by John Horgan, The Scientific Curmudgeon
I and other staffers and friends of the Center for Science Writings have begun compiling a list called “The Stevens 100 Greatest Science Books.” Written primarily by scientists but also by philosophers, historians and other scholars, these are books that stand out because of their subject matter, their rhetorical style and their impact on science and the rest of culture. The annotated list below includes our first 30 candidates for the list, which will eventually include 100 books.
In compiling the list, we’ve followed a few rules. The list includes only books published since 1900 (allowing us to include Interpretation of Dreams and Varieties of Religious Experiences, but regrettably eliminating the greatest science book of all time, On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, published in 1859). Books by journalists are eligible, although only one, Chaos by James Gleick, has made the list below. For now, we’re listing only one book per author, which forces some difficult choices. I’m sorry to say writings by Stevens employees are not eligible.
All lists like this are idiosyncratic, arbitrary, debatable, but that’s what makes them fun. Like everything we do at the Center, “Greatest Science Books” is intended to start a conversation about science writings. What makes a particular science book “great”? Is it primarily the power of its ideas and facts or of its rhetoric, that is, substance or style? How important are qualities such as authority, clarity, thoroughness, originality? If a book’s theories are not validated by subsequent research, should that book no longer be considered “great”?
We hope that readers will grapple with these questions, compliment or gripe about our list, tell us which candidates you like or hate, nominate your own candidates.For now, we’re listing books in alphabetical order, but eventually we may rank them according to merit, and we welcome your rankings. In my last post to this blog, I said I’d be giving out Whacks & Pats, whacks being criticism and pats praise. We welcome your whacks and pats!
Now, the list:
Bush, Vannevar, Science, The Endless Frontier, 1945. A physicist, prophet of the worldwide web and founder of the National Science Foundation, Bush argues that science is an infinite source of insight into and power over nature. He’s wrong, of course, but his vision served as the philosophical justification for massive post-war investment in science.
Chagnon, Napoleon, Yanamomo: The Fierce People, Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1968. One of the bestselling anthropology books of all time, Chagnon’s disturbing first-hand account of a violent Amazonian tribe challenges, to put it mildly, romantic notions of the peaceful noble savage.
Crick, Francis, The Astonishing Hypothesis, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1994. The co-discoverer of the double helix outlines a plan for reducing consciousness, science’s great bugaboo, to physical processes in the brain. Just as only the commie-basher Richard Nixon could re-establish relations with the China, so only the arch-rationalist Crick could make consciousness a respectable scientific subject.
Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton, New York, 1986. Intelligent-design advocates should be required to read this book, in which Dawkins demonstrates the awesome power of natural selection in general and his selfish-gene hypothesis in particular to explain life. Dawkins’s arguments often seem prefaced with the implicit phrase “As any fool can see,” but he earns his haughtiness.
Dennett, Daniel, Consciousness Explained, Little Brown, Boston, 1991. Dennett is not as clever as he thinks he is–no one could meet that standard–and critics complain that Consciousness Explained Away would have been a more apt title. Dennett’s book is nonetheless a witty, imaginative exploration of the philosophical issues raised by modern neuroscience.
Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs, and Steel, W.W. Norton, New York, 1997. The rare generalist who knows a lot about a lot of things, Diamond describes and explains the entire course of human history, contending that geography rather than race accounts for differential rates of development in different regions of the world.
Dyson, Freeman, Infinite in All Directions, Harper and Row, New York, 1988. The willfully, delightfully idiosyncratic physicist reflects on superstring theory, God, the origin of life, the long-term prospects for intelligent beings and other topics.
Einstein, Albert, The Meaning of Relativity, 1921. In this enduring classic, recently reissued in paperback with an introduction by physicist Brian Greene, the inventor (or is it discoverer?) of general relativity explains how his radical vision of space and time works.
Feyerabend, Paul, Against Method, Verso, London, 1975. One of the most loathed, misunderstood and brilliant of modern philosophers introduces his anarchic anti-philosophy, which he sums up with the phrase “anything goes.”
Freud, Sigmund, The Interpretation of Dreams, 1900 (in German). Regardless of its scientific merits, this book has had an irrevocable influence on science, psychology, the arts and all of culture. Question for scientist/authors: Would you rather be influential than right?
Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures, Basic Books, New York, 1973. Geertz not only floats the notion of cultures as “texts” and social science as a form of highly personal literary criticism; he also demonstrates how to pull off this tricky feat, which he has called “I-witnessing.” The downside is that Geertz has inspired countless pretentious, self-indulgent tracts by legions of social scientists lacking his literary skill.
Gleick, James, Chaos, Penguin Books, New York, 1987. A masterful mixture of character studies and scientific exposition, Gleick’s book is entertaining enough to attract a huge audience and rigorous enough to appeal to scientists.
Gould, Stephen Jay,Wonderful Life, W.W. Norton, New York, 1989. In by far his best book, the co-author of punctuated equilibrium–which critics fondly call evolution by jerks–dwells on a fossil site known as the Burgess Shale to make the case that contingency has played a crucial role in life’s history. As always, there is an amusing contrast between the florid sophistication of Gould’s prose and the simplicity of his message, which boils down to “Shit happens.”
Hawking, Stephen, A Brief History of Time, Bantam Books, New York, 1988. Often derided as the book that everybody buys and nobody reads, Brief History remains an authoritative, concise, witty reflection on whether physics can explain, well, everything.
James, William, Varieties of Religious Experience, 1903. As fresh now as when it was published a century ago, this extraordinary book remains the best attempt to explain spirituality from a rational, scientific and yet open-minded perspective.
Knuth, Donald, The Art of Computer Programing, 1968-present. Now a professor emeritus at Stanford, Knuth published the first installment of this multi-volume work, often called The Bible of programming, in the late 1960’s and is still adding updates.
Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 1962. This sneaky, subversive assault on conventional notions of scientific truth and progress triggered a revolution itself within the philosophy of science. Be sure to note where Kuhn compares scientists to drug addicts.
Mandelbrot, Benoit, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, W.H. Freeman, New York, 1977. The former IBM mathematician and namesake of the Mandelbrot set helped to launch the fields of chaos and complexity with this bombastic, fascinating treatise on fractals, mathematical objects that can describe phenomena as diverse as clouds, capillaries and stock-market fluctuations.
Mead, Margaret, Coming of Age in Samoa, American Museumof Natural History, 1928. Mead’s book, published when she was still in her twenties and based on her field work among the Samoans, depicts them as peaceful, sensuous flower children uncorrupted by modern civilization. Mead has been criticized as a naïve and even dishonest ethnographic reporter who imposed her romantic, leftist, feminist ideology on this alien society. But she still has many defenders. And veracity aside, her book inspired many young people—more specifically, many young women–to become anthropologists. She made the field glamorous, sexy, intellectually thrilling, politically relevant.
Monod, Jacques, Chance and Necessity, Vintage, New York, 1972. The French Nobel laureate in biology wrestles with what may be the most important question in biology, or even all of science: Was our existence an inevitable consequences of the laws of physics and chemistry, or just a once-in-eternity fluke?
Penrose, Roger, The Emperor’s New Mind, Oxford University Press, New York, 1989. In this dense but fascinating book, one of modern physics’ most original thinkers argues that the brain is not just a conventional albeit very complicated computer but will require radically new physics to explain.
Popper, Karl, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Springer 1934. Scientists’ favorite philosopher, who denounced dogmatism but was notoriously dogmatic himself, introduces the concept of falsification as the fundamental criterion for distinguishing science from pseudo-science.
Rhodes, Richard, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Simon & Shuster, 1986. Rhodes’s book remains the definitive history of one of science’s most momentous achievements.
Russell, Bertrand, and A. N. Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, 1927. Recently reissued in paperback, this monumental work attempts to build mathematics from the ground up and to develop methods for the solution of all major outstanding problems. Although Godel’s theorem shattered Russell and Whitehead’s vision of mathematics as logically consistent and complete, Principia has nonetheless had an enduring impact on modern mathematics.
Sacks, Oliver, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Harper Perennial, New York, 1987. In his first book, the neurologist transforms the traditional form of medical case studies of brain-damaged patients into gripping forays into the mysteries of mind, knowledge and reality.
Schrodinger, Erwin, What Is Life?, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1944. These reflections by a physicist and quantum pioneer on the mysteries of biology turned out to be remarkably prescient, particularly the speculations about how cells store and transmit genetic information.
