![]() It gave you an indecent advantage over the past and made you a clown vis-a-vis the future. ![]() Quotes: "It was a real example of the pitiful arbitrariness of existence, that you were born into a particular time and held prisoner there whether you wanted it or not. A most singular novel and a complete joy. ![]() Alexander von Humboldt swashbuckled his way across the globe: navigating ocean and jungle, eating with cannibals, swimming with electric eels, lowering himself into volcanoes and scaling the highest mountain known to man. Humboldt's travels down the Orinoco and in South America are astounding, as are the encounters with and references to such figures as Aguirre and Goethe and an entire academy of famous historical and scientific notables, as he makes his appearances, Zelig-like. Measuring the World recreates the parallel but contrasting lives of two geniuses of the German Enlightenment. At the end of the eighteenth century, two brilliant and eccentric young scientists set out to measure the world. The narrative of Humboldt's adventures, with its untold miseries and dangers, and of Gauss' seemingly effortless mathematical mastery, are told as if Candide were the storyteller, dry and factual, yet reciting the most ridiculous incidents with incredible wit. ![]() Shamefully, I had never heard of either man, nor of Humboldt's faithful and droll explorer companion, Bonpland. The depth, breadth, and humor of this factually-based adventure story, encompassing the lives of two brilliant scientists, Carl Gauss and Alexander von Humboldt, is incredible for such a short volume. ![]()
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