The Best of Popular Science? 49
Stront asks: "No doubt like many on Slashdot, I am an avid reader of popular science, and am constantly on the search for good examples of the genre. Now, The Elegant Universe is probably the best on Superstrings; the excellent Genome received a very favourable review on Slashdot; and probably the most anticipated book on Quantum physics is the soon to be released The New Quantum Universe, the follow up to the highly rated The Quantum Universe. Now of the thousands of Popular Science books available, what does Slashdot recommend for the other innumerable sciences such as of relativity, molecular biology, consciousness, astronomy etc?"
Re:Capitalization (Score:1)
The Extravagent Universe (Score:2, Informative)
Steven Hawking! (Score:2, Interesting)
(Unfortunately, it wasn't released by the O'Reilly books. See, I wanted the Linux Kernel in a Nutshell, MacOS in a Nutshell, and the Universe in a Nutshell next to each other, but that's just me).
Two Favorites (Score:5, Interesting)
The latter presents a very readable summary of what is perhaps the first rigorous application of the scientific method to history. Since it's the first, he started by answering the big questions of the past thirteen thousand years. Essentially: how did Eurasians come to own the world? He knows, and now I do.
The former is a tour de force covering all aspects of northern experience, from early exploration to detailed descriptions of the critters who survive there, and how. I just open it anywhere, now, and start reading, and am always captivated. The maps alone bring delight.
Re:Two Favorites (Score:1)
More Readings... (Score:5, Informative)
There is Carl Sagan's TV series and book called Cosmos, videos may be viewable in your local library. This too is an old series, but still very good. It's the real basics, great for lay persons, Carl Sagan has this knack for explaining and story telling.
Psi
Re:More Readings... (Score:2, Informative)
If you liked the selfish gene and Carl Sagan in general you'll probably like Dragons of Eden which is a marvel.
Re:More Readings... (Score:1)
BTW, the 24-hour book sale is great, loads of people and books, plus live entertainment.
Cheers, Psi
Re:More Readings... (Score:1)
I've read everything of Dawkins except River out of Eden, which I'm about halfway through.
If you like Dawkins, go for Quantum Evolution by Johnjoe McFadden. It's a combination of Dawkins and Hawking, or Dawkings, I guess.
The Cambridge Lectures by Hawking is a good one. It has a lot of chapters fr
Books (Score:3, Interesting)
Another good book is The Whole Shebang, by Timothy Ferris. It's a good introduction to various aspects of cosmology and astrophysics. I haven't read it for over a year, so I really can't go into more specifics. Definitely worth a look.
Hawking is good, but I'm sure everyone else will tell you that too. I've read a couple books by Carl Sagan, but I can't remember much about them, including the titles. They were definitely a good read, though.
No other titles are coming to mind, for some reason. Hope this helps!
Linked - by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi (Score:2)
Not terribly technical, but interesting, especially for anyone interested in "social software", FOAFs, viral marketing, etc.
Here's a Few (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman - Excellent book on Physics and Quantum Mechanics. Outstanding really.
The Ambidextrous Universe - Really interesting read on symetry and asymetry in nature. Looks at symetry in various biology, physics of the small, physics of the large, physics of the every day. Really good coffee shop science book. (Older title, hard to find.)
Origin of the Species - Worth reading just to see what all the fuss is about.
Also, check out 2thing.org [2think.org]. Basically, it's fairly good site devoted to exactly this topic - good books on a variety of subjects - and most of their recommends are decent. They even have a popular science section.
Re:Here's a Few (Score:1)
Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction... (Score:1)
fadingsunshoppa (Score:4, Informative)
Re:fadingsunshoppa (Score:2)
More Good Books (Score:2, Informative)
The Quantum Brain: The Search for Freedom and the Next Generation of Man [amazon.com]
A good popsci read on Quantum Computing is The Bit and the Pendulum: From Quantum Computing to M Theory-The New Physics of Information [amazon.com]
Also, often ignored, are books on mathematics. An interesting read on Paul Erdos is The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth [amazon.com]
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
the book i'm reading right now (Score:1)
heavily illustrated book of computer models to generate shell patterning mostly 2D but some 3D models also. Comes with a 3.5" disk YAY!
