Disclaimer:
First
let me make it clear that I am an admirer of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul
Kalam. As a human, as an Indian, as a president, as a scientist, and
as a Tamilian, he gave his best. No question on that. This review is
solely on the book and not about the person. So Dr. Kalam's
fans/followers please don't mistake this review for some anti-Kalam
slander and bombard me with comments. If you wish to counter this
review, just counter the points I have mentioned about the book.
Thanks.
Introduction:
Shortly after the
unexpected demise of Dr. Kalam, I was looking at the list of books he
had authored. As most of the books are of self-development or
motivational types (either in personal or national or global scales),
one autobiography, one about his spiritual experience, one text book
on fluid machanics and one book which talked about “scientific
pathways”. What a wonder? From a scientist, it is the only book that seems to bring
science for masses. Compare this with Dr. Hawking or Dr. Dawkins! You may understand why I feel sad about the numbers.
I ordered the book
on an online store hoping that the book will introduce science to
young people as well as have some good deal of information for a
scientific novice like me. The book came in few days. It is around
250 pages and in two sittings I finished it off. I felt that “The book
is kind of OK”, when I started to read and “Why this book is
like this?” when I finished. I will list down the reasons why I am
upset with the book. With all humility, I again say, I am not so good
in science or language or anything. But whatever I express here are
what made me unhappy about the book.
1. Book Organization
The book has an
“Introduction”. The section doesn't introduce us to the content
or intent of the book instead talks about an incident in the authors'
life and moves on to talk about some incidents in Einstein's life.
Then with a subtitle for each, it talks about Sir C. V. Raman,
Michael Faraday and Alexander Graham Bell. Nothing much about the
science behind their inventions but the “self-development” kind
of “inspiring stories”. OK, forgiven for the introduction!
Then comes a
Prologue. This is some kind of a science fiction short story mainly
about Robots. As the first topic is Robotics, I thought that every
topic will have such story. But this prologue without any reason
appears only once and only for Robotics. I couldn't consider this as
a prologue to the entire book as it is not talking about Pathology or
Paleontology. So I still can't get the point of having a sci-fi short
story as a prologue. OK. Lets move on!
The book has 7
different scientific topics, spread across 225 pages, apart from
Introduction, Prologue, Acknowledgments. It has eight unnumbered
pages of color photographs mostly from Getty Images. Don't look for
some scientific diagrams or charts. You can expect few photos of
Marie Curie, Galileo, robots, virus etc. The are some monochromatic
pictures/diagrams sprinkled here and there. Some of them are
informational while others are “Faraday sitting on his desk” or
“Raman standing on a ship”.
Each section has
something about the topic for 2 to 5 pages, another 2 to 5 pages
about the future of the topic. Then a Q&A section titled
“Conversation With A Science Teacher” and another Q&A with an
Expert (Expert for 3 out of 7 topics is none other than Dr. Kalam
himself). This is followed by “Note To Parents”, a section that
ensures that the topic will surely land their kids in a good job and
there are foreign opportunities for study and work. There is an “Oath”
section for the kids to write down their oath. And some topics have
an “Exercise” section while some topics lack the same.
2. Too Much for Too
Little
This is something
subjective. But still, the book gives too much importance, space and
coverage to things of little importance. I like to highlight few of
such cases below.
a)
The book has 7 pages on Michael Faraday's personal struggles. It
seems like a perfect plot for a self-motivation short-film. The
introduction section itself is 16 pages long out of which Faraday
takes a good share of 7 pages. The reason seems to me, is to create a
mind-set among the young that they should not question the existing system or
status quo. Just they have to work hard, should not complain and will become what they want one day. Sadly that is not true for many and I am not a fan of
such new-age motivational stories. Ultimately, page 15 has something
like what you hear from Deepak Chopra or Rhonda
Byrne “...in face of their determination the universe came
together to enable them to succeed”. Yuk!
b) In Space Science
topic, 5 pages document about the Galileo Affair. It is good to point
out the friction between science and religion in Medieval Europe. But
those 5 pages can be utilized to cover from Plato to Aryabhatta of
the old and from Galileo to Hawking of our very own time covering
various stages and progresses in the field. First manned mission,
journey to moon, developments in Mars etc are left to footnote
propotions.
c) In the same
topic's (Space Science) expert section, there are only two questions.
