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“Dray captures the genius and ingenuity of Franklin’s scientific thinking and then does something even more fascinating: He shows how science shaped his diplomacy, politics, and Enlightenment philosophy.”
–Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

Today we think of Benjamin Franklin as a founder of American independence who also dabbled in science. But in Franklin’s day, the era of Enlightenment, long before he was an eminent statesman, he was famous for his revolutionary scientific work. Pulitzer Prize finalist Philip Dray uses the evolution of Franklin’s scientific curiosity and empirical thinking as a metaphor for America’s struggle to establish its fundamental values. He recounts how Franklin unlocked one of the greatest natural mysteries of his day, the seemingly unknowable powers of lightning and electricity. Rich in historical detail and based on numerous primary sources, Stealing God’s Thunder is a fascinating original look at one of our most beloved and complex founding fathers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Ben
One of the best books I have ever read and I recommend it.The book came out clean and prompt.Thanks!

Patents and Franklin

A recently published book may be of some interest to the intellectual property community."Stealing God's Thunder" details the history of Benjamin Franklin's invention of the lightning rod, and goes on to sketch Ben's role in the invention of the United States' system of government.

In a few places, the book touches on subjects which are of particular interest to the intellectual property professional.

Eschewing a patent, Franklin published a complete description of his lightning rod invention in "Poor Richard's Almanac" in November 1753.Much to our delight, the author includes the entire text of the article in his book, on page 91.The Poor Richard article is entitled, "How to Secure Houses, etc., from Lightning."

In his "Epilogue," the author makes the following statement:
"Benjamin Franklin's refusal to patent his `instrument so new' likely contributed to the competitive free-for-all that began to characterize lightening rod design, manufacture,and sales within a few decades of his death."
This is so wrong on so many levels I hardly know where to begin.Dray seems to say that because Franklin did not obtain a patent on his invention, the market forces did not apply to Franklin's invention.Why is this the case?Also, why "a few decades" when a patent's term was generally limited at the time to 14 years.And what does his death have do with it when the rod was published in 1753 and Franklin lived until 1790?

However, Dray does not confine himself to the lightning rod.He also discusses the invention of the famous "Franklin stove."In discussing the stove the author describes Franklin's philosophy toward patents:"As he would with all his inventions, Franklin, although he stood to profit from the sales of the stove, did not apply for a patent.He believed that products of the human imagination belonged to no one person, and should be shared by all."

In this we are reminded of the comments of Rosalyn Yalow, a physicist who, together with Soloman A. Berson, a physician, developed radioimmunassay (RIA).On receiving the Nobel Prize, Yalow said, "In my day scientists did not always think of things as being patentable.We made a scientific discovery.Once it was published it was open to the world."Fortunately, today's scientists may take advantage of the statutory invention
Registration (SIR). For further details, see, "Rosalyn Yalow's Patent and H.R. 1127" in "The Law Works," January, 1996, at page 17 (the predecessor to the present publication.)

Page 1



One further aspect of the book may be of particular interest to the intellectual property community, and that is the aspect of the patents of the colonies and the States.Remember, Franklin's rod was published in 1753 and the United States Constitution was not ratified until 1789 and the first federal patent law was not enacted until 1790.As Dray notes about Franklin's refusal to patent his inventions, on page 37 "Besides its commendable altruism, this philosophy probably saved him from a tremendous amount of aggravation.Anyone seeking to patent a new mechanical innovation in the New World would need to secure it in each colony individually..."

This is further complicated by the fact that after the Revolution and before the adoption of the Constitution the government took the form of the Confederation, turning the colonies into States.A number of patents were issued both by the colonies and the States. Some examples of these appear in the Twelfth Census of the United States in 1900 Vol. X, Part IV, page 75 and is quoted in Deller's Walker on Patent's 2nd Ed at pages 53 through 58:


Year Inventor Invention Term

CONNECTICUT
1717 Edward Hinman Making molasses from cornstalks 10 years
1783 Benjamin Hanks Self-winding clock 14 years

NEW YORK
1787 John Fitch Steam Boat

NEW HAMPSHIRE
1786 Benj. Dearborn Printing Press 14 years
1789 Oliver Evans Elevator 7 years

PENNSYLVANIA
1717 Thomas Masters Cleaning, curing, and refining Indian corn 14 years

MARYLAND
1787 Oliver Evans Steam Carriage 14 years


In conclusion, "Stealing God's Thunder" is an interesting light read for the technically and historically minded intellectual property professional.

