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

One Resource

[stoolpigeon]

- The Book Page - provides free on-line classic and not-so-well known books, articles and more. Antiquarian science texts and articles - complete with original wood-cuts and copper-plate Figures read "cover to cover", or use your Browsers search function to find and read specific sections. Choose from HTML, or pdf (eBook) or MS Reader format.
 
Not a list like you are looking for, but may help in tracking down things you would be interested in reading.

Re:One Resource

[MrNaz]

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).

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 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:One Resource

[LotsOfPhil]

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!

Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth 1000 years before that. "Recent scholarship finds that since about the 3rd century BC, virtually no educated person in Western civilization has believed in a flat Earth." link.

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[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.

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[l2718]

"Al-jabr" is one of laws for manipulating algebraic expressions. The man was named Al-Khawarizi, and from his name we derive a different word -- "Algorithm".

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[Leafheart]

Check these and a whole lot of other Arab scientist treaties. They are truly ahead of their time (as kept by western civilization of science advcance, and pearls of an age where the Muslins were the scientific lead.

Ibn al-Haytham's - Book of Optics

Muhammad ibn Musa Khwarizmi - The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing

Disclamer: I'm not Muslim but I do think we need to give due credit where credit is due

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[Anonymous Coward]

Great ideas like these great discoveries are only notable if someone does something with it. The Middle East did very little, if anything, with these discoveries, hence... Sorry about bursting the bubble.

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[octal_sio]

Arabic books and their authors indeed played an amazing role in the history of science. It's disturbing seeing them arrive to what they are now...

Anyway, a few more Arabic classics off the top of my head:

- Pretty much anything written by Ibn Sina. (The Canon of Medicine is a pretty good one)
- Ibn AlNafis's Commentary on the Anatomy in Ibn Sina's Canon (where he described the circulatory system)
- As parent mentioned, the original book on algebra, by AlKhwarizmi. The word "algorithm" is named after him, while "algebra" was named after his book. "Jabr" in Arabic means completion.
- Omar Khayyam's many treatises on Maths and Astronomy.

There's much more on Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Philosophy of Science and the Experimental Method, etc.

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[OrangeTide]

I like how believing that people believed the Earth was flat has become its own little ignorance. In 200 years people will boggle that we believed that most people in the late middle ages thought the Earth was flat.

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[PitaBred]

Snellius still discovered it independently. Besides... Ibn Sahl may have discovered it first, but nothing happened after that. It was the Europeans that finally applied it, building telescopes and so on. You can feel all racially superior if you want, but make sure you put it in perspective. Besides, you look at the Middle East now, and there's an active fight against science.

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[DownWithMedia1.0]

You will find every classic ever written at this website. http://grtbooks.com/ Enjoy oh heady one.

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[tomhudson]

Beat me to it, dammit!

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. Since most of them came back, the "curved earth theory" was never seriously questioned.

So, how long have people been using boats? A loooong time.

Q:Name Christopher Columbus' 4 ships.
A:The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, and the one we don't speak about because it fell over the edge.

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.

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[klaun]

Modern optics was pioneered by the discoveries of Ibn Sahl (who discovered Snell's law 800 years before Snellius renamed it).

Snel did not name the law after himself and there is every reason to believe that he discovered it independently of Ibn Sahl. Your statement makes him look like a plagiarist, which he certainly was not. (Especially since he never published his paper in which Snell's Law appears!)

More than one person can independently think up the same idea. I think you weaken the point of your entire post (which for the most part is perfectly valid) by making a baseless accusation against Snel.

Further I'd say you are overstating the accomplishment of Ibn Sahl. Snel's Law is not the beginning and end of Classical Optics. And it doesn't begin to encompass Modern Optics, which is the study of light taking into account its electromagnetic or quantum nature.

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[radtea]

Great ideas like these great discoveries are only notable if someone does something with it.

Right, this is why we are so dismissive of the Greeks of Periclean Athens, because they just talked about stuff and wrote books, and never actually DID anything with the logic and science they invented... except set the foundations for so much, Arab and European, that came after them.

The medieval Arab scholars who people are mentioning here were a very important step in the line of transmission between the great classical thinkers and the present day, and like all the other people who aided in that transmission they added their own not-inconsiderable body of discovery and speculation on top of the Greek foundations.

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[radtea]

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?

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[JebusIsLord]

They didn't need myths, of course - the church was very busy at the time telling us the earth was the center of the universe, and having anyone who disagreed burned as heretics.

I think the flat-earth thing is a modern meme that spreads simply because it is more entertaining than the truth. "they were sooo stupid back then!"

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[matria]

Algebra is based on even older Indian mathematical principles, as is the numeric system we use. http://india_resource.tripod.com/mathematics.htm

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[vux984]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that those achievements are rather few compared to say Descartes, Fermat, Einstein, Hawking, Euclid, Euler, Turing, Wilson, Newton, Leibnitz etc. etc.

To put it simply, there are just more European names in modern scientific and mathematical teaching because Europeans discovered generally more useful and more relevant knowledge to the type of research and study that we are now performing across the world today.

China, Korea, India have all had people who have made equally impressive contributions to math and science but again, still not as much as Europe.

Ancient greeks probably deserve more credit than anyone for being ahead of their time and discovering so much of the foundations that were built upon later by all other cultures.

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[Attila Dimedici]

Please tell me who was burned at the stake for disagreeing about the earth being the center of the universe?
People today believe that they are smarter than people of yesteryear despite the fact that all the evidence suggests the opposite if any real difference.

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[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.

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[PopeRatzo]

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."

Doesn't explain why you see the top of the mast of an oncoming ship first.

"the horizon is a trick of the light that affects things at extreme distances, similar to a mirage"

see above

"the earth is shaped like a contact lens -- curved yes, but not a sphere that goes all the way around"

But no matter how far you go from your starting point, you still get the same effect of ships revealing themselves "top-down" from the horizon.

"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"

Finally, no matter how far people traveled (and there is evidence that some ancient mariners traveled really far) nobody every a) fell off the edge or b)got to the edge and came back to report their experience.

It's not just mariners that figured out the earth was sort of ball-shaped. Very early astrologers came to the very same conclusion. Plus, when the Nephilim came and brought edible wheat plants to the Sumerians, they probably let slip that the earth was round, which they would have obviously seen on their way in from Orion.

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[PopeRatzo]

My sentiment on this has nothing to do with muslims.

Whatever you say.

However, your previous comments showing enthusiastic support of George Bush's War on Global Islamofascism sort of make your current disavowel of anti-muslim sentiment a tiny bit less plausible.

However, in the name of good will I will accept your somewhat defensive statement.

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[PopeRatzo]

The Middle East did very little, if anything, with these discoveries, hence.

The multiple religious crusades perpetrated on them during their most intellectually productive centuries might have had a little something to do with that.

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[johannesg]

(Full disclosure: I am a Muslim, which is why I find this topic so interesting.)

You must be very sad then. All this scientific development in the arab world took place before rising islamic fundamentalism took over and stopped science dead in its tracks.

I'm sad as well - you can see the same thing happening in the US today, where fundamentalist Christians are destroying, with ever-greater degrees of success, scientific research and teaching of science.

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[PopeRatzo]

It's disturbing seeing them arrive to what they are now...

"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.

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[PopeRatzo]

Descartes, Fermat, Einstein, Hawking, Euclid, Euler, Turing, Wilson, Newton, Leibnitz etc. etc.

Reading that list of names, I'm struck by the fact that each of those men experienced varying degrees of condemnation by religious institutions (and yes, including Euler and Hawking).

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[pugugly]

Yeah, but those were the Mariner Captains.

The *sailors* were coming back and telling tall tales to the kids at the docks, the same ones that grow up today going "Well, yeah *Book Smarts* is okay, but if you think I'm going to believe a book rather than what a *REAL* *MAN* ... that's *BEEN* *THERE* ... says, well your just a stupid geek anyway . . ."

Then they beat Plato up and took his lunch money.

Pug

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[laejoh]

Don't forget Abdullah Al-Hazred!

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[isaac338]

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?

No, no it's not.

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[Obfuscant]

...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)

They certainly had the meniscus formed when over-filling a container with water, and it would not be hard to imagine that they would assume the same thing happened on a large scale with the oceans.

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[vux984]

Only the last two (#3 and #4) would take into account the fact that the mast is the last thing to disappear,

#2 - Be a bit more creative in your interpretation of "trick of the light". There is no reason, some trick of the light couldn't result in the ship appearing to sink below the ground, with the highest part the last to disappear.

whereas I don't think they had contact lenses

I'm sure they had other similar things...turn a soup bowl or even a dinner plate upside down, for example.

It's by calculating the curve that they were able to deduce the radius of the earth.

Which is worthless if the optics are distorted by a trick of the light. Like estimate angles and distances looking through a fisheye lens, without knowing you were doing so.

If the earth weren't round, the water would flow over the curved edge and disappear, and the seas would have dried up

And replenished by the rains.

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.

1) Yet there are currents. Lots of them going all different directions. What was the explanation for those? With no edges to spill down?

2) Have you ever slowly poured the water out of a bucket with something floating on the surface near the middle. It is quite easy to do it so that you can empty over half the bucket before the floatee so much as moves. Does the absense of a current pulling the floating out of the bucket mean I'm not emptying the bucket?

ships have to climb UP a bulge, which takes energy,

1) put a toy boat in a tub and make gentle waves. The boat goes up and down without wind or rowers.
2) they could be pretty gentle bulges. A 4km 0.5 degree incline will give you a ~40 meter tall bulge to hide another boat behind.

Or it could be a combination of several factors...

But the point was that the op suggested, that it was either 'the earth is round or its flat', and my response was to highlight that it wasn't that simple. Particularly when the properties at the edge of the earth are allowed to differ from the properties at home in England, Greece, Egypt, Babylon. After all demonstrating the earth is rounded around greece doesn't prove that the curvature is constant all the way around to form a sphere.

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[vidarh]

It's like the first person to eat lobster - they were either drunk, lost a bet, or really, really hungry

Most "weird" food can be explained by poverty.

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[vux984]

Doesn't explain why you see the top of the mast of an oncoming ship first.

If we can make the statue of liberty 'disappear' I'm quite sure we can contrive an optical illusion to give the effect of an object sinking into the ground as it moves away on a flat surface.

But no matter how far you go from your starting point, you still get the same effect of ships revealing themselves "top-down" from the horizon.

Contacts lenses are often spherical; its just that most of the sphere is missing. Ships moving around on it will see the same effect everywhere, until one goes off the edge.

Finally, no matter how far people traveled (and there is evidence that some ancient mariners traveled really far) nobody ever a) fell off the edge

How do we know that? If they fell off the edge, they didn't come back. Lots of travelers never came back.

or b)got to the edge and came back to report their experience.

Perhaps getting close enough to the edge to see it is too close. Perhaps its perpetually stormy near the edge... perhaps a lot of things...

Plus, when the Nephilim came and brought edible wheat plants to the Sumerians, they probably let slip that the earth was round, which they would have obviously seen on their way in from Orion.

Obviously.

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[chthonicdaemon]

Actually, Aristarchus was even earlier, and he even figured out that the earth rotates around the sun in addition to the diameter of the Earth, moon and sun and the earth and moon's orbit, with the correct order of the planets that they could observe at the time, all based on trigonometry and observation by unaided eye. Of course, his figures weren't perfectly accurate (notably the distance of the earth to the sun) but the method is sound and works well with more accurate measurements.

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[Yold]

actually the word derived from Al-Kawarizi "Algorism". From which we get the word algorithm, sorry to split hairs, but this is slashdot after all =)

 

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[NeilTheStupidHead]

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.

Actually the ocean does 'bulge' in certain places. From what I recall from oceanography, differences in the height of the ocean (WRT some fixed, imaginary reference) were once among the plausible theories of what drove the ocean currents. Measurements indicated that the difference across the Atlantic ocean was only about three meters, which was proven to be insufficient over such a distance to drive the currents.

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[treeves]

Yes, don't forget Abdullah ...wait, who is he?

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[Brian Gordon]

Why are you trying to prove that people may have wrongly thought the world wasn't round? This is a bizarre argument.

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[rossifer]

You have to admit that Hawking sought out his conflict with religion. His thesis of "Where can God exist? [lots of argument trimmed] Nowhere." appears to be deliberately framed to antagonize religious believers.

Hawking is far too smart to accidentally do something like that, which leads me to believe that his conflict with religion was deliberately sought.

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[adk46r]

There are other sciences which you might like to learn about. I have an interest in Ethology. The origins of this field of study are usually credited with Niko Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz co-winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. I would suggest Evolution and Modification of Behavior and On Aggression both by Lorenz.

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[Brian Gordon]

Some people think Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for his support of heliocentricism. He was ostensibly executed for his belief in reincarnation but he was unpopular for his advocacy of heliocentricism which couldn't have helped his case.

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[berend botje]

Al-Jabr is the Arab mathematician who discovered (or invented, whichever way you lean on that topic) algebra.

You are mistaken. Muhammad ibn Musa Khwarizmi wrote (or rather translated from Indian texts) his book al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa'l-muqabala. From the title of this book we still got the word "algebra".

Also, the oft heard claim that the West uses Arabic numerals is incorrect. These numerals also came from India.

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[vux984]

Why are you trying to prove that people may have wrongly thought the world wasn't round? This is a bizarre argument.

I am trying to demonstrate that the fact that 'boats disappeared over the horizon' and returned to tell their tale does not make it obvious that the world is spherical.

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[berend botje]

Oh, by the way, he wasn't Arab either. He was Persian and therefore Zoroastrian, not Muslim.

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[careysub]

Don't forget physicist Ibn al-Haitham Al Hazan, one of my favorite classical Muslim scientists.

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[risk one]

Then they beat Plato up and took his lunch money.

Apparently, he was forced to teach in an olive tree grove, just so he would have something to eat...

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[tomhudson]

You're ignoring the rest of the criticism of #3 - where are the currents from the flow of water over the edge of the world? Over-fill your glass. Same diff. It's only the ignorant who believed that people thought the world was flat until "modern times".

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[berend botje]

And why did those crusades start? Not because the middle east was such a warm and welcomy paradise, for sure.

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[tomhudson]

In other words, you're making an overly-complex "explanation" that the people at the time never bought into. MOdern ignorance that the sea-farers of old have known for thousands of years that the world is round is no excuse for contriving complicated "explanations" that they believed, that are excluded by the principle of parsimony, and that don't fit the facts.

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[Attila Dimedici]

I wasn't saying that I don't think that muslims are either murderous thugs or apostate. I was saying that that had nothing to do with this particular post.

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[JoelisHere]

...there are LOTS of spherical objects to serve as models (apples, oranges, grapes, etc)...

How about the sun and moon? Also, in addition to ships over the horizon, an eclipse gives an idea of the shape of the earth via its shadow.

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[vux984]

In other words, you're making an overly-complex "explanation" that the people at the time never bought into.

We know people at the time thought it was rounded. That doesn't mean we know they thought it was a sphere.

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[FiloEleven]

And you would replace the fundie influence with a scientism that says humans are nothing but collections of atoms. That all religion is self-delusion and inarguably bad. That science is the only domain of knowledge.

I see your straw men got you modded insightful. I'm afraid mine will just get me set on fire.

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[XchristX]

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.

His name wasn't "Al-Jabr". His name was al-Khwarzim (as in "the guy from Khwarzim, the Persian kingdom that Chengiz Khan pwned some decades later)

Al'Jabr is from the title of his book (al-Kitaab fi Hisaab al-jabr wa'l Muqabla).

Al-Khwarzim may have written the Hisaab-Kitaab for algebra, but Aryabhata in India had discovered many of those results long before Al-Khwarzim had.

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryabhata[/url]

Hey, history gets written by those on top at any point, which at the time were the Arab imperialists who stole India's numeral system and called it "Arabic".

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[XchristX]

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!

Eratosthenes' measurement was more accurate, was several centuries prior to al-Batani's, and was also made in the Middle East (by riding on horseback from Aswan to Alexandria in Egypt during the summer solstice, actually).

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[Brett Buck]

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.

