# What science book are you reading?



## J77 (Feb 21, 2007)

Every now and then, I like to pick up a popular science book.

So this thread's worth a shot...

Maybe I'll list some past reads a bit later but at the moment I'm reading:

*Fabric of the Cosmos* by Brian Greene.

Which talks about space and time, and all that jazz. Haven't got to it yet, but I believe it ends with some string theory. Nice intro to the usual history of relativity - tho' the frequent references to things like the Simpsons are a tad annoying.

The last book I read was:

*Emporer's New Mind* by Roger Penrose.

Well, I reread it. The first time didn't go down too well; I got bored with all the bits about computation. Enjoyed it the second time round - again, it contains the stuff about relativity but in a more technical way than Greene - plus I enjoyed Penrose's descriptions of entropy, leading onto black holes


----------



## chilango (Feb 21, 2007)

Currently reading _"Natural Enemies"_ ed. John Knight: Human -  Animal Conflicts from an Anthropological perspective.

Will probably re-read_ "Rewilding North America" _by Dave Foreman within the week or so.


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Feb 21, 2007)

Pluto's Republic by Peter Medawar.
Nice review of it here. 
www.the-rathouse.com/Medawar_PlutoRepublic.html
I've also got Medawar's 'Memoir of a Thinking Radish' and 'Aristotle To Zoos'. I love his stuff. Funny and erudite. Great combo in any writer.


----------



## Stanley Edwards (Feb 21, 2007)

Latest edition of Language and Mind - Chomsky. Given as a gift. Not a great read on the subject for me. But, I'll read it proper and enjoy it anyway.


Anyone got good recommendations on reading about visual perception theories?


----------



## stavros (Feb 21, 2007)

Currently George Monbiot's _Heat_. I'm about two thirds of the way through it.


----------



## rich! (Feb 22, 2007)

I've just run off the pre-fascicles of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, 7.1.1-7.1.3. Boolean algebra, bit fields, ... fine stuff.

And I'm meant to be reading Jared Diamond's Collapse.


----------



## Dr Jon (Feb 24, 2007)

"Hearing Aids" by Harvey Dillon.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 2, 2007)

stavros said:
			
		

> Currently George Monbiot's _Heat_. I'm about two thirds of the way through it.



I got my ex this for his birthday in November, I've flown 3 times since and he keeps frowning at me.

I've recently read Unweaving The Rainbow by Richard Dawkins.  I understood most of it and found several bits fascinating.

I'm not sure what visual perception theories are but this book does have stuff about vision.  Sounds like you may be looking for more advanced/specialist stuff


----------



## Red Horse (Mar 2, 2007)

Am reading Bill Bryson's 'The Short History of Just About Everything'. Not very high-brow but well interesting nonetheless and full of stuff i never had a clue about


----------



## dash (Mar 2, 2007)

Stanley Edwards said:
			
		

> Anyone got good recommendations on reading about visual perception theories?



_Visual Intelligence_ by Donald Hoffman is a good introduction to the subject. Details on Amazon.


----------



## golightly (Mar 2, 2007)

Papingo said:
			
		

> I've recently read Unweaving The Rainbow by Richard Dawkins.  I understood most of it and found several bits fascinating.



I read that a number of years ago and really enjoyed it.  I've been lent the God Delusion to read, which I will do as soon as I finish 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'.  I hate reading more than one book at a time.


----------



## Structaural (Mar 2, 2007)

Straw Dogs by John Gray (again) not sure if it could be classified as Science though...


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Mar 1, 2011)

I cannot recommend this book highly enough and I've only just started Chapter 3!

Phantoms In The Brain by Sandra Blakeslee & V. S. Ramachandran


----------



## fogbat (Mar 1, 2011)

Structaural said:


> Straw Dogs by John Gray (again) not sure if it could be classified as Science though...


 
Oh god. I tried reading that a few years ago.

