Samson...not sold

I guess money is tight in the fossil collection venue.

"For sale: a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton"

The fossil, one of the most complete ever found, goes on the auction block at the Venetian casino as its curator frets: What if it doesn't sell? Worse, what if a tipsy gambler buys it?

by

Kate Linthicum

October 4th, 2009

latimes.com

The auctioneer gazed out at the audience, knowing this was the moment they'd waited for. Next up, he said, was lot No. 23 -- a "wonderful, exceptional, 66-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton known as Samson."

He gestured to the ferocious-looking skull sitting on a stand to his left. "There she is," he said. The people who had gathered in the elegant gallery at the Venetian hotel gasped.

Samson is one of the three most complete T. rex specimens ever discovered, possessing the most intact skull in existence.

But auctions are unpredictable, and dinosaurs are expensive. So an ugly prospect hung in the air Saturday: Might Samson not sell?

On Friday, Thomas Lindgren, the curator in charge, and auctioneer Patrick Meade had talked about just that between meetings with prospective buyers. People from across the world had expressed interest in Samson, but nobody was committed to bidding.

"If I'd have had this T. rex two years ago, we would have set world records," Lindgren said wistfully. But, he said, the recession had caused everyone -- museums, schools and even eccentric collectors with deep pockets -- to scale back.

To Lindgren, a dinosaur devotee who has spent 30 years of his life excavating, collecting and auctioning fossils, this was not just another sale. His professional reputation, he said, was on the line.

"This is the pinnacle of my career," he said. "I want it to be a home run. I want to be the guy that slid into home plate at the end of a grand slam at the end of the world series of paleontology."

He paused.

"I don't want to be the guy that struck out and lost the game."

Samson was discovered in Harding, S.D., in the late 1980s, when a rancher's son noticed some bones sticking up from the earth. A few years later, a pair of commercial fossil collectors cut a deal with the rancher, excavated the bones and sold them to an anonymous buyer. For more than a decade, Samson's bones remained in storage.

Then earlier this year, the owner contacted Los Angeles-based Bonhams & Butterfields about selling them.

When the auction house sent Lindgren, its co-director of natural history, to inspect the dinosaur, he got chills.

"I looked from bone to bone and realized what an amazing specimen this was," he said. "To actually be in the presence of the most magnificent species that ever walked the planet, it's almost like being in the presence of the holy grail of paleontology."

His affection for the dinosaur has grown over the last several months, Lindgren said. He spent nearly every day with Samson, preparing her for auction and then presiding over an exhibition at the Venetian, where she and other fossils to be auctioned off were on display.

During that time, Lindgren taught visitors about Samson's physiology and speculated about her life -- which he said was likely a violent one. Her skull has scars that were probably caused by another T. rex, he said, and the broken bones in her tail are evidence that she mated.

At the Venetian, Lindgren and Samson were a hit.

"People would ask me to autograph their exhibition guides," he said. "And little kids would come up and say, 'Thank you for bringing Samson to Las Vegas.' "

As their time together was coming to an end, Lindgren said, he had mixed feelings. While he would miss her, he hoped Samson would sell -- but to the right buyer.

"I'm just hoping we don't have someone holding a beer who just came off the slot machine thinking: 'Oh, I just hit the jackpot. Maybe I'll buy a dinosaur!' " Lindgren said. "Those are the nightmares I have."

He wanted Samson to end up at a public institution, like a museum, so that he and others could continue to enjoy her.

"I'm hoping it's not going to be a goodbye," Lindgren said.

On Saturday, he stood near the auction podium -- amped with adrenaline.

The room was packed with Las Vegas luminaries, like the casino's owner, Sheldon Adelson, as well as some of the biggest names in paleontology. Among them was Peter Larson, who helped excavate Sue, the T. rex fossil now in the collection of Chicago's Field Museum.

The anticipation grew as Meade led the bidding on, among other pieces, a 28-foot-long duck-billed dinosaur skeleton and a 7-foot fossil shark from the Permian period.

But excitement peaked when Meade introduced Samson.

He opened the bidding at $2.5 million. Someone immediately raised a paddle. Then an international collector's proxy jumped in.

The price climbed: $2.6 million, $2.7 million, $2.8 million . . .

