Gödel's incompleteness theorems

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems
Kurt Gödel (Translation and expository writings by Susumu Hayashi and Mariko Yasugi)
ISBN 4-00-339441-0

This is a unique book on the Gödel's incompleteness theorems.
It consists of 3 parts.
The first part of of the book is a translation of the original Gödel's paper, ant the second expository writings by the translators on historical perspective of foundation of mathematics mainly focuses on works of David Hilbert, not the theorems themself. This is because it's essential to understand the historical background why the theorems were discovered.
The third part is an annotation of Goedel's original paper, and furthermore the translators tries to reconstruct Goedel's thoughts when he discovered the theorems.

Actually, I picked up the book at a book store to have better understanding on Penrose's theory on consciousness, but the book is more than my expectation. :)

I'm not sure if there is an English translation of the book, but I believe it's worth reading anyway. :)

Chaos Phenomenology

Chaos Phenomenology
Hiroshi Serizawa
ISBN 978-4489004223

A plain introduction to classical chaotic dynamics with sample programs.
But, they are based on TurboC (!) and depend on Borland's Graphic Interface (BGI).
Nowadays, a bit obsolete... :(

Prime Obsession

Prime Obsession -- Bernhard Riemann & the Greatest Unsolved Problem
John Derbyshire
ISBN 4-8222-8204-X

This books is a plain expository on Riemann Hypothesis.
Actually, I didn't know well how good describing distribution of prime numbers the hypothesis and related theorems are.

I believe that you can do good mental gymnastics reading the book even if you don't have enough background knowledge on number theories. Actually, I didn't have almost at all. :o

Beyond the Doubting of a Shadow

Beyond the Doubting of a Shadow
Roger Penrose (commentaries by Ken-ichiro Mogi and Kaoru Takeuchi)
ISBN 4-480-09006-1 (Japanese edition)

This book is not just a translation of Penrose's articles, but a collection of commentaries and discussions about Penrose's ideas on consciousness. Thus, Japanese title of the book is "ペンローズの量子脳理論" which means "The Quantum Brain Theory of Penrose."
Readers are required to have knowledge on not only Cognitive Science but also Computability, Mathematical Logic including Goedel's theory and contemporary Physics or background to understand them at least.
But, the translators, Mogi and Takeuchi, have wide variety of knowledge covering them, and their additional writings help us greatly understanding the original Penrose's idea. In this sense, the book is a unique work on the theme.

BTW, at least for me, I'm feeling that I need to read some more books to have enough understanding on the concept :(, and I'm looking fora good book on Mathematical Logic now....

An Introduction to The Human Sciences

An Introduction to The Human Sciences
Takeshi Yoro
ISBN 4-480-86064-9

This book is worth reading.

Yoro, author of the book, defines Human Sciences as explaining something by using a human being as a criterion defined in scientific and universal way. I think Yoro is trying to reconstruct the way to build up a world perspective in a bit different manner from the modern western science.

Why can a human being, a highly objective thing, be used as a criterion for having perspective of the world, the most subjective thing?
It is because the perspective must be expressed by a language which is a collection of commonly understandable symbols among human beings, and it's a human brain which processes the symbols and gives senses to them. Thus, the world perspective cannot be separated from the nature of a human being.

Anyway, I think readers can see a bit new approach to this very old problem.

Power of Ten

Today, I watched this video at a meeting at work.
It's just intended for giving some feeling of relaxation for the attendees, but I like it.
Maybe it's because I studied physics in my school days, but still I think the video is highly suggestive for wide range of people. :)

The Fabric of the Cosmos

The Fabric of the Cosmos -- Space, Time, and Texture of Reality
Brian Greene
ISBN 978-4-7942-1700-4 (volume 1)
ISBN 978-4-7942-1701-4 (volume 2)

This huge work is the next book of "The Elegant Universe" which explained contemporary elementary particle physics in plain.

In this book, Greene focuses on what is Space-Time, especially the Arrow of Time problem.
Roughly speaking, Greene assumes time reversal property of the most elementary theory and introduces very low entropy in the early universe just after the Big Bang induced by quantum gravity effects.

About 15 years ago, I also majored in elementary particle physics. But, now the cutting edge physics has gone into highly mathematical world and beyond my understanding. But, still it's fascinating walking through the thoughts seeking for the ultimate elementary structure of the world. :)

Hubble Telescope

Today, I'm really pleased to hear that Space Shuttle STS-125 team completed upgrading the Hubble Telescope. :)

Actually, I'm not so interested in watching sky by my own eyes. But, I love seeing photograph of stars taken by professional astronomers. Especially, since the Hubble Telescope began to work, I was surprised many times by seeing amazing structure of various astronomical objects.