Didn't he build the foundations of his argument on Gaia theory and then build a whole tower of bullshit on it?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2011)

J77 said:


> The last book I read was:
> 
> *Emporer's New Mind* by Roger Penrose.
> 
> Well, I reread it. The first time didn't go down too well; I got bored with all the bits about computation. Enjoyed it the second time round - again, it contains the stuff about relativity but in a more technical way than Greene - plus I enjoyed Penrose's descriptions of entropy, leading onto black holes


 
Probably my favourite science book. Very well thumbed. 

I've been reading his latest, Cycles of Time. The maths in it is hard, but I'm struggling through it. The basic idea is that there are cycles of Big Bangs, and that the far future will provide the conditions for the next Big Bang. He speaks at length again about entropy, and he makes a good point, I think: If, instead of Heat Death, the universe were destined for a 'Big Crunch', at the time of the Crunch, there would be high entropy, not low entropy as there must have been at the start of this universe. He then takes this insight and runs with it. 

I do love that about Penrose – he attacks received wisdoms (he's dead against the idea of cosmic inflation, for instance), and he isn't afraid to take his own ideas to their logical conclusions.


----------



## Geri (Apr 3, 2011)

Whatever happened to J77?


----------



## ferrelhadley (Apr 3, 2011)

fogbat said:


> Didn't he build the foundations of his argument on Gaia theory and then build a whole tower of bullshit on it?


 He mixes the Gaia theory with clatherate releases. Clatherate releases are well documented in the paleo records and easy to explain, Gaia far more problematic and Gray goes for a strong Gaia. 

We have loaded the clatherate gun and pointed it at our own heads, Gaia or none. Its a waiting game now and the sooner we get serious with CO2 reductions the less barrels we have loaded as we repeatedly click the revolver we are playing Russian roulette with.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2011)

Hmmm. Really? 

Gray overplays his hand, imo. The Urban75 equivalent of John Gray would be LLETSA. Nothing he says is in itself wrong, but taken as an entirety, it is presupposing the worst of all possible worlds. There is in fact no good reason to believe that he is right.


----------



## dessiato (Apr 3, 2011)

Red Horse said:


> Am reading Bill Bryson's 'The Short History of Just About Everything'. Not very high-brow but well interesting nonetheless and full of stuff i never had a clue about


 
A good light science book. If you like it try 'Can Reindeer Fly?' By Roger Highfield.


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Sep 30, 2011)

I've had problems with popular science this week. The distributor didn't send any New Scientist mags to my newsagent this week and he advised me to pick it up somewhere else. I tried a large W.H. Smiths on my way home. I couldn't find it in the vast array of wall-to-wall magazines. I asked a shop assistant and was told 'Mens Lifestyle'


----------



## FaradayCaged (Oct 29, 2011)

"Physics of the impossible" - Michio Kaku


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Oct 29, 2011)

Inside of a Dog, Alexandra Horowitz. 
Really good, and not only because the title is part of a favourite Groucho Marx quote (_Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read__)._ 
Sort of domestic ethology.


----------



## Kuso (Nov 1, 2011)

struggling through 'Infinity and the Mind' by Rudy Rucker at the moment, also reading some molecular modelling text book thing for uni


----------



## Dr Jon (Dec 5, 2011)

Fractals in Farming by Strange O'Tractor


----------



## Mikey77 (Dec 30, 2011)

GCSE chemistry. I was trying to figure out some shizzle cos people on here ain't all that. I don't know shit about science - innit.


----------



## Yuwipi Woman (May 3, 2012)

I'm not certain it's a "science" book and I have serious doubts about the sourcing, but I'm reading "The Vegetarian Myth" by Lierre Kieth. It's an extremely Malthusian book if I've ever seen one.  On the other hand, I got it out of the free box in front of a used bookstore.


----------



## fractionMan (May 3, 2012)

I recently read
Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos

Which was excellent. An introduction to the subject via the history of complexity science.  Nowhere near as dry as you might imagine.  You can get it for a few quid second hand.


----------



## Macabre (May 9, 2012)

*Handbook of Thiophene-Based Materials: Applications in Organic Electronics and Photonics*

Fucking thesis wont write its self unfortunately.


----------



## FaradayCaged (May 25, 2012)

*The Grand Design - Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow*

Just got it from the library today, going to start it tomorrow . I love M-Theory.