Watson, James, The Double Helix, Atheneum, 1968. It’s a truism now that world-class scientists are not rational automatons but can be as awkward, arrogant, lustful and nasty as the rest of us. But beginning with its infamous opening sentence (”I have never seen Francis Crick in a modest mood”), Watson’s first-person account of the discovery of the structure of DNA is still shockingly, refreshingly candid.
Weinberg, Steven, The First Three Minutes, Basic Books, New York, 1977. The Nobel laureate shows how astronomy and particle physics have converged to provide an astonishingly clear picture of the birth of the universe. In this book the atheist Weinberg comments, notoriously, “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.”
Wiener, Norbert, Cybernetics, Wiley & Sons, New York, 1948. The MIT polymath Wiener not only coined the term “cybernetics”; in this magnum opus, subtitled “Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine,” he set forth ideas that continue to reverberate in electrical engineering, robotics, artificial intelligence, computer science, physics and biology.
Wilson, Edward O., Sociobiology, Harvard University Press, 1975. One of great scientists and prose stylists of the last century shows how evolutionary theory and genetics can account for the behavior of social animals, from ants to humans. Although they shun the term “sociobiology,” modern evolutionary psychologists remain indebted to Wilson’s seminal, controversial book.
May 30th, 2006 at 10:09 am
Dawkin´s “The selfish gene” seems to be more influential than the Blind Watchmaker…
The Feynman Lectures?
Why so few journalists?
May 30th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Cours d’Analyse by Camile Jordan?
Notebooks by Ramanujan?
Course of Theoretical Physics by Landau and Lifshitz?
Principles of Quantum Mechanics by Dirac?
Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics by Vladimir Arnold?
Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism by Maxwell?
Principia by Isaac Newton?
Introduction to fourier analysis and generalised functions by Lighthill?
What is Mathematics by Richard Courant?
The Road to Reality : A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe by Roger Penrose?
etcetera
May 30th, 2006 at 11:37 pm
Oh! The evolution of physics by Einstein and Infeld!
May 31st, 2006 at 6:34 am
Suggestions:
Cours d’Analyse by Camile Jordan?
Notebooks by Ramanujan?
Course of Theoretical Physics by Landau and Lifshitz?
Principles of Quantum Mechanics by Dirac?
Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics by Vladimir Arnold?
Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism by Maxwell?
Principia by Isaac Newton?
Introduction to fourier analysis and generalised functions by Lighthill?
What is Mathematics by Richard Courant?
The Road to Reality : A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe by Roger Penrose?
The evolution of physics by Einstein and Infeld.
Euclid’s Elements.
An introduction to probability theory and its applications by William Feller.
Naive set theory by Halmons.
Finite-dimensional vector spaces by Halmos.
Probability Theory: The Logic of Science by Jaynes.
Path integrals in quantum mechanics, statistics and polymer physics, and financial markets by Kleinert.
June 13th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
The best reading book I have encountered recently is
“A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson
You can pick it up and start reading anywhere, but it is difficult to put down.
June 14th, 2006 at 10:43 am
A few books which spring to mind that I have enjoyed tremendously:
Richard Dawkins - The Ancestor’s Tale (a summation of all Dawkins’ ideas in a very entertaining package)
Derek Parfitt - Reasons and Persons (yes, it is science - but like nothing you could have imagined before)
Bill Bryson - A Short History Of Nearly Everything (it is truly unputdownable)
Paul Brocks - Into The Silent Land (the new Oliver Sacks, gets frighteningly close to the soul)
June 14th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
[…] The Stevens Institute of Technology is compilling the 100 greatest science books published since 1900. The first 30 have already been chosen. […]
June 14th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Is it possible to offer neutral annotations for each book? Although you are choosing the “greatest” books, you manage to take a swat at each one. One supposes that the annotator has the truly greatest book in gallery proofs.
June 14th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
Bryson, “A short history of nearly everything”. Excellent, a tool with which to reeducate one’s self, a tool with which to teach. Beautifully written.
June 15th, 2006 at 5:33 am
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
How a computer works, how to build one, how things were in the early days.
Computer Power and Human Reason by Joseph Weizenbaum
The best introduction to computer programming and a warning from a wise humanist (and brilliant programmer) not to confuse computer models with reality.
June 15th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
One should sure NOT be on the list: Margeret Mead’s book has been
found later to be completely wrong - and the debate showed how bad
a scientists she really was: lying and distorting the facts.