When the bidding reached $3.6 million, Meade asked: "Anybody advance?" The audience was tense and silent. "Last chance," he said.

Then the gavel came down.

Samson hadn't sold.

The auction house passed on the $3.6-million offer, which failed to meet the set reserve price. (Bonhams & Butterfields would not disclose the minimum asking price.)

Bill Barker, a collector known as "Doc Fossil," said he felt bad for Lindgren. "It's certainly a hurt for him," Barker said. "I'm sorry Samson didn't go."

Lindgren too was disappointed. But that feeling eased when, a few minutes after the auction ended, he reported getting a call from "a major museum" asking about Samson's fate. When Lindgren explained that Samson hadn't sold, the museum said it might make a bid.


Samson is up for auction--3rd complete T-Rex

Electric vehicles...I think not

The article suggests that electric vehicles are the wave of the future. Granted, better batteries will be developed but it will not have that great of an impact with the general public. Just consider the number of people that do not have access to an electrical outlet like apartment dwellers. Extension cords everywhere. People will steal them for the copper; people could trip over them; kids could be injured by them; people could plug into another's outlet. Not a good idea. Perhaps it could be beneficial for government vehicles, public transportation, cargo trucks.

"A123 Systems goes public with a splash"

by

Dirk Lammers

September 24th, 2009

Associated Press via Argonne Labs

Investors snapped up shares of A123 Systems in their debut Thursday, showing willingness to overlook millions of dollars in losses and make a bet that next-generation battery technology will propel the cars and trucks of the future.

Watertown, Mass.-based A123 Systems makes lithium-ion batteries, the technology chosen to power General Motor's highly anticipated electric car, the Chevy Volt. A123 lost out on the contract for the Volt but was picked to build batteries for Chrysler's next generation of electric cars.

Founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists, A123 lost more than $40 million in the first half of this year and seemed to challenge the market's fear of risk. But with the government pressuring automakers to build more fuel-efficient automobiles, investors obviously feel there is money to be made as companies compete to be the suppliers of the next power source for sedans, crossovers and pickups.

A123 Systems Inc. said its lithium-ion battery will provide more power, last longer and operate more safely than other batteries.

The company has been contracted by Chrysler and in August received a $249 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, yet critics note the company has never made money and say the clamor for A123 shares is misguided.

Still, it was among the most lucrative first-day IPO's this year on a percentage basis, trailing only software company Opentable Inc. A123's shares gained $6.79, or 50.3 percent, to close at $20.29.

A123's technology is similar to that used in laptops and cell phones. Lithium-ion batteries have been subject to mass recalls by computer companies because of overheating and face an even greater challenge in cars because of the energy required.

"So you end up packing a reactive metal, which is lithium, in a flammable substance very, very close together," said Don Hillebrand, director of the Transportation Research Center at Argonne National Laboratory. "You can do this, and you can do it safely, but it requires a more expensive manufacturing process."

And cost is an obstacle that may be just as daunting. A single battery can cost $40,000, but the payoff could be huge if engineers can tackle the cost.

The global lithium-ion battery market is expected to jump from $31.9 million this year to $21.8 billion by 2015 and to $74.1 billion by 2020, according to business consulting firm A.T. Kearney.

A123 raised $380 million Thursday, selling 28.2 million shares of common stock at $13.50 each.

In addition to the Energy Department grant, A123 has secured $350 million in private capital from investors including General Electric Co. It also landed $100 million in refundable tax credits from the state of Michigan to build a plant.

David Vieau, A123 Systems' president and chief executive, said the company's batteries use MIT technology that achieves a balance between power, life span and safety. The batteries can be shaped and linked to fit into different types and models of vehicles, he said.

"Height and clearance, for example, on a Jeep, is quite a different problem then if you're in a two-seat sports car or if you have a minivan," Vieau said.

The nickel-metal hydride batteries used now in cars like the Toyota Prius must still be paired with a combustion engine. Hydride batteries can give you short bursts of power. Lithium-ion can store more energy, but it's still more delicate and heat is more of a problem.

Hillebrand said nickel-metal hydride is a power battery, not an energy battery, which is why it's good for short-range hybrids.

A123 Systems shares are trading on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol "AONE."

