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Title: The Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World by David Berlinski ISBN: 0-15-100338-6 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 31 March, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.4 (35 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Does not quite compute, yet...
Comment: 'The Advent of the Algorithm' contains useful data but one must wade through torrents of purple prose to find the nuggets. My impression is that Dr. Berlinski wanted us to feel the romance of the idea, but wasn't quite sure how to present that idea. The book seems to have been written in haste and by no means matches the excellence of his 'Tour of the Calculus.' Nevertheless, a novice, such as me, can benefit from Berlinski's discussion of the Turing and Post machines, Goedel's theorems, and Church's lamda calculus. The work of these logicians made precise the concept of 'algorithm,' says Berlinski. I think I know what he means, but he is a bit vague -- though admittedly he has the difficult task of trying to present a rarefied subject to a lay readership. We learn, for example, that if a problem is Turing computable, then an algorithm exists for its solution. So that means, I suppose, that, in this case, an algorithm is the set of instructions given that computes an answer on a Turing machine. To me, this does not quite get at the nitty gritty of what an algorithm is .... I realize that, in writing this book, Berlinski was balancing his poetic instinct against his mathematical streak. He doesn't quite succeed in the balancing act. Yet the discussion of the work of the four logicians makes the book useful. Perhaps Berlinski would have done a bit better had he, before writing his book, designed an algorithm to outline what he wanted to say. I recommend that he write another, more serious book focused specifically on the life and work of the logicians he cites.
Rating: 3
Summary: Not quite as good as A Tour of the Calculus
Comment: Purple prose aside, this book is not as illuminating as his Calculus book. But then again the subject itself is not as well developed as the Calculus, and the author's mastery of this area is not as sure. The fact is modern logic has never recovered from Russell's paradox and Godel's theorem is more often quoted then understood, or for that matter explained.
The author is also a bit chauvinistic in attributing the idea of algorithm to European root when the word algorithm itself came from the name of an Arabic mathematician who taught the world algebra, a fact never mentioned in the book. Also the assertion that calculus and algorithm are the only two great ideas in modern science is wildly exaggerated. Darwin's evolution theory may yet prove to be the greatest one of all.
All in all not as bad a book as many of the other reviews seem to imply. Definitely not a book for the impatient however...
Rating: 2
Summary: Excellent ideas, buried under bad prose
Comment: Berlinski gathered the right set of ideas for this subject, and he explains them in thorough detail. In particular, I found the level of detail for Godel's, Church's, and Turing's work to be very informative, e.g. this was the first time I saw Godel's encoding scheme explained well enough for me to see just how it works.
However, the prose in this book was so bad that I just couldn't finish it. While it was good that he stayed away from a dry textbook style, the style he ended up with was better suited for a romance novel than a technical history. In addition to the prose style itself, the book is littered with fictional asides that are meant to illustrate subtle points but end up being a distraction. It seems that the author was trying to create both a good technical history and a work of art, but in the end he failed at both.
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Title: A Tour of the Calculus by DAVID BERLINSKI ISBN: 0679747885 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 28 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Black Mischief: Language, Life, Logic, Luck-Second Edition by David Berlinski ISBN: 0156130637 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1988 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World by David Berlinski ISBN: 0743217764 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 05 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky: Astrology and the Art of Prediction by David Berlinski ISBN: 0151005273 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 13 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson, Martin Gardner ISBN: 0312185480 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 08 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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