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Rating: 
Summary: They All Laughed
Review: David Gelernter should be commended for the ambitiousness of his thesis that science and technology are driven by beauty, or at least a particular kind of beauty, one that is often met with resistance. Basic Books thought enough of his claim to include this book in their MasterMinds series. But his thesis is not so absurd. He builds his argument by looking at some examples of beautiful design, such as the Apple desktop, the Turing machine, and a 1930s Emerson radio. In the case of Apple, continuities between the artist and scientist are obvious. The original Mac programmers were so proud of their work that, like artists, they signed their names on the case molding. The Mac embodies Gelernter's definition of machine beauty-power married to simplicity. Paradoxically, because the Mac is so easy to use, so elegantly designed, it is still seen as less powerful, less serious, not the sort of thing appropriate to the corporate world. "Cute" is the word that greeted the first Mac; mockery followed the imac, with its candy-colors, translucent plastic, and rounded corners; shock and disgust arose over the imacs with Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian patterns on their cases. The tangerine iBook was compared to a Barbie purse. Put simply, elegance is considered effeminate. The tech reporters are so ignorant on these matters, on the importance of the aesthetic, on anything beyond the utilitarian, that Apple's innovations are giving them a collective coronary. Variety is, apparently, too much for them. Gelernter argues persuasively that Apple's desktop interface is an example of beauty winning in the end. The Mac's graphical interface is on practically everyone's screen, having been stolen by Microsoft and grafted onto the ubiquitous Windows. I would add that the imacs, which arrived after this book was published, have been tremendously popular and have spawned numerous imitators, not just in computers, but in a rainbow of translucent, candy-colored appliances and consumer electronics. But beauty doesn't always win. If by winning, Gelernter means the creation of superior technology, then he is correct. An approach which is merely mechanical, focusing on technique alone, will not produce excellence. But if by winning, he means chosen by the public, that isn't always true. No culture that makes money the arbiter of every decision is going to produce a Chartres cathedral or to revere it. It's lucky to produce a VCR that records what it is supposed to. A democratic culture is more likely to produce mediocrity. Americans in general are seen, and see themselves, as consumers, not as purveyors of beauty. As long as they are guided by the standard that cheaper is better, they will produce neither a product nor a service that can be considered excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Original, insightful and a touch eccentric
Review: Gelernter who, incidentally, was one of the people the Unabomber sent a bomb to, is an engineer who writes with curlicues enough to please a poet from the 18th Century. He loves beauty in design and thinks that much of our modern artifacts or machines are needlessly ugly. He likes his old 1938 Emerson radio as a work of art. He likes the MacIntosh desktop as a thing of beauty, contrasted with the ugliness of DOS. He will not go further than to once mention Microsoft's Windows. He thinks that really good software is beautiful; in fact it is good because it is beautiful. He has an idea for what he calls "Streamlines," a way of interfacing with computer and the Internet that he finds elegant. He puts a high value on elegance in technology. Gelernter also has a sharp and incisive mind. Consider this quote on the nature of consciousness found on page 23. He is talking about computers and brains, debunking the notion that a brain is an "information processor" like a computer. He writes: "...the brain is no mere information processor, it is a meaning creator-and meaning creation is a trick no computer can accomplish. The brain is a lump of hardware artfully arranged so as to produce an I-to create the illusion that some entity inside you is observing the world that your senses conjure up. That rose over there merely triggered, when you saw it, a barrage of neuron firings in your brain. But you have the sensation that some entity-namely, you, not to put too fine a point on it-actually saw the rose. Computers, so far as we can tell, are capable of no such trick." Nicely put! This is an original and delightful book that might be compared favorably to the work of Henry Petroski who wrote the much admired The Pencil: a History of Design and Circumstance (1990).
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful reading
Review: I am reading Gelernter in backwards order, also recommend Muse in the Machine
Rating: 
Summary: A little too selfish
Review: I was a bit disappointed by this little book. It starts interesting (the first couple of chapters) but then it looks more like Gelernter wants to showcase his personal ideas about how a computer could be beautyfull (both aestethic and scientifically), that to explain how beauty can be found in science. Maybe that's what should be expected, but I think the topic is much more interesting than just his personal views on it. Anyway, it makes a fun (if short) read.
Rating: 
Summary: Misleading Title; Shallow Treatment
Review: I'm not familiar with Gelernter's other works or his place in computing history. I picked up this book because I was interested in the exploration of art in science. I didn't buy this book to indulge the personal ponderings of one man, however illustrious his past may be. But that's what I got. Gelernter knows computer programming. But I found his knowledge of art to be too shallow for a book with such a deep topic. He makes an effort in the beginning to define "beauty", which is obviously important to the theme of his book. He doesn't make a convincing argument. For example, when he tries to argue that beauty is not just a matter of ephemeral fashions and trends, his main argument is that gothic architecture was considered beautiful 150 years ago, so it can't be a matter of trends (although, earlier, he admits that gothic architecture was abhorred in the 18th century). He flippantly suggests that "150 years on the best seller list ain't bad!", or something to that effect, and that's the end of that argument. Some people make analogies that are so obvious that they clarify a point that is already clear. Gelernter's analogies, however, are just plain wrong: e.g., "When you contemplate the evils of technology, my advice is to think liquor...Liquor brings out the worst in us. TV does too, and so do computers. Used wisely, on the other hand, liquor produces a modicum of pleasure and makes life somewhat better, and the same holds for computers and TV." Pretty weak, Gelernter. The rest of the book seems like his own personal contemplations on what constitutes a beautiful code or hardware. One chapter, entitled "Beyond the Desktop", is exclusively focused on one of his pet projects at Yale. For such a broad chapter title, the writing itself was a disappointment and not at all what the title sugested. That pretty much describes the whole book.
Rating:
Summary: Beauty as a Means of Handling Complexity
Review: Modern engineering systems are very complex and must be designed to meet conflicting constraints. The major hurdle facing an engineering designer is to find a way to meet these many competeing contraints in an affordable amount of time at an affordable price. Much work has gone on in computer science on the analysis of systems by formal methods. The hope of these technques is that the entire operation and requirements of a system can be captured in a mathematical model which would allow the 'correctness' of the sytem to its requirements to be proved. This is the major ideas of such distingushed researchers as Hoare and Parnas. Unfortunately these methods have never been found to work in practice. For anything but a toy system the complexity of the formal model becomes intractable. But there is a more important reason for the failure. How can 'correctness' be defined fro a real world system which must work in a filed of changing requirements. Gelernter identifies this problem but notes that it is solved everyday by real world engineers who must face real world requirements. These engineers are not deterred by the failure of formal methods. Instead they rely on a sense of beauty which is a sense gained from experience in how a system can meet its requiremtns. It is this abilty to see though the complexity to see the structure and pattern in the design that will dictate its degree of success that enable a human designer to function where strictly mathematical and logical techniques fail. Only techniques which use holistic thinking can succeed in in the real world. It is often thought that human reaoning pales beside the clarity of logic and mathematics in understanding the world and how devices function. Gelernter rightly points out that this common attitude is precisely worng. Formal mathematical technqiues have failed where they have been claimed to be paramount. The human understanding of beauty is an ability to function in the world by identifying what is most suited to an issue. Gelernter seems to be saying that the quest of many people to reduce the world to mathematics can only result in failure. It is confusing certainty with knowledge. Experience has shown that these technqiues cannot cope with real world complextity. The proponents of such techniques often portray themsleves as realisitc pragmatists who confront the problem which others try to avoid. Gelernter shows that these people are blind to the real problem and exhibit an unjustified faith in cold specific logic. Only techniques which can view the problem and proposed solutions holistically can hope to cope with real world complexity. It are these technqiues which supposed pragmatists heap scorn on which are most practical. It is poetry and not mathematics which bests describes the world. This book is worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: The machine may be beautiful, but . . .
Review: The author seems to have started out with a premise I have held to since I read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" when I was in college. My first computer teacher, Ted Nelson, turned me on to the intrinsic beauty in things computerish with his enormously quirky "Computer Revolution/Dream Machines". My wife is a designer and I am in computers. We have had many long conversations about the false division drawn between art and science. So I thought I might have found a new soulmate when I picked up this little (176 pages) book. Too bad it wasn't so. Oh, Gelernter seems to be going the same way initially, even if I found the prose, and especially the examples, a little rough. But he just couldn't hold me. I found him spending too much time defending from his soapbox rather than illuminating. He seemed to be trying to write the textbook for a college course he wants to teach instead of reaching out to the reader. I don't think I could wholeheartedly recommend this book to my personal friends, so I can't recommend it to you either. Maybe next time.