Rubik's Cube is back for a mere $150

"Bust Out the Parachute Pants — Rubik Is Back"

by

Warren Buckleitner

September 29th, 2009

New York Times

While the amount of technology packed into Rubik’s TouchCube is impressive, the big question remains: Would you want to spend more than a few minutes with it before tossing the $150 puzzle through a window?

In stores Oct. 18 from Techno Source USA, this is the second electronic edition of the famous puzzle from Techno Source, following last year’s Rubik’s Revolution. Rather than physically twisting the interlocked mechanical cubes patented by Erno Rubik in 1977, you swipe your finger against one of the cube’s capacitive sides to “flip” the colors. There are no moving parts; instead, the multicolor LEDs change color with a flipping sound emitted from an internal speaker, while an accelerometer keeps track of which side is up.

The onboard computer provides hints, or it can solve itself. When it is not being used, the cube sits in a charging cradle and lights up, making an ideal geek’s night light.

In case you are still working with the original:

DIRECTIONS FOR SOLVING THE 5x5x5 (Professor) CUBE

How To Solve A Rubik's Cube

Ethylene and Tin...serendipity

Remember the tired tomato vines at this time of year. Some tomatoes were the size of golf balls and less and some were near ripening...the size of baseballs. And what was done? The vines were ground up and destined for the compost heap while the salvageable tomatoes were placed in a paper bag and set in an area of plentiful sunshine. And what happened? The remaining tomatoes began to ripen to a brilliant red. Why? The release of ethylene which enhance the ripening of a number of fruits and vegetables--even apples. Now a team of chemists have accidentally discovered an interesting combination of ethylene and tin exhibiting catalytic features--all by accident.

"Novel Chemistry for Ethylene and Tin"

September 29th, 2009

UC Davis News and Information

New work by chemists at UC Davis shows that ethylene, a gas that is important both as a hormone that controls fruit ripening and as a raw material in industrial chemistry, can bind reversibly to tin atoms. The research, published Sept. 25 in the journal Science, could have implications for understanding catalytic processes.

Ethylene has long been known to react with transition metals such as iron or copper, but was not thought to react reversibly with metals such as tin or aluminum, said Philip Power, professor of chemistry at UC Davis and senior author on the paper.

"Reversibility is important, because it shows that it could be involved in catalytic processes," Power said.

Catalysts are materials that allow chemical reactions to proceed more efficiently, often by forming a temporary intermediate structure. Catalytic processes are important both in living cells and in industrial chemistry.

Graduate student Yang Peng passed ethylene, at room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure, through a compound made up of two tin atoms bonded to each other and also to rings of carbon atoms. The green tin compound turned yellow in the presence of ethylene, and a new compound could be crystallized out.

Slight heating of the mixture reversed the reaction and released ethylene again.

Power said the result was unexpected, but noted, "you investigate the reactions, and sometimes you find something interesting."

"It's serendipity, but you have to be looking and willing to follow it up," he said.

Power did not foresee an immediate application for the discovery, but said that it would contribute in general to understanding ethylene catalysis. Some plants release ethylene to control fruit ripening, although no known biological molecules include a tin atom. There could be implications for industrial catalysis if similar behavior could be shown for a cheap metal like aluminum, he said.

Also contributing to the work were postdoctoral scientists Xinping Wang and Bobby Ellis, and X-ray crystallographer James Fettinger. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation.


Serendipity again...

And things keep "piling" up

Give this some thought before advocating more fission reactors.

"Homeless nuclear waste"

Some 60,000 metric tons of radioactive waste is stored at nuclear power plants across the country, awaiting federal action that’s already a decade late.

by

Colin Woodard

September 15th, 2009

Christian Science Monitor

WISCASSET, Maine

Standing on the end of Bailey Point, looking out on a cold, blue inlet of the Atlantic, you’d never know a nuclear power plant once stood here.

The massive concrete containment dome, the spent fuel storage pool, and the six-story-high turbine hall were all torn down earlier this decade, leaving a rain-soaked meadow of grass. The engineers and technicians who tended the 900-megawatt reactor packed up and left town a decade ago, when the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Station stopped producing power.

