Compared to him we are all math-challenged

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, mathematics, mathematicians, memoirs, short biographies

The Weil Conjectures: On Math and the Pursuit of the Unknown, by Karen Olsson, is part biography (of André Weil and his sister Simone), part memoir, part rumination. The one thing it is not, is a description of the Weil Conjectures. Let's see why, beginning with this statement, not from the book, but from the Online Encyclopedia Britannica:

"Weil believed that many fundamental theorems in number theory and algebra had analogous formulations in algebraic geometry and topology. Collectively known as the Weil conjectures, they became the basis for both these disciplines."

The four (not two) disciplines mentioned are utter mysteries to everyone but a literal handful (really!, like four or five) of mathematicians who have a sufficient grasp of all of them for the quote above to make sense. Ms Olsson is not one of those few, but if she were, she might find describing these things to a popular audience (including me, an accomplished mathematician, but not in this league) a task similar to that shunted aside in 1965 by Dr. Robert Feynman; when asked after the Nobel Prize ceremony in which he was awarded the Prize, "Can you tell us briefly what it was that you did?", he replied, "Buddy, if I could tell you that in one minute, it wouldn't be worth a Nobel Prize."

In nearly every page the book switches gears, between a mini-biography of Simone Weil, one of André Weil, the author's memories of mathematical study (which she dropped after receiving her degree at Harvard), her more recent attempt to rekindle her early love of math, and vignettes about historical mathematicians whose work underlay that which André Weil labored upon.

The word "mathematics" literally means "learnings", emphasizing plurality. The power of the Weil Conjectures lies in making connections between and among areas that have been treated as separate, to show that they are all one. With that in mind, I find a multi-threaded book like this to be just the vehicle needed, to induce in someone like me at least a bit of the feeling that must have inhabited Weil as he considered his conjectures and the way the disciplines so treated reflected from one another to show mathematics as a conceptual whole. The satisfaction of finishing this book lies not in comprehending Weil's work, but in seeing that whole, though from afar.

The increasing field of good short SF

kw: book reviews, science fiction, collections, short stories

For a longish generation that I call the "trash years," a great deal of science fiction/speculative fiction/semi-hard fantasy was published by authors who were feeling their oats after the restrictions against overt sexual content were lifted in the wake of what we now quaintly call the sexual revolution. A wet dream fantasy in a sci-fi setting is still a wet dream fantasy.

Now writers who were mostly born after The Pill hit the market, and after Gender was uprooted from biological sex, are filling the market with books and short stories based on good ideas, well presented…and I mean "good" in both a conceptual sense and an ethical sense. Being an old-fashioned, conservative, spiritually active fuddy-duddy, I keep my distance from roughly half the social trends out there, but I am also aware that, in the context of the various subcultures that now make up Western society and American society in particular, most characters in these stories are presented as "doing good" (or trying to) according to the environment in which they find themselves.

Thus, the new collection The New Voices of Science Fiction, edited by Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman, gathers twenty stories of Novelette length and shorter by writers that may not be household names yet, but most of them have the potential. Seventeen of the stories were new to me; three are also found in other collections I read in recent months. I do have a quibble with the word "The" in the title. Too exclusive. These are "Some" of a large number of new voices, and as a series title (which I suspect is where this is heading), I'd like it better if "The" were removed.

I'll limn a few stories that I find worth special mention. "Openness" by Alexander Weinstein explores the results of over-sharing, aided by technology that permits near-telepathic contact. It is probably where some folks would like FaceBook/Instagram et al to take us. The concept of "bubbles" of privacy has been around for a long time. In an office, awaiting an appointment, if you sit far from the receptionist, you'll be ignored. Sit closer than about ten feet, and the receptionist will almost certainly talk to you, or ask if there's anything you need. That's one bubble. Then the arm's length bubble is for close friends and intimates only, at least for most of us. Various cultures have these bubbles, usually just the two, but the sizes can differ, as can what is permitted and what is discouraged within each. This is reflected in the "layers" of sharing that the technology of "Openness" assumes. We don't need technology to realize that most relationships need boundaries, and "TMI" can drive people away. The story's technology just facilitates it happening even faster.

I noted in the author description that Nino Cipri uses "they" pronouns and has a gender description rather longer than average. While I don't care for such things, I read their story "The Shape of My Name," kind of like trying Brussels Sprouts for the first time (Hey, I can't stand how Sprouts smell, so why should I expect them to taste good?). Stripped of the time travel elements, which are interesting in themselves, it is a story of a young female-born coming out as a male, and having access to future medical tech that makes a complete bodily conversion possible. The crux of the story is the series of reactions of the protagonist's mother, who finally self-exiles to a future year beyond which the family time machine cannot reach. So this is also a tale of abandonment, a very real fear of many young people today, as they explore levels and directions within themselves that are either meaningless or repugnant to the prior generation. Author Cipri is a good enough writer to elicit my sympathy for the protagonist, for which I appreciate them.

