Help create a JREF recommended science books list?

I would nominate all of the science and math books by Martin Gardner. I've been reading his books since I was in elementary school and discovered his Hexaflexagons and Other Mathematical Diversions in the school library. His books not only educate, they capture his sense of wonder and his enjoyment of learning about everything.

His Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science has already been mentioned. It's a classic, of course.

Another favorite of mine is The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry, from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings. It covers a wide range of physics subjects and is a fun read.

-- Roger
 
Dreams of a Final Theory

Dreams of a Final Theory
Subtitle: The Scientist's Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature
Steven Weinberg, Vintage Books 1994 (originally published 1992)

Here's a copy of the blurb from the back cover:

In Dreams of a Final Theory, Steven Weinberg, the Nobel Prize winning physicist and author of The First Three minutes, describes the grand quest for a unifying theory of nature - one that can explain forces as different as the cohesion inside the atom and the gravitational tug between the sun and the earth. Writing with dazzling elegance and clarity, he retraces the steps that have led modern scientists from relativity and quantum mechanics to the notion of superstrings and the idea that our universe may coexist with others.

But Weinberg asks as many questions as he answers, among them: Why does each explanation of the way nature works point to a deeper explanation? Why are the best theories not only logical but beautiful? And what implications will a final theory have for philosophy and religious faith?

Intellectually daring, rich in anecdote and aphorism, Dreams of a Final Theory launches us into a new cosmos and helps us make sense of what we find there.
​

OK, That's supposed to be a sales pitch, and it is. But it's not a bad description of what Weinberg does. This book (1992) pre-dates Brian Greene's Elegant Universe (1999) by a few years and is really a good complement to it, I think. Where Greene talks more about string theory, Weinberg talks more about the history & science that led up to string theory. Weinberg's book also has a broader scope to it. Of course, both Greene & Weinberg are genuine experts in theoretical physics, so both books also benefit from being both entertainingly readable and scientifically reliable.

Although Weinberg's The First Three Minutes is now quite old, dating from the 1970's, it is still a very good introduction the the ideas of the early universe in big bang cosmology, so I think it deserves mention as well.
 
ceo_esq said:
OK then.

  • David C. Lindberg's The Beginnings of Western Science (U of Chicago P 1992)

  • Edward Grant's The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages (Cambridge UP 1996)

  • Grant & Olson's Science & Religion (Johns Hopkins UP 2004) in two volumes (From Aristotle to Copernicus and From Copernicus to Darwin)

  • Steven Shapin's The Scientific Revolution (U of Chicago P 1996)

  • David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order (Routledge 1980)

  • Stewart Shapiro's Thinking About Mathematics (Oxford UP 2000)
Click to expand...

Lindberg's book is great. He was my professor for History of Science in college.
 
Last edited:
Here are my nominations:

General science

Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, edited and translated by Stillman Drake

http://www.amazon.com/Discoveries-Opinions-Galileo/dp/0385092393

Cosmology

Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos 1200-1687 by Edward Grant

http://www.amazon.com/Planets-Stars-Orbs-Medieval-1200-1687/dp/0521433444

Evolutionary biology & Psychology

The Evolution of Intelligence by James H. Fetzer

http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Intelligence-Humans-Animals-Minds/dp/0812694597
 
All About Stars

Books by James Kaler:
James Kaler is now an Emeritus Professor of Astronomy at the University of Illinois, an excellent writer, and an expert on stars. I am myself an astronomer & physicist with a particular interest in stars, as they are the "quantum bits" of the universe. The evolution of the universe is dominated by the expansion of space and the evolution of stars. So understanding stars is a major part of understanding the universe. But aside from that, all of the light your eyes can see in the night sky, or the day sky, is starlight. Kaler's books are the best you will find on stars, what they are, and how they work. All of these books are directed toward non scientist readers, so no knowledge of physics or math is required. I highly recommend these books to anyone interested in astronomy, the light from stars, or the universe at large.

And I will single out Stars and their Spectra for particular attention. Spectroscopy is the single most important tool the observational astronomer has to work with. Understanding spectroscopy at any level will open lots of doors to understanding how astronomers are able to understand objects so far away, with no other clues than starlight to work with.
 
Genesis of the Big Bang

Genesis of the Big Bang; Ralph A. Alpher & Robert Herman, Oxford University Press, 2001.

This is an autobiographical history book with science in it. It's not so much about big bang Cosmology as it is about how the idea came to be. Ralph Alpher (1921-2007) was a graduate student under George Gamow (1904-1968), and together they introduced the scientific idea of big bang nucleosynthesis in 1948, a major development in cosmology, although today seen in somewhat modified form. Robert Herman (1914-1997) joined Ralph Alpher, also in 1948, for pioneering theoretical studies of the cosmic background radiation. Alpher & Herman were principal architects of modern big bang cosmology, and this book is their personal story of how the idea evolved, and their role in it. Of course there are lots of books that talk about the history of big bang cosmology, but there is a lot to be said for books written by the people who were there and doing it themselves. Alpher & Herman are no longer around to tell the story, but their book is. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the history of big bang cosmology.
 
