Classic Books of Science? 451
half_cocked_jack writes "What are the classic books of science from throughout history? I'm currently reading On the Origin of Species on my Kindle 2, and it's sparked an interest in digging up some of the classic books of science. I'm looking for books from the ancient and medieval worlds and books from the golden ages of scientific discovery. Books like: Galileo's The Starry Messenger; Newton's Principia; Copernicus's On The Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres; and Faraday's The Chemical History of a Candle. I know that I can likely find these books in a format I can use on my Kindle (found a few on Gutenberg already), but what I need is a checklist of these books to guide my reading. Suggestions?"
Re:One Resource (Score:5, Interesting)
You may be interested to read about the role that the Middle East played in the development of modern science. While they are not very mainstream (hey, history gets written by those on top at any point, which at the moment happens to be Western nations), there are many books that deal with the advanced science that was being carried out in that region. Here are some tidbits to get you started:
Modern optics was pioneered by the discoveries of Ibn Sahl (who discovered Snell's law 800 years before Snellius renamed it [wikipedia.org]).
In the 9th century, 500 years before Europeans started arguing whether the world was round, Al-Battani and his ilk calculated the circumference of the Earth at 40,253km. Correct to within 200km!
Al-Jabr [wikipedia.org] is the Arab mathematician who discovered (or invented, whichever way you lean on that topic) algebra. It is still named after him.
Good luck with this. Scientific history is fascinating!
(Full disclosure: I am a Muslim, which is why I find this topic so interesting.)
Re:Hawking's Compilation (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that most of these are not particularly good translations and lack commentary -- you won't be able to follow Newton, for example, without the detailed commentary that other editions, such as those edited by the historian of science Bernard Cohen, have. It isn't just converting Latin to English -- the mathematical techniques themselves need "translation" as nobody today does math using the primitive methods available to Newton.
Re:Hawking's Compilation (Score:5, Interesting)
- Watson: The Double Helix
- Hofstadter: Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
- Gesteland, Cech, and Atkins: The RNA World
- Stephen J. Gould: The Mismeasure of Man (or Punctuated Equilibrium or another one of his books)
Orthogonal view (Score:4, Interesting)
Although I do not adhere to it strictly (for one instance, I keep a copy of Herodotus by the hopper for intermittant rereading), I have rules of thumb that I go by when considering books worth my while:
1. Read fiction by the dead
2. Read nonfiction by the living.
Go back to the ancient world (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, how about going further back. Copernicus is quite "modern" I would say. He himself had read the work of Aristarchus from the 3rd century BC entitled "On sizes and distances", which not only proposes the heliocentric theory, but even does calculations on the sizes and distances (didn't expect that?) of the Sun and the Moon.
Allow me to note here that although the heliocentric theory was not accepted by many in ancient Greece, the fact that the earth and the heavenly bodies were spheres was common knowledge from the 5th/4th century BC. In fact by the 3rd century BC they knew the radius within 10%. So sad that all this knowledge was lost for centuries...
Anyway, another classic book that is almost a century older than Aristarchus' book is Aristotle's "Physica" (or "Physics"). Aristotle wrote on many subjects (e.g. politics, ethics, physics etc) and his works an all fields were considered the definitive works of the era.
I know you said science, but I thought I should also mention the oldest Science-Fiction book I have read, which is Lucian's "True Story" or "True History" (the Greek word is the same for both, in any case the title has the same effect). The two science books I mentioned are not that easy reads, however this one is a very amusing book from the 2nd century AD. I mean it has battles on the Moon, what else do you want!
Jefferson (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Some English Links (Score:4, Interesting)
Carl Popper (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:One Resource (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, you look at the Middle East now, and there's an active fight against science.
So it's just like the United States, eh?
Re:One Resource (Score:3, Interesting)
It was obvious to any sea-farers that the earth was round - boats disappeared over the horizon, which could only be explained by either a curved surface, or them falling over the edge.
There are plenty of other explanations, such as:
"the horizon is the limit of sight through atmosphere, just as deeper water becomes increasingly hard to see through until eventually you can't."
or
"the horizon is a trick of the light that affects things at extreme distances, similar to a mirage"
or
"the earth is shaped like a contact lens -- curved yes, but not a sphere that goes all the way around"
or
"the ocean is not flat but actually has slight bulges, such that a ship going over one seems to to disappear, and by the time it climbs the next it it is too far too be seen at all"
etc
Re:One Resource (Score:3, Interesting)
"Arrive"?
Do you think it's possible that centuries of colonialism and exploitation by western empires could have contributed to their "arrival"?
I'm not saying this is necessarily so, I'm just wondering.
It could be coincidental that so many civilizations that happened to occupy land that held abundant resources or strategic value to the West became somewhat backward and dictatorial.
mod parent up (Score:2, Interesting)
and here's why:
Euclid's Elements of Geometry (~300BC) is the foundation of mathematical rigor.
He starts with a few definitions and axioms (like "two straight lines cannot enclose a space"), and uses them to prove some simple theorems. By constantly using prior theorems as building blocks, he's proving the Pythagorean Theorem by proposition 47 [wikipedia.org]. He proves the infinitude of primes a few chapters later. It's astounding how far he goes on such a modest foundation.
Definitions, axioms, theorems, lemmas -- this is where it all started.
For your library (Score:2, Interesting)