Burke: The Pinball Effect—Butterflies and Billiards

FACTOIDS GALORE!

James Burke, the host of TV's Connections and The Day the Universe Changed, brings his view of the interconnected nature of technological change to a The Pinball Effect. With the same network of shotgunned factoids that characterize his TV essays, Burke has set out to reveal, once again, how one discovery leads to, not another, but multiple others.

Supporting this network of interconnectedness is a hyper-link-style gimmick, in which footnote numbers refer the reader to a link between the current factoid and one buried further along in the book. (I last saw this technique used in a juvenile "multiple endings" novel.) Some of the connections revealed by following these links are interesting, but others are a bit of a stretch. For example, the imposition of heavy import duties on fabrics by the Sun King's Minister of Finance, Colbert, is linked to Impressionism and the development of the RGB monitor by way of M.E. Chevreul, the head director of dyeing at the Gobelins tapestry factory in Paris.

Many of the capsule essays in the book (as opposed to the wider network of connections) have made their way to TV. "Hot Pickle," which details how spices were the driving motivation for the development of smart bombs (via exploration, leading to the need for better fuel and driving engines, from there to air conditioning, Corning glass and fiberglass, and onward to lasers) has already been laid out for our enjoyment on The Learning Channel.

So the book is amusing, with a pleasing focus on progress and technological development. It fails to provide a real sense of the history involved, though. What Burke has done is provide a series of science sound-bites, carefully calculated to keep the attention of those with short spans. "See, here's a pretty fact! Look, how shiny! But now look, look, no, look here..." This cajoling approach to science history does quite well on TV, but fails to entice in book format.

The one place this book works well is the bathroom. As a short-span reader, it beats Uncle Johns' Bathroom Reader, because you get a satisfying sense of informing your brain (however shallowly) while taking care of other business.

Speaking of which, do you know:

• What the hottest pepper in the world is?
• When people first started celebrating birthdays?
• What "Interdicitional nonsuccumbers" means in military-speak?
• That the meaning of the millennium can be found in an old Bugs Bunny cartoon?
• How many quarts of saliva you'll produce in your lifetime?

Now, that's what I call some satisfying factoids!
0316116106,0684859351,0316117048,,0060916966,0140092501,1571454942,1879682745


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