I have a lot of favorites, so I'll mention what I'm reading right now: Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett. It's not a light read, but I'm finding that it delves very deeply into evolutionary theory while remaining accessible to a layperson such as myself. I'm about halfway through and I'd highly recommend it.
 
The Five Ages of the Universe

The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity; Fred Adams & Greg Laughlin, Touchstone publishers, 1999.

Chapters
  1. Introduction
    A guide to the big picture, fundamental physical law, windows of space and time, the great war and extremely big numbers.
  2. The Primordial Era
    A violent explosion launches the universe on its evolutionary voyage into the future.
  3. The Stelliferous Era
    Stars are born, evolve to power the universe with nuclear reactions, and then die by spectacular fireworks or by slowly fading away.
  4. The Degenerate Era
    Dead stellar remnants capture dark matter, collide with each other, scatter into space, and finally decay into nothingness.
  5. The Black Hole Era
    Black holes inherit the universe, warp space and time, evaporate their mass energy, and make an explosive exit.
  6. The Dark Era
    The nearly moribund universe struggles with cosmological heat death and faces the possibility of universally transforming phase transitions.
It has become increasingly evident that the universe does not have enough mass to stop the universe from expanding and make it contract. So physicists have investigated how long the various astrophysical objects can survive in an eternally expanding universe, and how long life can exist in such a universe. Freeman Dyson was the first I know of to seriously address this matter (Time without end: Physics and biology in an open universe; Freeman J. Dyson, Reviews of Modern Physics 51(3): 447-460, July 1979). Many years later, Adams and Laughlin wrote a more detailed follow-up to Dyson's paper (A dying universe: the long-term fate and evolution of astrophysical objects; Fred Adams and Gregory Laughlin, Reviews of Modern Physics 69(2): 337-372, April 1997). The citations to just these 2 papers show a rich literature on the long term fate of an eternally expanding universe.

The book, Five Ages of the Universe, is the popular version of the work presented by Adams & Laughlin in their Reviews of Modern Physics paper. I think it is one of the better examples of the sweeping ideas that are represented in cosmology, but made readable to people who are not necessarily versed in the esoteric mathematics one finds in the technical papers. Just consider that our sun is expected to last about 10,000,000,000 years. But a very low mass red dwarf star should last on the main sequence for about 100,000,000,000,000 years. Imagine what a civilization might manage to do with that much time to play around. A good read for cosmology fans, I think.
 
The Hundredth Monkey: And Other Paradigms of The Paranormal

It was my first introduction to Randi and the MDC. A collection of essays taken from the Skeptical Inquirer from authors such as Carl Sagan, James Randi and Isaac Asimov. A very easy read and a great introduction to skepticism.

I gave my copy to a room mate in University after I taught him to cold read. The last time I saw him he was making star charts for people at $50 a crack. The book practically pays for itself. :D
(that reminds me, I really need to make a contribution to the forum, thanks Randi)
 
Just finishing this one up:

What's so wrong with being absolutely right: The dangerous nature of dogmatic belief by Judy J. Johnson
567 pages
Psychology
 
Lawrence M. Krauss "Fear of Physics."
Tara Rodden Robinson "Genetics for Dummies." (My first bio Professor owns this!)
 
A cosmos in stone -J. David Lewis-Williams
San Spirituality -J. David Lewis-Williams and David Pearce
The Mind in the Cave - J. David Lewis-Williams
Inside the Neolithic Mind- J. David Lewis-Williams

J. David Lewis-Williams is Professor Emeritus and Senior mentor in the Rock Art Research Institute, Univeristy of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

David Pearce is a researcher in the Rock Art Research Institute, Univeristy of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

J. David Lewis-Williams will be remembered as the Newton of Archaelogy
 
I recommend reading Alexander Shulgins books PiHKAL and TiHKAL. Brilliant interesting books, essential reading for anyone interested in the mind and psychopharmacology.
 
Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know (Patrick J. Michaels, Ph.D. Ecological Climatology; Robert C. Balling, Ph.D. Professor of Climatology, 2009)

Is the weather truly getting worse? When it comes to global warming, dire predictions seem to be all we see or hear. Climatologists Patrick Michaels and Robert Balling Jr. explain why the news and information we receive about global warming have become so apocalyptic. The science itself has become increasingly biased, with warnings of extreme consequences from global warming becoming the norm. That bias is then communicated through the media, who focus on only extreme predictions. The authors compellingly illuminate the other side of the story, the science we aren't being told. This body of work details how the impact of global warming is far less severe than is generally believed and far from catastrophic.
Click to expand...
-

Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming (Bjørn Lomborg, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental Economics, 2007)