Benjamin Franklin, the scientist
Stealing God's Thunder by Philip Dray is extremely well-written.Unlike many biographies of Franklin, it focuses on his science first and his role as a founding father second.This way of characterizing Franklin's life was more interesting than writing about him as a politician first and scientist second.What is most interesting is the influence that Franklin's science had on his politics and on his philosophy.Dray wrote about complex subjects without ever becoming too wordy and overall the book was extremely readable.
Some of Franklin's most interesting work was put into small inventions rather than large ideas.Franklin said that the armonica, a device that spun glass to make music, was his favorite invention.Although Franklin did important work linking lightning and electricity, and as a proponent of lightning rods, his small inventions were extremely interesting as well.Franklin learned a great deal about electricity during his life and this allowed the next generation of scientists to build on his discoveries.He also challenged the views of Christianity, while still believing in God and remaining religious throughout his life.Franklin believed in the power of reason and he thought that this did not conflict with belief in God.Franklin is one of the most interesting characters of the American Revolution and the Enlightenment.

A Patent Lawyer Speaks
I am a registered patent agent and a retired patent attorney, so this review is slanted from the view of the patent professional. "Stealing God's Thunder" details the history of Benjamin Franklin's invention of the lightning rod, and goes on to sketch Ben's role in the invention of the United States' system of government.

In a few places, the book touches on subjects which are of particular interest to the intellectual property professional.

Eschewing a patent, Franklin published a complete description of his lightning rod invention in "Poor Richard's Almanac" in November 1753.Much to our delight, the author includes the entire text of the article in his book, on page 91.The Poor Richard article is entitled, "How to Secure Houses, etc., from Lightning."

Further, in his "Epilogue," the author makes the following statement: "Benjamin Franklin's refusal to patent his `instrument so new' likely contributed to the competitive free-for-all that began to characterize lightening rod design, manufacture,and sales within a few decades of his death."
This is so wrong on so many levels I hardly know where to begin.Dray seems to say that because Franklin did not obtain a patent on his invention, the market forces did not apply to Franklin's invention.Why is this the case?Also, why "a few decades" when a patent's term was generally limited at the time to 14 years.You will see evidence of this later on in the review.And what does his death have do with it when the rod was published in 1753 and Franklin lived until 1790?

However, Dray does not confine himself to the lightning rod.He also discusses the invention of the famous "Franklin stove," inter alia.In discussing the stove the author describes Franklin's philosophy toward patents:"As he would with all his inventions, Franklin, although he stood to profit from the sales of the stove, did not apply for a patent.He believed that products of the human imagination belonged to no one person, and should be shared by all."

In this we are reminded of the comments of Rosalyn Yalow, a physicist who, together with Soloman A. Berson, a physician, developed radioimmunassay (RIA).On receiving the Nobel Prize, Yalow said, "In my day scientists did not always think of things as being patentable.We made a scientific discovery.Once it was published it was open to the world."Fortunately, today's scientists may take advantage of the Statutory Invention
Registration (SIR). For further details, see, "Rosalyn Yalow's Patent and H.R. 1127" in "The Law Works," January, 1996, at page 17.
One further aspect of the book may be of particular interest to the intellectual property community, and that is the aspect of the patents of the colonies and the States.Remember, Franklin's rod was published in 1753 and the United States Constitution was not ratified until 1789 and the first federal patent law was not enacted until 1790.As Dray notes about Franklin's refusal to patent his inventions, on page 37 "Besides its commendable altruism, this philosophy probably saved him from a tremendous amount of aggravation.Anyone seeking to patent a new mechanical innovation in the New World would need to secure it in each colony individually..."

