Book review: A Million Little Bricks

For your last minute Christmas gift needs for that LEGO fan in your life, I've got several LEGO-themed books to review. I'm going to copy these reviews across most of my blogs, though I'll put a little blog-specific information at the end of each posting.

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A Million Little Bricks: The Unofficial Illustrated History of the LEGO Phenomenon by Sarah Herman, 2012, Skyhorse Publishing.



This is an interesting book, but it probably would have been better subtitled 'the barely unofficial history of the LEGO company'. Most of the book is devoted to a history of the company. We get, of course, a fairly standard description starting from Ole Kirk's wooden duck, to the invention of the interlocking brick, the building of Legoland, the minifigure, financial difficulties in the early 2000's, and the company today looking to the future. This is a great introduction to the company and well written, but if you've been around the LEGO hobby for some time this felt like a fairly well-worn path. I did learn a few new things - like there was a second Legoland park after Billund that opened in Sierksdorf, Germany, but closed after three years. Because of this failure, it was 20 more years before they opened additional parks. A big portion of the book is devoted to a history of the different themes. About three or four paragraphs are devoted to each of the different themes and subthemes. You get a little description of what is in that theme and what were the major sets. These are given in chronological order rather than thematic, so if you wanted to go through a history of all of the castle subthemes, for instance, you'd be flipping around a bit. For System sets this seems pretty comprehensive. I have to admit that I didn't go through a detailed comparison with the Brickset database, but with themes I know well Herman seems to have covered all of the subthemes, and I also note that fairly short-lived themes are covered.

The last chapter, 'Building Outside the Box', moves beyond the basic sets to discuss things like gear and video games (including noting the LEGO Universe MMO - this highlights the fact that the book is about a year out of date even though it came out fairly recently, also seen in the absence of recent themes like the Super Heroes and Tolkien themes). And then there are the 11 pages devoted to the fan community. We only see a handful of MOCs by three builders (Jordan's whaler and Rapunzel, Alex's Relativity and Inception and Nathan's self portrait, Yellow and untitled (I couldn't find that one on his site)). We get mentions of the Brothers-Brick, MOCpages, brickfilms, a rundown of some of the major fan conventions, and a brief interview with Nathan Sawaya.

In the end, I'd rate this book as okay. It is well written, and if someone wants to learn about the company it's a good place to start. The history of themes and subthemes is nice. Unfortunately, this book shows the main problem with any book that tries to be comprehensive about a very active subject - it's immediately out of date. As mentioned above, while this came out this fall, the information was well over a year old. For instance, the new Super Heroes themes were announced in mid-2011, but they get no mention. They note the 'upcoming' Florida Legoland, but not the one in Malaysia, which was surely under construction before this book was completed. The Lord of the Rings theme was mentioned in late 2011, and also gets no mention. I realize that editing and printing a book takes time, but perhaps that just shows the impossibility of a book such as this. The internet resources are immediately up to date, while any book is outdated by definition.

The coverage of the fan community is even more problematic. The subtitle promises a history of the LEGO phenomenon and we see a beautiful MOC (Jordan's Rapunzel tower) on the cover. Also, the book is being marketed towards the fan community. And yet this gets a mere eighteen pages and seven photos. It's impossible to do justice to all of the great MOCs out there, but some more could help show people the possibilities. I would suggest getting this book for someone who was interested in LEGO, but I would not bother getting it for a hard core AFOL.

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SciBricks specific material - In the rundown of official themes, the book mentions such sets as the Discovery theme and the Mindstorms robotics sets. There is also mention of some of the NASA collaborations, such as the inclusion of images of minifigs on the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers. One that I was unaware of - 300 of the Life on Mars alien figures were sent to the International Space Station in 2001. They were used as part of an experiment and were later given to kids back on Earth as prizes.

Ada Lovelace

As you probably know if you've used Google at all, today is the 197'th anniversary of Ada Lovelace's birth (LEGO Ada by Dunechaser). She is referred to as the world's first computer programmer, since in 1842 she designed an algorithm to use Babbage's analytical engine to compute the Bernoulli numbers.



