CONVERSATION STARTER

IN OTHER WORDS, the time required to send a message 2000 miles and more across the Atlantic Ocean went from weeks in a sealed mailbag on a ship (with a not insignificant chance of sinking) to mere minutes as electrical impulses travelling at speeds measured in many miles per second. The result was a revolution in communication that wouldn’t be equalled until more than half a century later, with the development of broadcast radio. This revolution in the near-instantaneous connection of widely separated parts of the world has rightly been called the “Victorian Internet”.

NON-FICTION

How to Fall Slower Than Gravity, and Other Everyday (and Not So Everyday) Uses of Mathematics and Physical Reasoning by PAUL J. NAHIN Princeton University Press RRP $44.99