All that’s left is radioactive waste: the remains of the plant’s reactor vessel lining and the 1,435 spent fuel assemblies that passed through it over a quarter century of operations.

It has nowhere else to go. The owners of the defunct plant have put the waste in sealed canisters and placed them inside 64 two-story concrete silos that stand in regimented formation behind a 12-foot earthen berm and twin rows of razor-wire-topped fencing. Guards, insurance, maintenance, and other costs add up to $8 million a year, which is currently borne by utility customers. If it weren’t for the need to watch over the waste, the company would have been dissolved with the rest of the plant in 2005.

Wiscasset, a community of fewer than 4, 000 sometimes called the prettiest little village in Maine, is one of eight US towns that have found themselves stuck with high-level waste after the power plants that produced it disappeared. Other communities will join them in the coming decade as more plants reach the end of their life spans.

Maine Yankee’s owners worry that spent fuel and other wastes may sit where they are for decades, given the Obama administration’s decision to abandon work on a controversial federal repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

“We’re kind of in limbo now,” says Maine Yankee spokesman Eric Howes, standing next to a concrete barrier at the approach to the interim storage yard. “The law says the federal government was supposed to take this stuff away 11 years ago. There are places they could take it, so we want them to please enforce the law.”

Fifty years after the first civilian nuclear power plant came on line, the United States has yet to decide what to do with the spent fuel they produce, raising questions about proposals to build more plants to meet future energy needs and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. “If you don’t have a credible endpoint for spent fuel that deals with the long-term safety and security issues, you really have to wonder if nuclear power is a reasonable choice,” says physicist Edwin Lyman, a senior staff scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in Washington.

By law, the federal government was supposed to have built a permanent repository and begun taking custody of the spent fuel piling up at the nation’s 104 nuclear plants in 1998. Complications – both political and technical – delayed work at Yucca Mountain, where the government has spent more than $13 billion. The delays caused spent fuel to begin piling up, filling storage pools at power plants across the country and forcing some of them to build special facilities to warehouse the waste.

Today there are 60,000 metric tons of spent fuel awaiting permanent disposal, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry association, and the nation’s power plants produce 2,000 tons more each year. Even if work on Yucca Mountain had continued, it wouldn’t have solved the problem: By the early 2020s, when it would have been completed, the nation’s nuclear waste would have already exceeded the repository’s 70,000-ton capacity.

The owners of decommissioned plants want the federal government to build its own interim storage site and to take their spent fuel away first, allowing them to close their facilities, sell property, and dissolve their companies.

“Here in New England there are three high-level nuclear storage sites, each of which has to be protected by three separate companies with redundant facilities,” says Bob Capstick, the Boston-based spokesman for two decommissioned plants, Yankee Rowe in Rowe, Mass., and Connecticut Yankee in Haddam, Conn. “It makes a lot more sense for the feds to bring it to a central storage location.”

Either way, the federal taxpayer will probably be stuck with the bill because the government was under a legal obligation to begin taking possession of spent fuel in 1998. In 2006, a federal judge awarded the three New England plants $142 million in damages, but the Department of Energy (DOE) has appealed the way the damages were calculated.

“It’s bad enough to have spent fuel stored on the site of an operating plant, but at least then you already have a security force and the technical skills to deal with radiation risks,” says Jerry Stouck, the attorney who represented the New England plants. “If you have to keep the same expertise on the site and all you’re doing is baby-sitting the fuel, it’s just a waste of money.”

Others say a centralized interim storage site makes sense from a security point of view. “If you have a hundred and some odd sites in 30 or more states where a terrorist attack could take place, you would think it might be better to house it all in one, centralized, highly secure location,” notes Patrick Dostie, Maine’s state nuclear safety inspector.
Centralized interim storage has its critics, though. Dr. Lyman of UCS says the concept is a bad one, as it requires spent fuel to be transported twice before it reaches its final resting spot.

“The less you move the fuel around, the better,” he says, pointing out that it is probably most vulnerable to accident or attack when it’s moving overland on trucks or rail cars, sometimes through densely populated areas. “The standards for transportation are pretty lax, and the risks of moving fuel twice outweigh the benefits.”

