Slashdot Mirror
The Best of Popular Science?
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?"
I would recommend The Extravagent Universe, by Robert Kirshner. 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 elegent universe you should have no trouble with this. I found the book very enjoyable.
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
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.
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
A good popsci read on Quantum Computing is The Bit and the Pendulum: From Quantum Computing to M Theory-The New Physics of Information
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
"This statement is false."
Godel, Escher, Bach by D. R. Hofstadter was already mentioned here as an excellent introduction to cognitive research: no to the research itself, but rather to the motivations of the researchers. My review of the 20th anniversary edition was also published on Slashdot.
Darwin's Origin of Species is old, but not dated, and (due to different standards in scientific writing at the time?) it reads almost like a popular-science book.
Mathematics (a historian's view): try Fermat's Last Theorem by S. Singh or the older and less-known, but excellent, A History of Pi by Beckmann.
Artificial life research (introduction): Levy's Artificial Life. Somewhat related (but more on the AI side of things) is G. B. Dyson's Darwin Among the Machines.
- Tal Cohen
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
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct. 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
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.
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.
hemi
Even if life didn't start on *THIS* planet, it had to start somewhere, Seven Clues to the Origin of Life 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!
Several people already mentioned Hofstadter's Godel Escher Bach. If you liked that, you'll also like The Mind's I, 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.
Siggy Wiggy Figgy Tiggy a bana bo Biggy!
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.
Will I retire or break 10K?