[HN Gopher] Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
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       Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
        
       Author : mitchbob
       Score  : 41 points
       Date   : 2025-05-13 17:25 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (nick-lane.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (nick-lane.net)
        
       | qoez wrote:
       | Don't love when books try to SEO optimize by hijacking another
       | more popular term (the transformer which has nothing to do with
       | this). Just pick a nice classy title instead. Seems like an
       | interesting read though.
        
         | behnamoh wrote:
         | exactly the reason I flagged this.
        
           | johnea wrote:
           | You haven't read the book, and apparently think modern LLM
           | tech invented the word "transformer".
           | 
           | And based on that, you try to prevent other people from
           | commenting on the post.
           | 
           | So, when's your Emily Latella mea culpa?
           | 
           | I actually found the subject of this book interesting, but
           | the book review lacking. I was looking here in hopes of
           | finding more info about the subject, or links with more
           | detail about the book.
           | 
           | Instead, what I find is another example of brand identity
           | cancel culture.
           | 
           | If you don't have interest (or knowledge) in something, maybe
           | just try ignoring it, and let people who do have interest
           | (and/or knowledge) comment on it...
        
             | wfn wrote:
             | I've read part of Nick Lane's other book, _The Vital
             | Question_ , cannot comment on this new one; TL;DR competent
             | biochemist (from complete amateur standpoint at any rate),
             | excellent science communicator; you can watch some of his
             | talks online. e.g. the one linked on this new book's page
             | is good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBiIDwBOqQA
             | 
             | He's really fascinated by the overall _transformation_
             | process of inorganic matter - > organic matter, a sort of
             | scientific fixation - which is always enjoyable when it's
             | done by a competent scientist - and it's really captivating
             | stuff. (The fact I haven't finished his previous book has
             | nothing to do with the book material itself, if anything it
             | really captivated me; it's just my not-amazing new habit of
             | not finishing books...)
        
         | profchemai wrote:
         | I've read this book, I don't think this was the case. I think
         | the name was made in good-faith. It's "transformer" because it
         | involves transformations of molecules involved in life
         | (reactions, enzymes, metabolism). The author has used this term
         | before 2022.
         | 
         | The same argument could be made for the transformer paper:
         | hijacking a nostalgia pop-culture name to name a deep learning
         | bi-linear operator. Many papers are guilty of this, some just
         | become very influencial.
        
         | amelius wrote:
         | Indeed. This transformer has nothing to do with electrical
         | currents and voltages.
        
           | 20after4 wrote:
           | But it actually does. Watch the video embedded on the page,
           | it actually has everything to do with electrical currents.
        
         | bornfreddy wrote:
         | That... doesn't make sense? If anything, using a popular term
         | would be a disadvantage wrt. SEO, because now they need to
         | compete against many many _many_ unrelated websites.
        
       | pchristensen wrote:
       | Context: I've read this and The Vital Question and watched
       | several interviews with Nick Lane, so a lot of his ideas have
       | blended together in my mind. A lot of the detail in this book
       | went over my head, but it was well written enough to overcome my
       | shortcoming in biochemistry. Similar in depth to Siddhartha
       | Mukherjee's Song of the Cell and The Gene.
       | 
       | This book was a fascinating walk through evolutionary history and
       | the way that different organisms handle energy, and how earlier,
       | less efficient metabolic paths were limited but sufficient to
       | bootstrap the much more efficient and flexible Kreb's cycle. I
       | remember the term and the loop diagram from high school biology,
       | but to actually dive into the elegant chemical pathways felt like
       | discovering the rocket equation or the path from radioactivity to
       | atomic bombs. If you're at all interested in Biology or
       | Chemistry, I highly recommend this book.
        
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       (page generated 2025-05-16 23:00 UTC)