Babbage's difference engine was a mechanical calculating machine that pre-saged later computers. Due to technical difficulties he never actually built it in his lifetime. Here is a difference engine built in LEGO by Andrew Carol - this was a precursor to the analytical engine.

Shuttle crawler transporter

Teazza made this great Space Shuttle crawler transporter.

One small step for man

CustomBRICKS built the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

Certain?

Werner Heisenberg Knows Where He Is, But Is Uncertain As To How Fast He Is Going, by Kaptain Kobold.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle holds that the better you know the location of a particle, the less you know the momentum, and vice versa. This understanding helped form the foundation for quantum mechanics.

Colossal Castle Contest X

I know this doesn't specifically fit the topic of any of my various blogs, but I'm also one of the admins at Classic-Castle. I and the other admins at Classic-Castle would like to invite all members of the larger LEGO community to participate in our signature annual event, the Colossal Castle Contest. Our tenth CCC challenges builders with 14 categories ranging from the size of a custom minifig to a full castle covering multiple baseplates, so there's room for everyone to play. Please see the contest page and forum discussion for details.

Book review: The Brick Bible: The New Testament

Note - I'm posting this book review across all of my blogs. I will add some blog-specific material at the end of the review where appropriate.

I was very happy to get my copy of Brendan Powell Smith's latest work The Brick Bible: The New Testament, published by Skyhorse Publishing. Those in the online LEGO community are probably already aware of Brendan's 11 year old ongoing project, the Brick Testament, in both its online and print incarnations. To you, all I really need to say is that this is a beautifully produced paperback version including many of his New Testament stories, presented in a graphic novel style. Several of the stories have been re-built and re-photographed to update the stories reflecting newer LEGO figures, elements and colors, as well as Brendan's evolving building skills over a decade of work. There is also a Kindle version, but IMO if you're going to look at this on a screen, you're just going to go straight to his website. The huge benefit of this is that you can actually hold it in your hands and flip through the pages.



For others, I suppose some further explanation is warranted. Back in the fall of 2001 Brendan showed off his initial work to the LEGO community:

Hello, all.
I have embarked on a mammoth new project: interpreting the Bible in LEGO. I have plans for both Old and New Testament stories, but decided to start from the very beginning. I present to you the first fruits of my labor, six stories from the book of Genesis.
Enjoy, -The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith

As he described it in that post, his Brick Testament is a LEGO illustration of the Bible. He immediately got a lot of feedback from the community, and as he added content to his site, he also got noticed by the mainstream press with newspaper and magazine stories, appearances on radio and television, and countless blog posts, tweets, forum discussions and the like (and one notable two part interview ;) ). Over the years, his work has led to at least seven print versions.

Brendan's work has not gone free of controversy. He is not personally a religious man, and one of his stated goals is to get people to reexamine the Bible, not just their vaguely-remembered Sunday School story version. He just takes the raw text and illustrates it in a pretty literal way. I won't do this here, but elsewhere (on Lugnet and on my GodBricks blog) I've taken issues with some of his interpretive choices. Brendan has always been gracious to discuss these differences, and I've enjoyed conversations with him over the years. Also, as he noted even in his first posting back in 2001, the Bible is full of violence and sex, and he has never shied away from illustrating this in LEGO form in the online version of his work. A year ago there was a little tempest in a tea pot when Sam's Club removed his books from their shelves due to complaints over that. I have elsewhere mocked that decision, but I do want to note here for anyone considering purchasing the Brick Bible for their kids, there are no plastic toy figures placed near each other in such a way as to suggest sexual situations in the print version (plastic toy violence is another thing altogether). So, if you are highly offended by plastic toy figures placed near each other in such a way as to suggest sexual situations (PTFPNEOISAWATSSS for short), have no fear. You can buy this book in peace. Now, if you are more concerned that his interpretation of certain Bible passages doesn't match yours, well, I may share your view, but that would also mean that you have to also keep a close eye on every other Biblical interpretation in popular media from Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea on to animated vegetables singing silly songs. The key is just to be an intelligent reader, and, if you are buying this for your kids, read along with them and discuss the stories.



