Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of a Best Seller; A literary agent told him a book about the universe could never become popular

September 6, 2013, 8:35 p.m. ET

Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of a Best Seller

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking describes the rocky origins of his popular science book

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, around 1988. A literary agent told him a book about the universe could never become popular.

STEPHEN HAWKING

I first had the idea of writing a popular book about the universe in 1982. My intention was partly to earn money to pay my daughter’s school fees. But the main reason was that I wanted to explain how far we had come in our understanding of the universe: how we might be near finding a complete theory that would describe the universe and everything in it. If I was going to spend the time and effort to write a book, I wanted it to have as many readers as possible. I contacted a literary agent and gave him a draft of the first chapter, explaining that I wanted it to be the sort of book that would sell in airport bookstores. He told me there was no chance of that. It might sell well to academics and students, but a book like that couldn’t break into best-seller territory. I gave the agent a first draft of the book in 1984. He sent it to several publishers, and I decided to take an offer from Bantam Books. Bantam’s interest was probably due to one of their editors, Peter Guzzardi, who took his job very seriously and made me rewrite the book so that it would be understandable to nonscientists. Each time I sent him a rewritten chapter, he sent back a long list of objections and questions. At times I thought the process would never end. But he was right: It is a much better book as a result. Read more of this post

Faces of Life

James Dyson: Britain’s next industrial revolution

September 6, 2013 7:20 pm

Britain stands on the cusp of a new industrial revolution

By James Dyson

British engineers could be building power stations across the globe, writes James Dyson

After a buoyant summer, the economy seems to be returning to health. Manufacturing is coming to the fore as a driver of the economic recovery. We need to nourish, not ignore, the power behind exports and the creator of long-term and sustained wealth: exportable technology. The data ought to be good for confidence (as well as headlines), but short-term numbers must not alter long-term thinking. That is what got us into this mess. National economic output is still a long way below the levels of 2008 and our export markets are more competitive than ever. Let’s stick to the plan. We must remain steadfast in our ambition to put the development of exportable technology back at the core of the economy, and once again kindle the ambition that made the Victorians world-beaters. Our total focus must be on developing the best products and technologies of our own – to sell to the world. Read more of this post

The Society for Useful Knowledge

September 6, 2013, 4:19 p.m. ET

Book Review: ‘The Society for Useful Knowledge’ by Jonathan Lyons

Benjamin Franklin did far more for science than simply fly a kite.

LAURA J. SNYDER

Benjamin Franklin once led a party of merry picnickers who, with electrified gilt goblets, toasted the international community of scientists studying electricity. The group then slaughtered a turkey with an electrical charge and roasted it with electrical fire. Franklin observed: “Birds killed in this Manner eat uncommonly tender.” Franklin was one of the foremost “electricians” of his day, winning the prestigious Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London for his theoretical and practical accomplishments in the field. Connections between Franklin’s scientific work and his role in early American politics have been explored in a number of biographies and scholarly studies. In “The Society for Useful Knowledge,” Jonathan Lyons takes a provocative turn: He claims that Franklin’s notion of “useful knowledge”—gleaned from the charter of the Royal Society—spread throughout the colonies and “made possible the Revolution and . . . America’s characteristic political and economic systems.” Read more of this post

Ice Melting Faster in Greenland and Antarctica in UN Leak

Ice Melting Faster in Greenland and Antarctica in UN Leak

Ice in Antarctica and Greenland is disappearing faster and may drive sea levels higher than predicted this century, according to leaked United Nations documents. Greenland’s ice added six times more to sea levels in the decade through 2011 than in the prior 10 years, according to a draft of the UN’s most comprehensive study on climate change. Antarctica had a fivefold increase, and the UN is raising its forecast for how much the two ice sheets will add to Earth’s oceans by 2100. Read more of this post

Montessori management: The backlash against running firms like progressive schools has begun

Montessori management: The backlash against running firms like progressive schools has begun

Sep 7th 2013 |From the print edition

“THE INTERNSHIP”, a film about two middle-aged no-hopers who land work experience at Google, is a dire offering even by the standards of Hollywood summer comedies. But it does get one thing right: that it is rather absurd for a technology firm to provide slides for staff to play on, and to let them wear silly propeller-hats. Google is not alone in its juvenile tastes. Box, a Silicon Valley company, has installed swings in its headquarters. Red Bull, an energy-drinks firm, has a reception desk in the shape of a giant skateboard in its London office. Businesses of all types have moved towards sitting workers in groups in open-plan rooms, just like at nursery school. Time was when firms modelled themselves on the armed forces, with officers (who thought about strategy) and chains of command. Now many model themselves on learning-through-play “Montessori” schools. Read more of this post

The Lewis Model Explains Every Culture In The World

The Lewis Model Explains Every Culture In The World

GUS LUBIN 7 MINUTES AGO 0

A world traveler who speaks ten languages, British linguist Richard Lewis decided he was qualified to plot the world’s cultures on a chart.  Many people think he nailed it, as his book “When Cultures Collide,” now in its third edition, has sold more than one million copies since it was first published in 1996 and was called “an authoritative roadmap to navigating the world’s economy,” by the Wall Street Journal. Lewis plots countries in relation to three categories:

Linear-actives — those who plan, schedule, organize, pursue action chains, do one thing at a time. Germans and Swiss are in this group.

