Johnson, Steven. The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. New York: Riverhead Books, 2006.
Steven Johnson presents the London cholera epidemic of 1854, and the work of Dr. John Snow and Rev. Henry Whitehead to link cholera to a water source, as multiple conflicts. It is a conflict between two species, Vibrio cholerae and Homo sapiens. It is a conflict of ideas between tradition and evidence. It is also a conflict between the problems arising from the high density living of cities and the human capacity to solve those problems.
In the first case, a colony of V. cholerae arguably won the bout in 1854. The outbreak was one of the most intense in London’s history, especially considering how rapidly it spread and killed. That it ended when it did may be due as much to happenstance and desperation to act as to a winning argument from evidence. In the immediate wake of the outbreak, the view that cholera was a waterborne illness was not widely accepted.
In the second case, the reasoned case from evidence eventually won over tradition. This led to a victory over cholera in London also. Though cholera is still a problem in parts of the world, the answers implemented in London (better sanitation and clean drinking water) will work anywhere.
Johnson is not too hard on the opponents of Snow. It was widely accepted that disease was caused by miasma, or bad air. It was hard for even intelligent people of the time to accept that disease could be caused by something that could not be detected by the senses (though an Italian scientist had viewed V. cholera under the microscope, it was not widely known). In fact, Snow hadn’t found the cause of cholera, only how it was transmitted.
In the last case, Johnson happily reports that human innovation has triumphed over the problems of cities so far. In many ways, cities are very advantages ways for people to live.
The last chapter launches from Snow’s study of the cholera epidemic, and the map he used to illustrate his findings, to how smarter maps and other innovations are creating a bright future for cities. Snow, Whitehead and science eventually are victorious in the aftermath of the 1854 epidemic, but it is cities that are the big winners.
Johnson brings up a number of vulnerabilities of cities in the next several decades. He is confident that the ingenuity show by the likes of Snow and Whitehead, and modern technology they couldn’t imagine, will overcome most of these problems. Even the problems that can’t be overcome don’t seem to be enough to end the urbanizing trend around the globe.
Order this book here.
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Showing posts sorted by relevance for query microscope. Sort by date Show all posts
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Saturday, June 10, 2017
How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson
The prevailing myth of invention is
that it is the product of a solitary genius. Steven
Johnson takes on this myth in How We
Got to Now.
Johnson’s book is a history
of invention with a focus on six particular innovations. He demonstrates that
simultaneous invention is common, suggesting that societal knowledge, norms and
expectations play a part in invention—at least in providing an environment in
which certain types of inventions can be created and flourish.
Thomas
Edison and the light bulb is the classic myth challenged by simultaneous
invention. Humphrey
Davy demonstrated an incandescent electric light in 1802 and Frederick
de Moleyns received the first patent for a light bulb in 1841. By the time
Edison got involve, people had been working on light bulbs for 30 years, and
the potential for electric light had been now for 70 years. Edison and his team
of collaborators deserve a lot of credit for creating a commercially successful
electric lighting system, inventing solutions to many problems along the way,
but is a story of systematic hard work.
Edison’s electric lighting system depended on a lot of prior
technology, which relates to another of Johnson’s points: clusters of
inventions. An invention can illuminate a previously unnoticed problem (or
create a new one). For instance, the availability of affordable books that
follow Johannes
Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press revealed that many people were
farsighted. This sparked a demand for reading glasses. The tinkering with
lenses led to the invention of telescopes and microscopes. Galileo took up
the telescope and made discoveries in astronomy that
reshaped how people saw the world. Robert Hooke
used the microscope to explore a seemingly alien world of the very tiny thing
all around us, though the revolution he inspired took longer to bloom.
Johnson explores other aspects of invention and society. I think it is
fair to say that his view of how invention works is a lot messier than the
myth. Inventors are at the right place at the right time, with open minds that
are prepared (likely by accident) to make a connection and a willingness to do
the work of thinking, testing and making something new. They probe the boundaries
of their fields, tinker and throw themselves into hobbies that bring them,
often with companions, to crossroads that challenge their notions of where they
can go and how they can get there.
On the whole, Johnson presents a vision of hope in our history. We are
not dependent on genius or serendipity; human creativity is both a social and
an individual process in which the collision of ideas leads to new ideas. We
live in an era where the collision of ideas may be more possible than ever.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Steven Johnson also wrote
Friday, December 21, 2012
STEM Books
I’ve reviewed 39 STEM-related
books (and counting). STEM is an acronym
for science,
technology,
engineering, and mathematics. As you may have seen in the news, there is a
push to improve STEM education,
interest students in STEM fields, and grow the number of workers
in these fields. The idea is that these
will be the skills needed by workers of the future. If you’re a STEM educator or a student
considering a career in STEM fields, you might like to take a look at some of
these books.
I’ll confess that I’m not an educator, but I think most of these books
will be accessible to high school and college students, and a few to middle
school students. The list is also a
reflection of my career and interests in engineering, public
health, policy,
and history. Even with these biases, I think it is a good
list for someone looking for STEM-related books.
I was fascinated by robots as a
kid. I enjoyed reading Isaac Asimov’s
robot stories. I longed for the Omnibot
2000 in the Sears Wishbook.
Robots have come a long way. In How to Build an Android, David F. Dufty
describes the short strange life of a very complex robot made to look and talk
like science
fiction author Philip K.
Dick. The robot had a very
sophisticated and lifelike head and complex artificial
intelligence. As with most complex
things, it was the work of many people who had to solve a lot of problems.
If you’re interested in robotics, this is an interesting nontechnical
book. In addition, you’ll get introduced
to some freaky sci-fi. You may even get
as (somewhat) legitimate reason to use the word “Dickhead” (capitalized, it
refers to a fan of PKD, so don’t go using it on anyone).
