Book Review: Time Traveller by Dr. Ronald L. Mallett

Author: Dr. Ronald L. Mallett
Title: Time Traveller: A Scientist’s Personal Mission To Make Time Travel A Reality
Publication Info:  New York : Thunder’s Mouth Press, c2006.
ISBN: 9781560258698

Summary/Review:

Young Ronald Mallett was devastated when he was a ten-year old having to deal with his beloved father’s death.  Discovering the concept of time travel in science fiction and later in scientific works dealing with general relativity, Mallett commits himself to learning mathematics and physics so that he can invent a time machine and go back in time to prevent his father’s early demise.  This motivation carries Mallett through school, military service, teaching and research until at last his theories are being tested in research lab.  Sadly, there’s no time machine yet.  Mallett’s story is all the more interesting that as an African-American he had to face racial discrimination in his quest as well as being the only black man in the room at many gatherings of physicists. Mallett writes an engaging autobiography and is also good at explaining scientific concepts in layman’s language.

Related Works: Feynman’s Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life by Leonard Mlodinow

Rating: ***

Book Review: Reason For Hope by Jane Goodall

Author: Jane Goodall with Phillip Berman
Title: Reason For Hope: A Spiritual Journey
Publication Info: New York, NY : Warner Books, 1999.
ISBN:  0446522252

Previously Read By Same Author: Through a Window by Jane Goodall

Summary/Review:

Goodall’s autobiography focuses on her life and her faith journey and why she finds reasons for hope even in a world full of cruelty, violence, and environmental destruction.  The first part of the book tells her life story and is a good compliment to Dale Peterson’s biography as it is both more intimate and less detailed.  In the latter chapters Goodall comments on various issues such as animals in medical research, the environment, and remarkable people she’s met through her work.  These parts can get didactic and cliched but overall this is a good book by a remarkable woman.  Through a Window is better if you wish to learn more about Goodall and the chimpanzees of Gombe.

Recommended books: Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man by Dale Peterson and Quarks Chaos & Christianity: Questions to Science and Religion by John Polkinghorne.
Rating: ***1/2