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itulipers looking for a good read could do worse than Weinberg's Lake Views: This World and the Universe.
(following is a partial review from NYRB. The full review is not available without subscription)
Steven Weinberg is famous as a scientist, but he thinks deeply and writes elegantly about many other things besides science. This collection of his writings is concerned with history, politics, and science in roughly equal measure. The picture on the jacket shows dark waves on deep water with a distant suburban shoreline. The water is Lake Austin in Texas, and the picture is a view taken from the window of the study where Weinberg thinks and writes. He is a native of New York who has taken root and flourished in Texas.
His chief contribution to our civilization is his leadership in the understanding of nature. After twenty years of experiments in particle physics had displayed a tangled landscape of particles interacting with one another in incomprehensible ways, Weinberg’s mathematical wizardry dispelled the confusion and revealed an underlying unity.
But he is not only preeminent as a mathematical physicist. He has also made important contributions to the discussion of history and politics. He is one of the founders of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group of citizens who have worked steadily for forty years to bring scientific wisdom into public debates about political and military problems. He has been called to Washington to testify at congressional committee hearings on strategic questions. He has become almost as expert in military history as he is in mathematical physics.
A reader who has time for only one piece should read Chapter 12, “What Price Glory?” It goes deeply into the history of military technology, from the twenty-first century all the way back to the eleventh. Weinberg finds in many diverse times and places a common theme. Military leaders and military institutions have a constant tendency to glorify technology that is colorful and spectacular, even when it leads them repeatedly to defeat and disaster.
The most durable of the glorified technologies was the medieval horse carrying a knight in armor. The knight was armed with a heavy lance pointing forward. The tactic by which the knight was supposed to win battles was a cavalry charge, the horses and lances overwhelming foot soldiers with irresistible force. Weinberg examines the evidence and finds that successful cavalry charges were rare. More often, foot soldiers defeated the charge by moving out of the way of the horses or by occupying strong defensive positions. After the charge was over and the knights were dispersed, foot soldiers could defeat them individually by force of numbers.
Weinberg describes with scholarly relish several historic battles in which foot soldiers defeated cavalry. In spite of these repeated calamities, the knight on his horse remained the emblem of military virtue throughout the long centuries of the Middle Ages. Kings and emperors spent their fortunes and gave land to their feudal dependents to pay for knights and horses. In times of peace, the knights and horses exercised their military skills by competing with one another in splendid tournaments. The display of fine armor and equestrian skill became an end in itself, pursued by …
(following is a partial review from NYRB. The full review is not available without subscription)
Steven Weinberg is famous as a scientist, but he thinks deeply and writes elegantly about many other things besides science. This collection of his writings is concerned with history, politics, and science in roughly equal measure. The picture on the jacket shows dark waves on deep water with a distant suburban shoreline. The water is Lake Austin in Texas, and the picture is a view taken from the window of the study where Weinberg thinks and writes. He is a native of New York who has taken root and flourished in Texas.
His chief contribution to our civilization is his leadership in the understanding of nature. After twenty years of experiments in particle physics had displayed a tangled landscape of particles interacting with one another in incomprehensible ways, Weinberg’s mathematical wizardry dispelled the confusion and revealed an underlying unity.
But he is not only preeminent as a mathematical physicist. He has also made important contributions to the discussion of history and politics. He is one of the founders of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group of citizens who have worked steadily for forty years to bring scientific wisdom into public debates about political and military problems. He has been called to Washington to testify at congressional committee hearings on strategic questions. He has become almost as expert in military history as he is in mathematical physics.
A reader who has time for only one piece should read Chapter 12, “What Price Glory?” It goes deeply into the history of military technology, from the twenty-first century all the way back to the eleventh. Weinberg finds in many diverse times and places a common theme. Military leaders and military institutions have a constant tendency to glorify technology that is colorful and spectacular, even when it leads them repeatedly to defeat and disaster.
The most durable of the glorified technologies was the medieval horse carrying a knight in armor. The knight was armed with a heavy lance pointing forward. The tactic by which the knight was supposed to win battles was a cavalry charge, the horses and lances overwhelming foot soldiers with irresistible force. Weinberg examines the evidence and finds that successful cavalry charges were rare. More often, foot soldiers defeated the charge by moving out of the way of the horses or by occupying strong defensive positions. After the charge was over and the knights were dispersed, foot soldiers could defeat them individually by force of numbers.
Weinberg describes with scholarly relish several historic battles in which foot soldiers defeated cavalry. In spite of these repeated calamities, the knight on his horse remained the emblem of military virtue throughout the long centuries of the Middle Ages. Kings and emperors spent their fortunes and gave land to their feudal dependents to pay for knights and horses. In times of peace, the knights and horses exercised their military skills by competing with one another in splendid tournaments. The display of fine armor and equestrian skill became an end in itself, pursued by …