June 16th, 2006 at 1:18 am
“Alan Turing: The Enigma” by Andrew Hodges
June 16th, 2006 at 8:28 am
One of the most mind-opening books I’ve ever read is
David Deutsch’s “The Fabric of Reality”. He takes what
we know about the quantum theory of information and uses
it to shred most of what we think we know about the
nature of reality. It’s a thrilling ride, teetering on
the edge between genius and madness, and left me never
again quite able to trust any speculation about any aspect of
the world which assumes classical physics “as a good
approximation”.
Stephen Pinker’s “The Language Instinct” is another recommendation.
It challenges a huge amount of what “everybody knows” about
language, and is written like a dream.
June 16th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
That Wonderful Life is “by far Gould’s best book” is not an opinion shared by me, or, I suspect, many readers of Ontogeny and Phylogeny (towards instruction) or almost any of the Natural History collection (towards delight).
June 16th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Also, Gould claimed to have read the Whitehead and Russell, but it seemed very pro forma. I tend to doubt that there are more than a hundred people alive who’ve actually read the Principia; and this would seem to disqualify it from your list.
June 18th, 2006 at 10:20 am
Few science books have given me as much pleasure as the essays of Lewis Thomas, collected in several paperbacks under the general heading “Notes of a Biology Watcher.” Of these I think “The Medusa and the Snail” is perhaps my favorite. In addition to being incredibly knowledgeable and writing with ‘amazing grace’, Dr. Thomas relishes two things that are dear to my heart as well — Etymology (the study of the origin of words) and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. So reading him reinforces, in equal measure, one’s love of Science, of Language, and of Music: Who could ask for anything more!?
June 18th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
One of Antonio Damasio’s books should probably make the list.
June 19th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Godel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter is one of my favorite books of all time. Creatively written, it challenges you to think deeply about who and how we are, yet is quite entertaining, as well.
June 19th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
[…] Should Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa be on the Greatest Science Books list? One reader of this blog thinks not; he accuses Mead of “lying and distorting the facts” about Samoa. As I now acknowledge in my annotation, Mead has been criticized as a naïve and even dishonest ethnographer who imposed her romantic, leftist, feminist ideology on this alien society. One list even ranks Coming of Age as the worst book of the century! […]
June 19th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Simply place Mead’s work under the heading of “enormously influential pseudo-science”; the nadir of Mead’s reputation must have been reached in the 1970s when her equally ideologically driven daughter made the rounds of the Phil Donahue Show (then still based in Chicago) to defend her mama’s credentials against the learned attacks of … Phil’s studio audience. (Phil, on the other hand, was an obvious big supporter …)
June 20th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
Maybe Carl Sagan’s Cosmos? Great book.
I also thought Bryson’s Short History was excellent.
Robert Sapolsky may not be the most influential or profound but he’s one of the funniest.
June 21st, 2006 at 3:29 pm
What about Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” or at least one of his books… he made science understandable by the masses without dumbing it down.
June 21st, 2006 at 3:44 pm
Speaking of a work that was popular and highly influential in the debate about science and the larger culture, C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution” (1959) was a mid-century crystallization of free-floating anxieties about the dawning of the high-tech era and the people who were making it happen. Whatever remains of Snow’s once-outsize reputation seems to be tied to this book.
June 21st, 2006 at 10:54 pm
Here’s a couple of books not mentioned:
“The Eighth Day of Creation” by Horace Freeland Judson.
“Powers of Ten” by Philip and Phylis Morrison and the Office of Charles and Ray Eames.
Of the books and/or authors already mentioned, Douglas Hofstadter’s “Godel, Escher, Bach” and Lewis Thomas’s “The Lives of a Cell” and Carl Sagan’s “Dragons of Eden” and Antonio Damasio’s “Descartes’ Error” would all be good choices.
And a favorite of mine that has disappeared into obscurity is “The Dreams of Reason: The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity” by Heinz R. Pagels. In my opinion this is the best of the “Chaoplexity” books.
June 23rd, 2006 at 4:20 am
Gell-Mann’s “The Quark and the Jaguar” would be a contender in that category.
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Microcosmos, 4 Billion Years of Microbial Evolution by Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan should be on the list. It’s quite humbling, realizing that microbes are more or less perfect and humans are, well, almost perfect…..
June 25th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Two more, from Arthur Koestler, who made the notable transition from Communist materialism to scientific mysticism: “The Ghost in the Machine” and “The Sleepwalkers.”
