Kim Stanley Robinson - Galileo's Dream

Kim Stanley Robinson, Galileo's Dream, Voyager, 2009.

This novel explores the life and scientific discoveries of Galileo Galilei, along with a far-future plot line that considers the importance and implications of Galileo's role in the history of science.

Galileo is a compelling character, with a stark contrast between his intellectual integrity and his emotional flaws of pride and stubbornness. We follow his scientific progress and the politics surrounding his career. He is committed to discovering and teaching the true nature of the universe, and is frustrated by the unwillingness of others to change their minds when superior evidence is presented. He is quoted as saying, "There is no hatred like that of ignorance for knowledge", a statement that is still true today. He keeps his faith in God throughout, and his problem with the religious authorities is their insistence on the literal truth of scripture. He believes that humans are capable of discovering the truth through the evidence of their senses and the power of thought, all of which are parts of God's universe.

The SF part of the story comes when Galileo is transported, at several points in his life, to a far-future era and embroiled in a political struggle on the moons of Jupiter, where humans are making first contact with an alien intelligence. His experiences there, and his gradual exposure to various alternate versions of his life and the impact he has on the progression of history after his era, are used to explain the choices he makes back in his own time.

The book cites in italics passages from Galileo's writings, and those of his contemporaries, and in some cases the citations seem to be explained in the context of the fictional future plot line. This is an interesting way of linking the historical novel to the SF content, but in some cases it felt rather forced.

This was the first of two books I read recently that used the idea of multiple universes, in very different ways. Here, Galileo sees many possible futures of his life, and wishes to alter one in which he is burned at the stake. It seems to me that a person understanding the multiple universe theory would realize that even if it were possible to prevent a certain outcome in one universe, this would not change others where it still happened, just add one new universe to the many that still exist.

As with many novels that contain two main plot lines, the reader is left wondering what is going on in the other plot line and waiting for the next section of the other plot. Each story line is read in light of what has been happening in the other.

The future part of the novel was interesting, but had a dreamlike remoteness. A society with such advanced abilities, such as time travel through alternate pasts, would be motivated by different ideals than ours. The characters are strongly drawn, but the reader gets the impression that they know much more than Galileo, or current readers, can possibly understand. This makes them hard to identify with, and Galileo is manipulated by them in a way that leaves him powerless and frustrated. The clear parallel between his struggle with the Inquisition and his involvement with future Jovian-system factions creates sympathy for Galileo's situation(s), even when his attitude and behaviour make him a flawed hero. All he can do is maintain his confidence in his discoveries and his world view, while others around him distort his words and intentions, kidnap and imprison him. The portrayal of such a strong-willed person becoming so helpless is touching.

The novel is beautifully written, with vivid descriptions of places, events, and characters alike, and an interesting plot and structure. The ideas raised are of interest in today's society, where the conflict between science and religion, or between rationality and dogmatism, seems as strong as ever.

Memories of the Gulf War 1991

This week marks 20 years to the start of Operation Desert Storm, part of the Gulf War. The Israeli media have not been marking this anniversary very much, and it was an article about a popular satirical television series at the time that reminded me and brought back memories.

It all started on August 2, 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Since this was my 21st birthday, when I first heard this news, I remarked: "I have been given a war for my birthday". As time passed and we witnessed the planned international response to this invasion, it became increasingly clear that Israel would be attacked. I remember saying to someone: "Of course Iraq will attack Israel, they have nothing to lose".

In January 1991 I was a student at Tel Aviv University, and we were planning an archaeology trip to Masada, which happened to be scheduled for a day or two after the start of Desert Storm. I remember saying to a friend: "See you on the trip, unless there is a war!". Of course, this trip never took place. The population had been given boxes containing gas masks and atropine injectors, and everyone had prepared "sealed rooms" that were supposed to keep out chemical weapons. As the allied attack started, Israelis were ordered to stay at home in preparation for attack.

In the middle of the night, we heard explosions and woke up. After a few minutes, the sirens started up. We put on our gas masks as instructed, turned on the radio and listened anxiously to hear what had been hit. During those first minutes I was imagining that clouds of nerve gas were spreading outside, and that life would never be the same. It turned out that Iraq was firing conventional long-range Scud missiles, but we could never be sure that the next attack would be conventional.

