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favorite non-fiction book you have read recently?

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alana
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18 Jan 2010, 5:15 pm

Asking here because I would like some suggestions for books on science...once I pay my massive library fine I want some new reading material, any suggestions appreciated.



zeichner
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18 Jan 2010, 5:31 pm

To Infinity and Beyond by Eli Maor

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Eli Maor examines the role of infinity in mathematics and geometry and its cultural impact on the arts and sciences. He evokes the profound intellectual impact the infinite has exercised on the human mind--from the "horror infiniti" of the Greeks to the works of M. C. Escher; from the ornamental designs of the Moslems, to the sage Giordano Bruno, whose belief in an infinite universe led to his death at the hands of the Inquisition. But above all, the book describes the mathematician's fascination with infinity--a fascination mingled with puzzlement. "Maor explores the idea of infinity in mathematics and in art and argues that this is the point of contact between the two, best exemplified by the work of the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, six of whose works are shown here in beautiful color plates."--Los Angeles Times

I really like Maor's writing style - it's very accessible & entertaining to read - but there are also detailed mathematical examples in the appendix. He's written a number of books on the history of various mathematical concepts - they are all good.


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buryuntime
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18 Jan 2010, 5:46 pm

alana wrote:
Asking here because I would like some suggestions for books on science...once I pay my massive library fine I want some new reading material, any suggestions appreciated.

My library often cuts fees in half for people that struggle to pay it or does away with it altogether, depending on the circumstance.

Also, I also need nonfiction suggestions so more posts!



werewolf1994
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18 Jan 2010, 9:44 pm

I'm currently reading 'Anne Frank, the Diary of a Young Girl' a story about the holocaust which I think is good 'cause it really is just what the girl was thinking about while in hiding



alana
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19 Jan 2010, 4:06 pm

zeichner wrote:
To Infinity and Beyond by Eli Maor
Quote:
I really like Maor's writing style - it's very accessible & entertaining to read - but there are also detailed mathematical examples in the appendix. He's written a number of books on the history of various mathematical concepts - they are all good.


sounds great! just what I was after. :)



ruveyn
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19 Jan 2010, 6:17 pm

alana wrote:
Asking here because I would like some suggestions for books on science...once I pay my massive library fine I want some new reading material, any suggestions appreciated.


Pi in the Sky by John Barrow. A book on the basis and philosophy of mathematics. No formulas, but it is not an easy read.

ruveyn



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20 Jan 2010, 12:03 am

The god delusion by Richard Dawkins.


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20 Jan 2010, 7:54 am

The Grapes of Wrath is a good book.



alana
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20 Jan 2010, 4:16 pm

ruveyn wrote:
alana wrote:
Asking here because I would like some suggestions for books on science...once I pay my massive library fine I want some new reading material, any suggestions appreciated.


Pi in the Sky by John Barrow. A book on the basis and philosophy of mathematics. No formulas, but it is not an easy read.

ruveyn


that sounds like a lot of fun...a book on math without formulas. Thanks! :)



alana
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20 Jan 2010, 4:21 pm

Fuzzy wrote:
The god delusion by Richard Dawkins.


I think I have heard of this one, it's highly talked about I think. It sounds great, I know I need to read it. I looked it up in wikipedia and thought this was interesting:

According to the Amazon.co.uk website, the book led to a 50% growth in their sales of books on religion and spirituality (including anti-religious books such as The God Delusion and God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) and a 120% increase in the sales of the Bible.[11]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_god_delusion


that's so weird to me that amazon thinks that this lead to an increase in Bible sales. Not only because correlation doesn't equal causation but because I'm thinking he's probably talking about all deities and not just Judeo/Christian God. I wonder if the Koran sales spiked as well...



zeichner
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20 Jan 2010, 4:54 pm

Here's one that I really enjoyed - Warped Passages - by Lisa Randall. She does an excellent job of explaining M-brane theory - nothing really technical, but good use of analogy to explain concepts that are completely un-intuitive.

The author is an American theoretical physicist and a leading expert on particle physics and cosmology. She works on several of the competing models of string theory in the quest to explain the fabric of the universe. She was the first tenured woman in the Princeton University physics department and the first tenured female theoretical physicist at MIT and Harvard University.


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buryuntime
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20 Jan 2010, 4:57 pm

alana wrote:
Fuzzy wrote:
The god delusion by Richard Dawkins.


I think I have heard of this one, it's highly talked about I think. It sounds great, I know I need to read it. I looked it up in wikipedia and thought this was interesting:

According to the Amazon.co.uk website, the book led to a 50% growth in their sales of books on religion and spirituality (including anti-religious books such as The God Delusion and God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) and a 120% increase in the sales of the Bible.[11]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_god_delusion


that's so weird to me that amazon thinks that this lead to an increase in Bible sales. Not only because correlation doesn't equal causation but because I'm thinking he's probably talking about all deities and not just Judeo/Christian God. I wonder if the Koran sales spiked as well...

I did not really care for the god delusion, I could not even finish it.



Fuzzy
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20 Jan 2010, 4:59 pm

ruveyn, thanks for that suggestion. I am going to go find it.


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21 Jan 2010, 4:48 am

Here are a few "old friends" I visited over the past year:

Maths:
Mathematics for The Non Mathematician by Morris Kline
Prime Numbers By David Wells
Recreations in The Theory of Numbers The Queen of Mathematics Entertains
by Albert H. Beiler
e: The Story of A number by Eli Maor
The Golden Ratio by Salvatore Livio
An Imaginary Tale The Story of √-1 by Paul J. Nahin
Chaos And Fractals, New Frontiers of Science
by Peitgen, Jürgens, & Saupe
Mathematics: From The Birth of Numbers by Jan Gullberg.
A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram

Electronics:
Electronic Gadgets for The Evil Genius by Bob Iannini
More Electronic Gadgets for The Evil Genius by Bob Iannini
Electronic Sensors for The Evil Genius by Tom Petruzzellis
101 Spy Gadgets for The Evil Genius by Brad Graham and Kathy McGowan
Fuel Cell Projects for The Evil Genius by Gavin D.J. Harper

Morbid Stuff:
Chemistry And Crime from Sherlock Holmes to Today's Courtroom Edited by Samuel M. Gerber
Poisons: From Hemlock to Botox to The Killer Bean of Calabar by Peter Macinnis
Medical Jurisprudence And Toxicology by John Glaister and Edgar Rentoul.
The 13th Element, The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire, And Phosphorus by John Emsley.

Chemistry:
Uncle Tungsten, Memories of A Chemical Boyhood
by Oliver Sacks

It was my childhood obsession with chemistry and physics that got me into electronics.
I spent many hours reading and memorizing stuff from The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments
by Robert Brent.

Image

A PDF is available at this link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/4016475/the-g ... bert-brent
And here: http://chemistry.about.com/b/2008/08/05 ... iments.htm

There are a few others that I will post later....


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LordoftheMonkeys
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21 Jan 2010, 1:44 pm

The C Programming Language, by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.



alana
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21 Jan 2010, 5:51 pm

thanks everyone for more great suggestions! I can't wait to get started on some of these!