The Brains of Men and Machines [Hardcover]

Ernest Kent (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 286 pages
• Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill; First Edition edition (February 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0070341230
• ISBN-13: 978-0070341234
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,167,386 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Obsolete yet great for inventors and geeks fishing for ideas, September 26, 2011

By 

Daren S. Wilson "darenw" (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Brains of Men and Machines (Hardcover)

Great for browsing and fishing for ideas. Wildly obsolete now, but it wasn't meant (even at the time) to be a source of cutting edge neuroscience research. What it does is describe the basic workings of neurons, neural tissue, the brain, and how sensory and motor data might be encoded in neural systems, all explained in terms that make sense to physicists and electronics engineers, and accessible to hobbyists, students. It's more of a "gee, look at how this works" kind of book, not a scholarly work.

It was a thrill to read in the early 1980s, but naturally will contains some seriously dated 8-bit=based facts and speculations as seen by the 64-bit multi-core super-GHz standards of 2011 (when I write this). Nonetheless, it has great descriptions of how neurons are organized by feedback loops, and feed-forward, how some types of neurons regulate the operation of others for improved speed or stability.

I'd like to see a new book, based on 2000+ knowledge, to serve a similar purpose today. Perhaps there are such books already; I haven't looked very hard.

Another book covering the topic of how neurons are organized to accomplish great things, with more real neuroscience and biochemistry, is one by Gerd Sommerhoff. Unfortunately I cannot find the right title at the moment - possibly "Logic of the Living Brain". It may be interesting to engineers and geeks but isn't written for them, and is a few years out of date too.

5.0 out of 5 stars Book Supplier, September 12, 2010

By 

JST - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Brains of Men and Machines (Hardcover)

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