Showing posts sorted by relevance for query robot. Sort by date Show all posts

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.

How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick’s Robotic Resurrection by David F. Dufty

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 Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways by Earl Swift

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.

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

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.

The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios

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.

1089 and All That: A Journey into Mathematics by David Acheson

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.

The Brooklyn Bridge: They Said it Couldn’t be Built by Judith St. George

Judith St. George’s The Brooklyn Bridge is a short history of and iconic bridge. Written for the bridge’s 100^th 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.

The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems by Henry Petroski

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: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson

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.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose

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.

Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear by Jan Bondeson

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.

Google

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Dickhead Roboticists

It appears that the fields of computer science and robotics attract a lot of Dickheads. By that I mean fans of science fiction author Philip K. Dick. Psychology researcher David F. Dufty is acquainted with a few of these fans, academics, engineers, and artists, who undertook the strange challenge of building an android simulacrum of their hero. He tells their story in How to Build an Android.

Dick is possibly the best choice for an author to imitate in robotic form. He is well known for his story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was the basis of the movie Blade Runner. The essence of the story is that robots have become so sophisticated, intelligent, and lifelike that it is almost impossible to distinguish them from real humans. They blow away a Turing test, and the latest models can only be identified through a test that detects their carefully disguised lack of empathy; Dick thought empathy was an essentially human trait that may not be copied by computers. The hero of Do Androids Dream must track down and destroy these nearly human machines.

Throughout this story and others, Dick explored identity and the shrinking difference between human and machine. People suspect themselves to be androids, androids are programmed to believe they are human, and both have false memories that they cannot distinguish from reality. A realistic android that interacted with people in conversation seemed like a natural fit with Dick.

Of course, the project had practical implications. It required a lifelike interface. Artist and robot maker David Hanson believes the face is a natural way for people to interact with each other and potentially with technology. He has made a succession of realistic robotic heads that can imitate human expression. The PKD robot was backed by artificial intelligence developed by researchers at the University of Memphis, particularly Andrew Olney, that allowed it to understand speech and construct responses based on things Dick had said and written in life.

To top it off, something happened in the brief life of the android that would have been well suited for one of Dick’s stories. They lost Dick’s head. Presumably it is still out there. It may be in some airline warehouse. It may be on the mantle of some thief, or some flummoxed buyer of a lot of abandoned baggage. If someone has it, they haven’t been talking about it.

The big question of the book is how do we interact with technology? What will it look like in the future? We will be increasingly able to make machines that at least seem intelligent and look human. Hanson thinks that is the way to go. The Memphis scientists and engineers, and many other like them, continue to work on interfaces capable of increasingly sophisticated and seamless interactions with people. Are we on a trajectory from Siri to Jacosta to C-3PO to R. Daneel Olivaw? Are androids just what we need to make technology what we need or are they too creepy?

Dufty doesn’t pass judgment. The PKD was an interesting piece of technology with and interesting history that raises a lot of questions about what machines can be. Even as advance and capable as the PKD android was, it had a lot of limitations. It could carry on a conversation, in a quiet room with a patient partner, but it did little else and its responses varied from the seemingly real thing to nonsense.

Personally, I don’t think we need, nor do I want, computers with faces. I would be pleased if I could get my Windows 8 tiles to work. I do think the way we interact with technology is important, especially that we are able to get feedback and other information from technology in ways that helps us understand what is going on and respond intelligently.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

The Essential Engineer by Henry Petroski

IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

Dufty, David F. How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick’s Robotic Resurrection. New York: Henry Holt, 2012.

Google

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Interesting Stuff July 7, 2010

19. The Time Traveler’s Wife popped by to gloat. (I liked this book, too.)
DARPA BaTMAN & RoBIN projects
DC redesigns Superman in 1974
Interesting Stuff June 29, 2010
The Latest Employment Report: Construction Jobs Get Hammered
Math genius can solve a riddle but won’t accept a prize
New Wonder Woman Costume
Review Wonder Woman costume change
Robot Eats Rubble, Excretes Bricks
San Jose considering plan to sell water system

Sunday, July 10, 2016

In Memory Yet Green by Isaac Asimov

When I was a kid, my interest in science fiction was fed by reading many short stories from the heyday of science fiction magazines in the 1940s and 1950s. I particularly remember reading I, Robot, a collection of stories written by Isaac Asimov. (The book is still in bookstores after more than four decades. Will Smith is on the cover; his 2004 movie of the same title was based on one of the stories.)

Asimov wrote an extensive autobiography. The first volume, In Memory Yet Green, covers the first 34 years of his life. As you would expect, his life in that timeframe was similar to many other. He grew up, completed his formal education, started his career and started a family.

Like other famous people, Asimov had fortunate timing, talent, and willingness to work hard to achieve something. He is best known for his achievements as a science fiction writer. Writing was not his sole profession during this part of his life, but he was a fairly prolific writer and was well known in science fiction circles. He had a reputation in science fiction fandom before he ever published a fiction story. He was a fan of the early science fiction magazines and regularly wrote letters to them. He made friends with other fans, several of whom became successful writers along with him, particularly fellow Futurians.

As he put time into writing stories, his participation in fandom waned. His other career as an academic chemist also took up a lot of time. Though it is well known among science fiction fans, others may not be aware that had a Ph.D. in chemistry and was a professor at a medical school. He co-wrote two biochemistry textbooks during this period.

The book covers many aspects of his life, both professional and personal. He begins with his birth in Russia and ends as a husband (to Gertrude) and father (to David) on the verge of a career transition. In between he lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, and many other upheavals of the first half of the 20^th Century. Asimov shares his experiences and views of these events.

Asimov’s style in his autobiography is much as it is in his other writings: straightforward and often jovial. He is not shy about his accomplishments, but he is often humorously self-deprecating and willing to confess to his boneheaded moments.

The book will probably appeal mostly to science fiction fans. Asimov got in on the ground floor. He knew many of the other writers, editors, and publishers of his generation including Ian and Betty Ballantine, John Campbell, L. Sprague de Camp, Lester Del Rey, Robert Heinlein and Frederik Pohl.

If you’re interested in reading this book, you may also be interested in

The Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague de Camp

The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown by Paul Malmont

Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

Asimov, Isaac. In Memory Yet Green: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954. New York: Doubleday, 1979.