June 28th, 2006 at 11:19 am
UNIVERSAL ECONOMICS
LaMar L. Briner
March 1, 2006
Copyright © 2006 LLBIS, Inc.
PREFACE
Universal economics describes the development and application of a new line of scientific thinking called econophysics. Econophysics is a multidisciplinary science concerned with identifying the most efficient and cheapest methods for performing any kind of systems operation in the universe. It is based on a combination of the elementary principles of physics and economics. Physics contributes descriptions of the most efficient (economical) relationships among energy, force, and matter. They are expressed as natural laws or mathematical formulae. Economics contributes descriptions of the most efficient (cheapest) equilibrium states among systems. They are expressed as natural laws or well established conventions. Econophysics equilibrium states predetermine the ultimate performance conditions likely to be attained by any process that involves changing the status quo. This combination of physics and economics provides a much clearer picture of the future of our many systems and what we might expect from them.
Econophysics, the academic basis for universal economics, delves into the interrelations of physical and financial relationships at an advanced, comprehensive systems level. Such interrelations are governed by econostasis, the ongoing adjustments of physical relationships over time in accordance with financial constraints.
Financial considerations have always shaped human economic events. The rise and fall of civilizations have always been dependent on financial matters. People have always demanded fair compensation for their cooperation. Belief systems such as religion and politics may be necessary to assuage the concerns of people but ultimately compensation is the only true motivator. Econostasis is achieved only when energy, matter, force, and cost relationships are just right.
Throughout history, spiritual considerations have influenced the balance between physics and economics. For centuries, big religion held that the earth was flat. It also held that the Earth was the center of the universe. It determined the age of the universe to be, at least, 6 millennia. Big and little religions have always had answers for every mystery. Today, the challenge of econophysics is to develop a theory of universal economics that provides better answers than religions and to validate that theory with empirical data. It is an enormous challenge considering that religious and political systems have always biased civilizations towards subservience. To be successful, econophysics must dispel the influence of inaccurate belief systems with direct factual proofs.
Western Civilization is rooted in Genesis, the biblical story of God’s creation of the universe. Jews, Catholics, and Protestants eagerly embrace its gospel. Big religions would lack their appeal to large segments of the population without their Deity explanations of universal originations and control. So, western civilization goes merrily on its path to oblivion all based on the words of a few prophetic cultists of five thousand years ago.
Attempts in the past to correct some of the more egregious misrepresentations of the cultists were all dealt with as attacks on the main thesis of big religions. Heretics were burned at the stake, crucified, excommunicated, imprisoned, ostracized, or shunned. Conformity was assured by legal means enforced by government bureaucracies as well as supernatural fears. Today, hundreds of billions of dollars are collected and spent to perpetuate the cultists’ words. Even science is distorted to avoid conflict with the cultists’ conjectures. As a result, great nations are malformed, misdirected, misguided, and mismanaged as their populations take refuge in the words of the ancient, poorly educated, prophetic cultists.
Today, some cosmologists, the latest version of the prophets, speak of a big bang creation followed by a big crunch of the universe, ad infinitum. They are wrong. The universe has always existed just as God has always existed and the universe will continue to exist much as it has forever. It is not expanding or contracting for it already occupies infinite space. It is not configured according to the big crunch or big bang hypotheses for both extremes are inconsistent with standard cosmic observations. A close inspection of the justifications for these extreme phenomena reveals major incorrect assumptions and mathematical irregularities.
Recent developments in economic theory have revealed a connection between financial and cosmological economics. Financial economics or the modeling of economies with figures (figonomics) is concerned with the efficient interaction of financial subsystems such as government fiscal, monetary, and labor controls, policies, and methods. Cosmological economics (cosmonomics) is concerned with the efficient interaction of cosmos subsystems such as electromagnetic radiations, gravity, and matter affinities among the numerous galactic subsystems that form the substance of the universe. Both economic systems follow the typical biological pattern of multiple cooperating subsystems that jointly form a unified super system with unique functional characteristics without any dominating, top-down, controlling entity.