----------



## emanymton (May 25, 2012)

In theory I'm reading _the trouble with physics_ by Lee Smolin, in practice I read the introduction a couple of weeks ago and haven't got any further. Im so lazy sometimes 
Last one I read was _the man who mistook his wife for a hat _by Oliver Sacks, which is a great book.


----------



## fractionMan (May 28, 2012)

emanymton said:


> Last one I read was _the man who mistook his wife for a hat _by Oliver Sacks, which is a great book.


 
Great book that.  There's more than one too.


----------



## FaradayCaged (Jun 14, 2012)

*The Holograpic Univerise - Mark Talbot.*

Awesome book.


----------



## dylans (Jun 14, 2012)

I'm going through a patch of science reading. I just read the excellent "why evolution is true" by Jerry Coyne which is a superb overview of the evidence for evolution from all fields.

I have also just finished "death from the skies. These are the ways the world will end" by Phillip Plait,  which is an amusing and irreverent look at how dangerous space is and gives a great explanation for things like supernovas, gamma rays, black holes, meteor strikes etc.

Finally I am presently reading "Time, Space, Stars and Man, the story of the big bang" by Michael Woolson, which is a history of the universe from the big bang to the evolution of man


----------



## krtek a houby (Jun 14, 2012)

The God Delusion


----------



## Mad4ziz (Jun 23, 2012)

Thinking, fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman.....truly wonderful


----------



## Vino (Jul 5, 2012)

My science textbook. :3


----------



## Dr Jon (Aug 14, 2012)

Knocking on Heaven’s Door - Lisa Randall


----------



## Limejuice (Aug 25, 2012)

I'm re-reading The God Particle by Leon Lederman (+ghost).

I bought it about 15 years ago and in it he speculates about the masses of the then unfound Top Quark and Higgs Boson. Way under for the former and way over for the latter.

*smugretrospectivenumpty*


----------



## dylans (Aug 25, 2012)

Microbiology demystified. A self teaching guide by Dr Tom Betsy and Jim Keogh


----------



## Crispy (Sep 12, 2012)

The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick
If you've read _Chaos_, then you know how good a writer he is. This one's about information theory. Well, it's about language and symbols and logic and computers. It's a brilliant book. I'm learning all sorts and I thought I knew all about this stuff.


----------



## Left (Jan 3, 2013)

I got given Roger Penrose's "The Road to Reality" for Christmas. Has anyone finished this tome? It looks fascinating but I'm quite intimidated.


----------



## MikeMcc (Apr 26, 2013)

Just got Grant Fosters (Tamino) Understanding Statistics. Trying to understand the climate arguements a bit better.


----------



## Chick Webb (Jul 17, 2013)

I'm reading the Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson.  For a guy who's described as one of the great minds he uses a lot of lurid, heavy metal style imagery.  He said "dawnless night", "swarms of death" and "megadeath" in the small bit I read today.   It's a couple of years old though, and at least one of the species I've heard of he was warning about are extinct now, so I suppose the extreme language is justified.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 17, 2013)

Crispy said:


> The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick
> If you've read _Chaos_, then you know how good a writer he is. This one's about information theory. Well, it's about language and symbols and logic and computers. It's a brilliant book. I'm learning all sorts and I thought I knew all about this stuff.


 
Hmmm - looks interesting, that one.


----------



## Crispy (Jul 17, 2013)

8ball said:


> Hmmm - looks interesting, that one.


I can't recommend it enough. It gets a bit woolly towards the end, but the meaty beginning and middle more than make up for it.


----------



## Dr Jon (Aug 22, 2013)

A plague of people



> People fill every part of the planet, using all resources and driving other species to extinction, until further expansion is impossible. The process and consequences are fully explored here with a science-based forecast of a complete collapse by 2030. The culture change urgently required is refused by a kamikaze culture of growth controlled by a foolhardy powerful minority.
> ...
> Dr John Robinson traces international developments with a particular emphasis on New Zealand, which will become an overcrowded lifeboat nation.
> This authoritative, hard-hitting account tells the story as it is, without the diversions of wishful thinking.