Now, I should spend a few minutes on this book, specifically. In large part it covers the same ground that you can find on his website, though with a different format (i.e. the website has single photos with text underneath, while this book version is laid out like a graphic novel, as you can see above). Several of the stories have been re-built and re-photographed (though not all - for example at one point the Magi are riding brick-built camels and at another Jesus tells how it is easier for a molded camel to go through the eye of the needle, so presumably the Magi photo is from before LEGO first produced the camel element in 2010). One striking difference is the lack of speech bubbles.

In the web version, Brendan uses black text in speech bubbles to indicate direct quotes from the Bible, but he sometimes has the characters make humorous asides, indicated by gray text. I kind of miss the speech bubbles and the side jokes, but I think I understand why Brendan did not include those in this. The other discrepancy between the print and web versions is simply in the choice of which material to include. Over half of the book is devoted to stories from the life of Jesus, which seems appropriate, but it seems that a third of the pages devoted to the book of Revelations seems out of scale. What's left on the cutting room floor is Brendan's treatment of the epistles of Paul, which are some of my favorite of his work.

That said, I highly recommend you get this book. Both religious and non-religious readers will enjoy the presentation. LEGO builders will particularly enjoy and appreciate seeing how Brendan translated different scenes into brick form.

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SciBricks-specific content - There is none. I suppose you could stretch it and mention that there are a few illustrations of the earth as seen from space, which is vaguely astronomical.

V-ger

Voyager II was launched in 1977 and over the next decade visited Jupiter (1979), Saturn (1980), Uranus (1986) and Neptune (1989), before heading out of our solar system. 35 years after launch it is still sending back data, helping us learn about the outer reaches of our sun's influence. Here is a great LEGO version by Apojove at approximately miniland scale.

Happy Halloween

For Halloween, here's Thoy Bradley's great Ghost Hunters scene. Why post this on SciBricks, you ask? Because it gives me a chance to discuss that great mist effect. First let's enjoy the MOC:



He achieves the effect by putting dry ice in a container of water in a chamber below the scene. You've probably all seen this trick used to make a mist that bubbles out and runs along the ground. Dry ice is actually solid carbon dioxide. Matter generally exists in three phases - solid, liquid and gas. You are certainly used to seeing a simple ice cube melt to form liquid water as it is warmed, and then boil to make steam if it is heated still more. Carbon dioxide actually goes directly from solid to gas phase at one atmosphere of pressure (the air pressure at sea level). Here's the phase diagram:

As you can see on that diagram, to make liquid carbon dioxde you have to be at a fairly high pressure. (As an aside, we used to make dry ice bombs in lab - pack some dry ice into a plastic vial, when it warms up and changes to gas the pressure makes it blow up. If you ever see the liquid inside, you'd better throw that thing darn quick. BTW, always wear safety goggles in lab! ;) ) (And yes, now that I'm old and stodgy, if any of my student were building dry ice bombs in lab they'd get in a lot of trouble.) Okay, back to the smoke technique. Carbon dioxide is a gas at room temperature, but a solid below -78 degrees Celsius. When you throw a chunk in water, it starts bubbling. That's not the water boiling, that's the dry ice rapidly subliming (going directly from solid to gas phase). Since the gaseous carbon dioxide is so cold (starting out at -78 C until it slowly warms to room temp), it is also very dense, so it bubbles out and runs along the ground. But the spooky smoke you see isn't the gaseous carbon dioxide - that would be completely invisible (breathe out and you'll see, or not see to be more precise). Instead as it comes into contact with water vapor in the air, it cools it down enough to condense it to small droplets, an extremely fine mist. And so that's the effect you see in this LEGO creation, or any time dry ice in water is used to create a smoke effect. I've got some dry ice here in a cooler (I actually bought a huge chunk in preparation for potentially losing power in Hurricane Sandy), so I think I'm going to put it in water in a plastic pumpkin on my porch for trick or treaters. Happy Halloween!

École de Mathématiques

Unhalfbricking's École de Mathématiques is a playful take on the Fibonacci sequence. It's an imaginary skyscraper housing a math school. The first two sections are each 1 floor high, then there's a 2 story section, then a 3 story section, then 5, 8, 13 and 21.

Newton vs the apple

Newton famously contemplated gravity when watching an apple fall from a tree (not actually hitting him on the head, as seen here in LEGO by Brother Steven).