Asked about the prospects for a central interim storage facility, DOE spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller says the government is not currently “focused on specific sites” but rather on developing “thoughtful, long-term solutions to nuclear waste storage that do not involve Yucca Mountain.” Energy Secretary Steven Chu plans to delegate that task to a special blue ribbon commission whose membership has yet to be determined.

The Nuclear Energy Institute isn’t opposed to a centralized interim site, just as long as the federal government doesn’t run it, according to Steven Kraft, the industry group’s senior director for used fuel management.

“DOE could rent space in a private facility, but we do not think it would make sense for it to be a government facility,” he says, adding that government management would be more expensive and cumbersome. “Look at how well the government has done with Yucca Mountain,” he says with irony.

Mr. Kraft also says the uncertainty over spent-fuel disposal would have “no effect at all” on efforts to expand nuclear power generation. “Whether or not you build new nuclear plants in this country will be determined by traditional business factors,” he says. “We have to have a plan to deal with spent fuel, but we do not see it as an impediment.”

Back in Wiscasset, Don Hudson isn’t so sure.

“The constipation of the nuclear fuel cycle – our inability to develop a plan to deal with the waste – effectively puts a hold on any kind of significant redevelopment of nuclear power in this country,” says Mr. Hudson, who’s president of the Chewonki Foundation, an environmental education group that owns former Maine Yankee land adjacent to the interim storage site, and also serves on the facility’s community advisory committee.

“I’m very comfortable with the way the [Wiscasset] site is being managed right now,” he says, “but I don’t think it is a sustainable plan to have 60 or 70 of these installations spread across the country for any number of economic, ecological, and radiological reasons. I think it’s just crazy for us to be talking about developing an increased capacity to make waste when we don’t have a plan to deal with it.”


Nix on nuclear power

Hark...the Ark?

"In some ways, the story of the Ark is similar to other Judeo-Christian religious relics such as the Shroud of Turin and Noah’s Ark, Halpern said. "You have to remember why this scripture was written in the first place, and see the Ark’s symbolic power to people as a sacred object. If you try to over-explain it, you lose the power of the story.""

This is the heart of religious artifacts and the grist of popular entertainment and press.

"Probing Question: Is the Ark of the Covenant real?"

by

Solmaz Barazesh

September 24th, 2009

physorg.com

When you hear the words "Ark of the Covenant" what comes to mind? For some, Steven Spielberg’s film "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" provides the most vivid pop-culture reference to this mysterious sacred object.

The quest to find the real Ark has inspired generations of adventurers and Hollywood directors, but the trail has always gone cold.
Is the Ark of the Covenant real?

"Different people will give you different answers to that question," said Baruch Halpern, Penn State professor of ancient history, classics and ancient Mediterranean studies, and religious studies. "The Ark is a regular feature in the Old Testament, making several appearances in the first five books of the Bible. There are many consistent references to the Ark, and when you add it all up, it seems like the Ark was a real article."

According to scriptural accounts, Halpern said, the Ark is a box made from acacia wood, covered in gold and used as a container for the stone blocks bearing the Ten Commandments. Said to have been built at God’s command, the Ark is believed to measure about 4 feet by 2 feet by 2.5 feet and features gold rings on the two long sides that hold the wooden poles used to carry it.

The top surface of the Ark is decorated with two cherubim, or angels, who crouch facing each other with wings outstretched, forming a seat. Believers say God himself occupies that seat, while the Ark served as a footstool, Halpern said.

There are references in other ancient texts of similar "containers" used to transport sacred relics, and the image of God sitting on the wings of cherubim with his feet resting on the Ark below fits with depictions of ancient kings, he said.

"It’s also important to note that it wasn’t just the Ark being carried into battle. YHWH, the name accorded the god of Israel in much of the Bible and later literature, accompanies the Ark into battle, giving it miraculous power," Halpern said.

There are many references to the awesome power of the Ark, he said. Various Bible stories describe how, during the exodus of the Israelites, the power of the Ark parted the river Jordan to allowing the people to pass. During the siege of Jericho, the Ark was toted around the city walls in a seven day procession accompanied by seven priests sounding seven trumpets - and made the city walls come tumbling down. The ferocity of the Ark was so great that it had to be covered by a veil while being carried around, and could bring misfortune and tragedy on those who disrespected it.

