Tim O'Hare

Today I finished reading Carlo Rovelli’s slim volume ‘Seven Brief Lessons On Physics’. As I described in my entry ‘Reading and Walking’ last Tuesday I bought this book as a stop-gap so that I had something scientific to read in order to keep one of my daily streaks going. I had just finished Tim Flannery’s ‘Atmosphere of Hope’ and was still waiting for the March edition of Scientific American to arrive (which it has now) and so I needed something fast and after a quick diversion into Waterstone’s bookshop ‘Seven Brief Lessons…’ seem to fit the bill.

I found Seven Brief Lessons… to be a delightful read. It is VERY light on detailed scientific content but beautifully written to enhance awareness of the some of the key ideas of 20th century – general relativity, quantum mechanics, the structure of the universe, how the concept of time is linked to heat flow. Rovelli is a great writer – the words flow off the page into your head like good quality chocolate melting slowly on your tongue. As my analogy suggests, the language is frequently delicious and every time the text threatens to become overwhelmingly complex (which it must do because some of the concepts being described are overwhelming and complex) Rovelli pulls back from the brink and guides the reader onto firmer ground. Since Rovelli is Italian, credit must also go to the two translators, Simon Carnell and Erica Segre.

You will gather that I was rather beguiled by Rovelli’s writing, so I am absolutely delighted to know that he has another book ‘Reality Is Not What It Seems’ in which he outlines some of the key developments in physics from the ancient Greek philosophers through to the present day. I already have a big pile of books at home waiting to be read so it may take me a while to get to this second bite of Rovelli but it is certainly going to be added to the pile and devoured at some point.

Last night I finished reading Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano novel ‘August Heat’. Unsurprisingly, the title alludes to the fact that the story takes place during an extremely hot August in Montalbano’s Sicily and it amused me that I was reading it at a time when we are experiencing some pretty cold weather here. The book gave me a nightly escape to warm up! As you might expect, Montalbano spends much of the book suffering in the heat, regularly changing his clothes and going for night-time swims to cool himself down and a key element of the plot is the implication that the heat rather befuddles his mind such that he behaves somewhat irrationally and allows himself to be tempted into a questionable dalliance with the twin sister of the story’s victim (a young girl whose body is found hidden in a trunk in an illegally built basement of a coastal villa).

I always enjoy Montalbano novels but I particularly liked this one as it was not too obvious how the plot would unfold but also not too convoluted. About two-thirds of the way through I thought I had been clever and identified what the main plot twist would be, but it turned out that I wasn’t right and everything unfolded in a more straightforward, but still satisfying, manner. The book ends leaving Montalbano in a rather confused state in relation to his long-term and long-distance girlfriend/partner Livia (who I have never really warmed to) and it will be interesting to see how this aspect of his life develops in the next book in the series.

I have just finished reading ‘Atmosphere of Hope’ by Tim Flannery, a 2015 follow-up to his well-known book about climate change ‘The Weather Makers’. Flannery is an acknowledged global expert on climate change and, in particular, how nations and individuals are, or are not, responding to and trying to mitigate it.

Atmosphere of Hope is an interesting, albeit slightly odd, book. It is written in short chapters of 6-7 pages (which I like – I hate books with long chapters) that, at times, seem to be a bit thrown together. It is a little like he decided to rattle off a book but couldn’t quite be bothered to craft a really good one. However, he writes well and knows his stuff so despite this weakness, the book still works and is highly informative.

There is a lot of bad news in Atmosphere of Hope. Flannery spells out how, despite some progress, we are simply not doing enough to ensure that we have a better than 50% chance of 2 degrees Celsius warming. But, as the title of the book suggests, he also offers some hope, in particular highlighting advances in third-way technologies – ones designed to actively remove carbon from the atmosphere – and the huge potential for renewable energy sources (primarily solar and wind) coupled with electric vehicles to form a major part of a climate change mitigation solution. Overall, I was left reasonably optimistic – the advances in technology are massive and the rate at which use of renewables is advancing whilst economies are still growing offers considerable hope. I was most interested, and surprised, to read about how electric vehicles could act as the battery storage mechanism to even out the unsteady supply of energy associated with most renewable sources. I had never really thought about this idea before and how excess energy generated at times of high supply could be stored in millions of small vehicle batteries which could then feed energy back into the grid at other times.

One issue with the book, which is not the fault of the book itself but rather with the time that I read it, is that it was written before the Paris climate conference in 2017 and, perhaps even more importantly, in the pre-Trump era. It would be interesting to read Flannery’s thoughts taking into account these developments – I ought to have a look online sometime to see what I can find. Or I could just wait a few years for his next book!