Angel At A Fence: A Love That Survived…But Proved To Be False

Book publishers and TV personality Oprah Winfrey have once again been duped by an author claiming that his story was real. Readers might remember Winfrey’s support for James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, which was supposed to be his memoir about his struggle with drug addiction. That story broke into a million little pieces when proven to be an exaggerated account of what happened in real life.

This time around, it is the book Angel at a Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived that is in the limelight. Written by Herman Rosenblat, the book was supposed to be an account of his experience at a concentration camp wherein he first met his future wife – the angel at the fence who threw him apples. According to his story, they met again on a blind date 12 years after the end of the war, this time in Coney Island. They are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year.

If the story were true, it would indeed be one of the greatest love stories of all time. Unfortunately, it is too good to be true. After a lot of media attention – thanks in part to Oprah’s taking them under her wing in her show – it has been revealed that the story is all made up. As such, Berkley Books is cancelling the book and taking back the advance that was given to Mr. Rosenblat. A movie based on the book is also in the works, to be produced by Harris Salomon. Apparently, a good story is a good story – the movie will be still be released but under the label of fiction instead.

Photo courtesy of The New York Times

The Magic of Computer Graphics in Movies

A lot of criticism has been made with the use of computer graphical enhancements in most movies that we see today, but people are still at awe on how such technology has magnificently complemented movies in the manner to which they have been seen today. Such has been the critics review for the expected movie release of the movie 300. The movie �300� dates back towards the time of Greece�s medieval times. With the setting based on the early rule of swords, arrows, spears and shields, such excitement has been in the works, especially for people who love a good historical adventure story.

While there have been feedbacks of too much graphical imagery for the movie, the response on the expected release of the movie is still at an all time high. The trailers have been wonderfully done and this is something that has caused excitement to most people, especially the followers from earlier flicks such as �Gladiator� and �Lord of the Rings�.

The Secret: Truth Or Marketing Ploy?

In today’s age, anyone would want to solicit the needed tips and strategies to be able to get their feet on the right track towards millions, success and wealth. There are varied ways to go about this and most would be unique from others, in the same way that a person is different from someone else.

However, there has been a recently released video called “The Secret” that can answer all these claims and dreams. Question is, would you believe in it? Or is just another type of marketing tactic to sell this video documentary film faster? If the real itinerary is the latter, without a doubt they are doing a good job since people are falling prey for these copies of the acclaimed documentary costing $4.95 for a Full Screen Online for broadband users.

Realistically, no matter what claims are made, it would all depend on the consumer if he is to believe in such. But if the ploy is indeed a new way of strategic marketing, this early it can be told, they are doing a good damn job!

The Greatest Science Books Of All Time: 6-10

6. Physica (Physics) by Aristotle (circa 330 B.C.)

By contrast, Aristotle placed Earth firmly at the center of the cosmos, and viewed the universe as a neat set of nested spheres. He also mistakenly concluded that things move differently on Earth and in the heavens. Nevertheless, Physica, Aristotle’s treatise on the nature of motion, change, and time, stands out because in it he presented a systematic way of studying the natural world?one that held sway for two millennia and led to modern scientific method.

“Aristotle opened the door to the empirical sciences, in contrast to Platonism’s love of pure reason. You cannot overestimate his influence on the West and the world.” ?bioethicist Arthur Caplan, University of Pennsylvania

7. De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius (1543)

In 1543, the same year that Copernicus’s De Revolutionibus appeared, anatomist Andreas Vesalius published the world’s first comprehensive illustrated anatomy textbook. For centuries, anatomists had dissected the human body according to instructions spelled out by ancient Greek texts. Vesalius dispensed with that dusty methodology and conducted his own dissections, reporting findings that departed from the ancients’ on numerous points of anatomy. The hundreds of illustrations, many rendered in meticulous detail by students of Titian’s studio, are ravishing.

8. Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein (1916)

Albert Einstein’s theories overturned long-held notions about bodies in motion. Time and space, he showed, are not absolutes. A moving yardstick shrinks in flight; a clock mounted on that yardstick runs slow. Relativity, written for those not acquainted with the underlying math, reveals Einstein as a skillful popularizer of his ideas.

To explain the special theory of relativity, Einstein invites us on board a train filled with rulers and clocks; for the more complex general theory, we career in a cosmic elevator through empty space. As Einstein warns in his preface, however, the book does demand “a fair amount of patience and force of will on the part of the reader.”

9. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)

In this enduring popularization of evolutionary biology, Dawkins argues that our genes do not exist to perpetuate us; instead, we are useful machines that serve to perpetuate them. This unexpected shift in perspective, a “gene’s-eye view of nature,” is an enjoyable ??brainteaser for the uninitiated.

So is a related notion: that altruistic behavior in animals does not evolve for “the good of the species” but is really selfishness in disguise. “Like successful Chicago gangsters,” Dawkins writes, “our genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive world.”

10. One Two Three . . . Infinity by George Gamow (1947)

Illustrating these tales with his own charming sketches, renowned Russian-born physicist Gamow covers the gamut of science from the Big Bang to the curvature of space and the amount of mysterious genetic material in our bodies (DNA had not yet been described). No one can read this book and conclude that science is dull. Who but a physicist would analyze the atomic constituents of genetic material and calculate how much all that material, if extracted from every cell in your body, would weigh? (The answer is less than two ounces.)

“Influenced my decision to become a physicist and is part of the reason I write books for the public today.” ?theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss, Case Western Reserve University

The Greatest Science Books Of All Time: 1-5

If you’ve always wanted to learn about science and our universe, or just read works by some of history’s greatest minds like Albert Einstein, Galileo or Isaac Newton perhaps, check out this list of The Greatest Science Books Of All Time compiled by Discover Magazine.
1. and 2. The Voyage of the Beagle (1845) and The Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin [tie]

One of the most delightful, witty, and beautifully written of all natural histories, The Voyage of the Beagle recounts the young Darwin’s 1831 to 1836 trip to South America, the Gal?pagos Islands, Australia, and back again to England, a journey that transformed his understanding of biology and fed the development of his ideas about evolution. Fossils spring to life on the page as Darwin describes his adventures, which include encounters with “savages” in Tierra del Fuego, an accidental meal of a rare bird in Patagonia (which was then named in Darwin’s honor), and wobbly attempts to ride Gal?pagos tortoises.

Yet Darwin’s masterwork is, undeniably, The Origin of Species, in which he introduced his theory of evolution by natural selection. Prior to its publication, the prevailing view was that each species had existed in its current form since the moment of divine creation and that humans were a privileged form of life, above and apart from nature. Darwin’s theory knocked us from that pedestal.

Wary of a religious backlash, he kept his ideas secret for almost two decades while bolstering them with additional observations and experiments. The result is an avalanche of detail?there seems to be no species he did not contemplate?thankfully delivered in accessible, conversational prose. A century and a half later, Darwin’s paean to evolution still begs to be heard:

“There is grandeur in this view of life,” he wrote, that “from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

3. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) by Isaac Newton (1687)

Dramatic is an unlikely word for a book that devotes half its pages to deconstructions of ellipses, parabolas, and tangents. Yet the cognitive power on display here can trigger chills.

“You don’t have to be a Newton junkie like me to really find it gripping. I mean how amazing is it that this guy was able to figure out that the same force that lets a bird poop on your head governs the motions of planets in the heavens? That is towering genius, no?” ?psychiatrist Richard A. Friedman, Cornell University

4. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei (1632)

Courtesy of the University of Chicago
Pope Urban VIII sanctioned Galileo to write a neutral treatise on Copernicus’s new, sun-centered view of the solar system. Galileo responded with this cheeky conversation between three characters: a supporter of Copernicus, an educated layman, and an old-fashioned follower of Aristotle. This last one?a dull thinker named Simplicio?represented the church position, and Galileo was soon standing before the Inquisition.

“It’s not only one of the most influential books in the history of the world but a wonderful read. Clear, entertaining, moving, and often hilarious, it showed early on how science writing needn’t be stuffy.” ?cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, Harvard University

5. De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres) by Nicolaus Copernicus (1543)

Copernicus waited until he was on his deathbed to publish this volume, then prefaced it with a ring-kissing letter to Pope Paul III explaining why the work wasn’t really heresy. No furor actually ensued until long after Copernicus’s death, when Galileo’s run-in with the church landed De Revolutionibus on the Inquisition’s index of forbidden books (see #4, above). Copernicus, by arguing that Earth and the other planets move around the sun (rather than everything revolving around Earth), sparked a revolution in which scientific thought first dared to depart from religious dogma. While no longer forbidden, De Revolutionibus is hardly user-friendly. The book’s title page gives fair warning: “Let no one untrained in geometry enter here.”