The Interstate
highway
system in the United States
is one of the most enormous structures built.
Some of the prospective STEM students who read this may actually be
younger than the Intestate system, though in some sense it is never complete
because it needs constant repair and maintenance. The Interstates were completed in the 1990s, but the Federal-Aid
Highways go back to 1916.
Earl
Swift wrote an accessible history of the Interstates in The Big Roads. If you interested in automobiles
or transportation,
it’s a good read.
Deborah
Cadbury describes seven wonders of engineering in Dreams of Iron and Steel. It covers almost a century of history, but
many of the events are concentrated in the Victorian Era. That was a time of great technological
innovation.
Though the book is history, many of the structures still stand. Railways, the Brooklyn
Bridge, the Suez
and Panama
Canals, and Hoover
Dam stand testament to an age of big engineering.
Though the memory of Professor Wragg’s sneer prompts me to not make
this confession, part of my interest in science and technology came from comic
books. Iron Man was
cool. Spider-Man’s
web shooters were very cool. Superhero
comics are full of fantasy,
admittedly, but the strange, unrealistic science and technology they depict
have inspired many to study STEM in reality.
Physicist John
Kakalios uses examples from comic books to explore real physics in The Physics of Supeheroes. Sometimes comics get there science
right. Even when they get it wrong, it
can be instructive. If you know what
people are talking about when they refer to the “New 52,” you may find this
book to be a great introduction to physics.
Here is another confession: I’m not especially interested in math. I endured a lot of math classes to study
engineering. Reading David
Acheson’s 1089 and All That did
not require such endurance. For one
reason, it is a short book. For another,
Acheson doesn’t expect his readers to be mathematicians; it is enough to follow
the outline of the math he discusses.
I recommend this book because so many people have a fear of math. 1089
can be followed by many high school students and older folks with math
phobias. Just take a deep breath, relax,
and follow along as well as you can.
You’ll see that math can be interesting, useful, and even beautiful in a
way.
Judith
St. George’s The Brooklyn Bridge is a short history of and iconic bridge. Written for the
bridge’s 100th anniversary, it is also the story of the engineers
who sacrificed life and health to see it completed: John Roebling and his son Washington. John Roebling was
a German immigrant who built many suspension
bridges and owed a wire-making business. He gave his son
and extraordinary education in bridge engineering for the time, and before
beginning work on the Brooklyn Bridge he served as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War.
Why should a cutting-edge STEM student read about a
bridge that is almost 130 years old? It’s
because we still use and rely on very successful, centuries old technologies. Improving and rebuilding our infrastructure will be an important part of our economy. As recently as 2010, New York City and the federal government committed $500 million to
repair and repaint the Brooklyn Bridge.
STEM lumps together science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics. Is there a difference
between science and engineering? Is it
important?
Henry
Petroski, a professor of civil
engineering and history and author of The Essential Engineer, believes
there is an important difference. At
heart, science is about increasing knowledge. Engineering is about invention. Of course, new knowledge makes new invention
possible. Just as often, though,
engineering runs ahead of science.
Sometimes science didn’t advance until someone invented the instruments
to conduct new observations and experiments.
The invention of the microscope
made possible the science of microbiology. Steam engines
were built and greatly improved before we had a modern scientific understanding
of thermodynamics. In fact, thermodynamics was to a large extent
born out of desire to understand steam engines. In this sense, it is an
engineering science (study of manmade things) as much as a natural science
(study of natural things) or branch of physics.
Petroski’s focus in the book is the importance of engineering to
policymaking, where it is often overshadowed by science. Policy, science, and engineering play off of
each other a lot. Most of my career as
an engineer has been related to government, policy, and regulatory compliance.
The Ghost Map by science writer Steven
Johnson is the story of the birth of epidemiology. Epidemiology is a medical
science that uses statistics to
help us understand how diseases operate in a population. Using various statistical and geographic
tools, long before we had computers and GIS, physician
John Snow
demonstrated that cholera,
once a recurring plague
that wiped out hundreds of thousands of people in some outbreaks, was a waterborne
disease. This understanding,
initially met with much skepticism, allowed officials to intervene to prevent
the spread of the disease. For those who
say of their math classes, “I’ll never us this,” here is a case where math (and
science and policy) were used to make a great difference.
It is not much publicized today that the Lewis
and Clark
expedition of 1804
to 1806 had a
partly scientific mission. Captains
Lewis and Clark were charges with bringing back samples of the flora, fauna, and culture of the
western territories. It was also hoped
that they would find a water
passage to the Pacific Ocean. In Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose
writes about the scientific mission as well as the policy, diplomacy, and
commercial
hopes the expedition carried.
Of course, what attracts most people to the Lewis and Clark expedition
is that it was a great adventure. There is a place in STEM fields for thoughtful
adventurers and explorers.
A list like this deserves something strange, creepy, and more fun than you care to
admit. Right now, thousands of very
young future STEM workers are catching bugs and snakes, breaking
their toys to see
what is inside, or staring into space with a weird expression
of vacancy and concentration.
Jan
Bondeson’s Buried Alive is not a
morbid book. It is sometimes humorous,
especially in consideration of topic.
From a STEM point of view, Bondeson shows how knowledge accumulates over
time. The fears and activities of our
forefathers may seem strange to us, but they sometimes made sense in light of
what they knew. Buried Alive doesn’t simply play off our fascination with the grotesque and death, though the
book might not have been written if we lacked that fascination, I think it
reminds us to approach our ancestors with a touch of grace and humility. Maybe our progeny will show us the same courtesy.
If you’re looking for something for a younger student, check out this post→
from Joanne
Loves Science or these
recommendations→ from STEM
Friday. By the way, I also write
about engineering, infrastructure and the environment at Infrastructure Watch.
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