Despite the powers it was said to possess, the Ark was eventually lost to the sands of time. The last Biblical mention of the Ark comes when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and plundered the temple where the Ark was stored, Halpern said. After this point, the fate of the Ark is the subject of much speculation.

One theory is that the Ark was captured by an Egyptian pharaoh, a tale that gave rise to the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie plot. Another possibility is that the Ark was hidden by priests under the Temple Mount for safekeeping, or spirited away to an unknown site before the Babylonians even arrived in Jerusalem. Other suggestions are that the Ark was removed by divine intervention, taken by an Ethiopian prince, or destroyed in battle.

"They’re all fantasy, and we’ll never really know which one is true," Halpern said. "Some theories seem more plausible than others. Was the Ark hidden from the Babylonians? Unlikely. Did the Babylonians take it? That theory is more probable."

Like Indiana Jones, some real-life scholar-adventurers are on the trail of the Ark, with one researcher claiming to have found the remnants of the Ark stored in a library in Zimbabwe. Could this be true?

In some ways, the story of the Ark is similar to other Judeo-Christian religious relics such as the Shroud of Turin and Noah’s Ark, Halpern said. "You have to remember why this scripture was written in the first place, and see the Ark’s symbolic power to people as a sacred object. If you try to over-explain it, you lose the power of the story."


Simple science and priestly control

Comic book and logical certainty

Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth

by

Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou

ISBN-10: 0747597200
ISBN-13: 978-0747597209

"Algorithm and Blues"

by

Jim Holt

September 27th, 2009

New York Times

Well, this is unexpected — a comic book about the quest for logical certainty in mathematics. The story spans the decades from the late 19th century to World War II, a period when the nature of mathematical truth was being furiously debated. The stellar cast, headed up by Bertrand Russell, includes the greatest philosophers, logicians and mathematicians of the era, along with sundry wives and mistresses, plus a couple of homicidal maniacs, an apocryphal barber and Adolf Hitler.

Improbable material for comic-book treatment? Not really. The principals in this intellectual drama are superheroes of a sort. They go up against a powerful nemesis, who might be called Dark Antinomy. Each is haunted by an inner demon, the Specter of Madness. Their quest has a tragic arc, not unlike that of Superman or Donald Duck.

So, at least, the creators of “Logicomix” would have us believe. First published last year in Greece (where it became a surprise best seller), the comic book — er, graphic novel? — is the brainchild of Apostolos Doxiadis, previously the author of a not-bad mathematical fiction called “Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture.” For expert assistance on logic, Doxiadis called on his friend Christos Papadimitriou, a professor of computer science at Berkeley and the author of a novel about Alan Turing. The art was done by Alecos Papadatos (drawings) and Annie Di Donna (color).

All four collaborators pop up in interludes throughout the book. (Doxiadis, evidently a handsome fellow, is drawn to look rather like Robert Goulet.) We see them chatting in the artists’ studio or strolling around contemporary Athens, accompanied by an adorable dog called Manga (Greek slang for “cool dude,” not a reference to Japanese comics). They argue about the developing ­logic-and-­madness theme and fret over whether there’s too much or too little technical stuff for the average reader. It’s almost as if they want to pre-empt the stern judgment of the reviewer. Fat chance.

The story proper opens on Sept. 4, 1939, three days after the Nazi invasion of Poland. Bertrand Russell is giving a public lecture at an American university on the role of logic in human affairs. Angry isolationists in the audience challenge Russell to explain how logic could justify participating in a world war. Ah, he responds, but what is logic?

In a series of flashbacks, Russell recounts his epic struggle with that question. We see him first as a little boy, in the 1870s, being brought up by his grandparents after the mysterious — to him, at least — disappearance of his mother and father. (Before succumbing to disease, Russell’s parents lived in a scandalous ménage-a-trois with a rather sinister amateur scientist.) Russell’s grandfather, Lord John Russell, a Whig aristocrat and reformer, had twice been prime minister, but it was his dour and pious grandmother who dominated his childhood. Not only did he suffer from crushing loneliness, but it was borne in upon him that his Uncle Willy had to be shut away as a violent lunatic. (His Aunt Agatha was none too sane either.) This was the beginning of his lifelong terror of hereditary madness, and the impetus for many a nightmare, which the cartoonists depict with lurid relish.