This time, NASA added some new features to Hubble, and I'm really looking forwad to seeing new photographs from the upgraded Hubble. :)

The Moebius Strip

The Moebius Strip: Dr. August Moebius's Marvelous Band in Mathematics, Games, Literature, Art, Technology and Cosmology
Clifford A. Pickover
ISBN 978-4-8222-8318-6 (Japanese Translation)

The subtitle explains all about the book, I think.
In short, it's a great work of a Moebius mania. :o

What didn't know about Moebius is that he did more works than just the discovery of Moebius's strip. For example, Moebius function is used in number theory and furthermore even elementary particle physics!

BTW, Pickover's books is not for just specialists of scientists. General readers can enjoy various puzzles or graphics based on Moebius' theories. :)

Kludge

Kludge -- The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind (脳はありあわせの材料から生まれた)
Gary Marcus
ISBN 978-4-15-208997-7 (Japanese Translation)

I thought this book is about evolutionary theory of brains at first.
But, Gary Marcus, author of the book, is a psychologist, and this book focuses on characteristic features of human mind and its relationship with history of human (brain) evolution.

Our brains are consists of mainly two parts.
One is very old one, paleocortex, which rules instinctive and involuntary activities.
The other is a relatively new one, neocortex which rules higher level activities such as rational nature.

Here, one more important point is that the multiple layer structure was not designed from scratch. According to mutations and natural selection, the above structure of us survived just because it had an advantage in the evolutionary processes. In this sense, Marcus says "Kludge" to describe the design of human brain. Furthermore, we need to concentrate or calm down to use the functions of neocortex. That often leads us doing irrational things especially when they appeals to our instinct.

Marcus also mentions that neocortex was developed too quickly.
That's why it's difficult for us to make full use of neocotex.
Maybe we need hundreds of more centuries to do so. :o

Thus, it's different from my expectation, but anyway I enjoyed the book. :)

The Universe Next Door

The Universe Next Door (奇想、宇宙をゆく)
Marcus Chown
ISBN 4-393-32216-9 (Japanese translation)

In this book, Marcus Chown tells us amazing ideas around theoretical physics
especially how we can understand the universe and the origin of life.

For example:

• Some scientist suggests that quantum theory can be induced from the theory of general relativity!?
• Some scientist suggest that in the universe there can be regions where time goes by in reverse direction!?
• Some scientists support panspermia hypothesis seriously. That is, we can find out the origin of life outside the earth!
• Some scientists think it possible that some kinds of life form can live in the space!
• Nowadays, not a small number of scientists support many world interpretation!
• Nowadays, it's almost consensus that the space-time consists of more than 4 dimensions.
  

and so on.

Actually, when Einstein proposed the theory of relativity, almost no one believed the theory, but now his theories form indispensable basis of theoretical physics.

I'm wondering if I can hear news that the origin of life was finally discovered
or the ultimate theory of everything was finally completed during my life. :)

Rhythms of Life

Rhythms of Life
Russel Foster and Leon Kreitzman
ISBN 4-8222-8161-9 (Japanese Translation)

As I wrote several times, I've been reading books on evolutionary theory recently.
I felt that biological clock is one of the most fundamental function of life, and I wanted to know the origin of that. How it was formed and developed.
Kreizman's book describes history of study of rhythms of life, especially circadian rhythm, and its current status in detail. He covers very wide variety of topics around biological clock from genetic level to macroscopic level.

After all, the origin of the rhythms does not seem to be clear even now.
I was disappointed a bit to know that, but after thinking a while, I thought it's no wonder because the very early stage of the origin of life is still in cloud.

I'm wondering which is earlier researchers reveal the origin of life or the mechanism of intelligence...

Finished on 2009/02/13.

Mean Genes

Mean Genes (いじわるな遺伝子)
Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan
ISBN 4-14-080660-5 (Japanese Translation)

Simply speaking, the essential point of the book is that human beings have evolved too rapidly and thus there are a lot of conflicts between contemporary culture/society and

For example, for human beings abour tens of years ago, the only way preparing for starvation was eating foods in front of them anyway. The nature has not been changed at all, and that's why diet is very much difficult and painful for most of us. :o

In the end of the book, authors suggest several ideas resisting :o our instinct. But, may be they are a bit optimistic...

What IS LIFE? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell

What IS LIFE? - The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell (生命とは何か？)
Erwin Schroedinger
ISBN 978-4004160809

I majored in elementary particle physics theory when I was a graduate student, and so in those days I worked on various kinds of Shroedinger's equations. Needless to say, Shroedinger is one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century as Landau awarded him as rank 1.

But, I didn't know that he left a monument in also biology especially in study on the definition of life and on the origin of life.

First of all, he defined a life as an entity which eats Negative Entropy.
This was a revolutionary new idea with deep insight and influenced bio science world greatly.
Second, he discussed the nature of genetic material and expressed that as "acyclic crystal" more than 10 years before Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA.

Really, amazing...

