Chris Aldrich reviewed Pattern on the Stone by W. Daniel Hillis (Science Masters)
Review of 'Pattern on the Stone' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
I wish I had been made to read this as a senior in high school, or as a freshman in college. I highly recommend it to beginning electrical engineering and biomedical engineering students, as well as those interested in broad-based popular science.
It provides a great overview of the fields of electrical engineering and even some biomedical engineering, pulling together many of their interdivisional ideas while covering topics like Boolean algebra/logic, feedback control systems, biology, the brain, evolution, neural networks, computer science and programming, nature vs. nurture debate, cognitive psychology, imaging/image processing, signals & systems, technology, ethics, philosophy and even history.
It contains an inquisitive feel that is integral to a true understanding of engineering. It also has some broad based questions that students should be made to think about and maybe eventually solve. It wonderfully ties together a lot of theory in to a coherent text that will help …
I wish I had been made to read this as a senior in high school, or as a freshman in college. I highly recommend it to beginning electrical engineering and biomedical engineering students, as well as those interested in broad-based popular science.
It provides a great overview of the fields of electrical engineering and even some biomedical engineering, pulling together many of their interdivisional ideas while covering topics like Boolean algebra/logic, feedback control systems, biology, the brain, evolution, neural networks, computer science and programming, nature vs. nurture debate, cognitive psychology, imaging/image processing, signals & systems, technology, ethics, philosophy and even history.
It contains an inquisitive feel that is integral to a true understanding of engineering. It also has some broad based questions that students should be made to think about and maybe eventually solve. It wonderfully ties together a lot of theory in to a coherent text that will help create better engineers (and even thinkers). How do we create questions and then go about answering them. Lots of students suffer from not knowing how all the theory and knowledge interrelate. This book helps synthesize many things into a better whole and allows the reader to see the small pieces that integrate into the big picture.
