Review by Choice Review
Pickover offers a thoroughly enjoyable collection of minibiographies containing the bizarre behaviors of many well-known scientists, inventors, and philosophers. Geniuses such as Nikola Tesla, Oliver Heaviside, Francis Galton, Albert Einstein, and "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski are shown to have obsessive personalities and strange phobias. Fascinating to some will be the chapter with responses to a questionnaire involving such inquiries as, What is genius? Would you pay $5000 to increase your IQ 100 points? Although there are credible attempts to connect the strange behaviors to recent medical advances in understanding brain disorders, one is never quite sure whether the postmortem "diagnosis" is correct when done without the body, so many years after death. Anyone curious about the realm of geniuses, eccentrics, and madmen will find these pages illuminating. The bibliography is short and there are few pictures, but the biographies are presented in an alluring and penetrating manner by an internationally recognized popularizer of science. General readers; lower-division undergraduates; two-year technical program students. F. Potter; University of California, Irvine
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Filled with 200 years of eccentric geniuses, this delightful collection of profiles assembles an eclectic and fascinating sampling of scientists (as well as some artists and writers) with a far-ranging assortment of phobias, compulsions, odd belief systems and extraordinarily weird habits. Chief among the scientists is Nikola Tesla, father of alternating current and countless other electrical devices, who could be seen on New York City's streets covered in pigeons, was obsessed with the number three and repulsed by jewelry, particularly pearls. Then there is Oliver Heaviside, a Victorian mathematician and electrical researcher who painted his nails bright pink, signed his correspondence "W.O.R.M." and cruelly kept the woman charged with his care a virtual prisoner in her own house, later driving her into catatonia. Also explored are the lives of Samuel Johnson, van Gogh and legendary mathematician Paul Erdos, among others. Pickover, a high-tech inventor and researcher at IBM and a prolific author (TimeÄA Traveler's Guide; Forecasts, Apr. 20) shows genuine fondness for his subjects and an appreciation of their accomplishments, which he explains clearly and succinctly. More than simply cataloguing unusual traits, Pickover also speculates on causes and diagnoses, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE). This is lively and immensely enjoyable scientific history. Photos throughout. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In his latest offering, Pickover, an authority in computer graphics and a prolific popularizer of science (Black Holes: A Traveler's Guide, LJ 4/1/96), purports to explore the link between eccentricities and obsessive-compulsive disorder in geniuses. The bulk of his book comprises nine biographical/psychological profiles, uneven in length and applicability, of such figures as Nicola Tesla, Samuel Johnson, and Ted Kaczynski. The rest of the book is a hodgepodge of essays on brain chemistry and mental disorders, intelligence, and over 25 pages of verbatim results from an unscientific Internet questionnaire. Two appendixes round out the volume: a runners-up list and an updates-and-breakthroughs section that reads like Oliver Sacks-lite. The amount of filler in this book, from lists of Johnson's epigrams to Kaczynski's scientific papers to superfluous illustrations to the aforementioned Internet discussion, detracts from the quality of the work. Recommended only for nonresearch collections.Wade Lee, Univ. of Toledo Libs. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by School Library Journal Review
YA-Pickover tackles an attention-grabbing topic with clarity, understanding, and a sense of fun. The dedication summarizes the tone of the volume: "This book is dedicated to the cracked, for they shall let in the light." Among the "strange brains" discussed are Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber; and Francis Galton, world traveler, inventor, and racist. Each chapter has a "Fact File" of basic information on the individual, while the "Straight Dope" section delineates that person's history, achievements, and compulsions or oddities, often including diagrams or reproductions of their famous accomplishments. In the chapter on Nikola Tesla, the lesser-known proponent of AC current in opposition to Edison's DC, readers learn of his strange abhorrence to pearls that rendered him incapable of conversation with a pearl-wearing companion. The author concludes with a summation of mental disorders that have often afflicted the talented and genius among us: bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and temporal lobe epilepsy. An interesting topic, presented in a readable manner.-Carol DeAngelo, American Chemical Society Library, Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A haphazardly assembled collection of profiles of inventors, philosophers, writers, artists, and just plain brilliant madmen. The bulk of the book consists of gossipy portraits of a rather diverse group of men that ranges from the famous to the relatively obscure: Nikola Tesla, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Oliver Heaviside (an inventor), Samuel Johnson, Richard Kirwan (a scientist), Jeremy Bentham, Henry Cavendish, Francis Galton (a jack of all trades), Geoffrey Pyke (ditto). The link among all these men is tenuous at best: They all displayed obsessive-compulsive behavior, some more than others. Pickover, author of the mind-boggler column in Discover, assigns each of his subjects rather irksome nicknames: Samuel Johnson is known as ``The Rabbit-Eater from Litchfield'' and Nikola Tesla is called ``The Pigeon Man of Manhattan.'' Each profile begins with a quick sketch of the subject, including marital status and ``favorite quotes'' about the man. Pickover then breathlessly goes through several anecdotes that illustrate the particular subjects weirdness but fails to shed much light on him. The last section of the book is an attempt to link obsessive-compulsive disorder with genius. Here, again, Pickover's lack of a clear narrative line subtracts from the overall effect of the book. The second to last chapter is entitled, ``Curiosity Smorgasbord,'' and that is indeed how the whole book feelsa collection of profiles, anecdotes, interviews, and factoids. While some of the anecdotes are entertaining, theyre not assisted by Pickover's hackneyed writing, nor does his random use of the first and second person bring the reader closer to the material. More of a greatest hits of madmen than a measured look at madness and genius.
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