The missile attacks came every night for the next six weeks. After that first night, we went to stay with my parents, whose sealed room seemed more secure. We developed a routine of sleeping late in the morning, spending much of the day reading newspapers and watching the news on television, and then awaiting the attacks at night. Sometimes we were woken up several times in a night, particularly when it was cloudy in Western Iraq, allowing the missiles to be launched without being observed by allied planes. Each time we heard the sirens, we would rush to the sealed room, tape down the edges of the door, put on the gas masks and wait for the explosions, and later the all-clear siren. The radio stations had a silent frequency at night, which only broadcast the siren warning and then played news and music until the all-clear. I remember clearly that our dog Fluffy always knew just before the siren warning came on air, and started running to the sealed room whining, so often he woke us just before the radio did.

It was a strange war, because Israel was being attacked for no reason other than the Iraqi leadership's hatred, and the IDF was not involved in fighting, only in protecting the civilian home front. For once, Israel could feel, and present itself, as an innocent victim.

Six weeks is a long time to be in a stressful situation. It left its mark on my psyche (and that of everyone else, I assume). My routine was disrupted, with the university closed for the last week of the semester and the exam period. That semester we were given essays to write at home instead of taking exams, and my concentration was ruined. The feeling of being unsafe in my own home and the fear of sudden noises have continued to accompany me, in varying degrees, ever since.

Since then, I have lived with the threat of suicide attacks on public places and public transport during the Second Intifada (2000-2005) and survived the missile attacks on my city, Haifa, during the Second Lebanon War (2006). Experiencing war as a civilian is unfortunately part of the life of all Israelis. I can only hope that all parties in the region see reason and work together to reach a rational accommodation. Everyone deserves to live in peace, and I hope future generations will never have to share similar experiences.

Language as a Life Skill

I recently heard a discussion about teaching young children from underprivileged backgrounds life skills. The project took children of kindergarten age and over, and taught them martial arts, chess, and music. These subjects taught the children the life skills of self-discipline, logic, and creativity, and vastly improved their self-esteem.

This is admirable, but I would like to propose another additional and important subject to teach life skills to children: language. For a very long time, language has been undervalued as a subject and as a way of thinking. People who understand language and use it correctly have a clarity of thought that semi-literate people lack. Proper use of language gives a precision and accuracy to expression and thought, and opens up the entire written-word culture of that language to the user.

Since the 1960s, many countries have been neglecting the teaching of languages, influenced by an ideology whereby "children learn their own language naturally and don't need to be corrected or taught". I believe this policy has been shown to be a disaster. What is needed now is a movement to improve the teaching of languages. We need teachers who can understand and explain the grammar and syntax of a language, and make the rules and exceptions part of the children's way of thinking from an early age. Language teachers with a passion for language and its importance can change the way language is taught and perceived.

Children who learn grammar and syntax properly will, for example, differentiate between the subject and the object of a sentence, thus knowing (in English) when to use "and I" and when to use "and me". Properly-taught Israeli children will know when to use masculine and feminine numbers and adjectives to agree with the masculine and feminine nouns in Hebrew.

Of course, the level of language-use is a strong social identifier, so using language correctly would separate underprivileged children from their social group more clearly than their skills in martial arts, chess, or music, but that is the whole point. If they are to become the first people in their family to attend university and have a white-collar career, they need to be considered and consider themselves part of educated society, and they could also serve as role models to others in their communities.

I also strongly support learning a second language as early as possible. Being able to speak, think, and read in more than one language gives the brain an elasticity that mono-linguals probably lack. A second language provides the user with another culture to explore. I am always impressed by people from certain European countries, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg, many of whom become fluent in three languages by the end of high school. Imagine a world where everyone spoke several languages fluently!

I would like to call on language professionals and language lovers everywhere to consider how to promote the serious teaching of languages in all countries, in order to raise standards everywhere.

Lessons from 2010

I generally view my life as a continuous flow of experiences and personal development. Sometimes I control my circumstances, and at other times I react to events beyond my control.

The New Year is an opportunity, albeit rather arbitrary, to look back over my recent life.

