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The Best of Popular Science? 49

Posted by Cliff from the anyone-looking-for-reading-material dept.
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?"
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The Best of Popular Science? More

The Best of Popular Science?

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  • I would recommend The Extravagent Universe, by Robert Kirshner [amazon.com]. It gives a good explanation of the new discoveries in cosmology; specifically the idea that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Kirshner has a very enjoyable writing style, with stories from his own life thrown in (he is the head of one of the two competeing teams that study the supernovae that led to the accelerating universe theory). He makes a few assumptions about your knowledge of astronomy, but if you've gotten through the e

  • Steven Hawking! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Prien715 ( 251944 )
    I've found all of his books quite good, especially for beginners in the field. His newest, The Universe in a Nutshell, is especially good.

    (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)

    by Markus Registrada ( 642224 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @09:58PM (#6020645)
    My favorite recommendations for the past few years have been "Arctic Dreams" by Barry Lopez, and "Guns, Germs, and Steel", by Jared Diamond.

    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.

    • There are lots of scientific/naturalistic oriented histories/historians, one of the most well-known, though somewhat controversial, W. McNeil's Plagues and Peoples. The problem though with scientific and technological explanations of History is that there appears to be many phenomena, as complexity science reminds, that are "emergent".

  • More Readings... (Score:5, Informative)

    by rgbe ( 310525 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @10:03PM (#6020680)
    Yes, Brain Greene's the Elegant Universe was a good read. Well off the top of my head I can only remember one good book I've read lately. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, it's an old book with the 1st edition published in the 70's, but still a fantastic read, it has some wonderful insights to evolution. In this book he recomends The Extended Phenotype, it's apparently an excellent read too, he says it's the pride and joy of his professional career

    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)

      by xutopia ( 469129 )
      yeah the Selfish Gene is an awesome book. I'm reading Climbing Mount Improbable right now and am enjoying that tremendously.

      If you liked the selfish gene and Carl Sagan in general you'll probably like Dragons of Eden which is a marvel.

      • Hey, thanks for your mention of Dragon's of Eden, later that day I went to the 24-hour book sale in Dunedin [dunedin.co.nz], New Zealand, and it was about the 5th book I picked up. So I bought it, 50 cents (about $US 0.25), can't complain.
        BTW, the 24-hour book sale is great, loads of people and books, plus live entertainment.

        Cheers, Psi
    • The Selfish Gene is indeed good. Extended Phenotype gets a bit pedantic in parts, because Dawkins "invented" the idea, and likes to pride himself in it, much like Feynman deriving the trig functions in 4th grade.

      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)

    by epsilon720 ( 307234 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @10:12PM (#6020714)
    Well, looking at my shelf now, I think pretty much anything by Stephen Jay Gould is a sure bet. His collections of essays (eg The Panda's Thumb, Ever Since Darwin) are the best evolutionary discussions I have come across, if that is what you're interested in.

    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 is a very interesting book about the science of network formation. He talks a lot about the formation of networks of linked pages on the web, and about his theories and discoveries of how networks form. He points out similarities in diverse types of networks, such as personal friendships and the WWW.

    Not terribly technical, but interesting, especially for anyone interested in "social software", FOAFs, viral marketing, etc.

  • Here's a Few (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Inexile2002 ( 540368 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @11:02PM (#6021008) Homepage Journal
    Godel Escher Bach - Not really science. It's about patterns, number theory and such. I get the sense that Niel Stephensen read it before he wrote Cryptonomicon excellent read

    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.
    • Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman - Excellent book on Physics and Quantum Mechanics. Outstanding really.
      Theres almost no physics in "Surely You're Joking". Its mainly anecdotes, funny stories and occasional bouts of philosophising. It is highly entertaining, but it's not about science, popular or otherwise...
  • There was even just a review of it not so long ago: Nanotechnology Review [slashdot.org]. It's definitely aimed at the "popular science" realm. Cheers, -Geoff

  • fadingsunshoppa (Score:4, Informative)

    by falsification ( 644190 ) on Thursday May 22, 2003 @11:30PM (#6021118) Journal
    Why did you add fadingsunshoppa to the URL? Amazon referral fee? I guess it's a nice way to make a few bucks off your Slashdot post.

