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Science Books Media Book Reviews

Review:The Science of Discworld 66

Posted by Hemos from the terry-is-one-britain's-greatest dept.
Thanks to return reviewer Janice Wright for the following review of Terry Prachett, Ian Stewart, and Jack Cohen's effort The Science of Discworld. The book's a fun attempt to explain the science behind Prachett's incredibly funny world, Discworld. For those of you who haven't read Prachett, I am ashamed for you. Click below for more information.
The Science of Discworld
author Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen & Terry Pratchett
pages 311
publisher Ebury Press (Random House)
rating 8/10
reviewer Janice Wright
ISBN
summary A combination of fact and fantasy from masters of both investigates how the magic of "narrativium" informs the science of our world and worlds beyond.

For those who haven't had the pleasure, the Discworld moves through space on the back of four giant elephants who are in turn standing on the carapace of Great A'Tuin, the interstellar turtle. The Discworld is inhabited by all manner of creatures: trolls, dwarves, elves, a number of varieties of undead, and people - some of whom are wizards.

Our story starts with the wizards (and the wizzard), who for reasons that you will discover when you read the book, begin a project to study (that's wizard for "play with") The Roundworld. It starts to go wrong almost immediately. No matter how hard they try to get the planets to form nice, proper disc shapes, they keep getting spheres, globes, or balls. And they can't find a giant space turtle anywhere. It's obvious that the world they've created isn't a proper world at all. Or is it?

Throughout this wonderful mix of hard science and funny fantasy, Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart (professors of biology and physics respectively, and co-authors of Figments of Reality and The Collapse of Chaos) step in every other chapter to explain the things that are confusing the wizards. Why are the planets round? Why do they insist on travelling around the sun in predictable ellipses. Yes, it's because of gravity, every schoolchild knows that. But what, exactly is gravity?

Via the wizards' assumptions about how a world should work and Jack & Ian's delightful prose, we are taken back to the basics of the science we learned in school and then forgot, secure in the knowledge that we "understood" how our world works. As the scientists explain, this is partly because most of the science we learn in school is what they have dubbed "lies-to-children". "Lies-to-children" are the stock of vast (untrue) over-simplifications that make science easier to teach, and easier to learn. And, most of the time "lies-to-children" are necessary in order to have something to build on to learn the next bit. The problem, they seem to be saying, is when the forget that it's really a "lie", and it turns into "believing-we-understand" instead of "wanting-to-know-more".

That is certainly not to say that The Science of Discworld is a children's book. You could certainly read it to children, though beware that this will probably result in time spent running around the back yard with oranges and footballs to explain the orbit of the planets, and so on. It is packed full of complex ideas and current theories. Most chapters start with the absolute basics and then swiftly bring you right up to date with the most recent discoveries from the High-Z Supernova Search Team (or what have you).

What I liked best about the book was the way the authors mentioned just enough about a particular topic (and dropped a couple of names or events; such as Jocelyn Bell's discovery of pulsars, or Adrian Thompson's experiments with Genetic Algorithms) for me to be able to go off and find out more about the things that I found particularly interesting. On the other hand, this brevity with most of the topics might frustrate some people.

What does it cover?

Everything. Ok, so that's probably not a very good answer. There's this story about these wizards who create a universe and mess about with it for a while and get things wrong and shout at each other a lot. And there's a computer. And a librarian who's an ourangutan. It's a very funny story. Terry Pratchett wouldn't have written 35 books and be the second-biggest selling author in Britain if he weren't rather good at that sort of thing. In between every chapter of the funny story about the wizards there is a chapter of "hard" science. The stuff in the science chapters goes something like this:

  • Science - what does it mean to think scientifically?
  • Time, space & the big bang
  • The stars, the elements, and more about the stars
  • Newton, Einstein, and others
  • Chaos, Emergence, and Langton's Ant (Note: if anyone has the url of a good site that demonstrates Langton's Ant, please post it as a follow-up. Thanks!)
  • The planets, their orbits, & more about the stars
  • The Earth from magma core to the atmosphere and the moon
  • Philosophy on the nature of Light & Dark
  • Life. Blue-green algae, Darwin, genetic algorithms
  • Some notes on statistics and probability
  • The Dinosaurs
  • Mammals & DNA
  • Neurology & culture
  • Where do we go from here?
It should be obvious by now, but just in case it's not, I'll mention explicitly (as the authors themselves do on the second page of the text) that this is not a "The Science of Star Trek" type of book that speculates about the evolutionary feasibility of flying, fire-breathing dragons or tries explains what a thaum is (as if you could explain it, which you can't because a thaum isn't real, Terry just made it up).

Should I buy this book?

Yes if: Probably
not if:

  • You've been meaning to start reading some Popular Science
  • You already read an awful lot of Popular Science
  • You're looking for a good introduction/
    jumping-off point into a wide variety of interesting current scientific ideas
  • You've just finished a degree in Earth Sciences
  • You thought all that icky biology stuff and all that stuff about different kinds of rocks in school was terribly boring
  • You can't think of a present for your bright 10-12 year old son/daughter/
    neice/nephew/etc. who has grown out of dinosaurs and has been pestering you to explain "how the stars work."

Can I buy this book?

So far The Science of Discworld has only been published in the UK. As of June 10th, the authors hadn't even started discussions with American publishers, so the UK version is likely to be the only one available for quite a while. Buy it from Amazon.co.uk with the British spellings intact.

A word of caution
...to those who have not yet read any of Mr. Terry Pratchett's books. The Science of Discworld drops a number of tantalizing hints about the other Discworld books. You might well decide to buy one, just satisfy your curiosity about a particular character or story. Discworld books are addictive, with a capital "ADD". At first you'll casually pick up a paperback next time you're at the bookstore (I recommend Feet of Clay or The Colour of Magic), then perhaps you'll order the most recent hardback(s) from Amazon.co.uk. Next thing you know you're singing the Hedgehog song in the shower and doing very strange things with tapioca. It isn't pretty, and there's no known cure, but at least you won't be alone.
You have been warned.

Note: This is not yet availible in the US, but can be ordered from Amazon.uk.
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Review:The Science of Discworld More

Review:The Science of Discworld

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  • First ook! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    OOK!

  • Discworld (Score:1)

    by Hemos ( 2 )
    The series that is based from is excellent-it always makes me laugh.
  • not third.

    Colour of Magic
    The Light Fantastic
    Equal Rites
    Mort
    Sourcery
    (etc)

  • Link to Langston's Ant and other A-life. (Score:3)

    by Derek Pomery ( 2028 ) on Thursday July 08, 1999 @07:10AM (#1812963)
    http://www.aist.go.jp/NIBH/~b0616/ Lab/Links.html [aist.go.jp] has a list of many interesting A-life applets.

    Langston's Ant is listed on the page, and is located at:
    http://www.home.fh-karl sruhe.de/~gran0011/java/langton.html [fh-karlsruhe.de]
  • Damnit Giles, I was about to say that! And I was gonna say it much funnier than you did. Oh well, there's nothing left for me but to namedrop about how I fell asleep in his lectures.
  • Ian Stewart is not a professor of physics. He is a professor of mathematics at Warwick University.
  • Do you know of anywhere they might have an image of this cartoon.

  • Ook (Score:4)

    by washort ( 6555 ) on Thursday July 08, 1999 @06:38AM (#1812967) Homepage
    Oook. Ook ook, ook oook ook ook. Oook ook (ook ook OOK!) ook. Oook ook; ook ook ook ook.

    Ooook
  • Barbara Cartland?
    Geoff
    Forget what you know - Share what you don't [deja.com]
  • The animated movies were fairly well done and followed the books quite well; what was sorely missing was a voice-over as much of the humour comes from the author's explanations and footnotes in the books. Christopher Lee is great as the voice of Death, though.

  • Even though only "the Color of Magic" contains the two 'heros' TwoFlower and Rincewind,

    Actually, Twoflower is a major character in "The Light Fantastic" and "Interesting Times" as well. My two favourites are "Interesting Times" and "Moving Pictures". The latter is a wonderful spoof of Hollywood and movie making -- warmly recommended!

  • I think it is Catherine Cookson.
  • Jingo? Boring. Oh yes, the storyline was there, but it just ambled along without the humour that made him so popular in his early days.

    I like "Jingo" and "Hogfather", but note that both of these differ from most others (except "Soul Music") because the bad guys are extremely evil and not funny at all. Much of the lighter humour in the early books dissipates in the later, but the books themselves remain good.

    The only Discworld book I had trouble getting through was "The Last Continent", mainly because there were two plotlines that didn't seem to get properly "joined" at the end: I felt that the plot involving the wizards of Unseen University was a side-tracking...

  • Nonsense.

    It's all a matter of taste. The earlier books are frothy and light. I find that fine in small doses. But, had the series kept on that way I wouldn't have kept reading it. Instead, the books start to revolve around characters. The humour may pop up less often, but, for me, his humour is much more funny--and sometimes moving--in the context of his later more complex books. The later books are also much stronger in both character and narrative.

    Even the least of Prachett's books--Moving Pictures for my money--is better than most good books from other authors.

    Steven, Senior Technology Editor, Sm@rt Reseller
  • The 'ant' hack in the xscreensaver package [jwz.org] also implements Langston's ant. Only works with the X windowing system, though.

    It claims to be based on A.K. Dewdney's "Computer Recreations", Scientific American Magazine Sep 1989 pp 180-183, Mar 1990 p 121.
    Also used Ian Stewart's "Mathematical Recreations", Scientific American Jul 1994 pp 104-107.
  • I picked up "Small Gods" about a month ago, after having a former roommate tell me on many occasions that Pratchett was god.

    As of last week, I have now read 8 of the Discworld books, and the only reason I haven't read any more is that I'm awaiting deliveries. :)
  • Pratchett is to Douglas Adams as the Saturn V is to a pop-bottle rocket. Pratchett is as funny in his latest Discworld novel as he was in his first. Adams was funny in HHGTTG and petered out pretty rapidly after that.
  • The Turtle Moves!

    Help im lost in L-space!
  • Small Gods is probably the best book in the series IMO. I read SG first and its a good place to start if you're reading out of sequence as many of the recurring characters aren't in it. The place to start is in the begining ie The Colour of Magic.

    OOk!

    The Turtle Moves!
  • I was a great Discworld-inspired cartoon once:

    Death was sitting infront of a computer, the caption underneath read "DAMN CAPS LOCK..."
  • Be careful using the "M word" he might pull your arms off!
  • strata was --although i don't think they ever made a second edition...

  • Meanwhile, I started with Men At Arms and found it hilarious; likewise Hogfather, Maskerade, and Interesting Times. Since I haven't read any of the earlier Rincewind or City Guards books, I can't comment on whether or not he's going downhill, except only to note that if he is, he must've started on Cori Celesti.
  • I thought Restaurant was funny too. The basic problem seems to be that the Douglas Adams books incorporating stories from his radio play series worked well; and then he tried writing a whole book from scratch, which didn't work. Or else he ran out of really funny ideas.
  • My cousin, Sun Dog, has a pretty good (cob) web site about Pratchett's Discworld books, if anyone is interested in reviews and other related stuff. It hasn't been updated for over a year, but what can you do?

    Check it out: members.xoom.com/SunDog [xoom.com]
  • I agree. Also, LSpace [lspace.org] is an excellent place to go for information about Discworld. I'd probably recommend Small Gods over Feet of Clay, however.

    David
  • Well, I haven't seen the TV show (not getting British TV), but I'd imagine that the books and TV show are rather different. The narrative is a lot of what makes Terry Pratchett's books so great, and it's hard to duplicate the effects on TV (e.g., Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy wasn't nearly as good on TV as it was as a book -- and it was originally a radio show..) Pratchett's sort of similar to Douglas Adams (I guess that same type of British humor), people who like one tend to like the other.
  • I've found that the Border's near me has a number of Canadian books, which fill out most of the Discworld series (I believe that a few of the earlier Discworld books are out of print in the US.)
  • Let me correct myself... Pratchett (at his best) and Adams (at his best) tend to use the same type of humor.
  • I like all of them, myself. The earlier books have more re-read value in them, I think, the later books have more of a mystery-genre leaning, which reduces their re-read value. Still, I liked Hogfather a lot (even with the new ones, PTerry's books seem to get better the more times you read them... They're filled with all sorts of little details that you don't notice at the first read).
  • Really? Hmm.. I think I saw them at the Borders, perhaps the books were from the UK, not Canada.
  • "Small Gods" is much better than "Feet of Clay". I found FoC difficult to follow (although with a good thesis and ending). SG, OTOH, is incredibly funny AND thought-provoking throughout.

    ---
    Put Hemos through English 101!
  • From the review:
    t should be obvious by now, but just in case it's not, I'll mention explicitly (as the authors themselves do on the second page of the text) that this is not a "The Science of Star Trek" type of book that speculates about the evolutionary feasibility of flying, fire-breathing dragons or tries explains what a thaum is (as if you could explain it, which you can't because a thaum isn't real, Terry just made it up).
    ---
    Put Hemos through English 101!
  • It's true that you'll need to read certain key books in order to understand certain characters. Here's a partial list, from memory.

    • Rincewind: Colour of Magic
    • Librarian: Colour of Magic
    • Death: Mort
    • Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler: Something fairly early, probably Guards, Guards will do
    • Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg: Equal Rites; Wyrd Sisters
    • The wizards (all interchangable AFAIAC): Equal Rites; Sourcerer; Colour of Magic
    • Ankh-Morpork (w/ Guilds): Again, something early, try Guards, Guards

    Well, that's a starting point....
    ---
    Put Hemos through English 101!
  • The Dirk Gently books were pretty good. And the only hitchhikers book I found really off the mark (still enjoyable, just not as good as the others) was Mostly Harmless.
    That said, I'm really a great fan of Terry Pratchett. The only Pratchett books (other than very recent ones which I have to wait for since I live in Merkia) which I don't own are Strata and The Dark Side of the Sun. I'll find copies of them eventually.
    Anyway, I have to agree that there are similarities between Pratchett's humor and Adam's humor, but there are big differences as well. Not to mention the differences between their storytelling as well.
  • I have a graphic novel version of the Soul Music animated special. It's nowhere near as good as the book. For one thing, it's missing most of the story. It's also missing most of the humor. One of the important things to remember about good books is that they are good books, not neccessarily good movies or cartoons or comic books, just good books.
  • So who`s the best-selling author then?
  • From what I've seen the TV series (at least Wyrd sisters I've not seen the others) is a pale imitation of the books, so dont judge them by it.

    Even the worst of the books is at least as funny as the series.

    Bil
  • I agree. Personally (speaking as an obsessed Pratchett reader who's read just about everything he's written), it's my favourite of all his books. It's also good for introducing ppl who "don't like fantasy" to his work.

    --

  • A good place to look for Pratchettian things is www.lspace.org.

    T-shirts and a.f.p. stuff will be under Fandom.
  • I've never seen the animated movies, but if it wasnt funny, it wasnt done right. Discworld's increadibly funny and, odd for a comedy-type light-fantasy book, also very well written (okay, after the first few when he discovered what a plot was). But yes, defenitly try reading one.. some are better than others, but i've yet to find one that wasnt good.
    Dreamweaver
  • I've only been able to find the later ones in my local bookstore. I started with Maskerade and Jingo. I found them both funny (Maskerade you did have to know a little at least about American Broadway which was a surprise coming from a British author!), and I have been reading them backwards from there. I'm also trying to get the later ones too. But anyway, I read Interesting Times and Small Gods. Now most "old timers" would have hated Interesting Times, but so far, out of the ones that I have read, IT is my favorite. This is mostly because it was really funny (I had to read it lying on the floor), and I enjoyed the character of Rincewind, even though he is an anti-hero, you can relate to him and root for him. In Small Gods, there wasn't anyone to root for, at first it felt like Brutha, but then he fell into focus and I stopped rooting for him. I liked Small Gods, but without a hero to root for, it was like trying to walk in three directions at once.
  • 2 quids worth....I wouldn't give it that much!

    Since his stories got more involved with the lives of each character it's gotten better.

    Sounds like you should stick to short stories.

    BTW Rincewind is the least interesting character in Pratchett!

  • I is the best, but really hard (and counter-intuitive) but looks a bit dated and (still) has bugs, also I think it has problems on very high end machines.
    II is still good, but a bit simplistic (they overcompensated).
    But III should be out now, or very soon..
    see:
    http://www.demon.lspace.org/games/discworld/inde x.html

    EZ
  • If you're looking for older/used copies, try bibliofind.com - enter Diskworld in the other words field. If you search by Author Pratchett, you'll miss some (they don't spell so well).

    I've ordered many a book from bibliofind, always been satisfied.
  • Not a part of the series, but hysterical nonetheless, I'd have to recommend Good Omens : The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch that he co-wrote with umm.. err... Neil Gaiman. Sure, its not the Discworld, but DEATH still makes an appearance!
  • If I wanted to buy the game ...
    Should I buy I or II ?
    PS : I don't think it exist for linux ? :)



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  • Have no idea, could be they come together...
    Is it any good ?


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  • Actually, The Science of Discworld is not about the physics of Terry Pratchett's Discworld, it's about the physics and history of our world, as seen through the eyes of the wizards in the Unseen University, on the Discworld. One of the best popular science books I've read - contains a rather good Discworld story, too.
  • From the /. comment (at the top):
    The book's a fun attempt to explain the science behind Prachett's incredibly funny world, Discworld.
    I was just pointing out that, in fact, it isn't.
  • This was the design for the back of the "official" alt.fan.pratchett [alt.fan.pratchett] newsgroup T-shirt. The front had the Librarian (an orang-outan) sitting in front of a computer (all the keys were labelled "ook", with a bunch of banan(an)as and a number of a.f.p. in-jokes. The back was Death sitting in front of a keyboard, saying "HOW DO YOU TURN OFF CAPS LOCK".
  • The first book i have read was "Small Gods", "Equal Rites" and "The Color of Magic". I've read them in that order and found all of them extraordinaly funny. Even though only the "Color of Magic" contains the two 'heros' TwoFlower and Rincewind, I found that Terry Pratchett don't need to rely on them to write funny books.

    IMHO, the Discoworld is too big being traveled by only a handful of standard characters. And then a last word about consitency:
    The early books are those where Prachett is unable to tell one story at once. Only on his later books he was able to grip on a main story and only deviated a bit to tell some side-stories along.
  • the Discworld series is excellent. unfortunately, due to Pratchett's nature of including at least five or six hilarious cameos by previous characters (and at least five or six oblique references to other characters without even the cameo) it's almost totally necessary to inhale them in the right order. =) If you want an excellent experience, start from "The Colour of Magic" and work forwards - for example, Death shows up so often later that to get the full giggle from all his throw-away lines, you really MUST have read "Mort" (3rd in the series).

    If you just can't stand the thought of reading them in order, or have trouble finding the early books (I know our local bookstores only have "Jingo", "Lords and Ladies", and a couple other of his newest - and forget finding them in the used bookstores), "Guards! Guards!" is probably a good one to randomly jump into.

    Oh, just go read them. :P
  • If you're interested, Steve Jackson Games ( http://www.sjgames.com ) sells a GURPS Discworld worldbook for their tabletop RPG.

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