      I am not sure why you say it's not mainstream. I am not particularly interested in history, and I was well aware of the fact that most of our knowledge of the Western classical period (greek/rome) came only because the information was maintained in the Middle East while Europe was suffering through the dark ages and while western scholars were carefully calculating things like how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Seems like half the terms we have in English for mathematics were actually originally developed in Arabic. Even James Burke's TV series made it quite clear. Overruning the "Saracens" in Spain gave access to a lot of the otherwise lost data and sparked the European renaissance. I think at least most people are aware of the general facts if not the details.

      Brett

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[tomhudson]

In other words, you're making an overly-complex "explanation" that the people at the time never bought into.

We know people at the time thought it was rounded. That doesn't mean we know they thought it was a sphere.

Gee, you mean that old greek guy who calculated its' diameter and had a crater on the moon named after him never existed? Even b efore him, they had argued it was a sphere, like the moon.

More here

2500 years ago, the Greeks finally decided Earth was a sphere. Plato argued that, since the sphere is a perfect shape, Earth must be spherical. Aristotle used observation. He pointed to the circular shadow Earth casts on the moon during an eclipse.

The Greeks had no way of knowing how large the globe might be. The most daring travelers saw Earth reaching farther still beyond the fringe of their journeys. Then, in 200 BC, travelers told the head of the Alexandria Library, Eratosthenes, about a well near present-day Aswan. The bottom of the well was lit by the sun at noon during the summer solstice. At that moment the sun was straight overhead. Eratosthenes realized he could measure the shadow cast by a tower in Alexandria while no shadow was being cast in Aswan. Then, knowing the distance to Aswan, it'd be simple to calculate Earth's radius.

There was no accurate timekeeping back then. For Eratosthenes to make his observation, it had to be precisely noon in both cities. And he needed an accurate north-south distance from Alexandria to Aswan. Actually, Aswan lay south by southeast instead of due south, but the error wasn't great. His calculated size of Earth was high by only fifteen percent.

A round globe, well before the "middle ages." Then there was just the question of "are there other land masses ..."

Three centuries later, the astronomer Ptolemy created many methods of modern geography. It was he who abandoned the idea that we're girdled by a great unsailable ocean. Ptolemy believed that other lands lay out in the terra incognita. He built upon Eratosthenes; but he also criticized him. When Ptolemy made his own estimate of size, he came out twenty-eight percent low.

Ptolemy's thinking suited Columbus, for it shrank Earth to fit his ships. He was plain dumb lucky that the West Indies intervened. And we need to remember what a mental leap the ancients had to make. The imagined four corners of the earth thwarted our understanding until a scant 2500 years ago. Only then did we finally fold our minds around the idea of a round earth. And it was only four hundred years ago that we actually managed the mind-numbing trick of traveling to the east by sailing west.

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[tomhudson]

And you would replace the fundie influence with a scientism that says humans are nothing but collections of atoms. That all religion is self-delusion and inarguably bad. That science is the only domain of knowledge.

I see your straw men got you modded insightful. I'm afraid mine will just get me set on fire.

Well, until someone can prove that one or more gods actually exist (and it's not like they haven't had LOTS of time to produce at least SOME proof), self-delusion seems to be a good contender for "best explanation", though others, such as fraud and greed, also work.

And yes, last I heard, people did believe that humans are collections of atoms, and science certainly has a better record of imparting knowledge than religion. We don't buy the "4 corners of the earth", Jacobs' "magic" for getting goats to breed favourably, or the "woman was created out of man's rib" stories, or that a murderer motivated by lust for another mans' wife (King David with the hots for Basheba) is "a man after god's heart" - because if god existed, that would be contemptible, criminal behaviour. So the bible fails at teaching both science and ethics. As a tool for keeping the masses in line wrt "droit de seigneur", slavery, kings as rulers, etc.

Speaking of slaves, the story that Jesus went into the temple to overturn the tables of the moneychangers shows religion is more concerned with the trade in money than with the trade in human lives, condemning one when it doesn't reap the rewards ("don't give your money to sacrifices, tithe it to the church"), but openly condoning the other ("Were you called while a slave? Do not worry about it; but if you are able also to become free, rather do that.") Freedom is optional.

Then again, religion IS enslavement.

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[hachete]

Religionism is the worst of all isms: it blinds you to everything but the gods at the center.

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[geekoid]

Yes, a 1000 years ago they kicked ass..since then, nothing.

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[geekoid]

I don't know, does the US have people employed to beat people on the street if they say something that isn't religiously correct?
I haven't seen any.

Re:One Resource

[AdamThor]

Do you think it's possible that centuries of colonialism and exploitation by western empires could have contributed to their "arrival"?

Clearly, but there are other things that have led to this conclusion. Certainly, they had to be brought to a point that the Europeans were capable of exploiting them. 'Cause they won a bunch of those Crusades, ya know. Not that I'm an expert, or that the sources I've read can be guaranteed free of bias, but here are some other things I've heard about:

Climate. I may be remembering wrong but I seem to recall that the middle east oscillates between hot and dry and not so hot and dry out of phase with Northern Europe. It has been good for people in the middle east, but mostly it's dry now. Also, back in the day when it was drying out more they created some impressive irrigation. That's cool, but it led to some hella soil salinization. (I got this from some climate reading I did a while back)

My understanding also is that when european monks were hanging out out and being learned, but poor, they had nothing better to do than study farming around the monestary. This was a time of agricultural advancement in the west, but there was no analog in the Arabic world. As a result Arabic farming was generally less sustainable. (I think I got this one from "The Middle East" by Bernard Lewis)

Then there was Ganghis Khan. I read "Genghis Khan and the making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford and he said the mongols pretty much stormed in and spent a long time shipping everything of value out to Mongolia. Lewis (from the afore mentioned book) on the other hand was of the opinion that the mongols came in and went immediately native, and didn't have a big detrimental effect on the culture. Who is right? I don't know. I could see this being a factor damping the Mid East, however.

Also, back in the day, there was a thriving trade empire in Eastern Africa, the MidEast, and India. But this all fell apart at some point. You can check this out in the Time/Life "Lost Civilizations" videos. Man those things are the bomb. Anyway, Time/Life theorized that the trade around there dried up when the plague killed everyone at that one end of the silk road, killing demand. But who knows it may have been more complicated than that.

Finally, the Ottoman Empire, which was in decline and struggling to remain relevent anyway, totally picked the wrong side to back in WWI. I charecterize this a different from colonial exploitation 'cause this was a legitimate war. It happened for the same reasons that european nations fought with each other, it wasn't some sort of "Let's stomp the middle east" conspiracy.

And why was the Ottoman Empire in decline at that point? There's a bunch of Ottoman politics to explain that, but I can't keep track of it. (see Bernard Lewis)

If anyone has additional factors or has heard something counter to what I've presented here I'd be happy to hear it.

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[Jane Q. Public]

Dislike of "Islamofascism" does not necessarily have anything to do with one's opinion of the Muslim religion. Any more than dislike of militant fundamentalist Christian literalists reflects an opinion of Christianity as a whole.

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[Jane Q. Public]

And the "al-abr" was a shortened form of his book title, not a method.

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[Jane Q. Public]

Come on out, Crowley. We know you've been hiding all this time. Now we have your IP.

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[Jane Q. Public]

(Apologies... the funny character did not make it through the HTML. "al-jabr" is close enough.)

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[Jane Q. Public]

I don't know about that "ever greater success" bit. I think the majority has caught on to their baloney.

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[Attila Dimedici]

Having read the wikipedia article on Bruno, I have to conclude that saying that heliocentrism was a contributing factor in his execution is more of a stretch than saying that Ron Paul lost in last year's Republican primaries because of his support of the return to the gold standard.

Re:One Resource

[genner]

It's like the first person to eat lobster - they were either drunk, lost a bet, or really, really hungry

Most "weird" food can be explained by poverty.

How long has Britain been a third world nation?

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[OSXCPA]

Agreed - let us give credit to the individuals who shed some of the light of reason upon the rest of the world.

What religion they are/were is rather beside the point. I am not going to 'give credit' to a faith group because someone in that group did something great, any more than I will condemn a faith group because a member once did something horrific.

If you are a Muslim, for example, you can't really claim pride in the achievements of a fellow Muslim without claiming the horrors of Osama Bin Laden as your own too. I know of no Muslims who want to be associated with him - and I know many Muslims. Same logic applies to Catholics (if you take Mendel, you have to take the Pope too, even the murderous ones!).

Looking at the history of any of the major (and probably minor) faith groups will reveal a wide assortment of horrors and some good. Intrinsically, they are all bad because they all stress the primacy of the irrational over the rational. No, science cannot explain everything, but religion explains nothing - it offers at best a (theoretically) comforting view of the unknowable. At worst, it encourages people to butcher their fellow humans over the question of who has the best invisible friend.

BTW, the 'invisible friend' bit is not my own, but I found too many sources to properly attribute it. Mea Culpa.

Hats off to the scholars and experimenters - they make the world a better place. I hope their religious beliefs don't warp their minds too much, and I will confess to some sadness at the thought of what they might have been accomplished without the shackles of faith.

Re:One Resource

[Obfuscant]

You're ignoring the rest of the criticism of #3 - where are the currents from the flow of water over the edge of the world? Over-fill your glass. Same diff.

If you've never seen it, the meniscus is quite magical. Too much, yes, it overflows the edge, until there isn't too much and then it stops. With a bulge on the surface of the water.

You know, since it rains a lot, why doesn't the ocean keep rising and overflow the land? Because the excess runs OFF THE EDGE OF THE WORLD. Then it stops. Here, see, like this here glass 'o water, you filgy landlubber. Over the edge, until it stops, and see there, a bulge. This here ocean does the same thing.

No, I didn't ignore "the rest of the criticism". You ignored what would happen after the excess drained away. Where are the currents? Why, matey, ALL OVER THE OCEAN. They aren't all necessarily on the surface, you know? Ain'tcha never been caught in an undertow?

It's only the ignorant who believed that people thought the world was flat until "modern times".

Your gratuitous insult has been noted. It is only the ignorant who didn't notice that I wasn't defending the flat earth, or making the claim that people DID believe it. I dealt specifically with YOUR objection to why they might believe it. In daily life they would see bulges on the tops of filled containers, so it was reasonable that they would assume the ocean did the same thing. I didn't say they HAD to believe the earth was flat, or that there wasn't some other reason to think the earth was a globe, just that YOUR reason was crap.

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[OSXCPA]

Too many lords' kids with no inheritance or land encouraged by the Pope to reclaim the holy land for Christendom, and all the loot they could carry?

Nah.

Maybe the European Catholics were upset by all the falafel stands opening up in Rome, driving the local shops out of business.

That has to be it...

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[turbidostato]

"#3 - where are the currents from the flow of water over the edge of the world?"

They didn't fall through the border, you ignorant, since so far away to be seen mountains served as a barrier.

And that the water can wave without wind or any other obvious reason it's known to any seaman. We call it "tides" nowadays.

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[tomhudson]

It's only the ignorant who believed that people thought the world was flat until "modern times".

Your gratuitous insult has been noted.

It's not gratuitous. Anyone with a half-decent education knows that the greeks calculated the diameter of the earth. If you knew, then you have no cause to be insulted. If you didn't, then your education left you with some severe knowledge gaps in both history and science. Again, you have no cause to be insulted because someone points out your ignorance of well-known facts. Look through the thread, you'll see that plenty of people knew it off the top of their head. It's called "general knowledge" for a reason. We learned this in our history or science classes in high school (unless you went for the GED - "Good-Enough-Degree" - or rode the short bus).

This is simply part of the corpus of general knowledge that many of us take for granted as part of a half-decent education. Same as knowing that there are 4 different blood types, how Gregor Mendel worked out genetics, that "white light" isn't, where a rainbow comes from, that the earth revolves around the sun (amazed that there are people who don't know that one ... talk about ignorant), and that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees.

Re:One Resource

[tomhudson]

Come on, even the ancients knew that the tides were caused by the moon. Direct observation. Check out Plutarch or Aristotle. There's no defending the idea that people in the middle ages thought the world was flat.

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[QuantumLeaper]

I think botulism beats it out.

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[Plutonite]

Great ideas like these great discoveries are only notable if someone does something with it.

Sorry, but that's rubbish. I don't follow organized religion, and I am not defending these guys here, I am defending science.

The Greeks did not 'do' anything with Philosophy. Einstein did not 'do' anything with relativity, compared to the people who came after him (they didn't exactly have an aerospace industry in 1902). Gauss and Euler and the others did not 'do' anything with the wonders of mathematics that they discovered and wrote down for us to come upon and build miraculous civilization with, many decades later. For science to be notable, it must be written down. That is all. Otherwise you are throwing away all of pure mathematics and theoretical physics, and they are the foundations of human knowledge.

The most important things are those that will be around when human beings will be gone - the things that are universally true, not true because they happen to be useful to us in some way. We, the humans, are not really very important. Unless you follow some religion or other. You're not one of those guys, are you?

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[johannesg]

That's not what I'm led to believe by various stories here on Slashdot. Creationism is edging ever-closer to becoming an officially recognized science (with institutes and degrees and everything), and is taught in ever-more places, and stem cell research (which arguably will give us some of the most important medical breakthroughs of the next century) is routinely hampered (and don't tell me that isn't for religious reasons).

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[Jane Q. Public]

Of course the embryonic stem cell research was blocked for religious reasons. (Or, at least, reasons of getting campaign money from religious groups. Not exactly the same thing.) But Obama lifted many of those restrictions... a win for embryonic stem cell research. Further, other stem cell research has largely made embryonic stem cells unnecessary, so it is not quite but nearly a moot point.

Maybe you live in a different part of the U.S. than I do. Where I live, creationists and "intelligent designers" are routinely reviled and made the butt of jokes. I would go so far as to say that to the best of my knowledge, most people in my area consider them privately to be mentally ... well, let's just say "weak".

But of course I live in the West, and I know the situation is not the same in certain other parts of the U.S. Maybe that is one of the reasons I don't live there instead.

I respect the right of anybody to believe whatever they want. But I do NOT respect attempts by some people to force other people to live on their terms.

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[Jane Q. Public]

To be clear: I was not referring to religious people in general. Most of them do not fall into the category of "creationists" or "intelligent design".

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[RockDoctor]

I see your straw men got you modded insightful. I'm afraid mine will just get me set on fire.

Yep, it sure will. Be a good little martyr-to-be and climb up on top of the pile of faggots. I'll just pass the starting torch to this convenient agglomeration of Aboriginal animists, Bhuddists and FreeThinkers.

Oh dear. Settle down and make yourself comfortable ; we have a problem with your torture and agonising death. You see, unlike Christians (mono-theists more generally), this bunch of other religions don't have a strong tradition of burning heretics. I'm sorry, but your martyrdom has been unavoidably delayed by other people refusing to descend to your level.

Please accept our apologies and I'll try to whip up a slavering crowd as soon as possible. Could you recommend some good churches to get them from?

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[MadamMem]

In the US you don't need to be employeed to beat people for saying something against Jesus or God (only the ONE God, of course)....in the South they would do it for free.

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[tomhudson]

I responded in a failed effort to stop the Slashdot groupthink from asserting itself,

Show ANY proof that there is a god. ANY god. We've had thousands of them throughout history, so it's not like there isn't enough subject material. Otherwise, you're guilty of religious group-think with no basis whatsoever in fact. Get the mote out of your eye first, hmmm?

Come on, just ONE shred of hard, testable evidence that god - any god - exists. Or admit that what you believe is only that - a shared belief with no basis in fact. You know, group-think.

You claim:

Knowledge is only useful as it is applied, meaning that there is a great deal more to existence than knowledge; namely, experience

Information can exist without being useful. This is a retread of the worn-out "utilitarian argument for god" - that there must be more to life, and therefore god must exist. Why? Life doesn't have to have any intrinsic meaning. Does the life of an ant, or a swine flu particle, have any intrinsic meaning that "proves" the existence of an ant god, or a swine flu god? Or that they have the same god you have?

God is a cruel joke that we, as humans, have played on each other for a looong time. There's more to existance then blindly following an imaginary god - there's doing what I want to do, without other people trying to impose their superstitions, devoid of any proof, on me. Fortunately, atheism is the fastest-growing "belief" - hopefully, one day, religion will be held in the same contempt as smoking - something you don't do in polite company, that you admit is an irrational urge, and that you really need to give up for your own good, so you can focus your energy on other things.

