Monday, May 16, 2005

Thinking Like Einstein

Thomas G. West, Thinking Like Einstein: Returning to Our Visual Roots with the Emerging Revolution in Computer Information Visualization.

It had a cool, Joe Carteresque title, so I checked it out. I was going to read it carefully and write a long-winded review. But I threw it down in disgust.

The blurb?
West predicts that computer visualization technology will radically change the way we all work and think. For thousands of years, the technology of writing and reading has tended to promote the dominance of the left hemisphere of the brain, with its linear processing of words and numbers. Now the spread of graphical technologies permits a return to our visual roots with a new balance between the hemispheres and their respective ways of thinking--presenting new opportunities for problem solving and big-picture thinking.


Breezily academic, and perhaps even intriguing. Why shouldn't you take it seriously?

Because the book isn't illustrated. There's not one picture, graph, chart, or diagram in its 200-odd pages.

Come on.