"The Secret Life of Bots" by Suzanne Palmer is a triumph-of-the-unexpected tale. The "bots" are not traditional robots by any means. They are mostly about the size of June beetles, and are probably modeled on them. But a few kajillion of them, the maintenance crew of a starship, pull a very big chestnut out of the fire on behalf of the hapless humans who don't realize that yon "bug/bot" has at least as good a brain, and that instantaneous communications can overcome a heck of an obstacle. Think of a crowd of cooperating Neanderthals taking on a Woolly Mammoth, raised to the nth power.

I could mention a couple of other treatments of time travel, but instead I'll touch on the last story, "A Study in Oils" by Kelly Robson. A conscience-wracked athlete/artist is in hiding after semi-accidentally killing an opposing teammate, in a sport that one must sign a big-time disclaimer and waiver just to play. Sort of like 1930's-era boxing was, but this is moon hockey, and it's easy to think of the implications of a sometimes deadly sport moved into 1/6th-G! The fellow paints to work through his anguish, which actually helps his legal case. To say more would be too much of a spoiler.

These and other "new voices" are sure to strengthen the whole SF field in years to come.

Yes, we are still evolving

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, anthropology, paleoanthropology, evolution, human evolution

The history of life is incredibly more complex than we ever thought. Just the history of this little cluster of twigs on the tree of life that we can call "humans, hominins, and their close kin" is incredibly complex. I truly enjoy reading essays by someone who knows these things deeply and tells us our stories with grace and wit. Close Encounters With Humankind: A Paleoanthropologist Investigates Our Evolving Species, by Sang-Hee Lee with Shin-Young Yoon, is just such a book. Dr. Lee is an anthropologist and department dean at U.C. Riverside. Mr. Yoon worked with her to prepare essays for the popular press in Korea and the U.S., and for this book.

One root question people have is this, "Are Neanderthals our ancestors, our cousins, or something else?" Simply put, they were "kissing cousins" when the species we call "modern humans" was being formed. Neanderthals are one of at least two ancestral species, and we are hybrids!

The book doesn't start there. The first chapter is titled, "Are We Cannibals?" I would put it this way: We cannot include human meat as a major part of our diet because that's too much like a perpetual motion machine. However, some human cultures have included small amounts of carnivory for primarily ritual purposes. Read the chapter for the gory details.

Dr. Lee doesn't sidestep controversies. Chapter 3 asks, "Who Were the first Human Ancestors?" We could thus ask which species represents the first Hominin. A Hominin (note the final "n") is a member of a species characterized by upright walking, a larger brain than a Hominid (note the "d") of similar size, and sophisticated tool use; probably also complex language. The Hominids are the great apes—Gorillas, Orangutans, Chimpanzees, Bonobos, Gibbons, and Humans—and all their ancestors back to the first great ape that split from the lesser apes and monkeys. The recognized Hominin genera are Homo, Australopithecus, Ardipithecus, and Paranthropus. Species in the genus Homo are H. sapiens (ourselves), H. neanderthalensis, H. habilis ("handy man"), possibly H. rudolfensis, and H. erectus. Homo erectus, "upright man" is probably the first, but various scientists argue for other possibilities, and the chief ones are discussed in this chapter.

Along the way to tracking down our Neanderthal (and other) roots, matters are discussed such as the incredibly painful birth experience, because of a combination of large brains in newborns and narrow hips due to upright walking (waddling is wasteful of energy); when different skin colors arose (I was surprised to find it was primarily 5,000 years ago); the biggest of the apes, the half-ton Gigantopithecus; and why we still have sore backs.

Once we get to the time period from 100,000 to 40,000 years ago, we find that our twig of the tree of life is actually braided, or networked. Perhaps half a million years ago some people left Africa for Europe and Asia. At present it seems two groups followed similar but distinct evolutionary tracks to become the Neanderthals in the west and Denisovans in the east. Later, some time before 70,000 years ago, another group left Africa. They are called by various names; the most neutral is "early modern humans" or EMH. They are considered early members of H. sapiens, and they must have had better teamwork and better tools, and perhaps a different breeding schedule with close spacing of offspring, because they multiplied until they outnumbered their cousins who already lived there.

Now that a genetic sequence has been produced for both Neanderthals and Denisovans, it is clear that they interbred with the EMH people. Whether the N's and the D's were wiped out or subsumed into the larger group is not known. What is known is that European DNA includes about 4% Neanderthal DNA and a lesser amount of Denisovan DNA, while for Asians it is the reverse, and Australians may have 6% Denisovan DNA.