Here are a few things I learned about myself, or that were reinforced for me, during 2010:

• I am capable of taking decisions and acting upon them.
• I can undertake a large project and see it to fruition (NaNoWriMo).
• I am realizing that I am increasingly known and appreciated within my professional community.
• I have a much clearer idea of what I want to do with my life, both creatively and in terms of my personal mission.
• I still react badly to extreme events beyond my control (the Carmel forest fire).

I have achieved many of the things I planned to do with my life in 2010. In the coming months, I intend to continue growing and developing in the same way. More writing, better use of my time, and focusing my professional efforts on the work I enjoy most and do best.

Happy 2011!

Multiverse experience

The theory of the multiverse speculates that every action or decision creates a split, where each possibility actually happens in a different universe. I often think about this when something dramatic happens. It is easy to think "Let this not have happened", and then imagine a world where it did not happen. I thought like this when I heard that the Columbia space shuttle had exploded on re-entry, when Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated, and, of course, on 9/11.

Recently I have been thinking about this because of a book I read (to be discussed in a future post), and today something happened that made me very aware of this way of thinking. My husband was on a train that caught fire. He was unharmed, though about a quarter of the passengers suffered smoke inhalation or were injured by broken glass or when they jumped off the train to escape. Nobody received any burns.

Along with my relief that Ivor survived a potentially serious accident, I started thinking about the universe where he died. The version of me in that universe must be thinking "Let this not have happened", and I can only hope she finds some solace in imagining my situation.

Ultimately, this way of thinking is not all that helpful. Despite the speculations of SF writers, I don't think there is any way these different universes can communicate with each other. All we can do is imagine all the alternative situations that might have happened in given circumstances. So many things could have happened differently, and there is no point in regretting that we are in our particular version of the multiverse.

The only advantage of imagining alternatives is to create some emotional distance between yourself and your situation. If you become aware that things could have happened differently (and perhaps did, somewhere), you realize this is just one version of your life, so you can be more detached about it.

Lessons from the Carmel Fire

The forest fire on Mount Carmel was put out on Sunday night, after three and a half days of intensive efforts. Here are some of the things I have learned from this tragedy:

First of all, it seems that Israel needs a serious public fire safety education program. The fire was probably started by someone's negligence, and the thought that a moment's carelessness can lead to such a vast disaster is very scary.

I was deeply disturbed by the seeming lack of coordination between the various emergency services, at least at first. Ideally, I would have expected there to be clear procedures defining the responsibilities of each body and the chain of command. I heard there were cases where the police were ordering an evacuation of certain streets, while the Mayor was saying he hadn't ordered this and people should stay at home.

Israel's fire services are the smallest and least equipped in the developed world, which is incredible considering that Israel is a hot and dry country that sees forest fires each summer, and that the value of land here is high. I have been speculating that perhaps part of the problem is that young Israelis wishing to help save lives and property are more likely to think they will do this during their military service. I don't think I have heard Israeli children wanting to be fire fighters when they grow up. Perhaps now the status of fire fighters will improve.

The lack of coordination and the sorry state of Israel's fire services do not bode well for the home front during the next war.

Of course, my main feeling after this ecological and human tragedy is deep sadness. But there are also some behaviours and attitudes that made me angry:

• People who stopped their cars or slowed down on the roads to see the fire and take photos, making it difficult for the emergency vehicles to get into and out of the crisis area, and creating traffic jams that slowed the evacuation.
• People who later tried to enter evacuated areas to get a good view of the fire fighting planes, giving the police extra work in trying to save their lives.
• People who were evacuated and returned to their homes before they were allowed to, presumably to try to save something they had left behind, risking their lives and endangering the emergency staff who had to evacuate them again.
• Those who quickly assumed that the fire was started either deliberately or negligently by Druze or Arabs. This racism is not helpful, and even if it turns out to have been negligence by two Druze youths who are being investigated, this should not lead to blaming their whole community.
• Arsonists who started other fires in other parts of the country, forcing the fire fighters to split their forces. The cruelty of such actions is staggering.
• The Israeli Minister of the Interior, Eli Yishay, who will not take ministerial responsibility and resign. In other developed countries, it is considered the decent thing for a minister to resign when something goes wrong. Here, Israeli politicians' first concern is to shift the blame onto someone else (often previous governments) and avoid or deny any responsibility. I would say "Shame on you!", but they are impervious to the whole concept of shame or decency.
• Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, who claimed that the fire was punishment for people not observing the Sabbath. Expressing such opinions is offensive, divisive, and shows an incredible degree of hutzpa.