A grand unified theory (GUT) does not exist for either figonomics or cosmonomics. Instead the subsystems for both exist in a range of economic equilibrium states that are most likely to prevail among the interacting components. The subsystems interact with each other by interchanging critical information. Thus, most complex systems arrange themselves according to the most efficient stasis of their interacting components for prevailing conditions. Homeostasis is an example of such a biological stasis arrangement where pulmonary, muscular, nervous, vascular, sensory, etc. subsystems act together to achieve an economical equilibrium state for each person. No one subsystem dominates for they all have to work in harmony for the stasis to exist and the composite system to function.
The universe consists of many subsystems that act together to achieve an economical equilibrium state. There is no natural top-down, hierarchical organization to the universe. Different distinct parts mesh together through information flows to form a unified system. Within the universe, all nuclear reactions, all chemical reactions, all physical interactions, and all biological interplay conform to the most economical interchanges or communications among the constituent parts. All the economical interrelations among the component systems bind the universe and its subsystems together. All the subsystems are loosely united in defined economic patterns that produce the optimum outcomes for a multitude of possible interrelations.
The various theoretically possible equilibrium states for figonomics and cosmonomics are specified mathematically in the following chapters. Mathematics is used because it is the language that best describes the states and interactions of all the universe’s components. Key economic subsystem states are compiled in a table of economic relations. The resultant Econolibrium Table is offered as the basic guide for all economic considerations and calculations in the universe including national economies.
The compelling impetus for developing econophysics has been to prosper through investing in the stock markets. Game theory has failed to unravel the secrets of the markets so theorists have moved on to more complex methods of analysis. The econophysics of universal economics utilizes entropy analysis to put economics and markets into perspective. It offers a new modeling tool for better managing cooperative efforts such as civilizations, corporations, or markets.
The entropy analysis method developed by Dr. Herbert Rost is used for modeling computations. He devised a method for determining gravitational persistence or entropy of quantum emissions exceeding the speed of light that apply to econophysics considerations. His method comprises an extension and evolution of the entropy analysis contributions of Clausius, Boltzmann, and Shannon. His little known work ranks among the finest ever achievements of mankind.
Readers should find this story of universal economics novel, fascinating, challenging, and rewarding.
June 29th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Clive Ponting, A GREEN HISTORY OF THE WORLD (1991)scooped Jared Diamond by six years as did Harold Dorn, THE GEOGRAPHY OF SCIENCE.
June 30th, 2006 at 9:31 am
One more thing– Jared Diamond obviously owes some debt to Carlo Cipolla, GUNS, SAILS, AND EMPIRES (1965) for title as well as some content of his own GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL. Unfortunately Diamond cannot resist apologizing for the success of Western civilization. Thankfully, Ponting, Dorn, and Cipolla have no similiar politically correct compulsions.
June 30th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
I propose for the list “The fabric of reality” by the quantum physicist David Deutsch.
Published by Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1997. Later published as Penguin pocket.
July 3rd, 2006 at 9:14 am
have to have Lovelock, and it probably has to be Gaia a new look at life on earth, though Ages of Gaia is probably better
o
July 5th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
I must agree with the nomination of Lamar Briner’s self published treatise (Universal Economics, LLBIS Inc., entry 28) as being one of the best scientific publications of all time. While I had some initial difficulty figuring out the complex interplay between cosmonomics, figonomics, econophysics and the ‘entropy of quantum emissions exceeding the speed of light’……..it all worked itself out after I happened upon the complementary 1000 mg of mescaline discretely placed with Appendix II, page 1682.
July 14th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
Is the annotation necessary? I’m glad the author is open to debate about these books, but honestly! And PLEASE find something to put under “A Brief History of Time” besides “it’s the book everybody buys and nobody reads.” It implies that the book is not deserving of its popularity (in which case WHY did you place it on this list?) it proves nothing about the actual influence it has had on a generation of young scientists/engineers (again, making it pointless on this list!) and sounds like a cheap comment for dinner parties made by someone who wishes to sound informed but has really never read the book in question. This list has a cheeky, puerile tone which does not make the list more interesting or accessible but rather frustrates the reader with pointless interjections. Please!
August 17th, 2006 at 4:49 am
[…] A primeira lista, publicada em Maio de 2006, incluía 30 títulos. Em Agosto foram adicionados outros 10. […]
October 2nd, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I have just read “The Biology of Belief” by Bruce Lipton PhD. It was very thought provoking and might deserve a place on your list. I have only read a few of the books on the proposed list of best books so cannot really judge but the ideas presented in this book lead to some quite revolutionary conclusions!