At this point I wonder, was there perhaps yet another species out there, not yet discovered, that contributed to the modern gene pool? And I find another matter even more interesting: All three of these types of humans were more robust, and had a little larger brains (5%-8%) than modern humans. We don't know enough about the Denisovans to be sure how strong they were. An average Neanderthal was twice as strong as an EMH, and the average EMH was at least twice as strong as modern humans.

Not all of that is because so many of us have sedentary lifestyles (Most people living outside the West have more active lives). I live near a large population of Amish. They work hard and are all very strong. A typical EMH would be even stronger. They were genetically prepared to become stronger.

The last chapter asks, "Are Humans Still Evolving?". The answer is, "Of course!" Just because we invented culture and science and technology with all their conveniences, doesn't mean there are still no selective pressures for natural selection to work on. Remember, 2/3 of the world has only a fraction of the conveniences and medical infrastructure that an American or European would consider normal. I certainly hope that we are evolving toward having less lower back pain! But considering that it has been with us for about two million years, I suppose it will be a good while yet. I point out wisdom teeth, and our shrinking jawbones, as evidence of continuing evolution. Dr. Lee thinks we have removed that matter from selective pressure because of low-cost dental surgery. However, there are still large numbers (the 2/3 mentioned above) who have little or no dental care, but whose jaws are also shrinking as food sources change. In whatever measure infected impacted wisdom teeth reduce reproductive potential, there will be benefit to having a mutation that reduces or eliminates them.

There is reason to believe that the great increase in human population that followed the agricultural revolution about 10,000 years ago has led to an increased rate of evolution among us. This is just touched on in this book, but we are referred to another, The 10,000 Year Explosion, by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending. I got a copy right away. Stay tuned!

This review just skates on the surface of Dr. Lee's offerings. What a joy to read!

What would you pay for ten more years?

kw: analysis, longevity, health

By taking one simple step, making one change, one intervention, most sedentary folks can add ten healthy years to their lives. I have several friends who are physicians. One of them who speaks at church conferences recently made a statement to those who are 50 and over. I checked on it with others, and they all agree with him. He said,

"If you are not already exercising daily, adding exercise to what you are doing every day will add, on average, ten years to your life."

Upon further checking, I found that these are not ten years of poor quality; the final decline that we all must undergo if we are not taken suddenly by accident or illness will be delayed by ten years. Even more, it is likely that the early years of decline will be better also, effectively increasing our "health span" by more than ten years.

I once heard someone scoff, "Sure, I can exercise hours and hours for some added time. But will there be added non-exercising time?" That is, must you spend so much time in exercise that your time to enjoy other stuff is the same, just occurring later on? Let's investigate.

Consider the average fifty-year-old. If male, remaining life expectancy is 30 years, to age 80; if female, it is 33 years, to age 83. Adding exercise to gain ten years could yield either 90 or 93 total years. Ten years is 3,652.5 days, and with 16 waking hours per day, that comes to 58,440 waking hours. Let's use the figures for a male. Suppose that he must devote that whole 58,440 hours to exercise, spread over 40 years. How much is that? The simple calculation is this:

58,440 / (4×3,652.5) = 4 hr/d, or 1/4 of his waking hours.

This means that, if someone must add four daily hours of exercise, and must to keep it up for forty years to gain ten years of longevity, all the waking hours of the extra ten years will be spent exercising. He could take it easy instead, and it would be a wash. But how much is actually needed?

How much daily exercising time does my friend say is needed to get the ten-year bonus? Half an hour. That is, half an hour of doing something that increases heart rate, and leads to at least a "glow", if not becoming sweaty, by the end of the half hour. A half hour daily adds up to 7,305 hours spread over the forty years.

If it is legitimate to do so, we can put this figure into simple terms: Each year gained was "paid for" by 730.5 hours of exercise, or a half hour daily for four years. Four years of daily exercise gains an added year of healthy life.

Now, take care: This is not a linear relationship, so going for an hour instead of half an hour isn't going to give you twenty added years. It could add some, but I don't know how much. I remember Jack LaLanne, a fitness guru of the 1950's and '60's. His daily exercise routine was 4-5 hours of all kinds of exercise. He lived to age 96 years and 4 months. How long would he have lived without so much exercise? I don't know. But I do know that he enjoyed exercise, so it wasn't drudgery to him.

Exercise is drudgery to most of us who aren't already gym rats. But that half hour isn't too high a price to pay for the extra time it yields. This is the take-away message for someone fifty or so:

Break a sweat each day for four days, and gain a full day of life! Do so for the rest of your life, and you'll have lived an extra ten years.

