Beyond the Finite

In Beyond the Finite, the sublime involves both "perception through the senses or imagination; and expression, through symbols or pictures," reports Andrew Stark in the Wall Street Journal (11/3/11).

Edited by Roald Hoffmann and Iain Boyd Whyte, the book treats "the sublime in art and science as a subject of profound importance. The chapters by different contributors ... chronicle a range of encounters with the sublime in what are essentially two broad categories: this worldly and otherworldly.

In this world, physicist Ian Greig writes about how "physicists are in the business of grasping, with mathematical precision, possibilities that ‘may forever lie beyond the reach of observation and measurement'."

In the realm of the otherworldy, where artists reside, "it's more often the other way around. Artists experience the sublime when they perceive something transcendent that, they fear, may ultimately escape their capacity for expression."

Sometimes, these two worlds collide, as Elizabeth A. Kessler describes "in her chapter about the Hubble Telescope." Because the public expected the telescope's photos to "reveal ... some hitherto unreachable idea of celestial essence," the scientists, doubling as artists, re-touched the images "to reconcile the Hubble's limited power of expression with the otherworldy awesomeness it was expected to convey."

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Unlike Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Kahneman "is telling us not to blink," writes Roger Lowenstein in Bloomberg Businessweek (10/31/11). In his new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel digs into "the predictable ways that errors of judgment occur" and builds "a framework for how, or why, the mind reasons as it does."

He distills his theory into two types of reasoning, which he calls System 1 and System 2.

System 1 "is the agent of our automatic and effortless mental responses ... It is equipped with a nuanced picture of the world, the product of retained memory and learned patterns of association (Florida/old people) that enable it to spew out a stream of reactions, judgments and opinions."

So, for example, if System 1 doesn't know whether Ford stock is a good investment, "it supplies an answer based on related but not really relevant data, such as whether you like Ford's cars."

System 2, on the other hand, "is your conscious, thinking mind ... it considers, evaluates, reasons. Its work requires mental effort -- multiplying 25 by 17 or turning left at a busy intersection."

Where System 1 might have you avoiding public transportation because of terrorist threats, System 2 helps you realize that you probably won't be attacked. As Daniel sees it, one's "ability to switch to System 2 is a sign of an ‘active mind' and a predictor of success."

Hedy's Folly

She was known as "the most beautiful woman in the world," but Hedy Lamarr also helped invent technology that later led to wi-fi and GPS, reports Diane Brady in Bloomberg Businessweek (12/11/11).

The Hollywood star's unlikely role as the co-inventor of "a jamproof radio guidance system for torpedoes" is the focal point of Hedy's Folly, by Richard Rhodes. In it, he "tries to dissect the story behind the frequency-hopping radio encryption technique that was awarded US Patent No. 2292387."

Her work was actually a collaboration with another unlikely amateur inventor, George Antheil, an avant-garde composer and writer. Their goal was to find "ways to transmit signals over multiple frequencies, thus thwarting enemies' attempts to jam radio-guided missiles by homing in on a single frequency."

They knew that this "would work only if the transmitter and receiver were both synced to the same sequence of frequencies." Their solution was based on a technology George had developed for a composition that "called for 16 synchronized player pianos," using "a piano roll to coordinate the frequencies."

This "spread spectrum technology" as it is known, wasn't used until the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, after their patent had expired.

But incredibly, "a screen siren and an eclectic composer" created a groundbreaking technology, proving that "innovation can come from anywhere," but also that "a world that craves new ideas also tends to dismiss those capable of producing them."