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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?"
- 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.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
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)
My work here is dung.
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.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
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)
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
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.
Beetle B.
Einstein's relativity paper is free:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5001
What about the Feynman Lectures on Physics?
Although it's obviously much newer than all the books you listed, and is still under copyright.
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.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
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.
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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.
My work here is dung.
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.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
6. Surak's "A Concise History of Vulcan Logic" (2430)
=Smidge=
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
It's a great example of the power of "back of the envelope" estimations, and a very interesting read.
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.
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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.
Well there's the fact that EVERY SINGLE MOTHERFUCKING STORY on biology gets tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong." It got old real, real fast.
Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
That, of course, assumes that economics deserves to be treated as science.
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.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn
Coined the phrase "paradigm shift" and thoroughly smashed the romanticized view of science as linearly progressive.
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!
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
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
A great list of great books:
http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/100-or-so-books-that-shaped-a-century-of-science
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Facts do have a liberal bias after all.
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.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
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.
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.
Find free books.
4. Introspective, enumerated reflections on the tendencies of nerds.
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.
Keep passing the open windows...
For the love of God, Euclid's Elements. Available for free here:
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/elements.html
Uh... Galileo? OK, he wasn't burned, but he was imprisoned and forced to recant.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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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.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
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.
Cranky educator.
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