Really, god is just a bad habit, and people should just "butt out." And if they can't, they should at least "butt out" of other people's lives, trying to impose their amoral religious beliefs in a phony god, sin, and condemnation, on others. Either that, or expect more push-back from those who see it as rude, superstitious, and phony.

So, got proof?

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[mokumegane]

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.

And that the fall of the dinosaurs was largely due to a dog named Scooby Doo?

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[Hognoxious]

Recent scholarship finds that since about the 3rd century BC, virtually no educated person in Western civilization has believed in a flat Earth

So almost everybody did.

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[Hognoxious]

They'd have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for that meddling asteroid.

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[Hognoxious]

Actually the ocean does 'bulge' in certain places.

My theory is that it's due to the moon, but I could be wrong.

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[Hognoxious]

There's a big difference between one guy knowing (or suspecting) the Earth is round and that being a general belief.

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[mdwh2]

I see your straw men got you modded insightful. I'm afraid mine will just get me set on fire.

You're claiming that the attempts to teach Creationism or "Intelligent Design" in schools is a myth? I'm not sure in what sense you think it was a straw man?

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[mdwh2]

The fact that some knowledge was attained without rigorous and formal application of the scientific method is neither here nor there - the problem here is actively teaching children things that are disproven by overwhelming amounts of evidence.

Yes, perhaps we'll end up in a world where people can still tie their shoelaces, but the OP never claimed otherwise - so that is another straw man. A world where people believe we lived with dinosaurs, and we're supposed to not care just so long as people can still tie shoelaces?

The OP may have been an exaggeration, in that teaching ID in some schools may not lead to such effects worldwide. But I don't see how it's a straw man.

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[stdarg]

You do know that the crusades started in response to Islamic expansion, right? And I don't mean expansion as in a bunch of nations suddenly thought Islam was the coolest so they all decided to convert.

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[stdarg]

As a more general reaction, I would have to say that when Arab &/or Muslim imperialists claim credit for the work of their predecessors or contemporary oppressed peoples, it is just as legitimate as when various other races do the same thing.

This is a great point. In fact, most of the scientific achievements attributed to the Muslim world are from Persians and not Arabs. They were largely Muslim at the time so calling them Muslim is fine, but when people suddenly switch that to Arab (presumably just because Islam originated in Arab lands) it makes no sense.

For instance, Ibn Sina was Persian, not Arabic. Al Khwarizmi was also Persian, not Arabic. (Also, his book was not the original book on algebra, it's just where Europeans got the name algebra from.)

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[stdarg]

This is so true. India has a rich history of mathematics that is largely ignored. It's all because the role of the Arabs was one of transmission -- they passed along information after translating it to Arabic. So we get people today thinking that algebra was invented by Arabs just because the name is Arabic. Or that Arabic numerals were invented by Arabs.

It really shows the lasting power of a name.

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[tomhudson]

There's a big difference between one guy knowing (or suspecting) the Earth is round and that being a general belief.

There's no evidence that everyone else thought the earth was flat. There IS evidence that people were taught, and knew, the earth was round. Aristotle didn't live in a vacuum, and it was the simplest explanation for ships passing out of view in the distance, with the mast being last. It was also the simplest explanation for why mountains also passed out of view, with their peaks being last. It wasn't that they were too far to see because of atmospheric haze (they could see more distant peaks that were higher), but because the earth was round.

Give it up already ... the "people thought the earth was flat right up to the middle ages" is just ignorance.

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[stdarg]

Of course the embryonic stem cell research was blocked for religious reasons. (Or, at least, reasons of getting campaign money from religious groups. Not exactly the same thing.) But Obama lifted many of those restrictions... a win for embryonic stem cell research. Further, other stem cell research has largely made embryonic stem cells unnecessary, so it is not quite but nearly a moot point.

More directly, it was blocked for moral reasons. The moral reasons may have a religious basis for most people, but why is one basis better than another? It just gets very mixed up when science intersects with life, and specifically human life. I mean, notice how even among hardline creationists there isn't a cry for paleontology to be banned because it contradicts God. People against stem cell research aren't also calling for all of biology to be banned. Those things would be truly anti-science. But when life and/or human dignity (or whatever anti-stem-cell people think about) is at stake it's understandable for people to be protective.

I worry more about the role of morality on things like the justice system, war, welfare -- places where it has a significant and basically inescapable impact.

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[stdarg]

Persia had been conquered by Muslims for a long time at that point. His name was Muhammad so he was probably Muslim. Probably of Zoroastrian ancestry though.

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[FiloEleven]

I'm done talking with you until you learn to read what is written in the post instead of assuming that I must be arguing for the existence of God, something that is entirely unrelated to the point I am making. You are as bad as the fundamentalists you take on, and you're clearly not interested in doing anything other than that.

Good day.

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[tomhudson]

From your original post, in its' entirety:

And you would replace the fundie influence with a scientism that says humans are nothing but collections of atoms. That all religion is self-delusion and inarguably bad. That science is the only domain of knowledge.

Damn straight! All religion IS self-delusion; in that sense it is also inarguably bad. There is no "greater power", no "meaning to life" except that which we choose to make it. Anyone who claims otherwise has to show at least SOME proof that there is "more" - not just argue that there must be more, which is what you do when you claim that we are more than just a collection of atoms. Show some proof to that claim. As the saying goes, [citation needed].

When you get down to it, we're just an organization of atoms into molecules into cells into tissues into people; our conscience is a by-product of chemical reactions and electrical impulses, probably with effects at the quantum level. There's no need for more than that to explain everything we are, and everything we feel, how we came to be, and there is no hidden meaning to life and the universe, not even the number 42.

Some people feel the need for more. They look at that and say "is that all there is?" This leaves them cold. Religion gives them a purpose. It's a crutch; some people need a crutch, and for them, fine. However, they have no right to ask the rest of us to accomodate their false reality. For too long, we've done so, in the name of "religious tolerance", and we've seen it subvert national and foreign policy. We've seen it divert tax dollars to foolishness, such as battles against letting gays and lesbians have the same rights as others wrt marriage, because people want to impose their own religious standards of behaviour on others. Funny how, time and time again, these same people can't even live up to those same standards. It just helps demonstrate that much religion is, at best, unnatural and perverse/perverted.

But back to your original argument: there is no proof that we aren't just a collection of atoms. If you wish to believe that, without proof, that's your choice. You can also believe that the moon is made of green cheese. Believing either of them, absent any proof or at least a hypothesis based on facts that can ultimately be put to some sort of test, isn't really a strong position to argue from.

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[Hognoxious]

There's no evidence that everyone else thought the earth was flat. There IS evidence that people were taught, and knew, the earth was round. Aristotle didn't live in a vacuum

Most people weren't taught anything at all in the middle ages. And believe it or not, there is no evidence of any medieval peasant meeting Aristotle.

Re the yadda yada masts bollocks, you're assuming that they sat down with the same basic knowledge as we do and the same reasoning systems as we do. You're also assuming they had time to sit down and think about it, and that they cared. Perhaps they had other priorities, like surviving.

Give it up already ... the "people thought the earth was flat right up to the middle ages" is just ignorance.

unless you have a time travel machine and a mindreading device you have no more idea what they thought than I (or anyone else does). Why doin't you give up the arrogance instead.

You could start by proving that you understand the difference between some, none, and all.

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[turbidostato]

"Come on, even the ancients knew that the tides were caused by the moon. Direct observation."

No, the didn't. They knew that there was a correlation between tides and moon phases but it was Newton the first one to give an explanation about it.

But my point was more to state the "giant slow waves" could explain a boat behaviour when reaching the horizon since "giant slow waves" were not unknown to the ancient world.

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[tomhudson]

The ancient greeks certainly knew Aristotle. Now, forward on to the middle ages. The reason that Columbus was ready to sail around the world was not to "prove it was round" - everyone already knew that, which is why he was able to get financial backing. If they had thought the world was flat, nobody would have financed the voyage, or crewed the ship. They expected him to find a westward sea route to China, by going around the world the other way.

Sheesh, give it up. They weren't as backward as you make them out to be. Here's a list of others before Columbus who also weren't afraid of falling off the edge of the earth or other such nonsense. And don't forget the Vikings, who were in North America centuries before Columbus.

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[Hognoxious]

#2 - Be a bit more creative in your interpretation of "trick of the light". There is no reason, some trick of the light couldn't result in the ship appearing to sink below the ground, with the highest part the last to disappear.

Well after all it is a trick - if it didn't do something odd it wouldn't be as ... you know.. tricky. Just off the top of my head, low lying mist or haze could explain it.

Unfortunately, the person you're arguing with doesn't seem able to distinguish between some people believing the Earth is flat and all people believing that. He takes the odd one or two advanced thinkers and generalises their theories to people who couldn't read or write and have never been more than a few days' walk from their place of birth - the majority of people in the middle ages. No doubt he'll tell us they could have watched Aristotle on TV or youtube, because he has no ideas of historical context.

His arrogant and patronising rants lead me to think he's unable to distinguish on the one hand people who can understand that, why, and how people in the past believed the Earth is flat and on the other people who actually do believe it's flat.

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[Hognoxious]

Gee, you mean that old greek guy who calculated its' diameter

"It's" would be a contraction of "it is" or "it has". "Its" would be the genitive neuter singular.

What you wrote appears to be short for "I am a pompous arrogant and ignorant wanker".

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[bandmassa]

No need to explain or justify your interest, MrNaz, the Moorish contribution to western culture is almost as broad as the Greco/Roman one. We westerners tend to attribute everything to the Greeks, but we get our maths and science via the Moors (through Spain) as much as via Greece. The ownership of learning is universal, and what one might conceive in the name of science is beyond cultural boundaries. For your culture's contribution to the world, I thank you.

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[FiloEleven]

The OP may have been an exaggeration, in that teaching ID in some schools may not lead to such effects worldwide. But I don't see how it's a straw man.

I will accept that I should have called it "hyperbole" instead of a straw man, which is painful for me to do because I can't stand it when people call "straw man!" at the drop of a hat, and in this instance I guess I've joined their ranks.

The entire point of my first post was really to bring its parent down from its (at the time) +3 pedestal, not to defend "actively teaching children things that are disproven by overwhelming amounts of evidence." Since then it has since risen to +5 Insightful so I failed utterly in that respect, but I had hoped to get some decent discussion out of my second post. So far I have had zero responses even acknowledging what I am trying to say and instead being derailed by the preconceived notion that I must be anti-science or pro-ID or something, so I'm going to try yet again by addressing your objection and further clarifying my remarks.

Yes, perhaps we'll end up in a world where people can still tie their shoelaces, but the OP never claimed otherwise - so that is another straw man. A world where people believe we lived with dinosaurs, and we're supposed to not care just so long as people can still tie shoelaces?

In my opinion, yes, we should care about errors potentially being spread throughout our educational system. The problem is that while Slashdotters are generally very good at finding faults in fundamentalist teachings, things like "Earth is 6000 years old," they are also generally very bad at finding faults that are likely to reside within their own mental framework, things like "science is the only way to acquire knowledge about reality;" this in spite of Einstein, Bohr, and others freely admitting that some of their greatest achievements were rooted in ideas that appeared while they were in dreamlike states--a completely unscientific and non-rational way of going about things. There is a related tendency to view current scientific models as holy, dismissing contrary evidence with a few weak excuses (in many cases ad hominem) instead of rigorously examining it and being open to the possibility that the model needs refining (and, to avoid further confusion, I am not referring here to intelligent design).

Have I made myself clearer? I am not rejecting science or its methods as a tool for acquiring knowledge and I am certainly not encouraging creationism--excuse me, intelligent design--to be taught in science classes at school. I am merely urging people to realize that the pendulum can swing just as far in the opposite direction and with consequences just as detrimental, and that when people move away from the extreme edge of either side there can be more honest, meaningful discussion and a truly plural existence. My writing may appear one-sided against followers of scientism, but that is only because this forum leans in that direction and so is already well aware of the faults of religious fundamentalism and I would be wasting my time.

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[XNormal]

... pearls of an age where the Muslins were the scientific lead.

You mean like these Muslin Fundamentalists?

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[tomhudson]

"Come on, even the ancients knew that the tides were caused by the moon. Direct observation."

No, the didn't. They knew that there was a correlation between tides and moon phases but it was Newton the first one to give an explanation about it.

Sure they did. Ptolemy pointed out the relationship. You don't have to be able to explain a phenomena to say "x" causes "y". You don't have to be able to explain combustion to be able to say "where there's smoke, there's fire", or even to be able to use fire. Also, Newton didn't "explain" gravity - we're still working on an explanation for gravity, and its' transmission between bodies. All Newton did was describe the relationship between bodies in a useful way.

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[grub]

Man this sounds like I wrote it. Nicely put.

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[tomhudson]

Thank you. Between this thread and the one where people are trying to argue that people in the middle ages didn't know the world was round, I've managed to score 2 more foes - I'm at 125. Just 541 more to go to get the magic number :-)

Makes me wonder about their school system - I thought everyone who ever sat through a high-school history class learned that Columbus was looking for an alternate route for the spice trade, and that it just stands to reason that he wouldn't have gotten any financial backing if they thought he was going to "sail over the edge" with their ships. I guess they get their "edumacation" from the Disney Channel.

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[unitron]

What you wrote appears to be short for "I am a pompous arrogant and ignorant wanker".

Are you quite sure that it wasn't "I am a pompous, arrogant, and ignorant wanker"? It's rare to see "arrogant" used as a noun. :-)

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[wistlo]

When I traveled through the Middle East, Eastern Arabic numerals struck me as much more logical than the Western set I grew up with and use today. Zero is the simplest possible symbol, a dot. The "five digit is the only symbol that is both closed and without open lines (in other words, like the Western zero), which is an appropriate distinction for the half value of the base. Each of the first four digits has as many strokes as the digit represents (single stroke for one, two for two, etc.). I imagine this makes numbers up to five easier for children to learn.

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[sheath]

You don't know the mad poet of Sanaa, author of al-Azif? Read up here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Alhazred

Quick summary for the lazy: al-Azif later became known as the Necronomicon.

ia! ia! cthulhu ftagn!

Re:One Resource

[DerekLyons]

I take it you've never actually studied any history of the Middle East?

Re:One Resource

[tomhudson]

Fair enough, but I would still disagree :-)

There is no place for personality in chemistry, and to quote Jacques Barzun, "nor does science touch human beings directly through affirmations about ethics, religion, art, politics, history, and the cosmos--affirmations that must be believed and felt before they can affect life."

Barzun is quite simply wrong. To take the first example - ethics - what we call "right and wrong" have a genetic component. Darwin is at work here. Our sense of right keeps us from doing things that would terminate the species. Picture two sets of parents - one that has more of a sense of "right", and so doesn't kill their offspring the first time they piss them off, or abandon them. Which parents will still have their genes in the gene pool a few generations later? Eventually, almost all the offspring in each generation are genetically programmed to be more "caring".

Here again we agree. I do not see a place for forced acceptance of religious doctrine, nor do I think policies should be written on account of it. Having said that, why is science any less of a crutch than religion? I am not trying to equate the two but merely the drive behind them: I think we can agree that they are both attempts to make sense of existence. You can despise religion all you like and make reasoned arguments against its correctness, but it is wrong to say that what drives men to perform science is any different. This again is not to demean the significant benefits brought to us through scientific practice, only to recognize that it is the self-made purpose and desire for order that drives us in either direction.

Religion is ultimately about power, control over others, even if the practitioners don't realize it in themselves (but boy oh boy, they can sure recognize it in competing religions). There's a survival benefit, because you now have a "clan" that you belong to, so we are genetically self-selected to want to belong to a clan or pack or group - religion is just a dysfunctional response to that, same as allergies are a dysfunctional response of the immune system.

Having said that, science can also be perverted to tell us how to run our lives in ways that are ultimately harmful to us. A good example is how we spend more money on cures than prevention. We know that simple hand-washing would prevent most colds and flus from spreading, but we push drugs instead, because that's where the money is. Consider this - surveys show that 23% of people don't wash their hands after going to the toilet, and 91% pick their noses (just look in the car next to you at red lights). Nice way to spread germs. Maybe if humans weren't pigs, we wouldn't have to worry about the swine flu so much?

