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as long as they are 'on-line'. With written technologies, communication is viewed as the sending of a message from sender to receiver. In classical communication theory, the meaning of a message is illuminated by its context . The author argues that with hypertext technologies, the effect of a. message is to alter, complicate, correct a network of hypertext interconnections and to create new interconnections in an existing hypertext. Rather than coding and decoding of messages, we deal with associations and dissociations of networks that provide meaning through their overall structures. In addition, the author provides, with chapters elaborating these ideas, a brief, clear and accurate history of hypertext beginning with Vannevar Bush's article in a 1945 issue of Atlantic Monthly.The book is in French. MIND, BRAIN AND HUMAN POTENTIAL by Brian Lancaster. Element Books, Dorset, U.K., 1991. 240 pp., illus. Paper, £9.99. ISBN: 1-85230-209-7. Reviewed lJyjohnCooper, Pergamon Press, HeadingtonHill Hall, Oxford, 0X3 OBW; U.K A synthesis of modern psychology and mysticism (mainly, but not exclusively , Hebrew) may seem improbable, even, to a degree, fantastic. Yet Lancaster 's ideas-in this book, at leastare neither; but to a non-mystic the whole concept of mixing science and religion is a bizarre retrograde step. Nevertheless, this book does contain a lot of good science and many valuable insights; but the shades ofmysticism and religion lurk on every page, ready to pounce at even the tiniest flutter of scientific uncertainty. If other readers accept, as I do, that science is open-ended, willing to be persuaded by further evidence, and that (all) religion is closed, complete in itself, bastioned by dogma, accepting change only as an expedient of survival, then this book is not for them. On the other hand, if the comforts of the supernatural are welcome , then Lancaster's odd mix of science and religion may well be to the reader's taste. THE MISSING REEL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE LOST INVENTOR OF MOVING PICTURES by Christopher Lawrence. Atheneum, New York, NY, 1990. 306 pp. ISBN: 0-689-12068-0. Reviewed lJy RogerF. Malina, Centerfor EUVAstrophysics, 2150 Kittredge St., University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, U.S.A. This book details the contributions of Augustin Le Prince to the development of the film camera and film projector during the 1880s. Le Prince was probably the first to demonstrate the use of a single lens camera, in October 1888, in his studio in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. His influence on subsequent developments was, however , curtailed by his mysterious and still unexplained disappearance on a Dijon-Paris, France, train trip in September 1890. This book details Le Prince's technical contributions, as well as the attempts of his widow and descendants to secure public credit and acknowledgment for Le Prince's role in the development of moving pictures. Lawrence makes clear that in the 1880s a number of inventors and individual technical developments ultimately led to functioning film cameras and projectors. These inventors included Muybridge, the Lumiere Brothers, Marey,John Carbutt and Friese-Greene. However, in the United States it is Thomas Edison who often receives credit for the major role, credit that Lawrence shows to be unmerited. At the time of the crucial developments in film technology , Edison was already a worldrenowned inventor, and his resources allowed him not only to keep abreast of developments internationally, but through his team of patent lawyers to accrue to himself the legal rights for development and commercialization of ideas by others who did not have his financial and legal resources. This book provides a fascinating insight into the development of a key technology as well as the social context of its development. Augustin Le Prince and his wife Elizabeth Whitley were both professional artists. They founded the Leeds Technical School ofArt in 1876 where, among other activities , he developed new technology for firing ceramics on metal and exploited linoleum as a new material for interior design. Readers of Leonardo will be pleased to find discussions of the need to integrate art and science that took place over 100 years ago, a good reminder that the issues active today have a long history. The book is also an...

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