Rating:
Summary: From True Beauty to Bad Salesmanship
Review: The book by Gelernter starts out very strongly. In the first few chapters, his arguments and facts are astounding and sometimes positively surprising. His line of thought in some spots is just as elegant as some of the subjects he describes in this paper. Somehow, he lost his very own beauty in the fourth chapter. He ventures into one of the most un-elegant discussions of Mac History and the long lost fight against rival Microsoft. To make things worse, he continues into a boring discussion and promotion of his own software products. These are described to the most annoying detail, which moves Gelernter into the ranks of mediocre vacum-clearner-salesmanship. I have hardly ever read a book that takes you to the great highs as Gelernter does and then send you into a 50 page free fall. Having proved his aqbility to write most elegant and interesting in the beginning, Gelernter should stop right there and package the last few chapters into a brochure of his company. The book is definitely not worth the $$$ spend on it.
Rating:
Summary: The Mirror Worlds Companion
Review: What is beauty? Gelernter, in a work that is more an
essay than full-blown book, does a wonderful job of
drawing the reader into exploring that question. He
asks, "...could a mathematical proof, scientific theory,
or piece of software be 'beautiful' in the real, literal
way that a painting or symphony or rose can be beautiful?"
The answer, according to Gelernter, is a resounding "Yes". Machine beauty, a simple elegance that resonates in its
observer, is the subject of the work. But, how might one
sense this? Gelernter offers this: "You might experience
something resembling machine beauty, even if you are no
scientist or engineer, when you drive a nail into a
board with one clean, graceful hammer stroke." Precisely! "Deep beauty, 'resonant beauty' in which many types of
loveliness reinforce one another, is a principal topic
of this book" according to the author. He then explores
the following two claims: (1) "...machine beauty is
the driving force behind technology and science", and
(2) "... machine beauty bothers us. We act as a society
as if our goal were not to nurture or celebrate it but
to stamp it out." Gelernter, a computer scientist and sometimes artist,
applies his many observations to the sad state of today's
computer software. "The hell with mathematics; let's
teach of our programmers about beauty" he exclaims! There are long running comparisons between the WinTel
PC and Apple Macintosh in the work. It isn't a "sales
pitch" for one or the other; just a set of observations
on how the emphasis (or deemphasis) of beauty and
elegance drove both efforts. The work is easy to read yet fully researched. A "Notes"
section appears at the end of the 144 pages of prose to
provide all of the references to the other works Gelernter
drew upon. I thought the effort made to keep the meat of
the book uncluttered was well worthwhile. This book is an excellent companion to Gelernter other
work "Mirror Worlds". Read Mirror Worlds first and then
eat this for dessert--you won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful reading
Review: What is beauty? Gelernter, in a work that is more an
essay than full-blown book, does a wonderful job of
drawing the reader into exploring that question. He
asks, "...could a mathematical proof, scientific theory,
or piece of software be 'beautiful' in the real, literal
way that a painting or symphony or rose can be beautiful?"
The answer, according to Gelernter, is a resounding "Yes". Machine beauty, a simple elegance that resonates in its
observer, is the subject of the work. But, how might one
sense this? Gelernter offers this: "You might experience
something resembling machine beauty, even if you are no
scientist or engineer, when you drive a nail into a
board with one clean, graceful hammer stroke." Precisely! "Deep beauty, 'resonant beauty' in which many types of
loveliness reinforce one another, is a principal topic
of this book" according to the author. He then explores
the following two claims: (1) "...machine beauty is
the driving force behind technology and science", and
(2) "... machine beauty bothers us. We act as a society
as if our goal were not to nurture or celebrate it but
to stamp it out." Gelernter, a computer scientist and sometimes artist,
applies his many observations to the sad state of today's
computer software. "The hell with mathematics; let's
teach of our programmers about beauty" he exclaims! There are long running comparisons between the WinTel
PC and Apple Macintosh in the work. It isn't a "sales
pitch" for one or the other; just a set of observations
on how the emphasis (or deemphasis) of beauty and
elegance drove both efforts. The work is easy to read yet fully researched. A "Notes"
section appears at the end of the 144 pages of prose to
provide all of the references to the other works Gelernter
drew upon. I thought the effort made to keep the meat of
the book uncluttered was well worthwhile. This book is an excellent companion to Gelernter other
work "Mirror Worlds". Read Mirror Worlds first and then
eat this for dessert--you won't be disappointed.
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