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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?"
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.
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.
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.)
I hate printers.
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)
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.
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.
This post climbed Mt. Washington.
6. Surak's "A Concise History of Vulcan Logic" (2430)
=Smidge=
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
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.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
"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".
Facts do have a liberal bias after all.
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
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
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.
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...
Beetle B.
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.