blike Posted March 18, 2003 Posted March 18, 2003 I'm going to pick up a few books from the bookstore soon, any suggestions, preferable science related? I'm thinking about: "The Selfish Gene" - Richard Dawkins "Right Hand, Left Hand: The Origins of Asymmetry in Brains, Bodies, Atoms and Cultures " - Chris McManus "Faster than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation" - Joao Magueijo "The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think" - Robert Aunger has anyone read any of these?
fafalone Posted March 18, 2003 Posted March 18, 2003 If you're looking for good science reading, you should go to your medical library or physics library... not a general library.
blike Posted March 18, 2003 Author Posted March 18, 2003 Lightweight good reading Not feymans lectures or anything
Deslaar Posted March 18, 2003 Posted March 18, 2003 Originally posted by blike I'm going to pick up a few books from the bookstore soon, any suggestions, preferable science related? I'm thinking about: "The Selfish Gene" - Richard Dawkins "Right Hand, Left Hand: The Origins of Asymmetry in Brains, Bodies, Atoms and Cultures " - Chris McManus "Faster than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation" - Joao Magueijo "The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think" - Robert Aunger has anyone read any of these? Any particular subjects, my little library is composed entirely of popular science books.
spuriousmonkey Posted March 18, 2003 Posted March 18, 2003 'on the origin of species', charles darwin.
Sayonara Posted March 18, 2003 Posted March 18, 2003 Originally posted by spuriousmonkey 'on the origin of species', charles darwin. If you're going to read this, also read Voyage of the Beagle to give it some historical context.
DocBill Posted March 18, 2003 Posted March 18, 2003 Originally posted by blike Lightweight good reading Not feymans lectures or anything Compared to half of what you listed, Richard's lectures ARE light reading. I would recomend Mike Kaku's work (not the popularizer books) as an excellent place to start. Good luck Bill
Dave Posted March 18, 2003 Posted March 18, 2003 if you haven't read simon singh's book on fermat's last theorem, i very much suggest you do so, since it really does give some excellent insight to not only the problem itself but the history of mathematics, along with a lot of nice little bits about different branches of maths. he condenses a lot of complicated stuff like galois theory quite nicely without being too technical about it, plus there are some proofs of various things in the back. it's more maths than science (obviously), but i definately recommend it.
Matzi Posted March 18, 2003 Posted March 18, 2003 Jared Diamon's "Guns, Germs and Steel". That would be my recommendation.
Deslaar Posted March 18, 2003 Posted March 18, 2003 Definately read "The Selfish Gene". Here are some others I really enjoyed: Prisoner's Dilemma - Michael Poundstone Nonzero - Robert Wright Genome - Matt Ridley Three Roads to Quantum Gravity - Lee Smolin Atom - Laurence Krauss The Emotional Brain - Joseph Ledoux Darwin's Dangerous Idea - Daniel Dennett
the GardenGnome Posted March 18, 2003 Posted March 18, 2003 Originally posted by DocBill Compared to half of what you listed, Richard's lectures ARE light reading. I would recomend Mike Kaku's work (not the popularizer books) as an excellent place to start. Good luck Bill If I'm not mistaken his name is Michio Kaku. http://www.mkaku.org
blike Posted March 18, 2003 Author Posted March 18, 2003 By "lightweight" i mean something thats easy to read. The material can still be pretty heavy, just explained in a lightweight way. I like books that are designed for the casual science readers. Thanks for your suggestions.
spacemanspiff Posted March 18, 2003 Posted March 18, 2003 lemme look at my bookshelf... "How the mind works" -Steven Pinker that's a pretty light read. there's also a series of books called "An invitation to Cognitive science" -ed. Daniel Osherson. those are some good ones.
EvilMind Posted March 23, 2003 Posted March 23, 2003 Originally posted by DocBill Compared to half of what you listed, Richard's lectures ARE light reading. I would recomend Mike Kaku's work (not the popularizer books) as an excellent place to start. Good luck Bill whoa bill, michio kaku's texts are graduate texts on m-theory, superstring theory, geometry and are all usually high level graduate texts.
DocBill Posted March 23, 2003 Posted March 23, 2003 Originally posted by EvilMind whoa bill, michio kaku's texts are graduate texts on m-theory, superstring theory, geometry and are all usually high level graduate texts. That is why I like em. Gives me a reason to email Mike and say "umm. what does tis mean exactly." And he will tell you. It's great. Bill
atinymonkey Posted March 26, 2003 Posted March 26, 2003 Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. His more famous book, The Name of the Rose, has a bit too much Latin in it to be a good read. But he's a fantastic author who's regarded as a genius, he's a professor of semiotics at Bologna. He has a diverse approach to the use of language, which you won't really find a parallel for in any other author. I'm fairly sure Docbill will endorse his books, given what I've seen of his own texts.
JaKiri Posted March 26, 2003 Posted March 26, 2003 That's not really science related though; also The Island of the Day Before.
atinymonkey Posted March 31, 2003 Posted March 31, 2003 Fair point, still a very good book. I've just ordered The Island of the Day Before on your recomendation, so it better be good
rahul_rudani Posted March 31, 2003 Posted March 31, 2003 I think this (Electric Meme: The theory of who we think) book might be interesting to read. But, I don't know what you are going to select. :spam: :flame:
DocBill Posted April 1, 2003 Posted April 1, 2003 Originally posted by the GardenGnome If I'm not mistaken his name is Michio Kaku. http://www.mkaku.org Yes, it is Michio Kaku. However, his friends and associates have always called him "Mike" which he seems to prefer. Bill
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