This is further complicated by the fact that after the Revolution and before the adoption of the Constitution the government took the form of the Confederation, turning the colonies into States.A number of patents were issued both by the colonies and the States. Some examples of these appear in the Twelfth Census of the United States in 1900 Vol. X, Part IV, page 75 and is quoted in Deller's Walker on Patent's 2nd Ed at pages 53 through 58:


Year Inventor Invention Term

CONNECTICUT
1717 Edward Hinman Making molasses from cornstalks 10 years
1783 Benjamin Hanks Self-winding clock 14 years

NEW YORK
1787 John Fitch Steam Boat

NEW HAMPSHIRE
1786 Benj. Dearborn Printing Press 14 years
1789 Oliver Evans Elevator 7 years

PENNSYLVANIA
1717 Thomas Masters Cleaning, curing, and refining Indian corn 14 years

MARYLAND
1787 Oliver Evans Steam Carriage 14 years


In conclusion, "Stealing God's Thunder" is an interesting light read for the technically and historically minded intellectual property professional.

Ben Franklin's Favorite Invention, the Armonica.
From 1760 to 1766, Ben Franklin lived in England as a gentleman scholar with his son, William, who studied law.While there, he invented "a homespun musical instrument" he called 'armonica.' which he always claimed to be his favorite invention.It was a stand-alone contraption in which glass disks were turned in a treadle and rubbed gently with the performer's fingers, which he kept moistened with a damp sponge."The musical method of rubbing fingers on the rims of glasses or bowls filled with water appeared in Europe in the late Middle Ages; Galileo, himself the son of a musician, experimented with it."

This era also produced the piano.The armonica could be the primitive precursor to the organ (a drawing of which is shown in this book); it had such soft, subtle tones it could not compete with the piano and was never used in an orchestra."Its haunting tone and deep sustain did have a numbing effect on listeners, so much so that it was later used by Franz Mesmer and other healers to put patients into a trance."Mozart wrote an armonica composition called "Adagio for Glass Harmonica, Flute, Oboe, Viola and Cello' which he even performed in Vienna, playing the Viola.Franklin wrote one musical composition, "Quartet in F Major" (also known as "The Open String Quarter") for the violin.

He was a music enthusiast with a music room at his Philadelphia home which held his daughter's harpsichord."He and Sally played duets [he on the armonica], some classical pieces, but mostly the Scottish folk ballads Franklin liked."Thousands of armonicas were built and sold, but its popularity was of brief duration.Thomas Penn, one of William Penn's sons who had control over the state of Pennsylvania at that time, was heard to complain that Franklin was wasting his time on "philosophical matters and musical performances on glasses."

Not only was he famous for his "revolutionary scientific work, especially his experiments with lightning rods and electricity," he stirred up a controvrsy about evolution."In Franklin's time, the study of the earth's oldest living things, later known as paleontology, was just emerging as an area of scientific inquiry" when he became involved in 1764 concerning a salt marsh called Big Bone Lick on the Ohio River, forty miles south of present-day Cincinnati.Bones were found there of "mastodons, elephant-like creatures with heavy coats and huge upward-curving tusks that are said to have appeared anywhere between about 20 million and 3.5 million years ago, and survived until as recently as 10,000 years ago."This new curiosity raised the question of extinction, "the most disturbing discovery which upset even the "Newtonian universe."

He explains the legacy of the mythical creatures, the cyclops and the unicorn.'The cyclops' solitary eye was suggested by the gaping proboscis cavity of extinct dwarf elephants; the unicorn legend arose from the fossilized tusks of elephants and rhinoceroses, which, prized for their magical and medicinal virtues, were traded both by the ancients and in medieval Europe."

Franklin was involved in this scientific debate "that was one of the most stimulating of the Enlightenment" the question of the age of earth and of living things, including man.Like the arguments about lightning rods "presumption," this inquiry challenged long-received ideas about the relationship between God and man, and went so far as to call into question the biblical version of Genesis and Creation."Extinction was a heavy concept "and to pursue it brought one square against not only prevailing views of God's kingdom but the accepted wisdom about the age of earth itself."

Franklin published in his 'Poor Richard's Almanac' "some excerpts from a popular chronology of the history of commerce that dated the [Biblical] Flood at 2348 B.C.,...likely reprinted the material chiefly for its comical fastidiousness about a number of pseudo-momentous dates in human history, such as the invention of playing cards (1391) and the first silk stockings worn by a king (1547).

In 1712, Cotton Mather reported to the Royal Society that a tooth weighing more than four pounds and a thigh bone seventeen feet in length had been unearthed near Albany, New York; he asssumed that the remains were those of a giant man who had perished in the Great Flood.African slaves in America were likely the first to point out that the bones unearthed at sites in New York and Virginia resembled those of the elephant."In the nineteenth century Georges Cuvier would lay the formal groundwork for paleontology, and Charles Darwin's therories of evolution and natural selection."America's first museum of fossils and paleontological curiosities, including mastodon relics, would be operated by the Philadelphia artist Charles Willson Peale, in conjunction with the American Philosophical Society."

In 1774, Franklin was publicly accused of revealing to his contacts in Boston that "Britain would likely need to dispatch troops to North America" and was stripped of his office of postmaster general of the colonies.His reputation tarnished, and his usefulness in London, now weakened, he sailed home in March 1775.

In 1806, Thomas Jefferson (then President of the United States), "upon the return of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark from exploring the Louisiana Territory ...dispatched Clark to Big Bone Lick to collect additional relics, which he then stored in the East Room of the White House."

Philip Dray previously wrote the multi-award winning AT THE HANDS OF PERSONS UNKNOWN: THE LYNCHING OF BLACK AMERICA which also was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. ... Read more

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In the summer of 1998, Prince Michael of Greece attended a solemn interment ceremony for Tsar Nicholas II and his family, who were murdered eighty years earlier. While there, he noticed a dazzling older woman in the crowd and, curious to know her connection, traveled to Moscow to meet her. Natalya Androssov Iskander Romanov met Prince Michael and revealed the long-buried story of her grandfather, the Grand Duke Nicholas. All record of Nicholas Kostantinovich Romanov was erased from the royal dynasty's official vaults, so Natalya's memories remained the only key to his past. As she speaks, the narrative fades to a snow-filled St. Petersburg morning in November 1860, and there begins the fantastic re-imagining of the rebellious and dashing duke's life. His scandalous affair with the devastatingly beautiful American courtesan Fanny Lear and his implication in a plot to fund revolutionaries by stealing family jewels led the emperor to banish him to the far reaches of the vast Russian empire to avoid tarnishing the family name.From the glittering splendor of Imperial Russia to treks across the barren steppe, The White Night of St. Petersburg brings to life a fascinating and forgotten member of one of history's most legendary families. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great piece of history
An interesting slice of history, well written, competently translated.Other books of Prince Michael's show photos of this Romanov who survived Soviet Russia, in Moscow, living long enough to see the fall of Communism.Fascinating!

Not what I expected
I couldnt even finish reading this book.Prince Michael has done better.

So-So writing /interesting book, though
This was not a bad book, but, I think the fact that it's a translation from the French does give it it a stiff quality. (I think there is also a ghostwriter involved.)Also, the initial leap from present to past is somewhat awkward in execution (the first chapter begins like a memoir in the first-person, then proceeds into a novel, occasionally returning to the first-person.)

There were parts of this book that were better than others, particularly when the action was restrained to the characters of Nikolai & Fanny (where the writing really came alive), but then, there were sections that dragged a bit (for me, the sections written in the first-person).

However, the story grew on me, and it always held my interest.I think 3 stars is a fair rating as I don't think I'd want to read this one again, which is my criteria for a 4 or 5 star read. ... Read more

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An easy-to-read biography of the man who was a publisher, inventor, scientist, and one of the authors of the Declaration of Independence. ... Read more

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The American presidency has fascinated and confounded scholars for over 200 years. Is the institution redefined by each new occupant, or is the presidency merely a cog in the constitutional machine created in 1787? Philip Abbott argues that the presidency can best be viewed as an institution framed by the patterns on American political thought and culture. Presidents govern most effectively when they are able to intuit and interpret basic predispositions in political culture as epitomized by the policies and leadership of past presidents. The presidency is an "exemplary" institution from which occupants attempt to "read" and then shape political culture through the imaginative and selective adaptation of the thought, policies and leadership styles of past leaders. ... Read more

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Volume I: The New Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns / Volume II: The System of Philosophies of History / Volume III: From the Rights of Man to the Republican Idea ... Read more

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A sobering meditation on the consequences of America's engagement in Iraq, from one of Europe's keenest observers and strategists on international affairs.

Is the war in Iraq the beginning of a war without end? As the country seeks to decipher the White House conversations that led to war, Bruno Tertrais, one of Europe's leading defense analysts and former RAND Corporation fellow, takes us on a deeper investigation of American global strategy and its long-term consequences.

War Without End offers a comprehensive examination of the ideas and policies that may have led us into a century of combat. An international authority on nuclear nonproliferation, Bruno Tertrais is uniquely able to look at American political and military thinking since World War II and to trace the ideology that has created the present impasse, including the most thoroughgoing account available of the neoconservative players and ideas that guided the Bush administration into Iraq.

Far from being a "war for oil," War Without End demonstrates that the Iraq invasion is part of a global strategy whose negative consequences are already apparent. Have we unleashed forces, here and abroad, that will trap future generations? These are the questions raised by this brilliant and disturbing book. ... Read more

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War Without End
A thought provoking book.A must read for anyone wanting to understand the quetionable political and military strategies that has given rise neoconservatism and the radicalization of Islam.

Much appreciated by graduate US foreign policy class
Of a variety of small texts on the topic of U.S. foreign policy and international relations since 9/11, this was unquestionably the favorite of the students in my graduate seminar on U.S. foreign policy.Tertrais avoids the Bush-bashing of many critics with a carefully reasoned critique that explores both the necessity of addressing the Islamicist challenge and identifies cultural and decision-making issues inherent in US foreign policy that constrains the US.The fact that Tertrais is a European researcher provides him with an unvarnished perspective that is refreshingly different from what my students anticipated.For example, he argues that the US "deserves praise for asking real questions" about the operation of collective security in the 21st century, e.g., "Why should the international system continue working on the basis of rules enacted by the winners of a conflict more than sixty years ago?How can the strategy of deterrence go on being applied when it comes to fanatical leaders or stateless actors?Why maintain regimes of arm control that have the goal of codifying a vanished bipolar balance?"His core theme is that "the real problems rest less inthe motives and goals of U.S. strategy than in the consequences of its implementation and in the uncertainty of the nature of its long-term objectives.The strategy followed by the United States generates its own dynamics of escalation, fueled by the radicalization of the Arab and Muslim worlds."

Tertrais effectively provides a lucid counterpoint to both Huntington's clash of civilizations and Fukuyama's end of history arguments.My only significant criticism of his analysis is that his Gallic rationality is very uneasy confronting the influence of religious faith on policy.I believe that he seriously overestimates the impact of fundamentalist Christian belief on US foreign policy, and that he grossly exaggerates the role of religious Judaism (as opposed to secular nationalism) in shaping the dynamics of neoconservatism and Israeli policy choices.These, however, are secondary issues to an analysis that is both friendly to the US as an entity and rational in its critique of our response to the challenge posed by Islamicism.

A must read
It is refreshing to read this book written by a Frenchman who clearly has been able to distill the essence of exactly what has been going on in the United States over the past couple of decades.In my foreign travels I have observed that foreigners are much more knowledgable of political developments in the United States than her own citizens.

What impressed me most about the author's thesis is that, he not only weaves events of the recent past in terms of various political doctrines in the United States, he also casts this in the light of how US interests and the interests of other countries are affected.Most notably, at the end, he connects this to the future looming confrontation with China.

Please encourage your friends and colleagues to read this book.

A great book
I read both the French and the US versions of this book (the latter is an updated and expanded version of the former) and nowhere does the author say that the United States should not have fought WW2 (as claimed by another reviewer). In fact, the author is much more sympathetic to the US than the average French person. This makes his warnings all the more important. In addition, this book is perhaps one of the best analyses that one can find on the "War on Terror". All in all, a great book.

"War Without End"
If you are looking for a rare objective analysis of current
world events, this book is not worth reading. The author's political bias became evident when he wrote that America's
involvement in World War II was not justified. ... Read more

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nice job
The book moves quickly and leaves me wondering in some spots, but I must say, this has been one of the best books I have read on the topic.It's fun to read.

The Illusion of Always Being Right
Jacques Ninio, who has written on everything from molecular evolution to the debilitating prejudices of scientific research journals, begins his latest work with the sentence: "The illusion of always being right."Of course his book,; but because to be right, in French-avoir raison-means, idiomatically and literally, "to have reason," something gets lost, right from the start, in the translation. (The Science of Illusions, was translated from the 1998 French edition).What gets lost is the double entendre, in French tangled up, of being right as having reason.
Now this may be a small point, and it is, but it illustrates the enormity of Ninio's task, coming to grips with the endlessly fascinating and ever elusive world of illusions.Vladimir Nabokov in his lectures on literature says that the most intriguing things in art as in life always involve an element of deception.Einstein, in many well-known quotes, emphasizes the call of wonder, of the emotion of surprise as a motor promoting the curiosity necessary for the scientific enterprise.Long interested in geometrical deceptions, Ninio's emphasis is on optical illusions-and explanations of them, sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory.Why does the moon sometimes look so large near the horizon?Believe it or not, thick academic books have been devoted to probing the mystery of this illusion alone-and here, offering more than one solution, suggests that the normal view in human evolution, horizontally across the horizon, is filled with visual referents for comparison, while the vertical view up into space is not.Seen (as it usually is not) against the little objects of the landscape, the distant moon is put into a foreign frame, and looks huge.Ninio explores similar visual tricks such as why isolated lines joined in crosses look shorter than their unattached cousins, why stairways look steeper from far away, and that 19th century parlor curiosity, why top hats look longer than they are wide?

Ninio's discussion is focused mostly on optical illusions, with brief excursions into the auditory and tactile realms and a brave if short chapter on stage magic in which he shares his experience of catching a magician on television by slowing down a videotape, and thus exposing the loading of a bird done by quickness.But the popular cliché that "the hand is quicker than the eye" is also (professional magicians know) a form of distraction on the plane of explanation: only a very small minority of tricks are accomplished by quickness, the vast majority being the result of the distraction which magicians call "misdirection."And there are other illusion-steeped topics Ninio doesn't discuss: linear time (which Einstein called a persistent illusion), evolutionary epistemology (e.g., might not the truth ultimately be inimical to survival?), death, consciousness, the metaphoricity of "literal" language (e.g., "concrete"), free will (is it real?), and so on.In Hindu mythology the world is a game, lila, veil, or maya, of phenomena.

Ninio's narrowness allows him to go into detail about specific common misperceptions of geometrical figures, natural and urban landscapes and so on.But what might have happened if the narrator was not so trustworthy but unreliable, as in a novel, or if Ninio had attacked as illusions the egos of his readers with the same scientific thoroughness and creativity he musters in his analyses of optical illusions?I confess to being somewhat disappointed that multiple (and not always exquisitely translated) interpretations are given of minor (and sometimes, at least for me, not even visible) optical illusions when other possible illusions, grander and more foundational, such as those explored by neurology, were not even discussed. In an email from Ninio he blames this on trouble that occurred in transferring the artwork during translation. (Robert Frost defined poetry as that which gets lost in translation!)

And yet this elucidates the nature of illusion itself.Perhaps we can get glimpses of the whole but the fact remains that each and all of us-even all of us together as a parallel processing technologically connected scientific society-is only a part of the system we observe.The well-known mysteries of quantum physics hingein part at least upon the necessity of reintroducing the observer who, for convenience's sake, had long before been removed (at least theoretically) from the system.Newer illusions, such as the mistaken apprehension of purpose, design, or life in thermodynamic systems, can also be understood as the result of the hidden operation of what has been observationally excluded.(So, too, the Monty Hall Paradox, if you know it, can be understood as an illusion of misplaced probabilities due to not accounting for information provided by the moderator assumed to be "outside" the frame of operation.)

"The illusion of always having reason"-Ninio's opening fragment, interpreted literally if not figuratively, intimates our perfectly human inability to keep illusion caged to the stage of entertainment or science.If we do not have reason, we lose the very means to detect sensory illusions.The senses, if they do not always tell the truth, require thought-itself a kind of supersense-to make sense. For it is our reason, our ratiocination or rationality-neurologically identified with the more recently evolved prefrontal cortex-that is responsible for sorting out conflicting perceptual cues.There is one world but many perceptions of it, reflecting the manifold beings which inhabit it.And yet evolutionary expediency allows us, no forces us (unless we are mad or drugged) to conceive of this world as whole despite being formed from data fragments.For example, you only have eyes in front of our head yet your conception of the space around you is not marked by a huge gap corresponding to the back of your head.Incomplete beings, we are "Procrustean" in our perception: we cannot help but fill in the blanks.Such endemic Procrusteanism may be instinctive, as in much perception or, as with Ninio here, consciously scientific in its explication of how perception works.

Fascinating stuff about illusions of all kinds
I have to admit I got hung up looking at the many illustrations and trying out the visual illusions -- but the text deals with all kinds of illusions, many of which you have probably experienced yourself (the train next to you starts moving and you're convinced your own train is moving; crossing your fingers and feeling your nose which has suddenly turned into two; and many many more). The text gets as technical as you want, but the book is a lot of fun for the non-psychologist too!

You Can't Believe Your Eyes
Optical illusions are profound; they indicate that at the most basic level, seeing can lead to believing in things that are not true.Even more deeply and disturbingly, they show that we don't respond to or make judgements on an objective reality "out there," but only upon how our particular neurons process information.From France, _The Science of Illusions_ (Cornell University Press) by Jacques Ninio (translated by Franklin Philip) collects lots of visual illusions, describes auditory and tactile ones, and attempts to make sense of what it all means.There is not deep science in this book, and that is of necessity.You may remember the optical illusion of two parallel lines that are actually the same length, but because of something added to them, one looks definitely longer and one is definitely shorter.There are different reasons that have been proposed for this illusion, most of them complicated, some of them no longer tenable, several far-fetched but as yet unrefuted.It is probably better for us laymen to wonder at the puzzling pictures and let the neuroscientists sort out all the circuitry, and when they get it all down, they can get back to us.

Ninio has indeed covered many sorts of illusions, including magic, but also such things we now take for granted as movies.It used to be that people shown a movie of a train coming at them would scurry out of its way, but we have seen enough movies by now to know that illusion for what it is.Ninio has concentrated on visual illusions because, of course, they can best be shown in a book.But also, as he points out, visual input is supreme, trusted more than other senses.People shown a film of someone saying "ga-ga" while the soundtrack says "ba-ba" will wind up hearing a hybrid "da-da" with their eyes open and "ba-ba" with their eyes closed.Everyone has had the experience of sitting in the old-style movie theater with one speaker behind the screen, and finding that the sound seemed to come from the location on the screen of whatever person or thing was shown making it.A ventriloquist, of course, easily makes visual cues of origin overcome auditory ones.The optical illusions here represent some of the old classics, as well as new ones, because new ones are being invented all the time.One of them was so strong that I believed there was a misprint when an explanation claimed that two parallelograms were the same size, so that I had to measure them, and even after that, I had to copy the page and cut the parallelograms out and compare them that way; they still do not look nearly equal.Other illusions here present obvious but invisible white shapes, or scintillating black spots that are not there, or even circuits that seem to have matter flowing around and around their printed images.This book is a wonderful funhouse.

Grids, afterimages, reference points and adaptation methods
Jacques Ninio's Science Of Illusions is a fascinating and informative survey of the science involved in illusions and their presentation makes for a lively coverage which documents different types of illusions and how they are generated. Grids, afterimages, reference points and adaptation methods are all considered in chapters which are intriguing and filled with scientific insight. ... Read more

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This book could well be required reading for all teachers.
My interest in finding this book was heightened as a result of reading "Seeing Voices" by Oliver Sacks. Overcoming the challange of sourcing the text resulted in nothing short of total exhileration as eachchapter revealed the dedication, focus, determination and clarity ofpurpose displayed by these many wonderful people. Reading this book now, atthe turn of the century and realizing it is written between 150 and 220years ago as leading edge thinking is truely a humbling experience. ThatFranklin Philip and Harlan Lane with the cooperation of Harvard UniversityPress have presented this work for English language readers is indicativeof a continuation of the integrity and responsibility to others so kindlyexercised in addressing the concerns of less fortunate individuals inearlier times. ... Read more

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"Heidegger and Modernity is an intervention in the Heidegger debate in France which many may see as decisive.Its central claim is that the responses of left Heideggerians to continuing disclosures regarding Heidegger's Nazi affiliations fail to come to terms with central ambiguities in his philosophical responses, both early and late, to modernity and technology. . . . Incisive and hard hitting, Luc Ferry and Alain Renault have condensed in a short and tightly organized book both a judicious and well-informed account of the Heidegger question and an implicit defence of humanism which has a strong political resonance."--Liam O'Sullivan, Political Studies ... Read more

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