But no, it's easier to recommend drugs, travel restrictions, and face masks (the health equivalent of "security theatre"), rather than possibly offend people by running ads saying "STOP PICKING YOUR NOSE!" or "A RUNNY NOSE IS LIKE A ZIT. YOU KEEP PICKING IT, IT WON'T GO AWAY!"

Interestingly enough, there's a gender bias around hand-washing. Almost half of all women wash their hands after using the toilet, but almost no men.

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." There are behaviors of the whole system or organism that are not manifested by any of its constituent parts and cannot be fully understood through the study of those parts."

You don't get the building by studying the individual pieces of wood, the pallets of bricks, and spools of copper wiring either. Or an airplane by studying nuts, bolts, rivets, plastic, and unformed sheet metal panels. Or even the number 42 by studying just the numbers "4" and "2". Consider a hydro dam. The river, by itself, won't generate electricity. Neither will the dam, nor the generators. However, put them all together, and you have something new - electrical power from gravity acting on water.

When you study a system, you look not only at

Re:One Resource

[Paul Jakma]

The fallacy in your argument is, if your "scientism" refers to a 'belief' in the scientific method and rationalism, that "scientism" is inherently anti-extreme. Instead it is healthy scepticism that (in general) *refuses* to 'believe' or put 'faith' in any claim, beyond any such faith allowed by a consensus of rational consideration of physical evidence.

The only way you could consider that kind of world-view to be "extreme" is if you inhabit a world where truth is handed down to you, not to be questioned, and your "truth" is so insubstantial that you feel threatened by the above, contrasting view...

Re:One Resource

[Paul Jakma]

Sure, but a spheroid earth fits with other observations (e.g. that we can observe heavenly bodies that are round, which fits with spherical), etc.. There's a great essay by Isaac Asimov, "The Relativity of Wrong", which uses this topic as its main example.

Re:One Resource

[FiloEleven]

Just so we're clear, scientism isn't some word I made up, so you can stop inflecting finger-quotes every time you type it =) Its use dates back to at least 1980 and probably further--certainly the concept has been around since William James' writings around the turn of the 20th century.

Scientism is extreme in the sense that it has a healthy skepticism about everything except for its own ability to make true, complete statements about reality. There is little more than lip service paid to the truth that science does not dictate reality but models it, meaning that in practice any suggestion that there are domains not covered by science is seen as a failure of weak minds instead of a respect for the limits of science. To tweak a quote often lobbed at monotheists: we are both skeptics, I just take it one belief further than you do.

(One sad consequence of scientism is that it is now looked down upon in certain circles to use the words "faith" and "belief" without attempting to say-it-without-saying-it as you did above. If you didn't mean the word "belief" then use something else, but remember too that they are not dirty words--don't avoid using them for fear of guilt by association!)

The things I have mentioned elsewhere--politics, art, history--are not scientific pursuits nor can they be studied in a scientific manner, and their value is disputed only by extremists of one stripe or another and those who have too little knowledge of those topics to make meaningful statements about them.

I submit that there is a certain type of person who feels threatened by a lack of ability to understand everything about the world in which he lives. He can take comfort in a belief that science will explain everything eventually, but in doing so he misses the purpose of scientific pursuit, namely to make more sense of the world around us. In this way he is very much like the man who follows a religion out of fear of death, completely missing its affirmation of life.

Re:One Resource

[FiloEleven]

Fair enough, but I would still disagree :-)

I expected nothing less, nor am I disappointed by it! I enter into debates (arguments, conversations, whatever) with the goal of making things clearer. I hope that there will be people out there who agree with me or are persuaded by my words, but I don't set out to make converts. I'd usually rather talk to people with differing viewpoints because then we actually have something to discuss.

For this reason, I am not sure that I have much else to offer on the topic. There comes a point where we will either end up talking in circles (which I am in danger of beginning if I respond to you about ethics) or simply proselytizing. I have a few final comments, though I won't be making any more arguments below.

Religion is ultimately about power, control over others, even if the practitioners don't realize it in themselves

Certainly there is an aspect of organized religion that is about power. Some of the less hierarchical religions like Buddhism do not suffer from this problem, so I cannot lump them all together as you have. Interestingly, even in Christianity there has been a slow, unsteady march away from hierarchy: a rebellion against the rigorous Catholic Church hierarchy gave rise to the Reformation and Protestantism while even more recently there has been a reaction to Protestant hierarchies through the emergent church movement. This is to say that while I acknowledge the power structures in place and that they tend to do more harm than good, they are not central to what a religion is. A religious hierarchy is much like the power structure you mentioned that pushes for cures over preventions: it isn't really science but it influences science, and in this case not in a good way.

On the topic of sums and wholes: here again I think we are at an impasse. Let me use a chunk of your text:

Consider a hydro dam. The river, by itself, won't generate electricity. Neither will the dam, nor the generators. However, put them all together, and you have something new - electrical power from gravity acting on water.

From my perspective, I take your words at face value when you say "you have something new." I think that all of the constituent parts plus a certain configuration expresses a new whole that cannot be understood except for in and of itself. That is, it is a hydroelectric dam only when it is fully assembled and operational (and yes, I see a "broken hyrdro dam" as being a wholly different yet related thing). Unfortunately I haven't thought about the topic long enough or clearly enough to be able to articulate what I mean other than a sense of wonder that here is this thing that was not here before yet is now. That same wonder drives inventors, scientists, thinkers, and others by leaps and bounds to bring more originality to the world, so I don't plan on giving it up.

I recently discovered a wonderful radio show called Radiolab, and the episode I heard most recently was about emergence (unrelated to the emergent church I linked above, but oddly enough this is what gave me the idea to include that in my response and not the other way around). The whole show can be listened to or downloaded from that link and there is a good summary as well; a hypersummary would be "Ants, neurons, cities: who is in charge and how do they solve problems? Nobody and we're not really sure." It's certainly not required listening, but it touches on what we have been discussing, it evokes in me the sense of wonder I mentioned above, and you may find it interesting (the same goes for anyone else who is still reading through this thread).

I am glad that we were able to have a discussion because although we still disagree, I sense that you don't think I'm as much of an idiot as you did when we started, and I definitely think more highly of you for your willingness to hear me out and understand the position I take, especially as it is one that isn't easy to pin down even for me.

Re:One Resource

[Paul Jakma]

I respect your eloquence, and I appreciate you responding but, in the nicest way possible: What waffle. There's not one rational argument in there.

- science does not dictate reality but models it

Well duh, yes. ;)

- any suggestion that there are domains not covered by science is seen as a failure of weak minds instead of a respect for the limits of science.

You're trying to imply there are limits to what understandings can be reached through the scientific method and hence (presumably) that there is certain understanding which can only come to us via belief in a divinity. That's an extra-ordinary claim, and requires some kind of rational argument for why a divinity is needed to explain things, if you wish it to be accepted scientifically.

Otherwise you're just complaining that "wah wah, those annoying scientist and their need for proof, why can't they just accept the Great Sky Fairy?". Accepting things without proof, of course, goes against the scientific method. That said, some scientists do accept religious-faith on such a basis for whatever internal reasons.

politics, art, history--are not scientific pursuits nor can they be studied in a scientific manner, and their value is disputed only by extremists of one stripe

This is definitely a straw-man. Where exactly do you see scientists arguing against any of the above endeavours? (Which presumably is what you're trying to imply, given the context).

Re:One Resource

[FiloEleven]

in the nicest way possible: What waffle. There's not one rational argument in there.

LOL, thanks for the candor!

You're trying to imply there are limits to what understandings can be reached through the scientific method and hence (presumably) that there is certain understanding which can only come to us via belief in a divinity.

I must not be writing clearly because this is what people keep taking me to mean. Yes, I am stating that there are limits to what understandings can be reached through the scientific method, but the bit about divinity does not necessarily follow and I am not trying to sneak God in through the back door.

Where exactly do you see scientists arguing against any of the above endeavours? [meaning politics, art, history]

When they claim to possess the only path to understanding. Not everybody appreciates art, yet art leads some minds to a greater understanding of the world around them. Politics sits in the uncomfortable spot between ideals and real situations, and its problems (balancing the needs and wants of communities and individuals) cannot be perfected--though by action based on proper statistical studies individual situations may be improved. Even so there will always be diverging viewpoints because rational conclusions can be drawn in dozens of directions just by weighing each datum's importance differently, which each person is bound to do according to his tastes. History is a collection of experiences, often contradictory, and its haphazard nature defies classification without over-generalization, yet when one has taken in enough of it truths about the human condition emerge though they are rarely tagged with the adjectives "always" and "never." Not everything that is experienced can be quantified, and as science's role is one of quantification it makes perfect sense that it would not hold sway in these areas.

It may simply be that the point is subtle and people keep looking for more than what's there--entirely plausible since my thoughts are largely based on reading William James, whose pragmatism continually suffers for that same reason. To end with some of his words on the topic, "Science must constantly be reminded that her purposes are not the only purposes and that the order of uniform causation which she has use for, and is therefore right in postulating, may be enveloped in a wider order, on which she has no claim at all."

The only book about science you'll ever need!

[agnosticanarch]

The Bible!

Oh, wait...

~AA

Hawking's Compilation

[eldavojohn]

On the Shoulders of Giants was a book I picked up on the cheap ... a weighty tome assembled by Stephen Hawking of classic books of science (some of which you listed).

I think I got the hardcover for ~$8 at a used bookstore. Amazon seems to indicate it's not available on the kindle but here's what's in it:

1. Nicolaus Copernicus "On the Revolutions of [the] Heavenly Spheres" (1543)

2. Galileo Galilei "Dialogues [or Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations] Concerning Two [New] Sciences" (1638)

3. Johannes Kepler Book Five of "Harmonies of the World" (1618)

4. Sir Isaac Newton "The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" (1687)

5. Albert Einstein "The Principles of Relativity: A Collection of Original Papers on the Special Theory of Relativity" (1922)

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[digitalhermit]

I don't remember the title and hope someone here does, but there was a book that explained Einstein's Principles of Relativity. The book started out with some thought experiments then talked about a box floating in space to help explain relativity. Further on it explained the mathematics behind relativity. All one needed was a good understanding of first year calculus.

For the life of me, I can't recall the title..

To the OP, a good "guide" IMHO is Daniel Boorstin's "The Discovers". It's one of my favorite books and does a good job of explaining how developments in science affected the world.

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[Jonathan]

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

[cpricejones]

I would add to this a some modern classics that are not physics books:

- 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)

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[ILikeRed]

Not science so much, but an interesting view of history and science in HG Wells:
The Outline of History

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[counterplex]

6. Bertrand Russell "Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy" (1919)

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[lastchance_000]

I doubt it's what you're thinking of, but the Feynman Lectures on Physics assumes very little starting knowledge, and covers quite a bit, including some pretty meaty material. The audio lectures a very nice to have, as well.

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[PopeRatzo]

Feynman, Richard P,

Not yet "classic" but surely going that way if we're not raptured up to Jesus first.

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[stephanruby]

"The Golden Book of Chemistry" It's been pulled by the Publisher, mainly because a kid built a passive nuclear reactor with it, but it should still be available somewhere. It's a wonderfully written book, that's a bit dated, and a bit dangerous, but with proper parental supervision -- it should be fine.

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[vrmlguy]

I don't remember the title and hope someone here does, but there was a book that explained Einstein's Principles of Relativity. The book started out with some thought experiments then talked about a box floating in space to help explain relativity. Further on it explained the mathematics behind relativity. All one needed was a good understanding of first year calculus.

Do you mean Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland? Back in the '40s and '50s, George Gamow wrote several excellent books popularizing science.

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[bob_herrick]

I don't think that is the one. MTIW starts with a dream about life in a world in which the speed of light is 20 MPH or so, invovling bicycles. It has been decades since I read the books so this may be wrong, but I don't recall a box.

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[AdamThor]

- Hofstadter: Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Man, I've tried a couple of times to read this, and it just doesn't work for me.

I think I see what he's getting at - the book itself is a fugue. But when I try to read it I attempt to hold in my mind what that guy is freaking talking about, except he doesn't make a point, he just moves on to something else. It's like listening to Cliff Claven. After a couple hundred pages I'm like 'this guy is going in circles, not getting anywhere'. Each sentence makes sense, but they don't point in any coherent direction.

I can see how it's good, if that fugue thing is right, but it also kinda sucks.

end rant

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[cpricejones]

I see what you mean about the book. I have a math background (B.S.), play an instrument, and studied tessellations in high school. So the book definitely speaks to me. However, I cannot say that I've finished it yet. It's one of those casual unfinished books on my shelf--I pick up and read a chapter every now and then. Brothers Karamazov was a particularly difficult book for me to finish. I tried three times and failed, getting about 150 pages deeper each attempt but getting lost in the story and philosophical ramblings. The fourth attempt was a success though, and I enjoyed the book much more that time for some reason. So maybe GEB needs another go ...

For a real piece written like a fugue, I would highly suggest the Sirens chapter from Ulysses ...

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[biovoid]

I'm a programmer, a graphic designer and I produce music. The book is genius, and highly entertaining. However, I've read it around 4 times now. Definitely a tough read the first time, but with each subsequent read you get more and more out of it.

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[FractalZone]

I doubt it's what you're thinking of, but the Feynman Lectures on Physics assumes very little starting knowledge, and covers quite a bit, including some pretty meaty material. The audio lectures a very nice to have, as well.

Mod the above posted up plz! Feynman was a true wizard at science and communicating to the scientifically inclined/curious layperson. If one reads the Feynman Lectures on Physics first, a lot of more difficult works by Einstein, Heisenberg, etc. become much less of a challenge.

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[parrillada]

I'm a physicist who is very much into the foundational questions surrounding consciousness, and I have to say that I think that GEB is genius, and very much worth reading. In fact in a lot of ways, it is one of the books I've gotten the most out of, and I have always been annoyed by those who 'don't get it.' You just can't expect a book that tackles what GEB does to do so in a linear manner -- that would be like giving up on a zen koan because it makes no sense. Heck, even in the introduction to a recent copy Hofstadter basically laments the fact that most people 'don't get it.' I, for one, think the book is absolutely brilliant and beyond its time, and not because it cutely weaves together so many interesting subjects, but because it communicates deep and compelling insights into the nature of consciousness that few other books have come close to.

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[cpricejones]

i could not agree more. i think for a similar reason zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance is a good book for scientists, esp the part about gumption traps. here is one of my favorite koans from GEB:

The student Doko came to a Zen master, and said: "I am seeking the truth. In what state of mind should I train myself, so as to find it?"

Said the master, "There is no mind, so you cannot put it in any state. There is no truth, so you cannot train yourself for it."

"If there is no mind to train, and no truth to find, why do you have these monks gather before you every day to study Zen and train themselves for this study?"

"But I haven't an inch of room here," said the master, "so how could the monks gather? I have no tongue, so how could I call them together or teach them?"

"Oh, how can you lie like this?" asked Doko.

"But if I have no tongue to talk to others, how can I lie to you?" asked the master.

Then Doko said sadly, "I cannot follow you. I cannot understand you."

"I cannot understand myself," said the master.

Re:Hawking's Compilation

[maitas]

It took me 15 years to read GEB. I started over and over constantly, each time going a little further. But it was worth it.
  It is also much better to read it in spanish than in english, since the spanish version is way longer with a lot more of expanations of each part (of course you need to know spanish to do so).
  This is becouse whe DH came upon the first spanish translation, he realized that it have quite a lot of mistakes becouse the context is so complex, so he wrote a companion book for translators, and the latest spanish version includes all of this added notes.
  Nevertheless you should give it a try once a year, I'm sure that it will happen to you what happened to me that somehow the last time it just flowed.

Two more

[mc1138]

Gray's Anatomy... not the show. And I'd add A brief history of time, although fairly recent, I'd tag it in their as a book that will most likely be considered on par with older books in a similar vein.

Re:Two more

[Smidge207]

Dude, you forgot Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision"

=Smidge=

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:Two more

[donweel]

I took a corrective exercise course and went looking for Grays Anatomy and discovered that most people now are using Frank Netter's Atlas http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Human-Anatomy-Frank-Netter/dp/0914168819 I would say it is a classic, illustrations are drawn by hand. Some samples: http://www.netterimages.com/

Re:Two more

[muridae]

To compliment Gray's Anatomy, the Merck Manual might be a good choice. Gray's shows you what the inside looks like, and Merck Manual tells you how to pick a name for that disorder.

