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REVIEW: Energy and Civilization, by Vaclav Smil

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Energy and Civilization: A History, Vaclav Smil (MIT Press, 2017). There are two kinds of mathematicians: problem-solvers and theory-builders. They’re what they sound like. A problem-solver gets obsessed with particular, concrete, fiendishly tricky problems, and wants to solve them. Along the way, he may

REVIEW: Energy and Civilization, by Vaclav Smil John Psmith May 15, 2023 178 20 27 Share Energy and Civilization: A History , Vaclav Smil (MIT Press, 2017). There are two kinds of mathematicians: problem-solvers and theory-builders. They’re what they sound like. A problem-solver gets obsessed with particular, concrete, fiendishly tricky problems, and wants to solve them. Along the way, he may accidentally invent a whole body of theory that sheds light on unrelated areas of mathematics, but that isn’t why he’s doing it. He wants to solve the problem. The archetypal problem-solver is somebody li

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