----------



## Chick Webb (Aug 22, 2013)

Dr Jon said:


> A plague of people


A lot of western countries are facing a dearth of people though.

Not that I disagree that humans are a plague.


----------



## Robin Shearer (Dec 6, 2013)

All About Bacteria, by Ravi Mantha.  It is really an awesome but easy read into the world of bacteria that live on your body and in your body.  Hard to find hardcopies outside India (HarperCollins) but there is a kindle version.


----------



## Chick Webb (Dec 7, 2013)

Robin Shearer said:


> All About Bacteria, by Ravi Mantha.  It is really an awesome but easy read into the world of bacteria that live on your body and in your body.  Hard to find hardcopies outside India (HarperCollins) but there is a kindle version.


Sounds fascinating.  Does he go into how we (bacteria and us larger creatures) have coevolved?  

I'm reading the Sixth Extinction at the moment which is great, and goes a good way towards answering both people who cast doubt upon the theory of evolution and those those who would try to use Darwin's findings for evil.


----------



## moon (Dec 7, 2013)

Darwin's Origin of Species and Caspar Henderson's Book of Barely Imagined Beings


----------



## Fuchs66 (Jan 27, 2014)

Does ISO 9712 count?


----------



## Dr Jon (Feb 15, 2014)

I've just found James Lovelock's prescient "The Revenge of Gaia" on Scribd.
It certainly resonates with recent events.


----------



## fucthest8 (Feb 15, 2014)

moon said:


> Darwin's Origin of Species and Caspar Henderson's Book of Barely Imagined Beings



Ooh! Thanks for that last one, looks awesome, shall be getting that. 

Not sure when I'll read it mind, got no less than 7 books on the go at the moment, the science one of which is Why Does The World Exist? By Jim Holt which is excellent, but makes my brain hurt at times.

Oh and hello HHJW, not seen you for a while


----------



## bainseo5 (Feb 15, 2014)

An oldie but a goodie The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker


----------



## benedict (Mar 18, 2014)

Nick Lane, Life Ascending
Interesting snapshot of major evolutionary innovations en route to complex life.

Jessica Snyder Sachs, Good Germs, Bad Germs
Really good overview of the microbiome, allergies, autoimmune disorders, 'superbugs' etc.


----------



## Greebo (Mar 18, 2014)

The stir of waters:  Radiation, risk, and the Radon Spa of Jachymov by Paul Voosen


----------



## Impossible Girl (Mar 7, 2015)

Just finished : a Briefer history of time - Stephen Hawking, after seeing the film "The theory of everything" I had to read it  Awesome scientist and human being


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Mar 7, 2015)

Henbest and Couper: "Guide to the Galaxy"

Has instructive maps of our galactic neighbourhood in it, like this one:







Link courtesy of the deeply wonderful Atomic Rockets site


----------



## Spod (Apr 10, 2015)

New Scientist - Question Everything. 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Question-Ev...&qid=1428665311&sr=1-1&keywords=new+scientist

bite sized chunks


----------



## Spod (Apr 10, 2015)

The '...is Beautiful' series are also good reads as well as being lovely visual works of art 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Information...5362&sr=1-1&keywords=information+is+beautiful

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Knowledge-Beautiful-David-McCandless/dp/0007427921/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y


----------



## getsleep (Jun 22, 2015)

at the moment - to be absolutely true - none! Really, I needed a break, and at the moment I'm just into fiction nothing else, no brainz anymore!


----------



## DangDarn (Oct 5, 2015)

A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking.


----------



## stavros (Feb 16, 2017)

I'm reading James Hansen's _Storms of my Grandchildren_, his 2009 technical explanation of the science of anthropogenic climate change and despair at the political reaction to it. I also learnt today that he appears to have a sequel coming out this year.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Feb 16, 2017)

Viruses, plagues & history - past, present and future, by Michael BA Oldstone.

Unsurprisingly all about viruses throughout history and how spectacularly nasty they can be.


----------



## Boyo (Feb 17, 2017)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Viruses, plagues & history - past, present and future, by Michael BA Oldstone.
> 
> Unsurprisingly all about viruses throughout history and how spectacularly nasty they can be.