  • More Good Books (Score:2, Informative)

    by rlotun ( 513569 )
    There aren't many, but a good read on Neural Networks and Quantum Mechanics is
    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)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @12:52AM (#6021549)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The Algorithmic Beauty Of Sea Shells by Hans MeinHardt

    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
    • ... check out the relevant sections in Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science". He has a couple of interesting remarks about shells (in an algorithmic context). The first is that a certain set of simple 1D cellular automata are enumerated over all of a certain kind of shell (that is, several different shells show different 1D CA patterns over their surfaces). The second is his demonstration of the "derivation" of actual shells under generalized substitution systems. He also puts this in the context of
      • Sorry "Top Stoppard" was a typo. The man's name is "Tom Stoppard".
      • yeah i love CA, thats how i got onto the sea shells book. I remember reading Wolframs (pre mathmatica) stuff a couple of years back. My all time favourite CA isn't the game of life but a simple little 1D (radius 3) algorithm called GKL [Gacks-Kurdy???-Levin] that decides if an intitial state has more than 50% of initial cells in state 1. I did some work using genetic algorithms trying to beat GKL which is believed to be optimal around the same time as Mitchell, Crutchfield et al. GKL is the simplest algorit

  • My current list... (Score:3, Informative)

    by malakai ( 136531 ) * on Friday May 23, 2003 @02:39AM (#6021887) Journal
    Six Easy Pieces- Richard Feynman
    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)

    by gt384u ( 560599 )
    I don't know if this says anything about the crowd reading Slashdot, but I noticed that most of the post here are in regards to physics or genetics texts. Anyone know of any good books in other fields? I noticed a sore lack of texts in chemistry being thrown out, and to be honest, I'm embarrassed that I can't think of any to recommend other than textbooks. The only consolation I can offer is to point Slashdot readers to a gentleman I had the opportunity to hear speak today on the subject of forming nano and [harvard.edu]
    • I think that genetics/ molecular biology and physics (especially quantum and astro) lend themselves to popular culture more so than chemistry, mathematics, and engineering. Mainly, because some of the concepts are easy to grasp or they have a philosophical or ethical component, which is the stuff that is actually written about. However, Linus Pauling's semi-autobiography "In His Own Words" is pretty good. Also Paul Erdos' (pronounced Air-Dish) biography, "The Man Who Knew Only Numbers", is excellent as well
    • Try:

      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)

    by jpkunst ( 612360 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @02:57AM (#6021932)

    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

  • "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" (Daniel Dennett). Excellent in-depth description of modern evolutionary theory. Very readable but goes deep. It also does a great job going through the history and explaining how evolution progressed through difficult steps, without glossing over areas where details are in dispute or unknown.
  • The best I have read in a long time was: The SONG OF THE DODO: ISLAND BIOGEOGRAPHY IN AN AGE OF EXTINCTIONS [amazon.com]
    A book about Biogeography and Evolution.

  • A few more (Score:2, Informative)

    by raga ( 12555 )
    Some excellent suggestions above. Also consider:
    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

  • Not exactly popular science, but The infamous "X for dummies" company is going to publish a new book in 2 months: Calculus for dummies [dummies.com].

    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.
    • Unless I was hallucinating when I saw it on the shelf at Barnes and Noble two months ago, Calculus for Dummies is already available. It seems like such an absurd title that I actually thought I was hallucinating when I saw it, but I picked it up and determined it was real. I leafed through it a bit and it looked like a reasonable approach to the subject.

    • 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.

  • The Physics of Star Trek and The Physics of Star Wars.

    What? Those weren't Popular Science books?
  • Even if life didn't start on *THIS* planet, it had to start somewhere, Seven Clues to the Origin of Life [amazon.com] by A.G Cairns-Smith is an excellent overview of all of the current theories about how life started.

    Very good read, though can be a little dry in places - it will expand your mind man!

  • Consciousness book (Score:3, Informative)

    by Engdy ( 124179 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @12:12PM (#6024541) Homepage Journal
    Several people already mentioned Hofstadter's Godel Escher Bach [amazon.com]. If you liked that, you'll also like The Mind's I [amazon.com], by Hofstadter and Dennett. It's a collection of thoughts and essays by the authors and various other big thinkers pursuing the nature of consciousness.
  • Some of the books that I have found very influential are: Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter - The parts on Godel were a little difficult for a non-mathematician, but an otherwise mind-blowing book. Truly one of the greatest books ever, science or otherwise. Chaos by James Gleick - A history of the field of Chaos and its big players. By one of the most talented writers I have ever encountered (Faster is also a good book). There are ideas in this book that can be used in almost any field of research/s
  • Martin Gardner edited this collection of essays [amazon.ca] which contains essays from a number of scientific bright lights. Big names include Einstein, Steven jay Gould, Sagan, Darwin. But some of the authors I hadn't heard of, like Lewis Thomas, were the real revelation for me. This collection of essays led me to purchase longer works by a number of the authors.

    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
  • 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
    • Grrh... damn my flaky keyboard..

      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

  • I know people swear by Godel Escher and Bach, but I got bored and couldn't read the whole thing. This coming from a guy whose spent years studying mathematics and read many a dry text (and actually enjoyed it) on mathematical logic.

    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

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