For other branches of sciences, and leaning towards engineering, I would recommend the Merck Index of chemicals, and Machinery's Handbook. An older version of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics will explain the, then recent, changes in scientific theory.

Re:Two more

[Pinkybum]

"On The Origin Of Species" was a populist book also. From the wikipedia article: "The book was written to be read by non-specialists..." There was also a very interesting NPR show a couple of weeks ago about Darwin's life which went into how Darwin probably was writing the book for his wife who was adamantly against his theories.

Re:Two more

[PopeRatzo]

I know you're joking, but I learned a lot of science in the process of finding out why Velikovsky was wrong.

And don't forget, Isaac Newton was an alchemist.

St john's College New Mexico

[goombah99]

St. Johns teaches from the "great books". e.g. learn physics from Newton, etc...

just nab their sylabus and you have not only what you want but also what you need, a list the great purged of historical anachronisms and ones that are poor for teaching. (e.g. you probably don't want to learn medicine from a list of bodily humors)

Re:St john's College New Mexico

[Fallingcow]

There's always the classic list of classics (lol), the Great Books of the Western World list by Adler

That site has tons of other book lists, too.

Anyway, Adler's list is pretty much the best single answer to this question. I'd add Asimov's many, many essays on science (just start looking for them at used book stores, you'll have a dozen volumes before you know it) and Stephen J. Gould's essay collections.

Re:St john's College New Mexico

[MacPerson]

There's another campus in Annapolis. Besides Darwin, Leibnitz, Newton, and Ptolemy (yes, Ptolemy) the most interesting stuff we read in science included Dalton's work that proves that atoms exist. You THINK you believe they exist now, but read Dalton and you'll be sure. The original Adler set has too much stuff that doesn't really support independent thought and discussion, but the SJC reading list is properly pared.

Principia Mathematica

[linzeal]

This is what got a lot of CS in motion due to its "thorough" axiomatization of mathematics into symbolic logic.

Alice in Quantumland - Robert Gilmore

[DomNF15]

Not exactly a "classic", but then again quantum is a relatively new field of study.

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:Learning or Collecting?

[Fallingcow]

Lockhart in his Lament indicates that the process of discovery is the real heart of mathematics. In that case, reading original works that presumably showcase that process is vital, especially for those just starting out in the field.

Ideally, though, you'd read them with updated notation.

Re:Learning or Collecting?

[Evil Pete]

What I found interesting about many of these original works was not the final product as such, but rather the reasoning towards it. What is usually missing when you read a text is the detailed reasoning leading up to the idea, what the alternatives were, why were they discarded. We usually only get a brief overview of the issues, so when we read the original we see more clearly how a great mind approached an unsolved problem. That I think is the real value of such works. They cover so much more than the final path.

Re:Learning or Collecting?

[Hognoxious]

I also think there were some groundbreaking math books from the Arab era

Most notable among them being "A treatise on the flying of aircraft into highrise buildings and maximising the damage thereby".

Well, a modern classic

[OldFish]

Einstein's relativity paper is free:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5001

Feynman

[Jamamala]

What about the Feynman Lectures on Physics?
Although it's obviously much newer than all the books you listed, and is still under copyright.

Physics

[clare-ents]

Einstein, The principles of relativity.

Very readable papers on special relativity, essentially the same way it's taught now in a modern physics class (at least mine was).

Feynman, QED

Smart arse replaces great big pile of maths with pretty pictures with arrows in. Excellent.

Copernicus, On the revolutions of Heavenly Spheres,

Won't tell you very much, but worth it for the sheer horror of deriving the motions of the planets as viewed from Earth without using fractions.

Feynman, Lectures

The best presentation of a decent physics course there is. May only be comprehensible to people who already have a physics degree, I never tried reading it until I already had most of one at which point I was entranced.

Re:Physics

[FTWinston]

Mod parent up
for excellent use of short witty summaries.

Re:Physics

[SatanicPuppy]

QED is fucking awesome. Feynman is about the most readable person you'll find on any of these lists (Darwin is dry as dust...100 pages of morphological bone changes in pigeons and you'll gnaw off your own limbs).

I have only an advanced laymans understanding of physics (4 classes at the undergrad level) and his explanations were concise, clear, and very easy to follow.

Re:Physics

[Sockatume]

I've been listening to the first few Feynman Lectures in Physics via Audible. They're actually restored recordings of his first presentations of those lectures, and they're excellent.

Re:Physics

[SatanicPuppy]

'A brief history of time' is a good book (so is 'The universe in a nutshell') but they were kind of written for a wider audience.

QED is a series of lectures on quantum electrodynamics that is geared toward people with a strong interest in the nuts and bolts of the material. It's a core text, something you'd pick up if you were trying to improve your understanding of quantum electrodynamics...For it to be as readable as it is, is a huge accomplishment.

Re:Physics

[Hurricane78]

I have searched all over, for the German version of "The principles of relativity" and/or "Relativity : the Special and General Theory", but I couldn't find anything. Does anyone have a link?

I feel kinda dirty or stupid, living in Germany, having German as my quasi-first-language, and reading the words of a German scientist... in English. ^^

The Best American Science Writing

[eggoeater]

An annual publication gathering the best non-fiction science writing for the year. Usually edited by a good science writer (eg. Glick).
I love them because of the variety and it usually gives you a good idea of the science without boring you with mundane details or being too pedantic.

The only classic science book you'll ever need...

[chemosh6969]

the Bible(choose your version for different results of science)

Some English Links

[eldavojohn]

1. Nicolaus Copernicus "On the Revolutions of [the] Heavenly Spheres" (1543)

2. Galileo Galilei "Dialogues [or Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations] Concerning Two [New] Sciences" (1638)

3. Johannes Kepler Book Five of "Harmonies of the World" (1618)

4. Sir Isaac Newton "The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" (1687)

5. Albert Einstein "The Principles of Relativity: A Collection of Original Papers on the Special Theory of Relativity" (1922)

I am not certain how easy it is to "capture" HTML to read on the Kindle later but here are some decent translations in English if you want them.

Re:Some English Links

[genghisjahn]

Print to PDF. Email the PDF to your kindle email address. Costs ten cents.

Re:Some English Links

[bob_herrick]

When I was just a wee lad, not yet ready for high school, I learned a love of science from the classic Mr. Tompkins series by George Gamow. I think they are still quite useful as introductions, even though the science has moved on a hair.

Re:Some English Links

[Amazing Quantum Man]

It's been updated -- I have "The New World of Mr. Tompkins".

Re:Some English Links

[Zerth]

Also, print to PDF, email the PDF to @free.kindle.com instead and copy it over with a USB cable. Costs zero cents.

Ancient Engineers

[earlymon]

Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague De Camp

Absolutely not what you've asked for - but a possibly invaluable essay that I expect would be quite useful to guide your understanding during your quest.

Re:Ancient Engineers

[radtea]

Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague De Camp

If you're interested in ancient technology, "The Medieval Machine" by Jean Gimpel is also very good, although the authors economic ideas are laughable.

I'll also second the AC above and highly recommend Newton's Opticks, which is an absolute tour-de-force on experimental method. Whenever I hear some idiot in a fuzzy subject complaining about how doing experiments is hard so they'd rather just make stuff up I am reminded of the Opticks, where for example Newton spends almost forty pages describing half a dozen different experiments to prove "positively and directly by experiment" the proposition, "light from the sun consists of rays of differing refrangibility." The Opticks is far more readable than even modernized versions of Principia, too.

Missing Option

[Smidge207]

6. Surak's "A Concise History of Vulcan Logic" (2430)

=Smidge=

Re:Missing Option

[HasselhoffThePaladin]

But Surak lived in the 4th Century. Sorry, the nerd in me couldn't let that go.

Re:Missing Option

[adonoman]

After most of his writings were lost, he re-wrote it after his katra was brought back.

Re:Future Classic

[4D6963]

You realise that for something to be a classic it has to break some new ground. A good vulgarisation work can hardly become a classic, mostly not as it becomes outdated and fails to gain any historical importance by not being "groundbreaking".

Math Books too, please

[BradleyAndersen]

I'd like to have this question answered for math books.

Re:Math Books too, please

[ChrisMaple]

These are secondary, but I like them:
Men of Mathematics by E.T. Bell
Lectures on the Icosahedron and the Solution of the Fifth Degree by Felix Klein

Re:Math Books too, please

[mtm10]

I really enjoyed Mathematics: from the Birth of Numbers. [http://books.google.com/books?id=E09fBi9StpQC] Your mileage may vary but I bought this book when my daughter was in the third grade, and used it to definitively answer her questions as they came up about anything mathematical. She starts at MIT this fall (class of 2013)

Re:Math Books too, please

[Fallingcow]

Second for Men of Mathematics. Awesome book, highly readable.

Re:Math Books too, please

[Skagit]

Try An Introduction to Mathematics by Alfred North Whitehead. Very well written.

Ptolemy's Almagest

[LotsOfPhil]

Is that classic enough? Why are you doing this?

Godel, Escher, Bach

[Anonymous Coward]

Is not ancient, but I think a definite classic that will probably stand the test of time.

Aristotle on Logic

[Geirzinho]

Aristotle's Organon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organon). Without a firm logical science we would be nowhere.

Re:The Double Helix

[HasselhoffThePaladin]

What makes you say that? I thoroughly enjoy reading about topics related to biology/biochemistry, and some of the discussions tied to those articles have been hugely informative. Are you referring to how those discussions often devolve into religious debate?

Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

[bulbach]

Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

Re:Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

[PhysicsPhil]

Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

That, of course, assumes that economics deserves to be treated as science.

Re:Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

[chazd1]

In these times we probably should remember that Economics is a scientific discipline. When reading it it seems it could have been written yesterday, but was really written in 1776.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/adamsmith-summary.html

Re:Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

[SquirrelsUnite]

What does this even mean? The subject matter is not a useful criteria for telling what's science and what isn't.

For example if someone is trying to model economic behaviour and is testing those models on how people actually act how is that not science?
Maybe mainstream economic thinking is not good science in the sense that it wasn't tested enough and economists are more confident in their conclusions than they actually should be. But even if they are it doesn't mean Economics isn't a science, just that they are doing it wrong.

I guess someone could make an argument that a question can be hard enough where there's no hope of reaching any reliable conclusions. But there's still some value in describing what we see without trying very hard to explain the underlying dynamic. And of course once you have the data people can't help but speculate why it looks the way it does, even if they have no means to test it rigorously. Then you could say that the speculation part isn't science (as long as there's no way to test it) but collecting the data certainly is.

Re:Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

[An ominous Cow art]

Given the poster's username, he was probably thinking of Ernest Rutherford's quote:
"Physics is the only real science, the rest are just stamp collecting." :-)

Re:Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

[cdw38]

Economics is a social science and should be treated as such.

Maybe mainstream economic thinking is not good science in the sense that it wasn't tested enough and economists are more confident in their conclusions than they actually should be.

No, the problem with mainstream economic thinking is that they want to treat it like a natural science, e.g. where experiments are run and conclusions derived, when it should be treated as a deductive, logical social science. They want to come up with relationships by positivist experimentation, which is ridiculous in a system where there are trillions of inputs and trillions of outputs.

See Ludwig von Mises, Epistemlogical Problems of Economics, if you want to read further.

Re:Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

[OldFish]

Phil is in his windup, here comes the pitch, it's a meatball, waist high and ready to go for a ride...

Yes, Phil, economics IS a real science, like tea leaf reading and astrology.

Let's call it the Pinnochio Science.

and I thought "dark matter" was some kind of annoying anomaly, an irritation, one thread out of place in an otherwise carefully woven work of art(science) but noooo, it turns out that it's 95% of matter in the universe or somebody is really wrong about something else...seriously disillusioned in Mountain View.

Re:Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

[OSXCPA]

I think one of the things I (and others) have difficulty with is the notion of applying the term 'science' to a field that has so many moving pieces that it is impossible to draw conclusions at a level of detail most people would find useful.

For example, any economist can tell you that the current economic crisis in the US will eventually sort itself out, and more spending (by someone) will help. No economist can provide an optimal solution to fix things quickly and 'correctly' (i.e., with few or no serious unintended adverse consequences).

Take it a step further, to Sociology, which I can't even bear to call a science of any stripe, where practitioners are hobbled even further by the fact that the primary inputs of their analysis are people and their behaviors - and not just the 'rational' economic behaviors either.

I don't take issue with calling social sciences 'sciences' but they are... different in character, and seem, well, less scientific.

Re:Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

[cdw38]

That is because the modern economists have made it less scientific (or, they believe they've made it more scientific, but in reality they've made it a whole lot of garbled up bullshit where, like you said, it's impossible to draw meaningful conclusions). If you are interested, read that book I linked to. Definitely not every economist would tell you more spending would help - Misesians (or followers of the "Austrian" School of economics) will tell you that we need to spend less and save more, and definitely not spend more. Real investment must be fueled by savings, not paper.

Further, economics should deal with "people and their behaviors" as such, not just with "rational" economic behavior. One huge problem with modern, mainstream economics is that it doesn't deal with human action as such, but rather with "economic" behavior which doesn't actually exist. Real economics should deal with how humans actually act, and employ ends to obtain desired means. It shouldn't have anything to do with what the specific means aimed at are, since those vary between people and over time.

Re:Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

[SquirrelsUnite]

Some questions in Economics are empirical in nature. For example classical economics makes certain assumptions about the preferences and choices of a buyer. These assumptions are ultimately testable: for example it does seem like consumers' choices can vary over so short timescales that the notion of preferences brakes down in a lot of situations.

You can also ask whether revealed preferences really do correspond to higher levels of reported happiness. I remember reading an article (not journal article, just science news) which claimed that when faced with wider choice people were more likely to report they were unhappy with their purchase, which is exactly the opposite of what classical economics predict.
Anyway, there are no corresponding methods for large-scale economic behaviour. So if by Economics you mean predicting economic activity on a large scale then Economics is not a Natural Science and probably won't be in the foreseeable future.

Still, trying to replace empirical methods with pure logic seems hopeless to me. The problem is that logic is just so damn powerful. If your system contains one inherent contradiction you can prove absolutely anything. Add the uncertainty of natural languages and you can easily come up with any conclusions you want without making any obvious logical error.
It seems to me that when you have such complex problems as the economy or societies in general the correct thing to do is to rely more, rather than less on observation and accept that you can make very few reliable predictions or even meaningful comments outside your immediate experience.

Nerd Fest Pending...

[Comatose51]

Asking a question like that on Slashdot will inevitably lead to:
1. A flame war over which book/scientist is the most important
2. An outpouring of obscure references as every nerd tries to out-nerd the other with more and more obscure references

Re:Nerd Fest Pending...

[SteeldrivingJon]

3. Rants against the kindle because it uses DRM on store-bought files.

Re:Nerd Fest Pending...

[Main Gauche]

4. Introspective, enumerated reflections on the tendencies of nerds.

Re:Nerd Fest Pending...

[linzeal]

So just get a frigging Sony Ebook Reader for like 200 bucks that works with any PDF file.

Re:Nerd Fest Pending...

[Quiet_Desperation]

3. Stupid, snarky comments about fake books.

Such as the disappointing sequel to Newton's Principia, Principia II: The Quickening

Or Galileo's little known, underground autobiography Lorem Ipsum Pontifex Bicceus Amet" (Literal translation: "The Pope Is A Total Bitch.")

And "Fuck You, World!", the classic tome by Thomas Midgley (inventor of leaded gasoline *and* chlorofluorocarbons).

Re:Nerd Fest Pending...

[Liquid Len]

5. Introspective, enumerated reflections on the tendencies of nerds.

Re:Nerd Fest Pending...

[jotaeleemeese]

7.- 200 nerds recommending "Escher, Godel, Bach..." only to come clean later and accept no human being has ever read the damn thing.

another 20th cenury classic

[rnaiguy]

Erwin Shrodinger's "What is life?" is a fantastic collection of his ideas of the physical basis for life. He wrote this when the idea of a molecule was just coming into existence (referring to the genetic material as an "irregular crystal"), and inspired the first generation of molecular biologists.

It's a great example of the power of "back of the envelope" estimations, and a very interesting read.

Softer sciences?

