Classic Books of Science?

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?"

Comments

Learning or Collecting?

[Beetle B.]

If your goal is to learn the subject material, I wouldn't bother with most - equivalents from the 20th century may likely be better.

Don't forget Euclid's Elements. I also think there were some groundbreaking math books from the Arab era, but don't know if you can find them on the Internet - or whether there are translations available.

Re:Learning or Collecting?

[CraftyJack]

If your goal is to learn the subject material, I wouldn't bother with most - equivalents from the 20th century may likely be better.

Important question there. Keep in mind that notation and scientific writing style have changed significantly over the years.

Re:Learning or Collecting?

[Beetle B.]

That and seminal works are often overhyped. Don't get me wrong - they may have made a great impact, but they're usually indicative of the beginning of a new field, and it may have taken decades/centuries for the field to figure itself out. Only then is it presented in a better manner for learning.

Take calculus. Limits weren't put on a firm rigorous basis till people like Bolzano, Weierstrauss and Cauchy over a hundred years after Newton. And general integration theory didn't come around until the late 19th century and early 20th.

Of course, there are always exceptions...

Re:One Resource

[Attila Dimedici]

Europeans believed that the Earth was round BEFORE there were any muslims.
My sentiment on this has nothing to do with muslims. The idea that educated Europeans thought the Earth was flat is a myth made up by certain 19th Century writers and popularized by people who were trying to show that Christianity is anti-science.

Re:The Double Helix

[Anonymous Coward]

Well there's the fact that EVERY SINGLE MOTHERFUCKING STORY on biology gets tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong." It got old real, real fast.

Re:Two more

[Ecuador]

Dear God. You compare "A brief history of time" to "Principia" and "On the Origin of Species"???
"A brief history of time" is an excellent read, however it is a "popular science" book that contains the minimum possible amount of physics and math. For, say, lawyers or doctors I guess it is as "scientific" as they can go with physics, but that in no way can make it a "classic book of science". I considered it a light (and very amusing) read when I was 14 when, in contrast, Newton's proofs were still a challenge to read much later.

Re:One Resource

[tomhudson]

In 200 years people will boggle that we believed that most people in the late middle ages thought the Earth was flat.

Here, let me fix that for you:

If we don't get rid of the fundie influence on education, in 200 years people will believe that most people living in the twentieth century were living in the middle ages. With the dinosaurs. And some dude named Flintstone.

Re:One Resource

[tomhudson]

Only the last two (#3 and #4) would take into account the fact that the mast is the last thing to disappear, and in nature, there are LOTS of sperical objects to serve as models (apples, oranges, grapes, etc), whereas I don't think they had contact lenses ... (your #3) It's by calculating the curve that they were able to deduce the radius of the earth. If the earth weren't round, the water would flow over the curved edge and disappear, and the seas would have dried up. Also, there would have been a current taking all ships with it over the edge. No such current, so the earth was round, not just "curved like a contact lense."

The "slight bulges" (your #4) fails for a similar reason - ships have to climb UP a bulge, which takes energy, so either they're going from higher to lower when they start (so no need for wind or rowers) or they're going from lower to higher (so the return doesn't need wind or rowers), so it fails based on simple obsedrvation - you aren't going "downhill" in either direction.