Reviews

The Dialogues: Conversations about the Nature of the Universe by Clifford V. Johnson, Frank Wilczek

bplache's review

funny informative lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

3.5

astrogeekj's review against another edition

4.0

Very cool and novel approach to presenting this information. It can be a bit dense, even as a graphic novel. It has prompted me to read all of the books in the notes. Definitely worth a read.

naturalistnatalie's review against another edition

3.0

This is not a book you're going to sit down and read straight through. Overall, I thought the book started slow, but my interest picked up the more I read. Even though it's "just" a graphic novel, Johnson provides some pretty heavy discussions of physics. He doesn't shy away from equations when appropriate, either. Johnson actively takes advantage of the graphical format of the book to present information. It's not just a series of panels of people talking, although there is a fair bit of that. Instead, Johnson adds a graphical representation of the discussion to many of the panels. The images reflect the words and help the reader digest the information more easily. Johnson also ends each chapter with a series of notes on where to find more information on the topic if you're interested. He generally provides books written for the general public, but some of the chapters are discussing topics that haven't made it to pop science books yet. In that case, he provides information on more technical sources.

chaoticbibliophile's review

challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

ederwin's review

4.0

Scientists and philosophers have for years used the 'dialogue' form to present complicated ideas in an engaging way. Johnson, a scientist, here expands on that technique by constructing graphic versions of dialogs. This could be intensely boring, because who wants to watch people have a conversation? (Apart from the 2 or 3 fans of "My Dinner with Andre".) But it largely works here because the ideas being discusses are interesting, and the illustrations do go beyond simply showing people talking; also including images of the things being talked about.

Johnson is a competent artist. Not so good that he is likely to be hired on a mainstream comic, but good enough. He can draw people and buildings competently, and he is more than competent at arranging panels and dialog bubbles on the page. When he deviates from straightforward layouts, it never becomes confusing what order you should read the words and images in, and that is something even great comic artist can do badly.

No human beings would ever have conversations as well-structured as this, but that isn't the point. These fictional conversations exist to get ideas across to us readers, and they do that well.

Each chapter contains tons of notes to lead to more readings.

One quibble: he, or his characters, seem unfair in their dismissal of critics of string theory:

He: I've only ever read about people taking one side or another. It's the best thing ever, or it's a total waste of time.
She: Frankly, that's mostly driven by the press, and a few attention-seeking individuals. Most people have a more nuanced view... It just does not sell newspapers or books.

Some of the promoters and detractors are no doubt 'attention-seeking individuals', but the critics have a good point. Since we don't know whether string theory will turn out to be the right answer, and it hasn't yet made any testable predictions, it is unfair that scientists wanting to study other topics or approaches have found it very hard to get jobs or grants. This is changing now, but for so many years all of our eggs have been in one basket.