[jbeaupre]

Depending on your definition of science, there are many other classics that should make for an interesting read. Adam Smith - The Wealth of Nations and/or Karl Marx - The Communist Manifesto for example. As with many soft sciences, they make excellent observations. But ability to predict trends isn't quite as good.

A Marx joke (abbreviated) in former communist countries goes: He was right about capitalism. He was wrong about communism.

Re:Softer sciences?

[earlymon]

Hear, hear! Good idea.

And on that note, I submit that anyone reading The Communist Manifesto might want to also read Keslo&Adler's The Capitalist Manifesto. FWIW, although not in Kindle format - http://www.kelsoinstitute.org/pdf/cm-entire.pdf - as I recall believing that converting a pdf to an acceptable format for the Kindle isn't impossible.

These are soft and non-predicting because they are rife with observer bias applied to anecdotal evidence. By example: Marx firmly believed that working alienated a man from his true self, and in his mind, rigorously proved it. Problem was, his ideas of work were assumed upon his readers, with his expectations that the target audience was an industrial-revolution nation, and further, that the abhorrent working conditions were going to remain as static as centuries of serfdom had, and finally, he was out of his depth that neither he nor any other European intellectual had cornered the market on defining the nature of a human's true self - that in itself is a fool's errand.

Controlling one's reaction to exposure to belief systems is an exercise best left to the reader.

This is direly on-topic, because so much of science is just as rife with observer bias applied to anecdotal evidence. By example: Einstein could not believe his initial GR outcome that the universe was non-static, so he jimmied the equations with a cosmological constant and later removed them. Hawking, in a great, "Wrong again, Albert!" moment, started refining the cosmological constant, also driven by his religion's belief system.

Scientists do this thinking that they are being whole persons - or worse, do not even notice often that they are doing this.

Precisely a driving reason for not only peer review, but the nasty tendency for science needing time for ideas to evolve: it takes time for the community to be born into a different socio-politico-religious mindset and to thereby see the bias and limitations of the scientific forebears. Sadly, this effect in and of itself is not universally recognized by scientists themselves.

Learning the objective skills that come so easily to some, and using them to poke holes in "soft sciences" builds a great mental tool for examination of physical sciences. It's never enough to have some sort of talent - one must rigorously exercise it.

Damn. I've actually said something intelligent on /. I ought to go buy lottery tickets or something to take advantage of this roll!

Old School

[mindbrane]

Euclid "The Elements" trans T.L. Heath 3 vols. and "The Almagest" by Ptolemy ...best represent the core world view of the ancients although, in the Almagest, you have to slog through all the mystical stuff. The Almagest held sway as one of the most read seminal books up to Newton's time.

The Teaching Company

[commodore64_love]

Download the courses, crank VLC Player's speed up to 2x, and you can learn the equivalent of a Bachelors Degree in a few weeks. Just yesterday I finished the course called "String and Particle Physics" and learned more in one afternoon than four semesters of Physics.

Isn't modern technology great?
Books are so passe'

Re:The Teaching Company

[jotaeleemeese]

How is it to be educated by squeaking squirrels?

Make sure you pick up some context too

[Brandee07]

Try and pick up a biography or companion piece to the books you're reading. Each of these authors and works were shaped by their times.

If you're trying to understand the evolution of science as a whole, it will help to understand the cultural influences that acted on these people, and what they might not have published for fear of reprisal.

Remember, the Origin of Species never goes so far as to suggest that humans had evolved from anything, much less monkeys. It was certainly implied, but he probably felt that it was too great a leap for his contemporaries to accept, and he kept his theories to plants and animals.

Of course, he did go back and explicitly state his theory as applies to man in the Decent of Man, 10 years later.

Re:Future Classic

[ChrisMaple]

Bryson is a swell writer -- informative and funny -- but his grip on the science he writes about is marginal. His politics are moderate-left, which biasses his writing somewhat.

Ooh! ooh!

[a whoabot]

I suggest the New Organon by Francis Bacon. This edition seems to be available for the Kindle.

Or how about even Aristotle's Physics? That's a nice book to read if you've never read any Aristotle or even any philosophy before. Bacon in the New Organon was trying to advocate a new method of science against the Aristotelian tradition.

And it probably cannot be called a classic, but Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions would probably be interesting to you. And as a foil to Kuhn's work, Popper's Conjectures and Refutations.

Leon Cooper

[sznupi]

"An Introduction to the Meaning and Structure of Physics"

Granted, it's only half century old, but imho a classic. Definatelly a good read for anybody even vaguedly interested in physics or science generally.

Re: Classic Books of Science (Insightful)

[haystor]

Which Geometry book is that. I see some sets of texts, is there a single specific one?

Historical math books and papers

[AbyssWyrm]

For math, remember that you'll also need to look at papers published. One of Gauss' works launched the field of intrinsic differential geometry, I think it's title went something like "On the geometry of curves and surfaces." Also Gauss' Disquisitiones Arithmeticae. You might try history books for other good leads -- the standard references in the history of math is Morris Kline's "Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times." Something of Riemann should be important, since he developed multivariable integration.

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.

Orthogonal view

[paiute]

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.

Re:Orthogonal view

[compro01]

I disagree with the 2nd criteria. Going back to the original conception of an idea can give considerable insight, even if some modern specificities may be absent. Newtonian mechanics still works just fine for many purposes and provides a base to built higher concepts upon.

Re:Orthogonal view

[paiute]

I know what you mean here, but consider that if you wanted to learn Newtonian mechanics, you would start out with a modern Physics 101 text- because it is presented to the modern sensibility. You might certainly go and read the Principia, but it would be as a novel supplement.

The rules of thumb are not inviolate. More like what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules.

Paradigm Shift

[giltwist]

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn

Coined the phrase "paradigm shift" and thoroughly smashed the romanticized view of science as linearly progressive.

Go back to the ancient world

[Ecuador]

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!

Since the biological sciences seem to be absent...

[toppavak]

Robert Hooke's Micrographia Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters R.A. Fisher's The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (Considered to be one of the most important works on the topic since Darwin's) James D. Watson's The Double Helix Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene And also some good philosophical works by scientists: Erwin Schrodinger's What is Life? and Mind and Matter Albert Einstein's Ideas and Opinions and The World as I see it Enjoy!

Jefferson

[adwarf]

Might want to try taking a look at what Jefferson had in his library: http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/becites/main/jefferson/88607928.toc.html

American Scientist top 100 of 20th century

[haystor]

A great list of great books:

http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/100-or-so-books-that-shaped-a-century-of-science

Re:Couple Suggestions

[Anonymous Coward]

Newton - Opticks
Maxwell - A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism

Why would I want to read anything from someone who can't even spell "Optics"?
Also "A Treatise" ...what the heck is that... sounds like a toffee-based popsicle, obviously coffee-flavoured since it comes from Maxwell house. In addition, I'm not sure why they chose BOTH Electricity and Magnetism since they are both completely different subjects and have nothing to do with each other. For those less informed: Electricity is measured in volts and amps, and Magnetism is measured in how many pounds of iron something can pick up. You might as well talk about caterpillers and butterflies... two completely different animals.

Don't forget Gibbs

[Hoplite3]

I'd go for the collected papers of JW Gibbs. There's a Dover edition out there, so I think it is in the public domain. One of the bright lights of last century's science. He pretty much made modern thermodynamics, and his work is at the heart of a lot of material science.

Not free, but definitely a good read is GI Barenblatt's Scaling, Self-similarity, and Intermediate Asymptotics. You can learn a lot of applied math/ applied physics from that book. The scaling analysis of the atomic bomb and of Olympic rowers are both really neat.

I would avoid pop-press physics books. They're light on science and heavy on BS.

Harvey, Lavoisier, Einstein

[nine-times]

I can't remember the names of the books, but I remember finding William Harvey and Antoine Lavoisier interesting back when I was in school. Harvey studied the circulation of blood and Lavoisier did some early work in chemistry, including the discovery of oxygen.

I was also pretty interested in the electromagnetism work by Faraday and Benjamin Franklin, but I remember less about them. By the time it got to Maxwell it was a little too much work. Strangely, I found Einstein much easier to understand than Maxwell, even though the theory itself is a bit whackier.

But if you're more interested in the process of figuring things out than the actual discoveries, then I think Harvey, Lavoisier, and Einstein were all pretty interesting.

Re:Harvey, Lavoisier, Einstein

[SleepingWaterBear]

I'd like to throw in a vote for Harvey. His Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Living Beings is a fantastic example of scientific writing, showing the sort of rigorous reasoning I would associate more with mathematics than biology.

Re:Harvey, Lavoisier, Einstein

[BorgCopyeditor]

What, no Ptolemy? ;-)

Re:Harvey, Lavoisier, Einstein

[nine-times]

Nah... too much whacky geometry IMO. Interesting enough if you're going to do the whole Copernicus->Kepler->Newton thing, but otherwise I'd leave it be.

Mismeasure of Man, Stephen J. Gould

[rockmuelle]

You will never look at statistics the same way again after reading this book. Great story about how different measures if intelligence (e.g., IQ) were developed to prove prejudices rather than seek objectivity.

-Chris

it Kant be science

[chazd1]

C'mon.. from the best selling Author of the Golden Rule. "The Critique of Pure Reason" Immanual Kant

It is not the easiest read, but the discussion of the nature of scientific thought is provoking.

How do you know when it is really science? How can you be so sure? Slash-dotters are so sure.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4280

Re:Future Classic

[Gotung]

Facts do have a liberal bias after all.

List of SI derived units

[nomoreunusednickname]

Go through the list of SI units http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_derived_unit most of them are named after the guy who discovered the underlying principle. Read their books.

Prerequiste to studying science

[Locke2005]

Before embarking on a study of science, one must first know what the limits of science and understanding are. In this regard, I would recommend Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach, and Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Bootstrapping Tech

[phrostie]

Years ago I read a book about an engineer that was sent back in time.
He took it upon himself to bootstrap 12th century Poland's technology in order to fight off the Mongols. Many things he does in his book are glazed over and lack a lot of detail I'd like to have seen, but it made me appreciate "low tech tech" for lack of a better term. Too many modern books on subjects assume an industrial base and that certain items can be purchased so they skip over the original processes used to make things. The foxfire books are a good source, but I would have like something a lot more focused on the how to part and less on the wise tails.

Any suggestions?

Re:Bootstrapping Tech

[An ominous Cow art]

That's "The Cross-Time Engineer" series, by Leo Frankowski.

Re:Bootstrapping Tech

[phrostie]

yes, thanks, i still have a copy.

what i'm looking for would be technical books on starting from nothing.

Gutenberg project

[Temujin_12]

The Gutenberg project is a good resource for free texts:

http://www.gutenberg.org

Though strictly not a classic "science" book, I'm currently reading Pascal's Pensees, written by one of the great mathematicians in history.

Demon Haunted

[Faux_Pseudo]

I strongly recomend Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. It does a really good idea of exploring why and how science works and has changed the world, for good and bad, through time. As an added bonus you get a full set of debunking tools to learn how to spot junk pretending to be science.

Re:Demon Haunted

[Fallingcow]

I didn't find the "debunking tools" to be anything new to me. If you've already got skeptical thinking down alright, you're just going to be reading a bunch of world-view-affirming stuff in that book.

That said, I thought it was (mostly) well written and found it to be interesting. Lagged a bit around the 1/3 mark and near the end, IMO. I'd recommend the two collections of Feynman anecdotes over that, though, if you already grok scientific skepticism. Fun stuff, and loaded with examples of it.

Carl Popper

[digitig]

I'd strongly recommend Carl Popper's "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" -- quite readable (as these things go) and of critical importance in understanding what science actually is -- even if you don't accept Popper's view of what science is, he shows thoroughly why what often passes for "science" amongst amateurs is actually a mash of incompatible views.

Re:Carl Popper

[danscott]

It's *K*arl Popper.

Re:Carl Popper

[digitig]

So it was. Sorry!

In Fact vs. In Theory

[DynaSoar]

Most "classic" books are theoretical and sometimes philosophical in nature (insert plug for Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" here). How science is actually conducted, and how what's reported differs from what happens, is a matter of examining the facts surround scientific progress. Reporting of these things is extremely illuminating, surprising, sometimes even discouraging. But for anyone interested in real science in the real world, it's at least as necessary as all the other. The sole best work IMO examining this is Collins & Pinch's "The Golem". It's required reading in my 'history and system' and methodology classes.

The Discoverers

[Zentakz]

I would highly recommend reading The Discoverers by Daniel J. Boorstin. It is a fascinating book in itself, but more importantly, it references hundreds of important works that you might choose to explore more thoroughly.

affectation

[bcrowell]

My advice would be not to make an affectation of reading original works. Here is a good article that discusses this "Great Books" paradigm, and points out how poorly it fits in the sciences especially.

One example you gave was Newton's Principia. Well, I'm a physicist, and I've read most of the Principia. I would not recommend it to anyone. First off, it's all written in the language of Euclidean geometry, merely because most of Newton's audience wasn't familiar with algebra, and certainly not with calculus, which had only been published a few years before the Principia came out. Today, the way to approach the subject is to read a treatment that uses modern math that you're familiar with. If you know calculus and analytic geometry, you can read a two-page proof of the elliptical orbit law, a result that took Newton the bulk of his entire book to prove because of the mathematical tools to which he limited himself.

Of course there are exceptions to every rule. I think the first 1/3 of Euclid's Elements is still something that everyone interested in mathematics should read.

Science Made Stupid

[grondak]

Here are excerpts from Science Made Stupid -- be sure to look up the Universe, Life, Chemistry, and Evolution. This book, by Tom Welling (not Tom Weller), has all our Slashdot favorites and more! It is now out of print. I saw a price for a used copy of $195-- which makes me want to sell my beater copy of this book for $100! The master of the pan flute, Zamfir, loved it. You will never have a finer science laugh.

Could I...

[warGod3]

Possibly get any of these as audiobooks as a Dan Brown interpretation?

Not "classics" but still good

[Gutboy]

1,2,3...Infinity
Metamagical themas :questing for the essence of mind and pattern
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Re:Not "classics" but still good

[oodaloop]

123 Infinity was the first book I thought of too. Gamow is credited with being the first person to formulate the Big Bang Theory (long before experimental evidence was found) and predicting the existence of DNA (before Crick and Watson discovered it). His stuff is definitely worth reading.

Great Books college

[michaelmalak]

Reading and discussing the Great Books is the way to receive a true education. 99% of what passes for a college education these days is just vocational training. One of the few exceptions is Thomas Aquinas College in Ojai, California. Their syllabus is available for free (there are no electives -- all students follow the same well-thought out track):

http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/curriculum/index.htm

give it up

[Anonymous Coward]

1. I believe it would be Mrs, she is married.
2. Why do you bring her up, a bit of an obscure reference.
3. Leave Michael Palin's wife out of this. (actually I'm not certain she took his name)

Re:give it up

[PopeRatzo]

Why do you bring her up, a bit of an obscure reference.

And becoming more obscure with every passing day, thank god.

Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"

[rocket rancher]

Might not be on a level with Newton's Principia, but it could provide you a framework in which set all these great works that people are recommending.

Re:The only classic science book you'll ever need.

[Jason1729]

I tried to find that in the science section at the bookstore, but it was in the mythology section.

Re:Future Classic

[spiedrazer]

Writing biased to the Left? How? Unless you are talking about the places where he points out that it took 80 years to get the production of a harmful poluttant outlawed etc., which comes up a couple times, but that could hardly be called left leaning. He's just reporting the facts.

Euclid's Elements.

[rssrss]

"Don't forget Euclid's Elements."

My son, who is a math major, took a 300 level course in Geometry last term. Euclid (in translation) was one of the assigned text books. He enjoyed the course. He told me they spent about a third of the course on Euclid, before moving on to more contemporary topics.

Re:Euclid's Elements.

[david_thornley]

Did anybody in his class notice that the very first proposition cannot be rigorously proved from Euclid's definitions, axioms, and postulates? (Hint: Euclid's definition of circle can be satisfied by an arc, and Proposition I cannot be proved using arcs.)

Two that probably no one has read

[Markvs]

Science Since 1500 by H.T. Pledge
More of a philsophical work than pure science per se, the book puts biology, chemistry, math and physics together and discusses each in relation to the other as well in terms of history and application.

Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius
All about ancient architecture and how to build arches, domes, baths, pillared buildings, etc with Roman technology and building techniques.

Which Dictionary...

[spiedrazer]

...defines a classic as having to break new ground? or is that just your personal opinion?

The original post doesn't say anything about limiting his readings to books announcing initial discoveries.

The Bryson book illuminates the context and connections between hundreds of scientific discoveries, as well as some of the coincidences or dumb luck that helped them come about. It somehow manages to do so in an engaging and entertaining fashion.

Keep in mind, also that many /. readers do NOT have 4 year degrees from institutions where they were forced to take a broad collection of science courses. As such, the quantity and variety of topics covered by Bryson could be a useful first exposure to many people in need of a little broader scientific perspective.

Re:Which Dictionary...

[4D6963]

I still don't see how a vulgarisation work can become a classic. Feel free to point to examples in the field.

Re:Which Dictionary...

[Hognoxious]

Provide a definition of classic that involves groundbreaking as a necessary condition. Or perhaps, you know, you could just shut the fuck up.

Re:Which Dictionary...

[4D6963]

Oh, so you have no example of a work of vulgarisation that became a classic? I accept your apology.

Re:The Double Helix

[Fnkmaster]

Just beware that Watson has become well-known as a bit of a self-promoter, determined to snare more credit than Francis Crick for their discovery of the structure of DNA in the public media. You could also just argue that because Crick was a more private individual focused on other scientific exploits throughout his career, he simply didn't do as much hyping around as Watson did.

So Double Helix may be a great read, but it should be taken with a small grain of salt for completeness of picture.

Einstein

[Cajun Hell]

Of all the explanations of relativity, as a relative (heh) layman I was surprised to find Einstein's the best/clearest. Prior to that, I just assumed that someone whose job title was "writer" rather than "scientist" would do a better job. And maybe somewhere, someone has done a better job, but I didn't find it. Einstein's book clobbered all the other ones I tried to get through. It is written well and you will grok relativity after reading it.

Three suggestions

[Raul654]

I have three suggestions - The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan (1977), A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (1988), and A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (2005)

Aristotle qualifies as a "classic science book."

[EWAdams]

It influenced Western thinking for centuries; throughout the Middle Ages anything in Aristotle was taken as gospel because he was the smartest man they knew. Unfortunately, much of it is bollocks (objects in motion tend to come to rest; the brain is a device for cooling the blood). But it's definitely a "classic" science book.

Freud, too. He was a terrible scientist, but hugely influential. Kinda like Ptolemy's epicycles -- imaginative and dead wrong. Worth knowing about if only to see how far we've come.

Issac Asimov

[Maximum Prophet]

Most of Issac Asimov's science fact works are as interesting in his science fiction. I read "Realm of Algebra" right before taking algebra in school and I sailed through the class. It hasn't been in print for awhile, but you can find used copies on eBay and Amazon.

Re:Issac Asimov

[SockPuppet_9_5]

Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov. All three volumes.

Read the volumes along side being taught the course and you will not miss a trick. The only drawback is there are no images and when you first learn physics, it helps to visually grasp the topic.

Read the volumes without or before taking the course and you will raise your nerd quotient by 111%

Euclid's Elements

[Bueller_007]

For the love of God, Euclid's Elements. Available for free here:
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/elements.html

Feynman's Lectures on Physics

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.amazon.com/Feynman-Lectures-Physics-Set/dp/0201021153

Re:Feynman's Lectures on Physics

[SleepingWaterBear]

This one needs modding up! The Feynman lectures provide an impressive and thoroughly non obvious way of understanding physics. While they don't contain original research, the lectures' approach to the subject is insightful and unique.

Herodotus

[cjsm]

In the history vein I'd like to add Herodotus, the Greek historian from the 5th centrury BC, considered in western culture the father of history. I read one translation of some of his work, the Histories some years ago. Very readable.

Some classics I haven't seen listed

[moss1956]

Linus Pauling's "The Nature of the Chemical Bond"
James D Watson " The Double Helix"
F. Carl Gauss "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae"
Henri Poincare "Méthodes nouvelles de la mécanique céleste"
Pierre-Simon Laplace "Mécanique Céleste"
Joseph La Grange "Mecanique Analytique"
Isaac Newton "Principia Mathematicae"
Herman Weyl "The Classical Groups"
Samuel Eilenberg, Saunders Maclane, "Algebraic Topology"
Alain Connes "Noncommutative Geometry"

Re:Some classics I haven't seen listed

[berbo]

The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.

OK, not really an original manuscript, but the constants go back to the beginning of time.

Philosophy of Science

[Any Web Loco]

Hi -

Great project you're embarking on - I hope you enjoy it!

Something you might consider adding to the list are a few books on the history and philsopy of science and technology. Wikipedia has a great list here
 
I'd recommend taking a punt at Kuhn, Popper and Feyerabend first.
 
Cheers,
 
awl

Day the Universe Changed

[griffinme]

Day the Universe Changed by James Burke if your interested in why and how we came to think the way we do. Its based on the philosophy that the universe is as we perceive it. If our perceptions change then the universe is changed. Everyone through out history has thought that their view of the universe was the correct one. If they thought their view was correct 1000 years ago. And we view most of their beliefs as silly now. Why should our view of the universe be any more correct in another 1000 years?

A true classic

[z80kid]

The only classic text I remember from school was Science Made Stupid.

Antoine Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry

[mzs]

translated to English by Robert Kerr in 1790

Dover had a reprint of this in the 1960s. You get a feel by reading this of the creation of modern chemistry and debunking of phlogiston theory. It is fascinating from a history of science perspective and you see the modern scientific method in practice in a rigorous way possibly for the first time.

The root of science

[actionbastard]

Alchemy.
Coelum Philosophorum by Paracelsus
The Treasure of Treasures for Alchemists by Paracelsus
The Aurora of the Philosophers by Paracelsus
Turba Philosophorum by Arisleus
The Hermetic Arcanum
The Golden Tractate of Hermes Trismegistus
The Stone of the Philosophers by Edward Kelly
Tract on the Tincture and Oil of Antimony by Roger Bacon

And others

[Amazing Quantum Man]

James Gleick - "Chaos: Making a New Science"

Copernican Heresy

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Uh... Galileo? OK, he wasn't burned, but he was imprisoned and forced to recant.

Re:Copernican Heresy

[vidarh]

He was put in house arrest for arguing that the planets revolved around the sun instead of around the earth and continuing to argue so after having been cautioned by the Pope against advocating the view (though he was originally expressly encouraged to continue discussing the alternative views as long as he did not express a preference) and then (possibly inadvertently) mocking the Pope in his next work, not for claiming the earth was round.

Try again

What the catholic church did to Galileo was idiotic, but there's little basis for asserting that they thought the earth was flat, and that certainly had nothing to do with their actions against Galileo

Re:Copernican Heresy

[Attila Dimedici]

Exactly, he wasn't burned at the stake. Actually, Galileo's "problem" was more political. His scientific rivals were more politically connected than he was and he inserted commentary insulting to politically powerful people into his writings. Basically, Galileo got into trouble because he was insulting to anyone who disagreed with him and alienated many people who might otherwise have supported him.

Re:Copernican Heresy

[Nefarious Wheel]

Basically, Galileo got into trouble because he was insulting to anyone who disagreed with him and alienated many people who might otherwise have supported him.

Ahh, your classic Geek. If he were around today he'd likely be a sysadmin, pissing off project managers because he won't shut up about reasoned arguments about system capacity. In retrospect, I think I like the guy. Of course, I'm not the pope.

Re:Copernican Heresy

[Amazing Quantum Man]

I was replying to a question that asked "Please tell me who was burned at the stake for disagreeing about the earth being the center of the universe?", not for claiming the earth was round.

Re:Copernican Heresy

[vidarh]

Yeah I confused your post with another one while replying, but Galileo was still not put in house arrest and forced to recant for disagreeing with the earth being the center of the universe in any case.

He was put in house arrest after repeatedly arguing the point in public writings and mocking the Pope. The Pope (and many others in the church) supported him initially - going so far as to specifically ask him to present both the church view and his own in one of his works, but cautioning him not to take sides.

They went as far as they could without allowing Galileo to undermine their own power base. There's still plenty of reason to criticize them, but they weren't nearly as backwards as they were given credit for. T

Re:Copernican Heresy

[unitron]

....Galileo...was insulting to anyone who disagreed with him and alienated many people who might otherwise have supported him.

So what was his Slashdot user name?

math classics

[sevenfactorial]

I can think of some very important mathematical works from the last century, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to read them:

1. Principia Mathematica, Russell & Whitehead
2. On Undecidable Propositions, Kurt Goedel
3. Classification Theory, Saharon Shelah
4. Topology from the Differentiable Viewpoint, Milnor

I assume you are interested only in original documents, and not summaries or expositions. Unfortunately the technical and specialized nature of modern science is likely to make "accessible science" and "original science" mutually exclusive.

I very much second paiute's opinion (above).

Einstein's Theory of Brownian Movement

[Lord Byron II]

It's not of the scope of some of the other texts are and statistical mechanics is kind of dry to a non-physicist, but it's easy to read, short, available for under $10 and written by one of the greatest scientific minds ever.

here are some

[portscan]

euler - introductio in analysisin infinitorum -- brilliant work of euler from 1748 containing many striking results. english translation available.

bernhard riemann - on the number of primes less than a given magnitude -- riemann's one paper (~15 pages) on number theory, which introduced his famous zeta function (english version available in riemann's zeta function by edwards, a book dedicated to the very rich subtext of this terse paper)

shannon - a mathematical theory of communication -- seminal paper founding information theory

schrodinger -- find yourself a decent exposition of the analysis of the hydrogen atom using schrodinger wave mechanics. learn where all that junk they taught you in high school chemistry actually comes from!

Feynman Lectures on Physics -- comprehensive account from the man who knew physics as well as anyone.

ahlfors - complex analysis -- best text i know of on this subject in mathematics that shows up in the most surprising places in the sciences.

landau & lifschitz - course on theoretical physics -- 10 volumes on modern physics from classical mechanics to electrodynamics, relativity, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, fluids, etc. from nobel prize winner lev landau.

Fourier Analysis - t w korner -- intro to fourier analysis with many applications (after all, applications are the whole point of fourier analysis) from your basic heat equation stuff to calculating the age of the earth and other interesting things.

i think that in compiling this list, you will find two things to be true:
1. increasingly (in the last century, for example), important work is not (initially) published in books, but in papers.
2. trying to read the original works is fun for about 5 minutes. if you really want to learn, modern expositions in textbooks tend to be far better than the originals.

Re:here are some

[BorgCopyeditor]

schrodinger -- find yourself a decent exposition of the analysis of the hydrogen atom using schrodinger wave mechanics. learn where all that junk they taught you in high school chemistry actually comes from!

OK, but where?

Re:here are some

[portscan]

i'm pretty sure griffiths's quantum mechanics has a good chapter on it. that's what we used in (undergrad) QM class.

wolfgang pauli's book wave mechanics looks pretty good. there is a preview on google books. hydrogen atom starts on page 88.

linus pauling's book introduction to quantum mechanics also looks good. preview on google books. hydrogen atom is chapter 5, starting on page 112.

disclaimer: i have not read the last two in full, just skimmed them online. they look quite good, although of course they require a decent understanding of techniques for solving PDEs. as dover editions, they are about $10 each, which seems well worth it to me.

Re:One Resource, one and the same indeed.

[pugugly]

"That this chronology was largely manufactured by Joseph Justus Scaliger in Opus Novum de emendatione temporum (1583) and Thesaurum temporum (1606), and represents a vast array of dates produced without any justification whatsoever, containing the repeating sequences of dates with shifts equal to multiples of the major cabbalistic numbers 333 and 360;"

I would say that this was some definition of the term 'mathematician' I was not previously familiar with,
  except it's all too easy to become familiar with this widely accepted, but inaccurate, use of the term 'mathematician'.

Sigh - Pug

Descartes

[FibreOptix]

Try Descartes Discourse on Method and Related Writings from Penguin. Descartes revolreally helps to set the foundations of science and the relationship to truth in a way that was not done before.

Re:Future Classic

[PopeRatzo]

You realise that for something to be a classic it has to break some new ground.

Wrong.

5 pillars of science and link to 80 more

[xantox]

1. Euclid of Alexandria, "Elements" (300 B.C.). 2. Archimedes, "The Works of Archimedes", (ca. 250 BC), translation by Thomas Heath, Dover Publications (2002). [First mathematical physicist on record]. 3. G. Galilei, "Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze" ("Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences"), Leiden, Louis Elsevier (1638). [Mechanics, kinematics, theory of inertia] 4. I. Newton, "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy") (1687). [Laws of motion] 5. J.C. Maxwell, "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 155, 459-512 (1865). Cfr. "Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism", Dover Publications (1954) [Theory of electromagnetism]. For fundamental scientific works in 20th century, see http://strangepaths.com/resources/fundamental-papers/en/

Dirac

[Anonymous Coward]

Paul Dirac's 'Principles of Quantum Mechanics'

the most elegant, profound and laconic (in the Spartan sense) exposition of quantum mechanics ever written

Re:Dirac

[FrangoAssado]

Paul Dirac's 'Principles of Quantum Mechanics'

I absolutely agree -- this is a GREAT book.

Although, to be fair, it should be said that it requires a bit of math above what's required by the other books mentioned in the question.

Google books has a limited preview: http://books.google.com/books?id=XehUpGiM6FIC&printsec=frontcover

Discourse on Reason - Descartes

[jmoloug1]

This short and highly readable work can be regarded as opening the doors on the age of enlightenment. For related info, read Descartes' Bones an interesting read about Descartes was viewed in successive generations.

On Growth and Form

[Sans_A_Cause]

A true classic by D'Arcy Thompson. Clear language and examples of what really amounts to the physics and mathematics of evolutionary biology.

In a fashion yes

[marcus]

but Luddites don't dominate the politics of, or otherwise rule, the USA.

>It is a statistical certainty (p that there are innocent people being held
> at Guantanamo Bay.

So, it is a statistical certainty (p 10e-11) that there are guilty people being held at Guantanamo Bay. Where does that get us?

Re:In a fashion yes

[radtea]

but Luddites don't dominate the politics of, or otherwise rule, the USA.

From an outsider's perspective they have far more influence than is comfortable. While there is a major current in American culture that is against them, the majority of Americans have deeply anti-scientific religious beliefs, which contribute to your laws on sodomy in some states, your general refusal to legalize gay marriage, your puritanical and harmful drug laws, etc.

So, it is a statistical certainty (p 10e-11) that there are guilty people being held at Guantanamo Bay. Where does that get us?

Since the innocent people obviously deserve fair, public and speedy trials in the ordinary system of American jurisprudence one would hope that the certainty there are innocents in Guantanamo Bay would encourage anyone who doesn't hate America and the Constitution to agitate for an immediate transfer of all prisoners to the domestic judicial system so that the innocent can be separated from the guilty as rapidly as possible.

It is clearly impossible for the military, who were responsible for capturing the innocent people being held in Guantanamo Bay, to preside over the trial process. That would be like the old Soviet system where the police determined guilt: grossly and completely un-American.

Given the existence of a perfectly adequate judicial system in the U.S. there is no reason to do anything other than allow the innocent people being held in Guantanamo Bay access to it. Of course, that means giving the guilty people access to it as well, although the outcome of access for those two groups will not be the same...

Cowards who hate America might say that there's something wrong with doing this, but I really can't see what it is.

Re:In a fashion yes

[stdarg]

From an outsider's perspective they have far more influence than is comfortable. While there is a major current in American culture that is against them, the majority of Americans have deeply anti-scientific religious beliefs, which contribute to your laws on sodomy in some states, your general refusal to legalize gay marriage, your puritanical and harmful drug laws, etc.

Specific beliefs may disapprove of specific scientific endeavors but that's not the same as being anti-science overall. I don't think the majority of Americans would say biology is against their religion so it shouldn't be taught, even if certain issues in biology cause them to make a religious judgment on whether that particular issue should be allowed (stem cells). A majority also wouldn't say doctors should be banned just because they don't like abortions either. Your examples of laws about sodomy and gay marriage -- how is that even related to science?

