- Starmaker, Olaf Stapledon
- Most science fiction gives us fictional worlds that are less fantastic, and much less interesting, than the real worlds science and history present us with. Starmaker is a grand exception. Mind-stretching!
- Philosophy of Mathematics and the Natural Sciences, Hermann Weyl
- This book is a survey of the whole field of mathematics and science, as it stood in the mid-twentieth century, by one of the greatest and wisest mathematical physicists. Interesting both as intellectual history and as intellectual doctrine.
- QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Richard Feynman
- This short book is a unique, brilliant attempt to present a key component of our most advanced theories of physics in an honest way. Feynman presents the actual rules that govern elementary processes in quantum theory, and shows how to get from those weird rules to some familiar (and some not-so-familiar) physical phenomena.
- Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, Michael Nielsen and Isaac Chuang
- Quantum mechanics is still a young theory. It opens up potentials for qualitatively new kinds of information processing, and perhaps eventually for qualitatively new kinds of minds. It is also strange, beautiful, and fascinating. This book is a good starting-point if youd like to get into those aspects of the subject.
- Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms, Donald MacKay
- A great challenge of our time is to realize the potential of modern computing technologies for creative achievement. I feel weve only scratched the surface, and that giving machines the ability to learn is the key. This book presents many relevant insights, and is quite entertaining to boot.
- Power, Sex, Suicide, Nick Lane
- Lest you get the wrong impression, the subtitle of this recent book is Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life. It would be surprising if all the ideas discussed here are correct, but I found it an exhilarating visit to some frontiers of modern biology, by a writer whos not afraid to thing big and think hard.
- The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes, Raymond Smullyan
- You dont have to know much about chess to have fun with these strange puzzles, which ask you not to predict the best moves, but rather to reconstruct what happened in the past. The framing stories are also quite amusing. This is definitely one of the cleverest books Ive ever encountered.
- They Made America, Harold Evans
- Often inspiring, always fascinating stories of inventors and entrepreneurs whose work changed the way we live.
- The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam
- Two painful lessons: denying reality wont change it; cleverness is not the same as wisdom. A sad and infuriating, but necessary, book for anyone with responsibility for public issues.
- Lincoln at Gettysburg, Gary Wills
- This short, beautifully written book is a close reading of a very brief speech that just might be the greatest poem ever written (or maybe thats the Second Inaugural). It contains depths within depths.
- How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie
- The basic message: put yourself in the other guys shoes. A short, sweet book that is interesting on several levels. We could all benefit from taking it to heart.
- Golden Gate, Vikram Seth
- This novel is written in the form of a series of sonnets in verse. It is an amazing feat, delightful to witness. Now we need a modern Lucretius, wholl put our best (scientific) concept of the world to verse.
Frank Wilczek, in his own words, recommending twelve books for a NY Academy of Science project
March 9th, 2006 · No Comments
Tags: Stories