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?"
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.
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
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!
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. 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.
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.
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
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!