... why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground ... [he described is thoughts in a later conversation] ... why should it not go sideways, or upwards? but constantly to the earths centre? assuredly, the reason is, that the earth draws it. there must be a drawing power in matter. & the sum of the drawing power in the matter of the earth must be in the earths centre, not in any side of the earth. therefore dos this apple fall perpendicularly, or toward the centre. if matter thus draws matter; it must be in proportion of its quantity. therefore the apple draws the earth, as well as the earth draws the apple.

Q is for quantum

Q is for quantum: Physics The smallest amount of a physical quantity that can exist independently - by Lamont Cranston. Serge Haroche and David Wineland shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on studying individual quanta. Haroche devised a method for slowing down and examining photons, the smallest bits of light. Wineland found a way to trap individual ions (charged atoms) for study.

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was shared by John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka. Gurdon's work goes back fifty years to when he first cloned an adult frog by taking DNA from mature cells and transplanting them into frog eggs to produce new tadpoles. The key thing here was that the mature cell held all of the information to code for all of the cells in the body, that is, a liver cell has all of the information to make blood cells or neurons or whatever, and so could become the basis for a complete organism. Yamanaka's work brings this idea forward, and he developed ways to turn back the clock on mature cells, essentially tricking them into reverting to the same state as embryonic cells that can grow into all sorts of new cells (i.e. they are pluripotent). These are called stem cells, and are one of the most promising areas of medical research today. Towel made these LEGO vehicles based on frogs and tadpoles.

Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel (here in LEGO form by Michael Jasper) was a chemist who lived from 1833-1896. He invented dynamite, along with other explosives, and this allowed him to amass a great personal fortune. When his brother died, a newspaper erroneously reported it as his death, and they editorialized about how his legacy was this explosive that would kill untold numbers of victims in warfare. He was distressed that he might be remembered as a killer, so he wrote his will to set up a series of annual prizes, now known as the Nobel Prizes, to promote the sciences and the welfare of mankind. It's Nobel week, and I'm a bit behind, but let's take a look at the new Nobel laureates through the lens of LEGO.

Bohr atom

Yesterday's Google doodle celebrated that 127 anniversary of Niels Bohr's birth. Bohr developed the planetary model of the atom, with the nucleus in the center and electrons following circular orbits, similar to planets circling the sun. KillerMoth26 designed this LEGO atom.

Hydrogen

LK, the Scientist built a Hydrogen atom.

Chemistry lab

Manplus2 built this university chemistry lab. I really like how he captured a lot of the details found in all of the various labs I've ever taught in.


Details include the periodic table, and a waste container for disposing broken glass, needles, and other sharps.

Here's an eye wash and safety shower.

Here our student is working in the hood. Hey, shouldn't he be wearing goggles?

BELLE-II-detector

An international team of scientists and engineers are working together at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organisation (KEK) in Tsukuba, Japan. Electrons and positrons are slammed together in a particle accelerator at very high energies. The result of these collisions will be studied using the BELLE-II-detector to learn about CP symmetry violation. The idea here is that the equations used to describe matter suggest that you should be able to switch a particle with it's anti-particle, and the Charge and Parity should work out the same. However, everything around us seems to be made of matter, not antimatter. So why, if the equations suggest that these should be equally probable. This is one of the things that the Belle experiment is examining.

This LEGO model was on display last year at the funding agency of the KEK. I don't know the name of the builder.

Ethanol

Bunnyman came up with this LEGO depiction of ethanol.

Seven minutes of triumph

I've previously noted Apojove's (i.e. Stephen Pakbaz's) Curiosity rover, here we see it being lowered from the sky crane, what mission planners had dubbed the 'seven minutes of terror'. Stephen offered his rover as a Cuusoo project and it achieved the crucial 10,000 votes. I hope they make this, as this seems perfectly in line with LEGO's and Cuusoo's ideals - given past LEGO/NASA collaborations and the two initial Cuusoo Japan sets. The only sticking point is that by the time a set gets made, public interest in the rover may have waned. I also wanted to highlight this interview with Stephen on Brothers-Brick about a month ago.