The adolescent Russell sought refuge in the abstractions of mathematics. (In his autobiography, he claimed it was his love of mathematics that saved him from suicide.) His vision of an enchanted logical world was jarred, however, when he reached Cambridge and found that mathematics as practiced there was little more than a bag of calculating tricks, sloppily based on physical intuition rather than rigorous proof. If certain knowledge was to be achieved, he grew convinced, the house of mathematics had to be rebuilt from scratch on firm logical foundations.

Russell’s quest for certainty coincided with a busy erotic career. We see him courting Alys, the pretty American Quaker girl who would become the first of his four wives. (The cartoonists inexplicably neglect to depict what Russell later described as “the happiest morning of my life,” when Alys allowed him to kiss her breasts). The young couple set off on a tour of the Continent, where Russell seeks out Gottlob Frege, the greatest logician since Aristotle, and Georg Cantor, the creator of the mathematical theory of infinity. Both men, to Russell’s consternation, prove to be slightly daft. In Paris, at the 1900 International Congress of Mathematicians, he witnesses a titanic clash between Henri Poincaré and David Hilbert, the two greatest mathematicians of the day, over the importance of intuition versus proof. Returning to England, Russell spends the next decade laboring with Alfred North Whitehead to complete the epic “Principia Mathematica” — all the while doing his best to seduce Whitehead’s comely wife, Evelyn. Their (stillborn) masterpiece runs many thousands of pages, a mere 362 of which are required to prove the interesting proposition “1 + 1 = 2.”

All of this is presented with real graphic verve. (Even though I’m a text guy, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the witty drawings.) To ginger up the story, the authors often deviate from the actual facts. As they admit in an afterword, Russell never met Frege or Cantor in the flesh. Nor, I am fairly certain, did he ever say to Whitehead, “I’m tired, man.” (You expect Whitehead to reply, “Me too, bro!”) We are assured, however, that no liberties have been taken with “the great adventure of ideas.” And for the most part the ideas are conveyed accurately, and with delightful simplicity. If you don’t know much about infinity, for instance, you are invited to check in to “Hilbert’s Hotel” — which, with its infinite number of rooms, can miraculously accommodate additional guests even when it’s completely full.

There is one serious misstep, though. It has to do with the notorious paradox that Russell discovered in the spring of 1901: the paradox of the set of all sets that don’t contain themselves as members. (Think of the barber of Seville, who shaves all men, and only those men, who do not shave themselves. Does this barber shave himself or not? Either possibility yields a contradiction.) The authors have fun unpacking Russell’s paradox, but they exaggerate its fallout. The paradox did ultimately doom Russell’s (and Frege’s) project of reducing mathematics to pure logic. However — and this is something that Russell himself failed to realize, along with the authors — it left mathematics pretty much undisturbed. When Cantor heard of Russell’s paradox, he did not react like a madman, the way ­“Logicomix” caricatures him. He calmly observed that it did not apply to his own theory of sets, which evolved into the present-day foundation of mathematics.

It is true that Cantor did suffer fits of madness (the magus of infinity died in a mental asylum), as did many other figures in this story. Frege, the consummate logician, ended up a foaming anti-Semite. Kurt Gödel, who proved that no logical system could capture all of mathematics, starved himself to death out of a paranoid fear that people were poisoning his food. Russell maintained his own grip on sanity, but his fear of hereditary madness was borne out when his elder son became schizophrenic and his granddaughter, also schizophrenic, committed suicide by setting herself afire. Russell’s philosophical confidence, however, was shattered by his onetime pupil Ludwig Wittgenstein, who made him realize that he had never really understood what logic was.

Is it madness to be driven by a passion for something as inhuman as abstract certainty? This is a question the four creators of “Logicomix” ponder as, in a beguiling coda, they make their way through nighttime Athens to an open-air performance of the “Oresteia.” Oddly enough, Aeschylus’ trilogy furnishes the concluding wisdom, which, at the risk of triteness, I’ll condense into a mathematical inequality:

Life > logic.

Jim Holt is the author of “Stop Me if You’ve Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes.” He is at work on a book about the puzzle of existence.