Bjorn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions now being considered to stop global warming will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, are often based on emotional rather than strictly scientific assumptions, and may very well have little impact on the world's temperature for hundreds of years. Rather than starting with the most radical procedures, Lomborg argues that we should first focus our resources on more immediate concerns, such as fighting malaria and HIV/AIDS and assuring and maintaining a safe, fresh water supply-which can be addressed at a fraction of the cost and save millions of lives within our lifetime. He asks why the debate over climate change has stifled rational dialogue and killed meaningful dissent. Lomborg presents us with a second generation of thinking on global warming that believes panic is neither warranted nor a constructive place from which to deal with any of humanity's problems, not just global warming.
Click to expand...
-

The Chilling Stars, 2nd Edition: A Cosmic View of Climate Change (Henrik Svensmark, Ph.D. Director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research, Danish National Space Center, 2008)

The authors explain their theory that sub-atomic particles from exploded stars have more effect on the climate than manmade CO2. Their conclusion stems from Svensmark's research which has shown the previously unsuspected role that cosmic rays play in creating clouds. During the last 100 years cosmic rays became scarcer because unusually vigorous action by the Sun batted away many of them. Fewer cosmic rays meant fewer clouds--and a warmer world. The theory, simply put here but explained in fascinating detail, emerges at a time of intense public and political concern about climate change. Motivated only by their concern that science must be trustworthy, Svensmark and Calder invite their readers to put aside their preconceptions about manmade global warming and look afresh at the role of Nature in this hottest of world issues.
Click to expand...
-

The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy (Peter Huber, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, MIT, 2005)

The sheer volume of talk about energy, energy prices, and energy policy on both sides of the political aisle suggests that we must know something about these subjects. But according to Peter Huber and Mark Mills, the things we "know" are mostly myths. They explain why demand will never go down, why most of what we think of as "energy waste" actually benefits us; why more efficient cars, engines, and bulbs will never lower demand, and why energy supply is infinite. In the automotive sector, gas prices matter less and less, and hybrid engines will most likely lead us to cars propelled by the coal-fired grid. As for the much-maligned power grid itself, it's the worst system we could have except for all the proposed alternatives. Expanding energy supplies mean higher productivity, more jobs, and a growing GDP. Across the board, energy isn't the problem, energy is the solution.
Click to expand...
-

Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence (Robert Bryce, 2008)

Everybody is talking about "energy independence." But is it really achievable? Is it actually even desirable? In this controversial, meticulously researched book, Robert Bryce exposes the false promises behind the rhetoric while blasting nearly everybody— Republicans, Democrats, environmentalists, and war-mongering neoconservatives—for misleading voters about our energy needs. Gusher of Lies explains why the idea of energy independence appeals to voters while also showing that renewable sources like wind and solar cannot meet America's growing energy demand. Along the way, Bryce eviscerates the ethanol scam. Whether the issue is cost, water consumption, or food prices, corn ethanol is one of the longest-running robberies ever perpetrated on American taxpayers. Consumers concerned about peak oil and the future of global energy supplies need to understand that energy security depends on embracing free markets and the realities of interdependence.
Click to expand...
-

The Solar Fraud: Why Solar Energy Won't Run the World, Second Edition (Howard C. Hayden, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Physics, 2005)

Solar energy has its uses many of them but running the world isnt one of them. Solar energy has always and will always provide some fraction of the worlds energy budget. The question is how much? By and large, that fraction has been on a steady decline not just for decades, but for centuries. The Solar Fraud presents the physics behind the hype, explaining why the problem is not technology, but rather the dilute nature of sunlight.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Perhaps I've overlooked it but surely Zinsser's Rats, Lice, and History (a biography of typhus) should be included. It's a sarcastic rollicking romp through the history of infectious disease. Zinsser was a sort of superhero scientist in the fields of immunology so even while he's tossing off the BEST footnotes* in the history of scientific writing, he's still scientifically accurate (circa 1935).



*The two most famous are:
"It is to Kepler's credit, however, that - although one of the most eminent physicists of all time - he never wrote a book on God and the Universe."

re: saprophyte "if the reader does not understand this word, it is too bad"
 
I'd suggest these three:

  1. An Imaginary Tale: The Story of i [the square root of minus one] - Paul J. Nahin
  2. Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics - John Derbyshire
  3. Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra - John Derbyshire
 
Last edited:
Undesired Walrus said:
Has anyone read the Fabric Of Reality by David Deutsch? Any good?
Click to expand...
It is, frankly, simply atrocious. Deutsch tries to flog his particular interpretation of quantum mechanics, incorporate some theories of DNA computation, and generally present himself as the intellectual heir of Newton, Einstein, and Darwin. Given his repeated confusions on the nature of computing, he is not a worthy heir.
 
sgf8 said:
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (Neroscience)
Awakenings - Sacks
Click to expand...

Those two books were quite important to me. "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" especially. It is brain damage that reveals how the mind is what brain does.

I even feature "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" in the third part of my video series and it will continue into the 4th at least:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77XBZHJcoK4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcEV_HsIdBI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRkzdFG-lyE
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom