Author: eboisen

I very much enjoyed Walter Isaacson’s biography on Steve Jobs, so I bought his biography on Einstein. I was not disappointed. Isaacson seems to have found a pretty good niche as THE writer of biographies. Obviously, this is not a textbook on modern physics, but it is impossible, I feel, to do a proper biography on Einstein without delving into some of the scientific work that brought Einstein to prominence. It appears as though Isaacson shared the same sentiments. He does as good a job, as I think is possible, to make the nature of Einstein’s work understandable to most readers. He does this while also showing the very human side of Einstein. Although a rare genius, Einstein, at times, struggled with relationships and finances just like the rest of us.

Einstein was born in Germany, but was turned off by its militant attitude throughout his life and did most of his studying and best work in Switzerland. The biggest personal statement made about Einstein in the book is that he was a non-conformist and despised authority. This sometimes caused clashes with academics and politicians and likely kept him out of a teaching post after graduating from the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in 1901. This led him to the patent clerk position in Bern that allowed him time to ponder and write his most famous papers on light quanta and relativity.

Einstein was unrivaled at creating thought experiments. He would create a scenario in his head, for example, of what a person would observe if he was standing in a closed, windowless box accelerating upward, from the person’s perspective, through space with a small bouncing ball versus what that same person would observe if he were in the same box that was stationary on earth. If the acceleration of the box was identical to the 9.8 m/s² gravitational constant experienced on earth would the person in the box be able to tell the difference between moving through space and sitting stationary on earth? In the same box would a person be able to distinguish between floating in space versus falling due to gravity? The answer to both questions is “no” and it may seem somewhat intuitive, but this simple thought experiment helped Einstein create his General Theory of Relativity. He recognized that there is no difference between inertial motion and gravitational force. From this simple thought experiment, Einstein recognized that gravity warps spacetime. He then was able to create the math to back this assertion up.

Most of his theories started with similar thought experiments that he was then able to generate mathematical explanations for. None of his best known theories were generally acceptable at face value, however. Proving them correct often involved elaborate and expensive experiments. These experiments were usually conducted by other scientists as Einstein did not seem to have an interest in carrying them out on his own. He was proven correct time and time again and his theories changed the way physicists view and understand the universe.

Einstein’s most profound papers all came out in the same year – 1905.  He wrote papers on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, the special theory of relativity, and the famous E = mc² equation. He wrote all of these while a patent clerk in Bern. Each on its own was worthy of the highest praise. Four in one year is almost absurd and it came from someone outside of academia. Given his “outsider” status at the time of publication, some scientists were dismissive of his papers, but the ideas were so profound that they could not be ignored. Eventually, experiments were performed proving each theory correct. Einstein was awarded the Nobel prize for his work on the photoelectric effect where he asserted that photons that make up light are formed from discrete packets called quanta. He was not awarded the prize until 1922. It comes with a substantial monetary award which Einstein deferred to his first wife in exchange for a divorce that was granted years earlier.

It seemed odd to me that it took that long to award Einstein the prize. All of his papers in 1905 were probably worthy. I am guessing antisemitism may have played a role in delaying it. His papers did, however, get him noticed enough to earn him a PhD from the University of Zurich and a teaching role in the University of Bern.

Einstein remarried and seemed to enjoy life in Switzerland, but was offered a well-paying teaching position in Berlin at the Prussian Academy of Science. He remained there until the Nazis began assuming control of Germany, whereupon he left his birthplace never to return. A 1933 raid by Nazis on his summer home in Caputh was convincing proof that he was not safe in Germany. He eventually settled in Princeton, New Jersey and, outside of one trip to Bermuda, he never left the United States. Einstein was never very religious, but the situation in Germany made Einstein very aware of his heritage and awakened a kinship in him with fellow Jews. He used his celebrity to warn President Roosevelt of the Nazi intention to build a nuclear weapon. This triggered the US into building its own nuclear weapons. Einstein, often a pacifist, was believed to later regret his influence on bringing nuclear weapons into the world even though, beyond his work that led to the E = mc² equation, he took no part in the actual design and building of the atomic bomb.

Einstein outlived his second wife by nearly two decades. For a great deal of that time he was officially retired from Princeton, but still kept an office and spent much of his time attempting to develop a unified theory. He was not successful in doing so and ultimately felt that such a task may not be achievable. He did feel that it was his responsibility to hunt for a solution. His thought was that a younger scientist needs to focus on more pragmatic problems because they need to prove and establish themselves. Wasting time on a problem that may not have a solution could cost a young scientist his livelihood. Einstein said he was satisfied with his legacy, his life was secure, and he had ample time to “waste” on endeavors that may not be fruitful. He felt it was his duty to do so.

Einstein eventually passed away shortly after his 76th birthday from a burst aortic aneurysm . Even on his deathbed he was scribbling formulas attempting to find a unified theory. His death made the front page of newspapers all over the world. To put a bizarre twist on Einstein’s story, during his autopsy, the medical examiner took it upon himself to extract Einstein’s brain. Apparently he did this without anyone else’s consent or instruction. He did not reveal he had done this until more than a decade later. He eventually gave out cross sections to those wishing to do research on it. To my knowledge, nothing meaningful has come of this research and fragments of Einstein’s brain still exist.

I did not seem to find a good place to put this information in my essay, but I thought it was also important to note that in addition to being a great scientist, Einstein was quite a good violinist and very much enjoyed listening to and performing music.

This book was recommended to me by a friend I have known since third grade. He was also my neighbor for most of my childhood.  We both shared an interest in computers and science back in high school, and thanks to the wonders of the internet, are still able to keep in touch.  Randall, known as Randy back in the day, told me he had read this book several times since discovering it in college.  I was a little puzzled, given the topic, why one would be inclined to read such a book multiple times.  Most non-fiction, which this book is, rarely warrants more than one read.

I quickly understood why he read it so many times.  I took a fair amount of math classes in college – calculus I,II, and III, differential equations, combinatorics and linear algebra. I even took modern physics as an elective after taking the physics courses required for my engineering degree.  I taught algebra and geometry at Mt. Zion High School in Georgia for a year.  I am not a mathematician by any means, but I have a strong background in math. This book had me re-reading pages and questioning concepts I had previously taken for granted.  In calculus it is common to find the values of equations as the value of a variable in that equation approaches infinity.  I just accepted that infinity was a really huge number.  I never considered that one infinity could be bigger or smaller than another infinity or that there could be dispute over whether something could be infinitesimally small.

This book describes the infinitely small and large in great detail, its practical applications and how these concepts historically came into being.  The author spends a great deal of the book discussing the mathematician Kurt Gödel, specifically.    The author even had visited with Gödel on more than one occasion.   Gödel was known for his Incompleteness Theorem.  The practical application of this theorem basically discounts that there can ever be an all-encompassing “theory of everything”.  Its application to an infinite universe basically points to the truth that it is not possible to know everything about such a universe.  Physicists since Einstein’s time have been searching for this Universal Theory.  If Gödel’s theory is applied to our universe as we understand it, such a theory will never be found.

My dad spent considerable time writing this. Although my dad has written a couple of novels for public consumption, I do not believe this was written with the intention of being published. He is getting older and wanted to pass on information about himself and his family before that information was lost to time.  My dad is 77 in the picture above and getting ready to perform in the pit band for his musical ,”The Drowsy Chaperone”.

The book describes very humble beginnings. When my dad was young, he lived in Chicago with both his parents, his sister, his brother, and his grandmother – all in a one bedroom apartment.  He worked delivering meat for a local butcher as kid. This allowed him a little bit of spending money.  When he got a little older, his family moved to a two bedroom house that also had a basement. My grandfather, who worked for many years as a carpenter, later added a level to this house which had an apartment that my parents and I lived in when I was born.  The house is still there, but no one in my family owns it anymore.

My father was a musician for most of his life, so much of the autobiography centers around music and musicians he worked with.  He discovered the saxophone in his teens and devoted most of his early years to mastering it. He has some old 78 rpm records he played on after just 18 months of practice.  Being a decent musician may have saved his life. Before he was to be drafted, he auditioned for the army band and was accepted. He still had to do boot camp like everyone else, but army bands aren’t known for taking much enemy fire.

He finished his military obligation, which allowed him to see much of Europe, and entered college. He worked as a musician and used the GI bill to pay for college.  Around this time he also met my mother who was fairly new to the United States. She grew up in Switzerland and moved to the US with her mom, knowing no English, when she was 19.  My dad and his army band buddy, who happened to be named Buddy, hosted a party in the apartment they shared. My mother lived in a neighboring apartment and attended the party. I am told it was love at first sight.  They married a few years later and my mom gave birth to me a few years after that.

My dad earned his degree in French during that time.  If you are wondering what sort of an occupation is available to someone with a French degree, the answer is, “I don’t know.”  My dad substitute taught at a high school and worked for a while selling instruments to school music programs. He had no insurance when I was born, but my mom did. She worked at a camera store. Despite my mother having insurance, the expense of my birth was not covered. Only the insurance of the father could pay for the birth of a child at the time.  You can’t make this stuff up.  I think I was, “paid for”, when I was about five at which point my parents also had my sister.  My dad continued to work as a musician on nights and weekends, but got a regular job at the post office.  This afforded the whole family insurance and a stable income.

My father worked at the post office for 32 years. He played “gigs” on evenings and weekends.  I rarely saw my dad on Friday or Saturday night.  It seems normal when that is your life, but looking back, it was sort of an odd way to grow up.  When my dad was home, he was always practicing his instruments – he added flute, clarinet, harmonica, and keyboards to his repertoire, in addition to the saxophone.  I found it annoying at time when I was growing up. I could not watch a tv show or talk on the phone without live music playing. Now I look back fondly on those times. My childhood had an actual soundtrack.

After my dad retired from the post office he began devoting most of his free time to writing, musicals, plays, songs, and novels.  He had about a dozen musicals and plays produced locally.  He still feels as though he has never “made it”.  As DJ’s became much more prominent at parties and weddings, my dad’s opportunities to earn money playing dried up quite a bit.  The majority of his work in the last two decades was split between two bands – Jazz Spectrum and the Melodaires.  The Melodaires have become defunct, but Jazz Spectrum still plays fairly regularly.  My father, up until recently, has also taught music a couple of days a week to keep himself busy.  He is now 86 years old.  He has recently had a medical event and is convalescing. Prayers are welcome.

 

Here is a powerful quote from the book:

The present system has enabled capitalists to make laws in their own interests to the injury and oppression of the workers.
It has made the name Democracy, for which our forefathers fought and died, a mockery and a shadow, by giving to property an unproportionate amount of representation and control over Legislation.
It has enabled capitalists . . . to secure government aid, inland grants and money loans, to selfish railroad corporations, who, by monopolizing the means of transportation are enabled to swindle both the producer and the consumer. …
It has allowed the capitalists, as a class, to appropriate annually 5/6 of the entire production of the country. . . .
It has therefore prevented mankind from fulfilling their natural destinies on earth—crushed out ambition, prevented marriages or caused false and unnatural ones—has shortened human life, destroyed morals and fostered
crime, corrupted judges, ministers, and statesmen, shattered confidence, love and honor among men, and made life a selfish, merciless struggle for existence instead of a noble and generous struggle for perfection, in which equal advantages should be given to all, and human lives relieved from an unnatural and degrading competition for bread.

The above was written by the Workingmen’s party in Chicago in 1876.

The following quote is from  Henry Adams in 1887 regarding President Grover Cleveland.

We are here plunged in politics funnier than words can express. Very great issues are involved. . . . But the amusing thing is that no one talks about real interests. By common consent they agree to let these alone. We are afraid to
discuss them. Instead of this the press is engaged in a most amusing dispute whether Mr. Cleveland had an illegitimate child and did or did not live with more than one mistress.

Unfortunately, not much seems to have changed.  The problems the country faced 140 years ago are still around.

This book provides all the US history that was likely missing from what you were taught in an American grade school or high school. It starts with the bizarre celebration of Christopher Columbus. This “adventurer” and “discoverer” was treated pretty well by most of the indigenous people he encountered in the Americas. In return, he enslaved, tortured, and stole from them. Columbus, despite popular historical references, was nothing more than a slave trader and plunderer sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain.  His sole purpose was to gather as many slaves and as much gold as he could to make his explorations profitable to himself and his sponsors.  Hard to understand why he has a holiday. He was not even the first European to travel to the Americas. Leif Erikson reached the Americas 500 years before Columbus.  This has been known since evidence of this was found in the 1960’s with excavations at L’Anse aux Meadows, on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, but the public schools were still teaching the Columbus version of events when I went to school in the 1980’s. Why?

The book, at over 700 pages, takes quite a while to read. It fills in the real reasons for most of the conflicts and wars the US participated in. There is a recurring theme in these motives – all hinge on keeping overseas commerce healthy for large corporations.  The book also describes the systematic mistreatment of native Americans and other minorities by the government.

The final chapter of the book is somewhat shocking. It outlines how the government is used by the wealthiest members of society to create turmoil between the middle and lower classes, so that those two classes focus their anger and attention on one another while the wealthy control most of the resources and garner little attention.  The book basically calls for citizens to overthrow this government in favor of one that distributes the abundant resources more fairly.  The author, Howard Zinn held a PhD in history and taught at both Spelman College and Boston University.  He was asked to leave Spelman after administrators feared he was radicalizing students in the 1960’s.  I have a feeling he may have been doing just that, but it may just be down to semantics – was he “radicalizing” or just educating students to the slanted way the government was working against most of his students?  Zinn also served as a bombardier for the US Army during World War II, bombing targets in Berlin, Hungary, and France.  He had a very anti-war stance in his later life and learned that one of his bombing missions in France had wiped out a small, but ancient city and killed over a thousand French civilians.  Zinn described how the bombing was ordered—three weeks before the war in Europe ended—by military officials who were, in part, motivated more by the desire for their own career advancement than in legitimate military objectives.  This was likely the start of his distrust of the military and government.

The Stranger in the Lifeboat is an interesting work of fiction and a pretty easy read.  The story is mostly set in the present day with flashbacks to different points in the main character’s life.  For most of the book, the main character, Benji, is adrift on a lifeboat released from a sinking mega yacht that was loaded with leaders of industry and famous artists, actors, and politicians.  The yacht was on the final day of a week-long cruise intended on having the greatest minds meet and come up with world-changing ideas.  The raft contains both the elite former passengers of the ship as well as some of the staff.  Benji is one of the staff.  Shortly into their time adrift, the lifeboat picks up a passenger from the sea who does not appear to be from the sunken yacht.  This passenger claims to be the Lord.

As time on the raft passes, the passengers have differing views on the Lord.  Some see him with disdain.  If he is the almighty, why does he let us suffer so?  Others are grateful that he provides a short rainstorm as they run low on water.  Some see him as delusional and others see him as a con-man, but no one can explain how he arrived on their raft.  After drifting a short time, they also find a small, silent girl, Anna, and the owner of the mega-yacht Jason Lambert.  At one time, there are as many as ten people on the life raft.  As time passes, they begin to succumb to different ends.  When there are just four remaining, Jason Lambert loses his mind, slashes the Lord’s throat, tosses Anna overboard, and attempts to kill Benji.  Benji manages to eject Lambert from the boat and retrieve little Anna, who suddenly begins to speak, “I am the Lord.”  Benji spends his remaining days on the raft with no one else.

Later it is revealed that Benji had intended to blow up the boat and its passengers with a limpet mine.  He never actually set off the device, but he did bring it on board, so he assumed it had inadvertently triggered and caused the yacht’s sinking.  Anna, as the Lord, later reveals to Benji that the mine was not to blame and he can relieve himself of the guilt he was feeling.

The idea behind this story is fabulous, and the book is good, but it is not great.  A couple of things turned me off right away.  The yacht is filled with leaders of industry, including someone purported to be the inventor of the first electric car.  Presumably this is supposed to be an Elon Musk type character, but Elon Musk did not invent the electric car.  He is simply the first person to successfully bring it to market.  The first electric car predates this novel by more than 100 years.  A simple Google search would have revealed this.  The yacht is also said to be made of fiberglass.  The limpet mine is described in the book as a naval mine that attaches to a ship magnetically.  How was a limpet mine supposed to adhere to a fiberglass boat?  It turns out the boat was sunk by angry whales who rammed holes in the thin fiberglass hull.  These holes allowed water into the engine room which then caused an explosion.  I kind of doubt water in an engine room has ever caused a yacht to explode.  Mitch Albom is good at telling a story, but he really needs to be mindful of history and physics when he does so.  If this is going to be made into a movie, I hope they correct these portions of the story in some way, because it was too much for me to look past.

I recently finished reading How To Communicate.  Everyone’s life would probably made a little bit easier with the ability to communicate effectively, so I figured I would give this book a shot.  It was filled with very thoughtful insight and information into how people interact.  Despite this, it was not a very easy read.  I found it difficult to read much more than 20 pages at a time.  The book is written like a textbook with fill in the blank exercises near the end of most chapters.  I had intended to learn about communicating better in work and social settings.  This book does a great job over covering these situations and also delves into resolving conflict, communication with children, public speaking, interviewing, and sexual communication.  Despite not being an “easy read,” it does have plenty of useful information.

I would imagine that if ten people were to read this book, they might all declare different chapters as most interesting or relevant.  Everyone has his or her own methods of communicating and all have different strengths and weaknesses.  I found that reading this book helped me to identify exactly what my strengths and weaknesses are.  I tend to “beat around the bush” a little too much.  People are generally not mind readers, so by not saying exactly what I would like to do or accomplish leaves others sometimes mistaking my intentions.  I think many people have a weakness in this area.  If you are asking for something that another person might not want to give up or do, or you are, perhaps, giving some news that will not be well-received, you may try to sugar-coat or disguise it.   This will often lead to miscommunication.  We all walk around with our own perception of the world and it may differ greatly with the person we are communicating with.  Removing unpleasantries from a communication can sometimes turn that communication into a complete miscommunication because those unpleasantries are facts relevant to the communication.  Disguising these facts will ultimately lead to more unpleasantness and drag out a situation before a resolution can be achieved.

There was one chapter, that I feel might be universally received.  It discusses how culture and gender affects communication.  I noticed that I often like to spout solutions to problems people confide in me.  Males might appreciate this, but females often are going to be more satisfied by just having someone  listen to their problems and understand their feelings than have possible solutions thrown back at them.   Males and females also tend to interact differently in small work groups.  Recognizing behaviors that the opposite sex might find favorable or unfavorable will certainly help accomplish tasks in small groups.  With regard to culture, Latin Americans tend to prefer less personal space than Americans and may feel distanced and even alienated in spaces comfortable to Americans.  Japanese tend to value apologies as an expression  of goodwill, where Americans are more apt to see apologies as an admission of guilt.  Arabs may refuse something offered hoping that you will offer it again.  Unidentified differences in culture and gender will also often lead to miscommunication.  Being able to recognize what a person of another gender or culture may value is vital to strong communication.

I am going to apply what I have learned in this book and hopefully it will stick.  The ability to communicate your ideas and feelings is a very useful life skill.  Everyone should endeavor to improve his or her communication skills.  Your work, personal, and social life are sure to benefit.  It might make all the difference in the world.

I have played guitar for a while, but always struggled with music theory.  I play my guitar for fun and learning theory always seems the opposite of fun to me.  In an attempt to better understand scales, I made a little program in Java a couple of years ago that shows where the notes of a few scales are on a guitar fretboard.  Initially, it was just a program that let the user pick the scale and key and the program would plot the notes on the fretboard using color codes for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.  My dad looked at it and said, “where is the musical notation?”  Drawing a fretboard with colored dots and computing notes and locations was a bit of work.  Adding musical notation was not something I was keen on.  Years passed.  I was now working long hours at a pharma plant in New Jersey.  I would be at the plant 12-16 hours a day, but I would often have an hour or two here and there where I was waiting for approvals of prior work.  I decided to fill this time by adding musical notation to my program.  I thought there might be an existing Java package that would accomplish this.  There was something called JFugue, but I did not want to use a third party package to program.  I decided to just try to draw a simple note and a staff and take it from there.

Each note is simply a 10×15 oval with a line on one side pointing up or down.  I learned that any note below the third staff line goes up and any line above the third staff line goes down.  I found that I could plot the 𝄞 symbol as a font on my graphics window.  This was a relief.  Drawing this thing pixel by pixel did not sound like fun.  I then drew five evenly spaced horizontal lines through it.  It took a little fiddling to get the sizing and spacing of everything correct, but I got it.

My program exploits the intervals between notes to determine which notes belong to a particular scale and which do not.  I have an array that contains the notes of a chromatic scale.  This is a scale that has every possible note in order  A, A♯, B, C, C♯, D, D♯, E, F, F♯, G, and G♯.  There is an interval of half a step between each one of these notes.  Two half steps is a whole step.  A major scale – Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do has intervals of whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole.   Grabbing notes from the chromatic scale at these intervals means the A Major scale would be A, B, C♯, D, E, F♯, G♯.  A minor scale has an interval of whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, so an A minor scale would be A, B, C, D, E, F, G.  To determine other scales, I just need to know the intervals between the notes and grab them from the chromatic scale.  This is fairly simple, but the chromatic scale can also be written as A, B♭, B, C, D♭, D, E♭, E, F, G♭, G, A♭, so I had to figure out which chromatic scale to pick from.  I used string arrays with the different keys to determine if I needed to use the chromatic scale with the sharps or the chromatic scale with the flats to build the new scale.

For Major scales:
HasFlats={“G♭”,”D♭”,”A♭”,”E♭”,”B♭”,”F”};
HasSharps={“C”,”G”,”D”,”A”,”E”,”B”,”F♯”,”G♯”};
For minor scales:
HasFlatsMinor={“D”,”G”,”C”,”F”,”B♭”};
HasSharpsMinor={“E”,”B”,”C♯”,”F♯”,”G♯”,”D♯”};

When the user picks the key and the scale, I know which chromatic scale to use.  I had to figure this out by looking at the key signature of every possible key.  Adding a scale was now as simple as just adding an array with the correct intervals from the scale:

MajorInterval = Whole,Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole
MinorInterval = Whole,Half, Whole, Whole, Half, Whole

I then came up with the routine to plot the notes on the staff.  Adding a new scale simply means knowing the interval and adding another array of corresponding intervals like those above for the Major and minor scales.  So I finish this and am asked, “Why can’t we hear the notes?”

This actually was not as hard as I though it would be.  Java has a synthesizer package, but instead of notes it takes in numbers that correspond to notes to play a tone.  The low, open E string on the guitar is tone 64.  For every half step up, you just have to add one, so the first fret of the low E string is F, or 65, and so on.  I used the chromatic scale again to make a routine that converted a note to a corresponding number to play.  The synthesizer is not perfect.  The tone is very accurate, but if the computer is running something else (it’s always running something else) while playing notes, it alters the timing somewhat between notes.  Maybe I will figure out how to clean this up later.  To convert a note to a number, I take the element number from the chromatic scale, 0-11, where E=0, F=1, F♯=2 and so forth

“E”, “F”, “F♯”, “G”, “G♯”, “A”, “A♯”, “B”, “C”, “C♯”, “D”,”D♯”

NumberOfChromaticScale +64+ octave * 12 = Note number for synthesizer

So E=64, F=65, and so on.  I increment the octave every time the root note is encountered again.

There are many different instrument sounds that can be played, but since this is a guitar program, I chose the classical guitar sound.  Oddly, the code to play a note takes an INSTRUMENT parameter, but this does not change the instrument.  There is a parameter called programChange that changes the instrument.  It took a bunch of Googling to figure this out.  Here is the, Yawn!, code:

channels[INSTRUMENT].programChange(25);// 0-8 piano, 9-16 percussion, 25 Classical, 26 acoustic, 27-31 electric

When a program is compiled in Java a .jar file executable is created.  This just has the Java Coffee Cup logo icon.   I ran the jar through a program called launch4j and was able to convert it to an exe file and give it a custom icon.  I compiled the program on both a Mac and a PC and was surprised to find out that it did not matter which platform it was compiled on, the resulting jar file would run on either platform.  My goal in writing this program was to learn a little more about music theory.  I think I have done that.  If someone else happens to use and benefit from this program that is just icing on the cake.

http://erikboisen.net/ScaleMapper.html

Life at the Bottom is written by an English psychiatrist that goes by the penname Theodore Dalrymple.  His real name is Anthony Malcolm Daniels.  I personally think that Anthony Daniels is a more sellable name for an author, but perhaps the name Theodore Dalrymple has some hidden meaning to the author and he desired some anonymity.  The author worked for an extended period of time in hospitals and prisons working with many criminals and their victims.  He documents the situations and thought processes of each of his patients.  Patient of which are predominately part of Britain’s lower class.  He uses his experience in working with thousands of people to look for common threads that seem to keep generations of people continuously at the bottom rung of society.  The book is more a fairly coherent compilation of his notes and thoughts on his patients’ situations rather than a non-fiction novel.

Many of the experiences the author describes are quite horrific.  They contain serial child abuse, suicide, and long-term domestic violence.  The author notes that quite often the system in place to aid the victims of these acts, often helps to propagate them as criminals are given increased benefits in social programs as their behavior declines.  People who are trying to better themselves, in many cases, are given reduced benefits because they have worked and acquired more resources thereby making themselves ineligible for further help .  I found myself having difficultly sleeping when I read some of the sections too close to bedtime.  There are many stabbings, beatings, and overdoses described in the book.  If this were fiction, it would be easier to accept, but knowing that everything has occurred, and likely continues to occur, has made it far worse.

The vast amount of data that the author has unique access to make the book very interesting.  It would have been desirable, however, if he had presented it without too much opinion on what the data imply.  I believe the reader, in many cases, would come to the same conclusion as the author, but not necessarily.  I would, as I believe most readers would, prefer to be presented with the facts and draw my own conclusions.  The author appears frustrated with the situation.  I guess if I put myself in his shoes, it is difficult to show up for work every day for decades and see the same preventable problems manifesting themselves over and over and be helpless to stop them.  This very forgivable offense has definitely crept its way into this work.

The interesting thing the author does show is the mindset of many of the people that are trapped in this cycle of despair.  He has observed that nearly all of the violent criminals take no ownership of their actions.  They all describe themselves as powerless to stop their violence and criminal activity.  They view themselves as “victims”, often blaming the author for not “curing” them of their behavior or the victims of driving them to violence.

He also observed that keeping marriages intact, which was a rare observance in his cases, appeared to be one antidote to stopping the cycle.  People who lived in poor conditions, but managed to keep a family together, almost always faired better in all areas than those who did not maintain relationships.  He stated that these people were often immigrants who were clinging to values carried over from their home countries.  They often managed to avoid cycles of domestic violence and even managed on some occasions to transcend their poverty.

Another cure that the author suggests and that I believe has the most promise is exposure.  Exposure of those living in the cycle of poverty to different environments.  Having a city kid visit a farm or a museum or having them meet a previously impoverished person who has become a doctor or community leader has appeared to be helpful.  Those who are trapped in a cycle of poverty frequently have a very limited world view.  They are often not exposed to anything much beyond the often dismal neighborhood that they spend their lives in.  Just having the knowledge that there are other ways of living, and witnessing it, seems to have an impact.  It is very clear to the author that social programs that just dole out benefits are, in many cases, doing more harm than good.  There needs to be more incentive to promote a change in lifestyle and a pursuit of personal improvement.  There needs to be a push to destigmatize education and self-improvement in the lower class and there needs to be more incentive to those that embrace and pursue it in earnest and perhaps less incentive for those who pursue a life of crime to receive benefits.

The author also notes that people who come from countries without extensive social programs, but live in poverty, often do not have many of the problems he is observing.  In many third world countries there are people living in conditions that are far worse than those the author observes in Great Britain, but the literacy rate is higher and the crime rate is lower.  It seems as though the social programs are somehow breaking down the sense of community.  In third world slums people tend to help each other more and respect  each other’s property more.  They know and help their neighbors more.  They maintain marriages more consistently.  For whatever reason, the social programs seem to remove this sense of community, desire for self-improvement, and desire to maintain relationships much better.  Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that, due to social programs, everyone gets enough to eat, a roof over his or her head, and basic medical care without any effort, but those in third world countries have to go without these things or work very hard for them.  There must be a way, within the confines of human nature, to help those that are deserving of it, without removing the motivation of those being helped.  I am guessing that many of the things the author observes in Great Britain are true of impoverished areas of all first-world countries.

This book was very interesting and informative and I feel that I am better for having read it.  I may find myself pondering answers and potential outcomes for a long time to come.  Someone needs to properly address these situations if society is going to advance.  It is not reasonable to expect society as a whole to rise above a certain level when there are those who still live in reprehensible circumstances.  I feel that to some extent, we, as a society, are only as good as the least of those among us.

I read Orwell’s follow-up, 1984, a few years ago and really enjoyed it.  This book is like 1984 in that it is critical of the government, but that is about the only parallel.  This book, as the title implies, is about a group of barn animals.  These animals are meant to represent the government and the people they govern.  For the most part, the pigs are in charge with the dogs helping to protect the pigs.  All the other animals are subservient to the pigs.  This book was published towards the end of world war II, so the parallels between the animal characters and the actual people they are supposed to represent is not as obvious to me as it might have been to someone reading this book in say, 1950.  The main pig is supposed to be former Russian dictator Joseph Stalin.  I initially tried to match all the animal characters to their real-life counterparts while I was reading, but I found that the roles that each character was playing was still applicable to any government.  The story still shows how words and laws can be twisted to meet the needs of those in charge.

There are only a few human characters named in the story.  The most prominent one was Mr. Jones.  Mr. Jones was the farmer in charge of all the animals at the beginning of the story.  Mr. Jones is not the greatest person, for he drinks too much, and keeps the farm running in a somewhat sloppy manner.  The animals have bearable living conditions, but they could be better.  These conditions create a rift between the animals and Mr. Jones.  They also create an opportunity for the main pig, Napoleon, to seize control.  In a great rebellion, the animals force farmer Jones off the farm and, in doing so, gain the ability to run the farm themselves.  Initially it seems that the animals may have a better life in doing things for themselves, but the pigs lust for power and the other animals’ naivety create a much different situation.

The pigs are generally more intelligent than the other animals and make the rules for the farm.  They also alter those rules over time to suit their lifestyle.  The pigs present themselves as hard-working leaders that deserve extra privilege, but in reality, they are dictators that are taking advantage of those in their stead.  The pigs continually change the rules so that they are able to enjoy the fruits of the other animals’ labor while the other animals endure an increasingly difficult existence.  In changing the rules, the pigs also deny doing so, as they take the rules and modify a word here and there to change the overall meaning for their benefit and then deny doing so.  Most of the animals cannot read very well or not at all, so the pigs have a rather easy time doing this.  The few animals that do recognize what is going on, are outcast.  They are either killed or driven out and portrayed in a traitorous manner.  This is very much applicable today as government whistle blowers, such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning demonstrate.  The actors in this story may have changed over time, but the characters they are playing seem to be the same.

This book was a very easy read and quite enjoyable.

I was required to take one college-level economics class in order to obtain my engineering degree.  I am happy with the education I received and the school I received it from, but I believe I learned much more from reading this book than I did from a one semester class.  It is amazing how well-written this book is.  Einstein is quoted as saying that if you cannot explain something to a third-grader, then you probably do not have a full grasp of the topic.  While I do not believe this quote to be 100% accurate as most third graders have a limited view of the world, the gist of it is true.  If you can explain a topic in laymen’s terms, you have a good grasp of the topic.  This book is almost completely absent of equations.  Everything is explained in the simplest terms possible using hundreds of real-life examples to back up ideas and concepts.  Despite being a 700+ page economics book, it was a pretty easy and enjoyable read.

It turns out that economics is basically a predictive mechanism for human behavior when it involves the distribution of scarce resources that have alternative uses.  The health of a given economy is proportionate to the efficiency at which goods and services are provided.

This book delves into the failings of the former Soviet Union’s communist economy.  The Soviet government had ministers of industry that decided how much of anything was to be produced.  This is contrary to a free market where the decision to produce something is guided by the market’s need for it.  In a free market, if a producer is producing things that are not selling, that producer will soon be out of business unless the producer moves its resources into creating things that will sell at a profit.  The Soviet government would try to predict how many cars, washing machines, or crops to produce and would often be wrong.  Unused machinery or crops would just rot in warehouses.  The capital and effort used to create them was wasted.  Alternative products that the market desired should have been produced rather than what was produced and then never used.  A free-market is, for the most part, self-adjusting, and self-correcting.  Goods and services are produced in the quantities that are needed because the companies that produce them will fail if they do not.  Communism removes this mechanism.  In a communist government, competition is absent, and the government industries just become less efficient rather than fail.  These inefficiencies are passed on to the citizens in the the form of long waits for goods, poor selection, and an overall lower standard of living.

A theme that runs through this book is the notion that politicians often do things that sound good to gain votes, but are often detrimental to society.  One example is New York’s rent control policies.  These sound like a great idea to citizens desiring lower housing costs, but the effects on the general population is, for the most part, negative.  If a family lives in a large three bedroom apartment it is nice to not burden the family with high rent costs.  But what happens when the children are grown and move out?  Do the empty-nesters that no longer need three bedrooms leave for a smaller place? The answer is probably no.  If they were to leave, they would lose their rent control on that unit.  They likely would have to pay more to leave and move into a smaller place.  It is unlikely anyone would do this.  As a result, the supply of larger apartments for families is reduced.  Housing is no longer used efficiently.  Landlords of these buildings are often forced to host tenants whose rents do not provide enough resources to properly maintain buildings.  The result is often poorly maintained buildings, and in many cases, buildings that are abandoned by landlords.  Also, new apartments subject to rent control are unlikely to be built.  New apartment buildings in New York are usually luxury apartments that are not subject to rent control.  This eventually creates an even greater lack of affordable housing.  What was a great political platform to run on, affordable apartments,  in actuality results in shortages of affordable housing.

In a similar vein, minimum wage laws are typically popular with voters, but are often detrimental to the economy.  If a company has to pay all workers $15 an hour and there are some workers that only output $10 an hour of value, then that company will likely not hire those employees.  The unemployment rate increases when the minimum wage is increased.  Young, unskilled people who might gain skills working a $10 an hour job will simply go unemployed.  Similar occurrences are created when a government imposes lavish benefit requirements for workers as is often the case in European countries.  If the cost of adding a worker is greater than the benefit, a company will not hire that worker.  Over time, the young, unskilled workers are denied learning skills and entering the work force because it is not cost-effective for companies to hire them.  Minimum wage laws are sold by politicians as help for the poor, but the poor are the most likely to be put out of a job by these policies.  To quote the author in his Feb. 3, 2021 tweet –  “The minimum wage law is very cleverly misnamed. The real minimum wage is zero—and that is what many inexperienced and low-skilled people receive as a result of legislation that makes it illegal to pay them what they are currently worth to an employer.”

The author, Thomas Sowell is an African American born in Gastonia, North Carolina in 1930 under the most humble of circumstances.  His mother was a housemaid and his father died before he was born.  Despite his early hardships, after being drafted into the Marine Corps for the Korean war, Sowell managed to get his BA from Harvard University, his MA from Columbia University, and his PhD from the University of Chicago.  He was the first member of his family to have studied beyond the sixth grade.  I imagine his biography, A Personal Odyssey is pretty interesting and I will likely read it in the near future.