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?

If you're looking for good science reading, you should go to your medical library or physics library... not a general library.

Lightweight good reading Not feymans lectures or anything

Waste of time

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.

'on the origin of species', charles darwin.

The Emperor`s new Mind - Roger Penrose.

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.

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

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.

Jared Diamon's "Guns, Germs and Steel". That would be my recommendation.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Greene's The Elegant Universe.

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.

That's not really science related though; also The Island of the Day Before.

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

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:

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