Bernal Alpha

(Posted in 2003...reposed here because it continues to interest me...)

(A repost from 2003...)

Take a look at this entry to this blog.

The author discusses the famous non-fiction work The World, the Flesh and the Devil by J.D. Bernal. This book influenced authors from Olaf Stapledon to Arthur C. Clarke, and even showed up in the space colony work of Gerard K. O'Neil and others (most notably in the design known as the "Bernal Sphere").

You can also find traces of it in the works of Vernor Vinge, Peter Hamilton, Stephen Baxter, Larry Niven, Gregory Benford, Greg Bear and David Brin...to name a few!

The blog entry is also a reprint of a (updated) speech/essay by Freeman Dyson. You know, that Freeman Dyson. The man who helped to link the parts of QED that Richard Feynman and others were working on. The Dyson Sphere. The Orion "boom-boom" atomic-bomb powered spaceship.

Yep, that Freeman Dyson. I heartily recommend his essays and books!

Alas, the book itself appears to be out of print. My edition (which I bought in 1976 and which was the VERY FIRST book I ever ordered at a bookstore—as opposed to just picking up something in stock) was published by Indiana University Press. A check of their website returns no hits on "Bernal" or the title. A check on (US) Amazon.com indicates an out of print status as well.

This is a very slim book but it is jam-packed with ideas. Just look at the list of authors that I feel have some connection to the ideas in the book. Like many of (IMNSHO) Arthur C. Clarke's books, it may appear thin, but it packs more punch per word than the blatherings of the best-seller authors...

Addendum: The entire text, it appears, of The World, the Flesh, and the Devil is online...Plus, like Vernor Vinge's "Singularity" essay and Eric Drexler's "Engines of Creation", it'll be nice to have something esoteric on the Sony Clie to read while waiting for a job interview!

On July 10, 2003, Michael McNeil, the author of the essay that started this whole journey posted the following... Manifesto-commentary by Michael McNeil

Prof. Brad DeLong has called the essay Dyson's "manifesto-commentary" on Bernal's book. I like that.

A comment from the Illustrious Mr. Chung, made on November 8, 2003: There is another online version of Bernal's classic, with a couple of extra chapters.