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Bazza

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How Physics Makes Us Free

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2016/12/31/book-of-the-year-how-physics-makes-us-free/

 

 

Strictly speaking, my pick for best science book of the year is actually about philosophy of science. But in this case, a philosopher has found a solution to one of the great nagging problems inspired by modern science.

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Bookshop idea. Circular building on the outside like a tower with a spiral ramp going from the ground to the top with shelves embedded in the walls with a hand rail on the other side for safety. On the ground floor is tables & chairs with small cafe-coffee shop. Secret ingredient for coffee is truffles.

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The helical arrangement, IME, makes it harder to browse randomly, or non-randomly in well-defined separate sections. In the helix, you are sort of compelled to walk the length of the helix between sections, and look at titles in the order in which they were shelved (in a library, this tends to be their catalog system). By contrast, on a rectangular floor even with materials shelved by subject/catalog system order, you can take a more direct path (the hypotenuse of the triangle, sort of) between two different sections.

 

This is sort of the same reason random access memory is better done on a disk than on a tape drive. Rapid jumps between unrelated things are much slower in the constrained-to-linear system.

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