Book Reviews


[Day Permalink] Friday, June 13, 2008

[Item Permalink] Views on computational science -- Comment()
I got some comments on my opinion piece in Helsingin Sanomat. Because my affiliation was not included in the writer information, some of the messages asked whether I'm the author of the text. There are quite a few people with the same name here in the Helsinki region. I hope they have not been bothered too much.

By the way, it is interesting how few comments (relative to the size of the readership) there usually are from HS pieces, compared to other much smaller publications. Perhaps the big audience hinders commenting. Years and years ago, when I wrote a couple of opinion pieces to Helsingin Sanomat and Yliopisto, my two favorite forums at that time, I did get some nice feedback, and one interesting contact (the correspondence lasted quite a while).

One reader pointed out the writings of Heinz R. Pagels, a completely new name to me. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be new printings of his books available, only used ones. The most interesting book for me is "The Dreams of Reason: The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity". The topic of the book is of course discussed by many other authors, but it seems that Pagels has some interesting interpretations. I'm not sure whether I agree. In any case, have to read the book first before any further commenting.