A dud, and then some fun escape lit

kw: book reviews, fiction, crime fiction, science fiction, collections, short stories

The books now on my reading table are nearly all short story collections. I began to read one, then set it aside in favor of another, and didn't return to it.

Firstly, I picked up Exit Wounds, edited by Paul B. Kane and Marie O'Regan, a collection of murder mysteries, as the title clearly indicates. Alongside it I set Future Tense Fiction: Stories of Tomorrow, edited by Kirsten Berg, Torie Bosch, Joey Eschrich, Ed Finn, Andrés Martines, and Juliet Ulman; a collection of stories from the Future Tense column sponsored by Slate and others. I don't care for a steady diet of crime stories, so I decided to intersperse them.

At the first sitting I read four stories in Exit Wounds. "The Bully", by Jeffrey Deaver takes a turn midway that makes you realize you are inside the mind of a serial killer. However, it is rather cerebral and pensive. The next three were also told from the killer's point of view, and each was progressively darker. Then, in Future Tense, I read first "Mother of Invention" by Nnedi Okorafor; a smart house with the directive, "Protect the occupant" does just that, to the detriment of the house's designer, but to the benefit of the occupant, his spurned lover. I didn't care for "No Me Dejes" by Mark Oshiro, though the technology of memory capture from a dying person for retention by a chosen descendant is intriguing. I had read "When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis" by Annalee Newitz, and re-read it with much enjoyment.

At that point, a day or so later, I decided to skim and skip in Exit Wounds to confirm a suspicion I had. While not all the stories are first-person-killer, nothing matches "The Bully" in quality. I decided, "enough is enough" and set it aside.

With the exception of "Domestic Violence" by Madeline Ashby, which I'd also read before and don't care for, the rest of the stories are full of interesting ideas. "Safe Surrender" by Meg Elison adds a dimension to the longing many adopted children have to know their natural origins, and "Overvalued" by Mark Stasenko explores ramifications of putting a monetary value on—and a futures market for—prodigies and other brilliant people.

I grew up on SciFi in the Campbell mold: "Pose a problem, then solve it." In more modern fiction, whether specific problems are solved, or even solvable, takes a back seat to the growth (or not) of those involved. Not all of the stories even end with an ending, seeming to be instead ending at a beginning. I am coming to realize that life is like that. What's the good of finishing a great task if you're left with no more than endless resting on your laurels? And life itself is a project without a definite ending, usually. Though it does end, all to often it ends ambiguously. Stories that reflect that may be less satisfying, but can be more gratifying.

Showcasing the perceived outsiders

kw: book reviews, science fiction, fantasy, collections, short stories

The title of New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, edited by Nisi Shawl, is actually modest. When I saw the title, I figured the writers would be predominantly African-American, with a smattering of Latinos, but I found they also included several sorts of Asians and a Native American or two.

Reading the stories was a heady experience, like attending a tasting with unfamiliar wines and liqueurs. I read most of the stories, but not all. From the opening I could tell that some worlds were much too occult or horrifying. I nearly skipped "Burn the Ships" by Alberto Yañez, but found it to be a magical fantasy Holocaust, with a different outcome.

Similarly, "Kelsey and the Burdened Breath" by Darcie Little Badger borders on occult horror, telling the tale of "shimmers", a different word for ghosts, that are either vampires or cannibals in their own sort of afterlife. In the story's milieu, they are visible if one knows how to look. The evil ones become "burdened" and cannot rise into the sky, as is usual. But it is really a story about Kelsey's growth.

I delighted in the premise of "The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations" by Minsoo Kang. The title tells a story in itself. Would that producing lying translations could actually avert war!

The breadth of vision is sufficient that most folks will find at least a few stories to savor, no matter what their ethnicity.

Hi Spiders! Welcome back!!

kw: blogs, blogging, spider scanning

Since I saw the beginning of some spider scanning activity a couple of days ago, I decided to check into it. It may not have ended yet. Here is the overview for the past week:

Overall, about 85% of all activity in the past day or two has originated from Russia. Over the whole of the past week, activity from the USA has totaled 87 hits to Russia's 201.

We can focus on the past 24 hours for an even more stark contrast, below.

No numbers are needed to show that the USA has 20-some hits; a normal day of activity. When I looked at the Audience view, no other country exceeded 2 hits.

On the weekly view, the top five posts had between 6 and 9 hits; in the past day, no post had more than 2 hits. This indicates that we have wide scanning here. In the past, when I was writing daily and getting 200 daily hits, there would usually be one or two recent posts that had 5-10 hits, and the weekly "most popular" list topped out at 20 or more. So I surmise a single agent snarfing up 20-60 posts in a particular hour, and going for different ones each time.