Looking on the bright side, there are also many things I am grateful for:

• The immediate response of many other countries in sending Israel their fire fighters, planes, and equipment. It is gratifying to know that in cases of ecological disasters at least, the world does not hate Israel. It is also good to be on the receiving end of the sort of help Israel routinely sends, such as Israeli field hospitals and rescue teams sent overseas following earthquakes and other disasters.
• The fire fighters were able to prevent the loss of many houses (though not all), and even managed to save most of the animals in a wildlife sanctuary on the Carmel.
• The Israeli public demonstrated its caring side when many volunteers came out to help the emergency staff and the evacuees.
• And finally, this morning I was woken up at 4 a.m. by the sound of the first rain! Even though it would have been more useful earlier, it is still going to help prevent the fire from breaking out again in the burned areas, and I am always grateful for rain.

Fire in the Carmel

Yesterday (December 2, 2010) at about 11 a.m., a fire started in the Carmel forest. At the time, Ivor was in the nearby Haifa University, and could see the flames from the Eshkol tower. He came home at about 2 p.m., when they started evacuating the university.

It soon became apparent that this was a very serious fire, and the fire fighters could not control it. We were instructed to close the windows and remain indoors. Here is the view of the smoke from our balcony during the afternoon. Note how the sun was covered by the smoke. It got dark early.

We started listening to the local radio station, Radio Haifa. They were our main news source during the 2006 Lebanon war, and the experience seems similar. Their professional and responsible reporting was careful to avoid reporting unconfirmed rumours, and they encouraged people to stay out of danger.

Soon we heard about the tragedies of this fire. A bus carrying cadet prison officers coming to help evacuate the Damon prison was caught in the flames, killing 40 people. Haifa's chief of police was following this bus and tried to help the victims, sustaining serious burns, and she is now in hospital in a critical condition. A few other fire fighters and police officers are injured or missing. The fire consumed Kibbutz Beit Oren after its residents were evacuated.

During the evening and night, the fire approached Tirat Karmel, a town just south of Haifa, which has been partially evacuated, and the Denia neighbourhood of Haifa, where some of the residents were told to leave in the early hours. The idea that the city itself might burn was alarming.

In the morning, the fire had moved south-west, and there was less smoke. Here is another view from the balcony this morning:

Several countries have sent firefighting planes and helicopters, equipment, and fire fighters, including Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Russia, the UK, Spain, Egypt and Jordan.

It is worrying to realize how our fire services have been underfunded and underequipped, despite repeated warnings of the potential for disaster. This is particularly bad since Israel is a dry country and has forest fires every summer, and is also often attacked by rockets that can cause fires. The failure of the emergency services to deal with this disaster does not bode well for the next war.

This fire is also the result of the very hot and dry weather. We have not yet had any significant rain this autumn, and temperatures have been around 30 degrees C throughout October and November.

The loss of life and property is tragic. It is also very sad to think that the beautiful Carmel forest has been completely destroyed, and they say it could take up to 50 years for it to recover. Two million trees have been burned down, and most of the wild animals that live in the forest (including wild boars and jackals) are unlikely to have escaped.

My conclusions from this event: First, it is important for officials to act on warnings, such as the repeated requests for increased fire fighting capabilities, before the disaster happens. Second, this fire was probably the result of arson (or negligence), which would make it a serious crime.

I mourn for the great losses in life, property, and nature, and hope for the quick rebuilding of the damaged homes and the restoration of the forest.

This week was supposed to be a happy one for Haifa. The Carmel Tunnels opened, and this weekend I was planning to attend the Festival of Festivals, a co-existence event held every weekend during December to celebrate Christmas, Hannuka, and the closest Moslem festival (their lunar calendar means this changes each year). This has now been cancelled, but I hope to go next weekend.