How many people throughout the world have said something like nuclear bombs should have never been invented because of Hiroshima? That the scientists who developed it were "irresponsible" and all that? It's not Christian fundamentalists who say that, it's usually hippies. But just because they're against that one particular issue or technology doesn't make them anti-science overall.

It is clearly impossible for the military, who were responsible for capturing the innocent people being held in Guantanamo Bay, to preside over the trial process. That would be like the old Soviet system where the police determined guilt: grossly and completely un-American.

Wouldn't it be more like every country in history, including America? No country sends prisoners of war through their regular civilian court system. It's all done by military tribunals.

Given the existence of a perfectly adequate judicial system in the U.S. there is no reason to do anything other than allow the innocent people being held in Guantanamo Bay access to it. Of course, that means giving the guilty people access to it as well, although the outcome of access for those two groups will not be the same...

Courts aren't set up to handle war issues that the army is involved in. There are a ton of reasons for this, including that the army is not a police force. They don't read Miranda rights when they capture someone. It's a war zone so there isn't really a good way to go to the "crime scene" and gather evidence and make sure nothing was tampered with, etc. Any court case coming from an armed conflict would result in "not guilty" because nothing was done correctly.

Re:In a fashion yes

[Hognoxious]

Since the innocent people obviously deserve fair, public and speedy trials

The guilty don't deserve that too? But I'd like to know how you determine whether they're guilty or not without having a trial. Throw them in a pond, perhaps?

The one, the only...

[Quiet_Desperation]

Mr. Wizard's Experiments for Young Scientists by Don Herbert

Seriously, you will not need any other science book *EVER*!

Re:The one, the only...

[Sybert42]

The "D" stands for "Darwin"--isn't that cute. Little jokes to distract you from your dear Singularity that won't happen soon enough. You won't be standing out there with the D200 in a warzone--will you? Poor baby. Look--you're getting ignored! Aww...too bad little baby. Keep denying the singuarity, little baby. Stop crying!

mod parent up

[panthroman]

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. 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.

Guns Germs and Steel

[krelian]

I believe Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond will probably be regarded as a classic a couple of years from now.

Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson

[gninnor]

I wish that there was a Project Gutenberg version of Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson. Maybe not to the criteria, but for being close to 100 years old, it still helped me learn calculus. A PDF of the second addition. http://djm.cc/library/Calculus_Made_Easy_Thompson.pdf

for the marine biologists in the hizzy

[tyghe!!]

The Log from the Sea of Cortez - John Steinbeck .

Re:Archimedes

[SleepingWaterBear]

In particular Archimedes' The Sand Reckoner is an amazing text foreshadowing mathematical ideas which civilization has only thoroughly grasped in the last couple centuries. When you compare the work of Archimedes to the natural philosophy of his contemporaries it's hard to fathom how he could have been so far ahead of the rest.

Re:One Resource, one and the same indeed.

[egork]

What you cite is Fomenko's criticism of the current mainstream chronology. Not the content of the Fomenko's own theory itself. I think the way Wikipedia text is structured is a bit misleading.
So your comment actually second Fomenko's disappointment with the current chronology.

You can check the source of the citation here:

http://books.google.de/books?id=ORx_6NlgsngC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=a+t+fomenko+Scaliger&source=bl&ots=5lEsgEnONz&sig=sN-EHAur2j7YY3z-NE9UAWkmQbY&hl=en&ei=gJEASpqLH4u8_AbB4Oz_Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA91,M1

The book is published at a very famous Springer Verlag, if that is of any familiarity to you.

I am a Master of Science in Applied Mathematics myself and did not find Fomenko's argument crminaly insane or inscientific :-) They may be wrong, however, like any theory.

QUOTE:
These two volumes which concern mathematical statistical chronology represent a major, unique work and are the first of its kind published in the English language. A comprehensive set of mathematical and statistical techniques is presented for the analysis of chronological data. These include, as main tool, the means to compare texts and other sequential data and the ability to judge them in terms of similarity and, hence, closeness. These techniques constitute a new important trend in applied statistics. Volume I concentrates mainly on the development of the mathematical statistical tools and their application to astronomical data, including the Almagest and simulated data (to test the validity of the methods). Substantial material dealing with historical data and chronology is also included. Volume II concentrates on the application of these tools to narrative texts and ancient and medieval records (such as Egyptian, Byzantine, Roman, Greek, Babylonian, etc.). An astonishing wealth of historical data is considered. The conclusions which are drawn concerning the accepted chronological dating of events in ancient history will certainly provoke controversy and serious debate. These two volumes provide the necessary background and material for intelligent participation in such debates. For statisticians, historians, astronomers, archaeologists, and others with an interest in the integrity of historical dating and the means to analyze this.

More details
Empirico-statistical Analysis of Narrative Material and Its Applications to Historical Dating: The development of the statistical tools
By A. T. Fomenko
Edition: illustrated
Published by Springer, 1994
ISBN 0792326040, 9780792326045
204 pages

Re:One Resource, one and the same indeed.

[egork]

beats me how my parent post get modded offtopic in a thread about historical books on science. Whereas I refer to a scientific history theory (book) that is supposed to explain why there are same discoveries seemingly getting forgotten between civilizations.

D'arcy Thompson

[efudddd]

On Growth and Form.

A very fat book about structure in nature. Thompson saw not only typed similarities of form in nature but observed mechanical and physical constraints that create those forms. Now over 90 years old but still fascinating. (Well, to me at least!)

"Foundation" books

[jc42]

Both Principia Mathematica books, by Isaac Newton and Bertand Russell, have been important to the development of science. These were math books, of course, and as such weren't actually science. But since mathematics is fundamental to understanding most sciences, they should be in any list of Classic Books of Science. We might also note that Russell chose the same title because his intent was to replace Newton's great work with something even more important. Many people think he succeeded, in the same sense that Einstein succeeded in replacing Newtonian physics. But of course this doesn't detract at all from the importance of Newton's works. (Just take care to avoid his theological writings. ;-)

Statistics is a branch of mathematics that's very important to science, but a quick attempt to learn the "classic" books in the correct sense of that term didn't work very well. Google just returned lots of ads for books that use "classic" in the marketing sense of "current best seller that has had more than one edition". Does anyone have references to truly classic statistics texts that have been important to scientists in the past?

Re:"Foundation" books

[digitig]

I'm not sure whether it counts because it wasn't ground-breaking in its content, but Darryl Huff's "How to Lie with Statistics" seems to be on a lot of scientists' and mathematicians' bookshelves.

Re:Future Classic

[4D6963]

Example please.

Henri Poincare: La Valeur de la Science

[Mike-the-Mikado]

This book (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Value_of_Science) published in 1905 provides a fascinating insight into the state of physics just prior to the breakthroughs of relativity and quantum mechanics. A few chapters appear dated, but most is well-worth reading. It appears to be freely available in French (and relatively easy reading). I have not seen any free translations into English.

As a student of the Great Books Program...

[Rog-Mahal]

I recommend quite a few. Ptolemy's Almagest is the first really unified mathematical theory of the motions of the heavens. Kepler's Epitome of Copernican Astronomy cleans up Copernicus' theory and gives us the first really usable heliocentric theory. If you're interested in biology I suggest Harvey's Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals. Apollonius' Conics is a beautiful work of ancient geometry and works under the same rules as Euclid's Elements. Descartes' Geometry opens with the solution of problems that Apollonius could not solve. Vitruvius' Ten Books on Architecture give a great summary of classical architechture and applications of ancient mathematics. Most of these works are difficult. The Euclidean system has been left behind for the Cartesian one, so it seems very strange. Euclid takes some getting used to, but it's undeniably beautiful, and gives you the context for modern mathematics and science. But don't forget, it all starts with Euclid and Aristotle :)

Harvey & Hooke

[WeirdJohn]

Harvey's "Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals" has to be on your list. It's one of the first works that reports on real medical experiments, rather than just quoting the Ancients.

Robert Hookes' "Micrographia" is an astounding read. In it he describes some really early adventures with microscopy, but also shows what it was like back in the 17th century when so much was being discovered. My opinion is that it should be required reading for all would-be scientists - if you don't get excited then science is probably not really for you.

Re:Future Classic

[ChrisMaple]

Due to your post, I went back and quickly reread about a third of the book, and I have to admit that I was wrong as far as I can tell. I can't find any bias, and the science was better than I remembered.

I did find two errors. On page 157 and onward, Bryson claims that airborne lead is forever. Actually, airborne lead has fallen dramatically in recent decades, probably by more than 90% in cities. On page 217, he repeats the claim that glass flows at room temperature.

My apologies to you and Mr. Bryson.

Started in the 1200's - 1300's

[charnov]

The Crusades along with the destruction of Baghdad, the center of worlds intellect, around 1250 started the decline. The fall of Muslim Spain in the 1400's and a rise in religious conservatism finished it off.

Many of the troubles during those years were seen as punishment from God and ever since then there has been a movement to not go down that path again.

Most of the knowledge from Spain passed to the West and kicked off the Renaissance.

I am an American Jew, and I have to point out that the Muslim world was the center for thought and knowledge for a very long time. It's not like the Middle East is filled with idiots, they still have fantastic schools and scientists along with a thriving culture. They just aren't the center of the world anymore... honestly, I don't think we are anymore, either.

Philosophy in the Flesh

[33nine3]

It's more on the border between science (cognitive neuroscience), linguistics and philosophy, but this book provides the assembly language of human reason, otherwise known as embodied cognition. It will one day be recognized as one of the great works of early 21st century.

Knuth!!!

[charnov]

If you are on the CS kick, then I highly recommend Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming". All the volumes are excellent. A little of the dense side, though; you had better really love algorithms.

Don't forget von Neumann, Turing, Russell and Whitehead, and Dirac!

Principia Mathematica

[kinema]

Newton's Principia Mathematica is without a doubt a classic, though, it is a little dense.

Re:Future Classic

[OSXCPA]

I wish I had mod points. I was not involved in your thread at all, but public apologies are rare, and deserve credit. Props and respect to you.

Principia Mathematica

[tcgroat]

Both the Netwon's original and the 20th century work of the same name.

My list...

[FlyByPC]

Here are some science/math/technology books that I've found to be educational, interesting, or otherwise thought-provoking. I'm sure I'm leaving many out, but these in particular stand out to me.

They're listed in rough order of the amount of math and thought required (The Road To Reality being very difficult and very fascinating.)

Cosmos (C. Sagan)
Zero (C. Seife)
The Joy of Pi (D. Blatner)
Chaos (J. Gleick)
Artificial Life (S. Levy)
Linked (A.-L. BarabÃsi)
The Mathematical Tourist (I. Peterson)
A Brief History of Time (S. Hawking)
The Mystery of the Aleph (A. Aczel)
Finite and Infinite Games (J. Carse)
An Imaginary Tale: The Story of i (P. Nahin)
e: The Story of a Number (E. Maor)
The Fractal Geometry of Nature (B. Mandelbrot)
The Road to Reality (R. Penrose)

D'Arcy Thompson's On Growth and Form

[skelf]

Although it's a bit more modern than the real oldies mentioned in the post, I consider D'Arcy Thompson's On Growth and Form (1917) to be one of the great classic timeless science books. I had it as a text book for a physiology class 20 years ago and it is still on my shelf. Every once in a while I just like to thumb through it and bask in its coolness (and I am NOT a biologist).

Re:On Growth and Form

[methano]

I definitely agree. This book, given to me about 35 years ago by a friend who was in architecture school, has clearly shaped my thinking. And I'm a chemist. Should be on every scientist's reading list.

A New Kind of Science by Steven Wolfram

[itsybitsy]

The book "A New Kind of Science" by Steven Wolfram is an essential book for anyone, scientist or not. It is revolutionary in it's scope and provides proable evidence that complex systems such as life derive from simple systems in Nature. This eliminates all the silly Intelligent Design nonsense with a little bit of cellular automata that you can work out with a pencil. Chapter 2 is essential.

You can even preview any part of the book online at Wolfram Science.

For a video of wolfram presenting an overview see: Wolfram presents A New Kind of Science.

The Voyage of the Beagle

[3john]

Darwin's best selling account of his travels on the H.M.S. Beagle.

Confusion

[marcus]

The first mixup is the idea of crimes committed on a battlefield. Now this has a long and storied history, but in most situations, these cases end up in some sort of international court, not the internal court system of one country or other.

This can be illustrated by asking one question. You want the prisoners tried in American courts, then tell me, which courts have jurisdiction and what law(s) are they accused of violating?

He sought nothing. The truth took him there.

[jotaeleemeese]

Hawking reaches this conclusion after rigorous scientific work.

Darwin discovered that life could progress without divine intervention, Hawking found that the only place where there could be a god is in the singularity, which for all practical matters, is of no importance to us.

These people don't intend to antagonize religion, the physical world and the logical conclusions they reach show them that gods and religions are the dreams of a species that eventually will know better.

Re:He sought nothing. The truth took him there.

[rossifer]

Can I restate your response as, "There's no way to tell the religious 'you're fundamentally wrong' in such a way that will avoid offending them."?

That's fair. I think he could have cushioned the blow a little more, but your point is taken. Religious believers often seem to be spoiling for a fight anyway, so any "cushioning" probably would have been wasted effort.

Godel, Escher, Bach. I am a boring geek.

[jotaeleemeese]

Instead try "Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture" which is immensely more interesting thanks to its brevity.

MsC, piano at concert level and painter.

[jotaeleemeese]

And the book is still rubbish, I needed only one lecture to realize that :-p

For your library

[danielpauldavis]

I suggest "The Genesis Record" by Henry Morris as an antidote to a book that never actually mentions any species' origins. Instead, the author describes some animals and merely asserts that some things he sees happening now have been happening in the past. Okay, but where's the origin? Or is my "faith" supposed to insert something here? "The Genesis Record" is a much more satisfying read from a merely scientific view. If a student had ever submitted something like "Origin" to me as class work, I'd have given him a D for claims without proof.

People don't get it ....

[jotaeleemeese]

... because it is a book badly written.

Instead try "Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture" which is immensely more interesting thanks to its brevity, touches many of the same points in a more succinct manner and is actually quite a well written book.

We are looking for classics.

[jotaeleemeese]

Not for difficult books.

It is a science....

[jotaeleemeese]

A social science which deals with non deterministic phenomena.

Classics not so great

[FiniteSum]

I've had very hit or miss experiences with old (very old) books on math and physics. I'm dangerously close to graduating with an undergrad degree in math and physics, so I wasn't entirely unprepared to tackle such books (I hope).

On one hand, I picked up Newton's Principia, and frankly I found it incomprehensible. From what I understand, his mathematical notation is entirely different from what we use today, and a lot of his reasoning is hidden in impenetrable text or absurd geometric diagrams. If you wanted to learn classical mechanics, there are several more modern books that would serve you better.

On the other hand, I've read some things by Euler and a few 19th century mathematical papers, and I found them clear and readable. Euler apparently popularized a lot of mathematical notation, so I suspect works subsequent to him would be a lot easier for a modern reader to understand.

The first technical manual

[plover]

Geoffrey Chaucer (the author who wrote The Canterbury Tales) wrote what is believed to be the first surviving technical manual in English: A Treatise on the Astrolabe. It's a letter to his ten year old son Lewys that explains how to use an astrolabe, and it was written around 1391. Google for it, it's all over the internet.

If you have an astrolabe, the instructions are still valid. If not, you should get one, they're cool, and you'll know how to use it.

It's a short paper. The spelling is tough to get past, but once you figure out how to read it it's not that bad.

Britannica - Great Books of the Western

[Spartacus-Austin]

Great Books of the Western World is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952 by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. to present the western canon in a single package of 54 volumes. The series is now in its second edition and contains 60 volumes. The list of Great Books is maintained by the Great Books Foundation, and is part of the Great Books curriculum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_World

Only on Slashdot...

[turgid]

...can romantic delusion be insightful, and challenging, rational argument be flamebait.

emergent behaviour of complex systems

[tomhudson]

It's good to see people finally starting to grok that emergent behaviour is to be expected when you take simple systems and combine them in unusual ways. It's been one of those themes in science fiction for decades that has been validated by simulations starting in the 1970s.

Sorry that I can't take much longer to reply - got a ton of stuff to do today (touring a hosting facility that I contracted with at 2 in the morning is just one of those "things" - they answer their phones at 2 am, and they're local - I'm sold).