快猫短视频

鈥淚 MUST admit now that I am not your usual unbiased, emotionally detached
book reviewer. I was heavily involved with the discovery [of self-organising
criticality] in 1987,鈥� wrote Per Bak, theoretical physicist at Imperial College,
London, when he reviewed Mark Buchanan鈥檚 Ubiquity (Phoenix,
拢8.99) for 快猫短视频 last year (11 November 2000, p 56).
鈥淏earing in mind previous disasters in popular science writing, it was with
trembling hands that I grabbed this book. Does Buchanan get it all right?鈥�

Bak reckoned he does, and generously conceded: 鈥淭his is the book I wish I had
written.鈥� Buchanan succeeds where others failed, he said, by listening and
communicating the theory of self-organising criticality鈥攚hich claims that
history is punctuated by dramatic and unpredictable upheavals鈥攚ithout
compromising scientific integrity.

The subtitle to Frans de Waal鈥檚 The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural
reflections of a primatologist (Basic Books, 拢12.99/$17) says
it all (see 快猫短视频鈥檚 review, 7 April, p 49). De Waal uses the
analogy of how sushi masters become masters鈥攖hey watch and wait鈥攖o
illustrate how apes learn. For months the sushi apprentice does everything
except make sushi. When he finally picks up the knife, he knows what to do. De
Waal writes: 鈥淐loseness to animals creates the desire to understand them, and
not just a little piece of them, but the whole animal. It makes us wonder what
goes on in their heads even though we fully realise that the answer can only be
approximated.鈥� De Waal explores that closeness: anthropomorphism has given rich
concepts to biology.

The anthropoids won鈥檛 necessarily be on your side. Settle back and
contemplate the imminent arrival of the Morlocks as you read this new edition of
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (Ace Books, $5.99). Morphed
anthropoids provoke sufficient fear and loathing, you鈥檇 think. Surely Wells
reached quite far enough into the dystopic future. Not far enough, it appears.
Out in Webland, the word 鈥渕orlocks鈥� seems to appear on biker sites with alarming
regularity.