One is about what inspired Dr. Kalam to take up space science. The
second is about the land acquisition made for Thumba Space Research
Center. This second question takes up 4 pages and it is all about a
Bishop of a Church giving up the land of Church, his house and the
houses of the villagers for the space center. OK, what does this
story have to do with the “scientific pathway” for space science?
Is this for preparing young minds to support land acquisition bill or
what? The section ends like this “Professor Vikram Sarabhai and
Rev. Peter Bernard Pereira may not be with us anymore, but their
work, which has been instrumental in the birth of India's space
missions, truly lives on.” giving equal credit to the scientist who
worked for the founding of the research center and the Bishop who
gave the land which is not his personal property! So the moral seems
to be this: "If you give up your land for some project, you will be counted
as a person who made a “scientific pathway” along with the
scientists who worked on the project!"
So, instead of
discussing on actual science of technology, the book deviates largely
in to self-help style “experiences” and “stories”, which is nothing
else but disappointing.
3. Errors and Typos
Even though the book
is on science, there are error and typos which may be quiet
misleading. As a novice in science, I myself have found some of them.
I am presenting few of them I could remember when I glance back the
pages now.
a) The book confuses
a computer bug with virus. Bugs are human errors in programming which
results in unexpected behavior of the program. Viruses are developed
with intention to harm the system. But the book says that bugs can be
sorted out just like anti-virus software cleans the computer in page
35. In medical sense you can call a virus as a bug. But not so in
computer science.
b) The book mentions
that nicotine is a carcinogen (page 101). But the current
understanding is that nicotine is not carcinogen (at least in the
doses humans consume and that is why nicotine gums are safer) but
other chemicals in tobacco or tobacco smoke are. This is a pardonable
mistake for non-science books. But for a scientific book? Also the
book has some confusion about cancer. The books states that cancer
can not be induced by bacteria or virus which is not exactly true.
Some viruses increase the risk of cancer like the same way smoking or
pollution increases the risk. One example is HPV.
c) On page 240, the
book says that the Holocene Epoch started 1.25 mya (million years
ago) i.e. 1,250,000 years ago, which is wrong. Holocene epoch had
begun just 11,700 years ago. The book has the same error on the same page
for the end date of Pleistocene epoch too!
d) On page 96, the
size of a Red blood cell is given as 12 micrometer, which is actually 6
to 8 micrometer in diameter or 20 to 25 micrometer in circumference
or 2 to 2.5 micrometer of thickness. I don't know what size this 12
micrometer represents.
e) On page 237, it
is mentioned that the evolution from single celled prokaryotes to
modern life forms like humans took 2000 billion years! It should be
2000 million years or just 2 billion years. Typo? Forgiven!
f) On Page 142, the
distance traveled by light in one year (light year) is given as 95
followed by 11 zeros in words (which is correct) and
9,50,00,00,00,00,000 km in numbers (which is actually 95 followed by
12 zeros and hence wrong. Again in words, it is mentioned as 95
trillion which is wrong. It should be 9.5 trillion kilometers.
These are few of the
mistakes/errors I have come across. I may be wrong in some or there
may be more such which a knowledgeable person can find out!
4. East vs West?
There is an East vs
West problem in the book. No! Not between people. But between the
number system. The book in most places use Western names for numbers
(millions, billions) in words and use Indian comma system in figures
which is quiet confusing. The errors like the one in light year's
distance could have been avoided to sticking to any one system
properly! I think this will confuse young readers a bit as this
problem runs throughout the book.
Not only the
numbers, even titles of people are confused between West and East. In
Acknowledgments, almost all the people are addressed Mr or Ms but in the last paragraph three persons are addressed with Shri!
Though this is irrelevant, there is a striking similarity between
numbers and people in the East-West confusion aspect!
Conclusion:
So this book seems
to be more of a self-help/motivation book than a popular science book.
Actually it is a dangerous mixture of both, as I consider both
scientific errors and self-help dangerous, especially for young
readers. As I have pointed out in my earlier blog post about
MBA, it
seems the co-author, who is a person from management stream may be a
contributing factor for the sorry state of the book. So, if you are looking
at this book as a popular science book for young readers, like me,
think again!
