Book Talk

Hi,folks. I've just had a stab at Richard Dawkins' 'the greatest show on earth',and found it to be quite heavy going. I only have a brief,general gist of what evolution is,so I'd appreciate a book on evolution for the layman. Out of curiosity,what did you make of the greatest show on earth - the evidence for evolution? Thanks in advance!

So I am starting to read James Trefil's book "Reading The Mind Of God" and would like to start a discussion forum here. I am planning to apply to do a PHD in Physics and want to work on something groundbreaking ...

So if any of you remember correctly I posted about a year ago on my book. I cringe thinking about my old writing style... I really intended to write a whole book from a robotic mockumentary point of view. Anyways here is the beginning of the first chapter. Right under 1,000 words so please read . My story is flawlessly original and awesome, I just want to know if my writing style captivates your interest at all enough to want to continue reading. Thankyou! Somewhere unbeknownst, to the rest of the world. Sat thirty-five scientists in seven rows, blindfolded, and restrained to cold metal chairs. Footsteps were heard entering the room. “Welcome,” a mans voice, a deep bu…

Hello Everyone, This is William here from Kenya and I like to read books , listen music , watch movie and play games. I like to read Novel book , Story book and Historical book. Some favorite book of mine are All the King's Men,The Big Sleep,A Clockwork Orange,A Passage to India,The Golden Notebook,Dark Reign,Secret Invasion,The Final Night,The Doll's House,Ancient History Books,Books on the Age of Discovery etc. Tell here about your favorite book.

Here's a really stupid question, I know that already. But still; Hypothetically, let's say I want to learn to read French. Would it be even realistically possible to simply buy something like Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables and dig in? For a few chapters, I imagine you'd need a dictionary, but would you get the hang of it after a while? Regardless of the answer above, would it be any different depending on what language I feel like learning, and what languages you already know? I can imagine knowing, for example, Dutch would make it easier to learn Afrikaans, but would probably be quite useless if you're aiming to be fluent in Japanese.

I've just today got this book from my local library (they were kind enough to purchase a copy after I filled out a suggestion form a few weeks ago) and have started reading it for the first time. Has anyone else read this book? What did you think of it?

Anyone who has read, ‘Einstein’s Intuition: Visualizing Nature in Eleven Dimensions‘ by Thad Roberts...the guy who stole the moon rocks...do you recommend it? Why?

It's about a man who has a shipwreck and ends up in a land of tiny people to whom he is a giant, written by Jonathan Swift. Maybe such place do exist because we can't be sure if the Pygmies are the tiniest of people.

I never said that I was intentionally promoting a book. Is recommending a book a crime in your fascist website?

Immatfal always soars right up my shit and edit it as "advertisement". I'm so tired of this shit you impossible person.

Did anyone read A study in scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle ? any comments ? plot holes ? thanks.

Hi! I am writing a short novel where the manipulation of Boltzmann constant is the key idea of the plot. I suppose this constant is not constant under especial conditions. A quantum computer use the increasing of available microstates in order to resemble a kind of "Maxwell's Demon" to reduce the entropy. What do you think about this? In science fiction, I have only read "The Practice Effect" by David Brin that is related also to decreasing entropy. But in this novel is not clear the mechanism and I want to give a more scientific point of view to my novel. I have written a half part of my novel and I want to publish online like ebook. I appreciate your opinio…

Hi fellow scientists! I have a new e-book on Amazon and wanted to get the word out. The title is "Academania: My Life in the Trenches of Biomedical Research". It is a memoir about my life in science, written for both scientists and non-scientists in lay language. If you are interested, here is a link: advertising link removed, per Rule 2.7 Thanks, and happy reading!

Hi friends, I don't have the basic grounding on calculus. But I have been stuffed by the formulas and methods at school (seriously neither the teachers are efficient nor I took better steps to learn myself). But cannot retain them because I don't have the basic understanding. That time I didnt take it much serious. But now I see that calculus is omnipresent. I cannot escape it. For example, frobenius, bessel, etc etc.. they are really daunting. Can anyone guide me to get a good book so that I can get a fair grip on calculus and can digest the topics such as PDE, applied maths etc. I need a book the teaches from the very basics in a interactive and easily understan…

hi, guys, do you know any user-friendly free ebooks websites? we can either read online or download to pc and cellphone free of charge ? thanks.

Hello. I'm new here. I'm a mechanical engineer and an artist. I've worked professionally in both fields. I've read many books on theoretical physics and cosmology by authors including Brian Greene, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Lisa Randall. Beyond engineering school requirements, I have not taken any advanced or theoretical physics courses. Can anyone recommend any other good authors and titles to read on cosmology and theoretical physics? I'm particularly interested in higher dimensional geometry/cosmology. Maybe something just a bit above lay person on the technical level for now. I have a fairly good intuitive grasp of mathematics but have not gone muc…

Has anyone ever read this Book and if so,did anyone Understand it?

David Sedlak's new book, Water 4.0, tells the history of water and waste treatment. Water 1.0 was the Roman system of aqueducts to supply dense populations and flush away their waste. Water 2.0 was disinfection of drinking water, and 3.0 was treatment of sewage. Emerging technologies, such as desalination, and concerns, such as disinfection byproducts and endocrine disruptors in wastewater effluent, are succinctly presented in this lucid little book. It's a great service to have compiled this vital knowledge, which is hard to find. The author is the Malozemoff Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley.

Was thinking of picking up a few of Kaku's books -- was wondering for anyone who is familiar with his stuff any suggestions on which to start with?

The Lodestone Book Series by Mark Whiteway The Lodestone Book Series is a fantastic Sci-Fi/Fantasy series that is based off of the concept of "negative matter". I finished the first book of the series in just 2 days. What was really interesting to me was Mark's commitment to really pushing the concept of "negative matter" and staying true to it throughout the story. He even stated his sources of inspiration for using the concept and an equation that relates to a concept in the story (I don't want to ruin it). The science in Lodestone is based on the concept of 'negative matter', as theorized by Dr Robert Forward, Hermann Bondi and others. Those interested in the sci…

I read the original novel, and most of the short stories/novellas, back in the day when "cyberpunk" was new and hot. I've always enjoyed this retrospective, and I think I'll go read the rest of the cyberpunk canon after this. Sterling describes the experience of writing this stuff as "[when] I finally gnawed my way through the insulation and got my teeth set into the buzzing copper wire." Reading it was like that, too, the first time, and I still get that sharp metallic taste even today. I think I'll read Eclipse next.

Fred Pohl and Jack Williamson's Cuckoo. When I originally read it, I was maybe sixteen or eighteen, and I really didn't get it. It's kind of primitive, but it smacks of the sort of thing Stephenson is doing with The Diamond Age, or what Gene Wolfe is doing with the Book of the Long Sun. It's worth going back and reading Farthest Star and Wall Around a Star.

I've just finished reading "How Children Succeed" by Paul Tough. A very interesting book about keeping stress to a minimum and building their character.

I'm reading finnegan's wake and I don't really get the point of the book. Any opinions?

This is, quite frankly, the single best popsci book I've ever read. Most books introducing science to the public talk in analogies, so they're often simplified to the point of being useless and/or wrong. This book, however, doesn't do that. It doesn't shy away from the math. In fact, aside from the first chapter, there's at least one equation on just about every page. Susskind doesn't assume that you know any math, though, so he walks the reader through the math. He teaches the reader how to follow (and if you're a quick study, do) basic derivatives, integrals, and multivariable derivatives/integrals. He makes the actual physics accessible (without being condes…