Multi-actives — those lively, loquacious peoples who do many things at once, planning their priorities not according to a time schedule, but according to the relative thrill or importance that each appointment brings with it. Italians, Latin Americans and Arabs are members of this group.

Reactives — those cultures that prioritize courtesy and respect, listening quietly and calmly to their interlocutors and reacting carefully to the other side’s proposals. Chinese, Japanese and Finns are in this group.

He says that this categorization of national norms does not change significantly over time:

The behavior of people of different cultures is not something willy-nilly. There exist clear trends, sequences and traditions. Reactions of Americans, Europeans, and Asians alike can be forecasted, usually justified and in the majority of cases managed. Even in countries where political and economic change is currently rapid or sweeping (Russia, China, Hungary, Poland, Korea, Malaysia, etc.) deeply rooted attitudes and beliefs will resist a sudden transformation of values when pressured by reformists, governments or multinational conglomerates.

Here’s the chart that explains the world:

The Internet Is Having A Field Day With This Gigantic Billboard Of Angela Merkel’s Hands

The Internet Is Having A Field Day With This Gigantic Billboard Of Angela Merkel’s Hands

MICHAEL KELLEY SEP. 6, 2013, 7:24 AM 1,942 2

A giant mosaic showing the hands of German Chancellor Angela Merkel is seen on September 5, 2013.

Eyeing re-election, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader put up a new billboard next to Berlin’s main train station. It immediately became a meme. The giant mosaic shows Merkel’s hands composed of smaller photographs of hands. The orange banner on the left reads “Germany’s future is in good hands.” The tumblr Merkel-Raute or “Merkel Hash,” has been compiling them under the tag “The hands of the Merkel – Germany’s future is in good hands” in German.

Here are a few:

The Fatal Human Flaw That Keeps Us From An Economy Based On Happiness

The Fatal Human Flaw That Keeps Us From An Economy Based On Happiness

In theory, happiness is a better indicator of prosperity in a country than traditional economic measurements. But human psychology has a tendency to get in the way. Measuring and comparing the overall happiness of societies has become a pop discipline that we’ve covered more than a few times (see here and here). Bhutan, with its “gross national happiness” indicator, helped kicked off the trend. But what if a country like Costa Rica (number six on this list of the world’s happiest countries) suddenly got competitive and wanted to raise its overall happiness? You’d think it would make sense for the government to start implementing policies–whether in education, taxes, or crime–that maximize the total happiness in society. What portion of ‘happiness’ can be attributed to living in the smog of Los Angeles versus the pristine air of Honolulu? In fact, this is exactly what a growing number of “happiness” economists think about. Traditionally, economists assist policymakers in deciding how to make tough policy tradeoffs by trying to put a monetary value on people’s preferences: how much taxpayer money they should spend to, say, make the air a bit cleaner or the crime rate lower. Happiness economists are taking a slightly different approach. They ask a large number of people about their overall happiness, and by comparing the answers, tease out what portion of “happiness” can be attributed to living in the smog of Los Angeles versus the pristine air of Honolulu versus, say, getting a lower tax rate or a raise at work. The tactic can be used to help answer policy questions like: How much parkland should a city provide? Or, is it worth investing public resources in sports teams? Do the benefits of increased police patrols outweigh the costs? One of the first studies to use this kind of happiness analysis found that, for people living near an airport in Amsterdam, a 50% increase in noise reduces well-being by “as much as a 2.2% drop in income.” If you ask people about their long-term outlook on life on sunny days, you’ll get happier answers. A new paper by Georgetown University economist Arik Levinson points out some major problems with using “happiness” as a way to answer these questions. The two biggest are the flip side of the same coin, and have to do with underlying aspects of human psychology: Read more of this post

Stagecoach in America: How one British company helped persuade Americans to ride buses again

Stagecoach in America: How one British company helped persuade Americans to ride buses again

Sep 7th 2013 | PERTH |From the print edition

FEW people like long bus journeys. For many, they involve cramped seats, tiresome fellow passengers and hanging around empty stations in the early hours of the morning. Unsurprisingly, then, in America the number of bus services has been falling for many years. But this is starting to change. And a British company is helping to lead the way. Stagecoach Group is currently the largest bus operator in Britain. Based in Perth, a city in Scotland, its revenue was £2.8 billion ($4.4 billion) up to April this year. Each year 980m passengers are carried around on its British bus network. The company also owns 49% of Virgin Rail, one of the largest train operators, and runs the South West Trains service, a busy commuter franchise in south-west England. Read more of this post