USA.

Back in the 1800s, Europe probably was polluted by coal gases, filled with factories and filthy cities. On the other hand, the USA was still a wild paradise, nature untouched and everything big and beautiful. No wonder some got excited about the newly discovered nature and loved it so much. Try being in the wild for a while, do a hike for several days and indeed, you will connect with your spiritual self in all that silence, unless a bear eats you, and then you meet God in person.

I'm not too fond of sporting mistakes in a book. He claims that the Greek word Cosmos comes from the word Beauty. It probably got confused with Cosmetics (kosmetike) since Cosmos means "order, good order, orderly arrangement", firstly used by Pythagoras to describe the Universe.

After that mistake, I started doubting if Plato said anything written in the book and took a note to double-check.

This book is a lovely and fantastic "love letter" to mother nature if you are romantic.

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The Untroubled Mind

by Herbert James Hall

I probably have read at least 30 self-improvement books. I can confidently tell that the new ones published in the last 20 years are not worth the effort to read. With minor exceptions, a chapter here and there, a reference to ancient wisdom and perhaps the 20 bucks invested in a self-improvement book may be worth your time reading.

On the other hand, those written 100 years ago, like this one, are much more structured, use the power of suggestion, and are kind of hypnotic. They insert keywords into your head by using well-structured sentences or paragraphs.

They use God a lot; they require the reader to have a God belief system and not be a nihilist. Why not? To self-improve starts with Faith, Faith that you can improve, Faith that you can change, and Faith in yourself.

They probably use God as a mirror of our souls, to look up and reflect Him that supposedly we are made according to His image and compare. Do we like what we see in ourselves? Is it a good copy of God's image? Maybe that is why they use God a lot, not for proselytising to any Christian version of God.

Another thing that I realise is that when copyrights expire after 100 years, many modern writers that have read those old self-improvement works will copy them.

So if you are searching to self-improve, forget the latest versions in this genre and go 100 years back. The "law of attraction" had a different book title back then. Still, Im not sure who has copied this one recently. But that is not that important for me; I enjoyed listening to the Librivox version of this book; the chapters contain excellent and valid points for anyone to consider if they want an untroubled mind.