BOOK Recomendations ON... Science, Mathematics, Medicine, or Technology

ViperVisor

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ViperVisor
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Aug 12, 2002
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BOOKS FOR GIFTS FOR ME !!!!!!!!!

Really can be Any good books on stuff that relate to stuff discussed here @ :randi:.org

The literature forum seems to slow to get enough replies and this place seems like a good place to ask.

Not Too Advanced reading.

BOOKS I HAVE...

The Universe_in_Nutshell
Surely_Joking_Mr_Feynman
The Love_of_Insects
Greatest_Invents_2000_yrs
The Empty_Ocean
Extinct_Birds
Longitude
A Gap_in_Nature
The Elegant_Universe
A Brief_Hist_of_Time
 
Second to Don's recommendation on Stephen J. Gould.

Bad Astronomy by Phil Plait.

For general reading, The Great Influenza (can't remember the author) about the 1918-1920 flu epedemic and Medical science response to it is a fine read of how modern medicine tried to meet this killer (20-100 million dead).
 
If you're interested in evolutionary biology, I suggest Richard Dawkins. The Blind Watchmaker and Climbing Mount Improbable are good. I noticed you have the Elegant Universe. Brian Greene just came out with a new one; The Structure of the Cosmos .

If you are interested in any scientific philosophy I have some ideas but I can't recall specifics right now. Phillip Frank, Bertrand Russell. Carnap.

edit to add: Carl Sagan. Demon Haunted World specifically.
 
It looks like nobody's yet mentioned The Ascent of Science, by Brian Silver. Silver covers the high points of science from the Renaissance to the late 20th century, in an informative, easy style.
 
Hi Viper,

A neat math book is Prime Obsession by John Derbyshire.
 
A Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip Thorne.


Whats the name of the awards they give out to Science books? That would be a good place to look.
 
"Fermat's Last Theorem" by Simon Singh
"The Demon Haunted World" - Carl Sagan
"Flim Flam" - James Randi
"The Skeptics Dictionary" - Bob Carroll
"Voodoo Science "- Bob Park
"How Mumbo Jumbo conquered the World" - Francis Wheen.

on DVD: "The Planets" - BBC
 
Bob Carroll also wrote .Becoming a Critical Thinker

That's on my christmas list.
 
The science books and scientist biographies by George Johnson or James Gleick are very good.

The Quark and the Jaguar by Murray Gell-Mann. Lots of interesting stuff in that from all over science.
 
QED - Richard Feynman
The Pleasure of Finding things Out - Richard Feynman


Diamond already added Demon Haunted World by Sagan. DEFINITELY pick that one up.
 
If you're interested in scientific processing, history and philosophy

Modern Science and its Philosophy by Philipp Frank and
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science by Rudof Carnap.

Frank and Carnap were part of what was called 'The Vienna Circle' back around WWI. They were scientists that wrote extensively about scientific philosophy. They left Nazi Europe for the U.S. when everyone else did. Carnap ended up at the U of Chicago while Frank went to Harvard.

I have found these two books to be really good.
 
Diamond said:
"How Mumbo Jumbo conquered the World" - Francis Wheen.
Click to expand...

Diamond,

All the websites that mention this book seem to be in Europe. Is it not yet available on my side of the pond?
 
BillHoyt said:
Diamond,

All the websites that mention this book seem to be in Europe. Is it not yet available on my side of the pond?
Click to expand...

Not sure. I thought it was fairly UK centric and spent more time discussing political matters and economics than what I would think of as "real" mumbo jumbo.

One I do fancy is "Snake Oil" by John Diamond. A dying cancer victim (and newspaper columnist) giving his view on the alternative medicine industry.
 
For mathematics I can't recommend Ian Stewart's books too highly. The Magical Maze and Flatterland are very good and don't require great maths knowledge.
 
Any of Clifford Pickover's books are pretty thought provoking.

I remember in highschool I read something that said that Pickover challenged people to find 'undulating squares', that is, a number x, such that when you square it, you get a number that repeats. For example, the largest one known still I believe is 264^2.

My friend and I wrote a computer program to go through all the whole numbers, from 1 to a ceiling, and square them, and then see if they undulate, and if they do, store them to a list.

Putting in fresh batteries, we let the program run for a few days. When we looked at it, there was a number in our list higher than 264. Woo hoo!

I emailed Pickover, and got an envelope in the mail a week or so later, something like: 'That number only undulates for the digits your computer is showing you.'

Basically my friend and I goofed due to reaching the computer's maximum number and experiencing "overflow". :)

Some other books... hmmmm the original Flatland is always a good choice, and only costs $1!
 
A couple of recommendations. These are all very readable, informative, and don't require an advanced science degree to appreciate.

"T Rex and the Crater of Doom" by Walter Alvarez - An account of the development of the impact theory of dinosaur extinction and the finding of the prime suspect. By one of the people directly involved.

"Song of the Dodo" by David Quamen - Thick but interesting book about Island Bio-geography; a subject that most people haven't heard of but which is very relevant to our modern world.

"Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures" by Carl Zimmer - Somewhat gruesome but utterly fascinating.

"Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation" by Olivia Judson - Written in the style of a sex advice column for the animal kingdom, it deals in an entertaining and informative way with the evolutionary aspects of various sexual strategies employed in nature.

"The Seashell on the Mountain Top" by Alan Cutler - A biography of Nicolas Steno, the man who invented the rules of stratigraphy and taught us how to read the history of the world in the rocks. He was also a Catholic Priest and was recently granted Sainthood by the Catholic Church.

"A Brief History of Almost Everything" by Bill Bryson - a broad overview of the current scientific view of life, the universe, and everything. It is too broad to go into much detail about the science but gives some interesting tidbits about the people involved in developing our current understanding of how the universe works.
 
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