Survival of the Sickest

Survival of the Sickest
Dr. Sharon Moalem with Jonathan Prince
ISBN 978-4-14-0812256-3 (Japanese Translation)

There is not a small number of genetic diseases.
Here, if Darwin's evolutionary theory is correct, why they have survived the natural selection?
I think it would be a popular question for medical and biological scientists.

Moalem's book answers the question clearly, and he tells us various aspects of human history from a view point of evolution. Especially, the primary keywords are "an effect and a side effect."
In other word, evolution gives us new features successively, but as it's based on mutations, usually they are not designed with long term perspectives. That's the point.

So, IMHO, this book is interesting and worth reading.

BTW, the Japanese title "迷惑な進化" literally means "annoying evolution" or "troublesome evolution."
I love it. :)

Collapse

COLLAPSE -- How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed --
Jared Diamond
ISBN 4-7492-1464-2 (Japanese translation, book1)
ISBN 4-7492-1465-0(Japanese translation, book2)

Jared Diamond, author of this book has various titles, evolutionary biologist, biogiographer, nonfiction author and so on. In this book, he describes the reasons why various societies failed or succeeded to survive.

I didn't know that now history of Easter Island is well understood, and also secret of its famous giant statues, moai, was revealed. When I was a child, I read that moais were built by ancient Atlantis people. Yes, it was a dreaming story, but actually it was a problem of economy between humans and nature after all.

BTW, Japanese title and subtitle of this book is "文明崩壊 --滅亡と存続の命運を分けるもの--."

The Cognitive Gene

The Cognitive Gene (考える遺伝子)
Yukihiko Makino
ISBN 4-7835-0204-8

Makino, author of the book, is a doctor, not an evolutionary biologist. But, he seems to have been fascinated by wonders of nature especially insects since he was a small child, and he covers wide variety of evolutionary theories. Readers might be a bit confused because he describes wide range topics of evolutionary theory and furthermore mentions his own philosophy repeatedly. But, I think the core message of his book can be summarized like the following:

• There must be some driving principles in origin and evolution of life besides mutations and natural selection.
  

I guess its title, the Cognitive Gene, comes from his perspective above.

I know that not a small number of Neo-Darwinists would attack the viewpoints like Makino's, but still I think the book is worth reading to get a overall perspective of evolutionary biology.

BTW, unfortunately there does not seem to be an English translation.
One more thing is that the book is out of print now. :(
Anyway, we have to look for the book at a library.

Riddle of the Cambrian Explosion

Riddle of the Cambrian Explosion (カンブリア爆発の謎)
Yoshiyuki Usami (宇佐美義之)
ISBN 978-4-7741-3417-8

This book is about Riddle of the Cambrian Explosion which means an explosion of number of species on the earth about 530 million years ago.

Recently, I'm reading various books on evolutionary theory, and at first I expected detailed discussion about the reason why it happened. But, this book describes various creatures of those days and author's work on bionomics of anomalocaris based on numerical simulation.

Basically, I enjoyed the history of strange ancient creatures, but I'm looking for books concentrating on more detailed theories of evolution. :)

Quantum Evolution

Quantum Evolution
Johnjoe MacFadden
ISBN 4 -320-03424-4 (Japanese Transration)

After finishing Dawkins' the Extended Phenotype, I wanted to know more recent results around evolutionary theory and chose the book. Mainly, it's because I studied elementary particle physics when I was a graduate student and felt it's natural taking quantum theory into consideration of origin and evlolution of life.

When I was a high school student, I read Oparin's book which explains an idea that life was created in primodial atomosphere. Here, the first life form must have been a kind of protains with self-reprodusive property.

Here, so far as we know a self-reprodusive protain is composed of at least 20 amino acids, and there are 20 kinds of amino acids. That means there are 20^20 possible combinations, and it's a 26 digits number...
The point is that it's extremely rare for a self-reproducive protain produced by chance.

McFadden tries to solve the problem by using inverse quantum zeno effect, but the idea seems to be very much controversial, and even for me, a bad student of physics, it's unreasonable and Panspermia hypothesis sounds more likely.

Bought on 2008/11/03.

The Extended Phenotype

The Extended Phenotype --- The Gene as the Unit of Selection ---
Richard Dawkins
ISBN 4-314-00485-1

This is the second book of Richard Dawkins, and it says basically the same thing with his first book: the primary unit of natural selection is the gene. The essential new point of Dawkins in this book is that a phenotype of a gene can appear in other individuals which actually do not carry the gene. In other word, genes can cause effects remotely.

At first, I thought that this could relate genes and memes, but it was a hasty conclusion.
Meme does not follow even the central dogma of biology. Here I mean that in case of Meme acquired characteristic can be inherited against the case of Gene. Thus, there must be different theories from the ones of Gene. Anyway, I need to read some literature on Meme, for example, ones by Susan Blackmore.