bit of nature, bit of comp sci, eye candy, good stuff
amor, paz, esperanza, muelle
If you like that ... (Score:1)
Re:If you like that ... (Score:1)
Re:If you like that ... (Score:1)
My current list... (Score:3, Informative)
Six Not-So-Easy Pieces- Richard Feynman
Both are from a two year series of lectures he gave at CalTech to freshmen/sophmores after he was essentially begged to by administrators. Feynman is quite a character (as seen in Surely Your Joking Mr. Feynman which should be every geeks BIBLE. This man alone holds the key to getting every geek laid. READ THIS BOOK AT SOME POINT IN YOUR LIFE, hopefully early)
Anyhow, the six easy and six not-so-easy are a bunch of different lectures on all the fudementals of physics. Great stuff, he explains most things in what i consider a more natural way. In the easy lectures, math doesn't really even play into it. In the not so easy, he hits on some parts that he is forced to use math to show what's so cool
QED The Strange Theory of Light and Matter is another amazing book by Feynman. This book basically tells the story of light, and by doing so, explains how everything (except gravity and strong nuclear force) works. Actually, towards the end, their is some theories that speculate strong nuclear force, and the unique rules that govern light are similiar, but with different particles (photons to muons or something). The way light works is really mind bending. Something as simply as a partial reflection off a pane of glass, is some unintuitive, and when you see the tricks behind the scene that mother nature pulls, you'll beleive in a type of magic again. Excellent book.
The Future of Spacetime which is a collection of essays from Hawking, Kip Thorne, Igor Novikov, Tim Ferris and Alan Lightman. It deals primarily with spacetime, and talks a lot about TimeTravel. After you read it, your pretty certain Time Travel isn't going to happen, but it's mainly because the odds of it are so remote (1/10^100^100^100^100 or something). Still, they hit on all the cool topics, and bring it down to earth so to speak. Kips essay is the best, he talks about what's happening now and what to expect by 2008, 2010, 2015, and 2030. All these very powerfully gravity wave dectators are coming online, and the future is a gold mine for physics.
Universe in a Nutshell by Hawking is nice. Illustrations are good. But it's more a coffe table book. Good for conversations. After reading the above list of books, you find this one elementary. Which is a neat feeling.
And after reading all that, and seeing all the complex ways that math is twisted to make the model fit the physics, and you hear all the stories about the abitrary constants that get put in things we have no idea why, then, and only then, read Wolframs A New Kind of Science and wonder... wonder what if science bet on the wrong horse in the math we use to extend our theories. Wonder if there isn't a better, more simpler way.... wonder if you'll ever read the entire 800 pages of text......
-Malakai
Hrm.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hrm.... (Score:1)
Re:Hrm.... (Score:1)
Concepts of Modern Mathematics
by Ian Stewart
and
Foundations and Fundamental Concepts of Mathematics
Howard Whitley Eves
The first book is really an excellent crash course survey of "adavanced mathematics", topology, logic, analysis, and matrix theory. It's was designed around a course for adult students taught by the author. The second is slightly more rigourous in a similar vein. Both are Dover books. I've also submitted another post about some other books down below.
Linguistics (Score:3, Informative)
Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct [amazon.com]. A great introduction to what modern linguistics is about.
(And I second the recommendations by others for Jared Diamond (Gun, Germs and Steel) and Richard Dawkins.)
JP
Another good one (Score:2)
The best (Score:2)
A book about Biogeography and Evolution.
A few more (Score:2, Informative)
James Burke: The Day the Universe Changed & Connections (History of Science/Technology).
John Gribbin: In Search of Schrodinger's Cat (Quantum Physics), In Search of the Big Bang, & The Omega Point (Universe/Space-Time)
Gary Zukav: The Dancing Wu Li Masters (QP)
And of course, the grand daddies of them all, Asimov and Clarke. (Too many titles to list here!).
cheers- raga
Calculus for dummies (Score:2, Informative)
I always laughed about this series when it came to programming books, but Calculus (aka Infinitesimal math) can be an evil and tricky subject, and maybe this book can help me - especially if it's going to be as interesting as Fermat's Last Theorem. What do you think?
All hail the 8 that fell on its side.
Re:Calculus for dummies (Score:3, Informative)
Cliffs Notes for Dummies (Score:2, Informative)
The infamous "X for dummies" company is going to publish a new book in 2 months: Calculus for dummies.
Sounds like something Cliffs Notes would publish.
But guess what? The company that publishes the For Dummies series bought Cliffs.
My favorite Popular science books... (Score:1)
What? Those weren't Popular Science books?
Seven Clues to the Origin of Life (Score:2, Informative)
Very good read, though can be a little dry in places - it will expand your mind man!
Consciousness book (Score:3, Informative)
Influential books (Score:1)
Great Essays in Science (Score:2)
The collection is a bit dated, originally published in 1984, but really quite accesible. There is also a bio of each author preceding their essay.
Howev
Evolution, Some physics (Score:1)
Re:Evolution, Some physics (Score:1)
Here's the list again
On The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
Climbing mount Improbable, Richard Dawkins
Unweaving the rainbow, Richard Dawkins
The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
The Extended Phenotype, Richard Dawkins
Billions & Billions, Carl Sagan
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
http://www.wikipedia.org
Six Easy Pieces, Feynman
Figments of Reality
a couple good books come to mind (Score:1)
For a popular science account on logic and computability:
Godel's Proof
by Ernest Nagel, James Roy Newman
The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing
by Martin Davis
anything by Raymond Smullyan
Incidently, I believe Godel's Proof is the book that Hofstadler in