You might want to read "The Hot Zone", by Richard Preston. It's not a science book, but very interesting for anyone interested in viruses and their, er, virulence.

Might turn you off reading about viruses, though....


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Feb 17, 2017)

Boyo said:


> You might want to read "The Hot Zone", by Richard Preston. It's not a science book, but very interesting for anyone interested in viruses and their, er, virulence.
> 
> Might turn you off reading about viruses, though....



Viruses are fascinating things - obligate parasites on the very edge of life, perhaps only beaten by the deeply odd prions.  Got a few other books awaiting reading on the subject - Virolution, Rabid and Spillover.  Might buy some more once I've ploughed through them.


----------



## Boyo (Feb 17, 2017)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Viruses are fascinating things - obligate parasites on the very edge of life, perhaps only beaten by the deeply odd prions.  Got a few other books awaiting reading on the subject - Virolution, Rabid and Spillover.  Might buy some more once I've ploughed through them.


"The Hot Zone" reads like a fictional horror story, and an extremely disturbing one at that. It traces the origins of the Ebola virus and the desperate efforts of western medicine to deal with the appearance of the virus in Washington. There is so much detail, it reads almost like a novel with characters and a plot. Although the author has been taken to task for his rather grisly descriptions of the symptoms of an outbreak, the book has been praised as an accurate narrative of a sequence of events which could have wiped out a large percentage of the US population, if it hadn't been contained. Very scary stuff, and a riveting read.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Feb 26, 2017)

Now reading Spillover - animal infections and the next human pandemic, by David Quammen.  Another cheery read - currently I'm wading through the bloody descriptions of ebola.


----------



## Leesa Johnson (Mar 20, 2017)

I'm reading "Physics of the impossible".


----------



## aileen (May 16, 2017)

Felt Time - Marc Wittmann


----------



## Yuwipi Woman (May 22, 2017)

*Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void*

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003YJEXUM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

All those icky details you've never thought about involving life in space.  One of the more entertaining books I've read in a while.


----------



## dessiato (May 22, 2017)

Just got "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry," I'm hoping to get into it quite quickly.


----------



## weltweit (Oct 23, 2017)

Is anyone going to read Stephen Hawking's 1966 thesis?


----------



## Limejuice (Jan 13, 2018)

My current thunder-box reading material is We Have No Idea - A Guide to the Unknown Universe.

It's a (relatively) easy-going excursion into how little we know about the universe, with some amusing cartoons and daft observations. 

It's very accessible, so suitable for non-boffins of all ages who are interested in science.


----------



## jthornton (Feb 5, 2019)

A Brief History of Time by glorious Stephen Hawking


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 10, 2019)

Drugs Without the Hot Air - minimising the harms of legal and illegal drugs, by David Nutt.  He was the former member of the ACMD who was sacked by the Home Secretary.

It's well-written and methodical, covering general issues about drugs then a chapter for each substance.  A very sane assessment of the harms and risks of each drug.  

For example, he goes through the evidence to demonstrate that MDMA is much safer than horse riding.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Jul 5, 2019)

Another batch of new books received today to add to the pile of things to read. 

Timefulness - how thinking like a geologist can help save the world, by Marcia Bjornerud
The Tectonic Plates are Moving, by Roy Livermore
The Story of Earth - the first 4.5 billion years from stardust to living planet, by Robert M Hazen
Venom - the secrets of nature's deadliest weapon, by Ronald Jenner and Eivind Undheim

Some more arriving in a few days:

Wicked Plants - the A-Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate and otherwise offend, by Amy Stewart
Parasite Rex - inside the bizarre world of nature's most dangerous creatures, by Carl Zimmer
This is your brain on parasites - how tiny creatures manipulate our behaviour and shape society, by Kathleen McAuliffe


----------



## hash tag (Feb 21, 2021)

Space - 10 Things you should know. Dr Becky Smethurst. Space: 10 Things You Should Know | UK education collection


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Feb 21, 2021)

Just finished a book about blood which was interesting.  Next one I'll read is Bad Blood - secrets and lies in a silicon valley start up, by John Carreyrou.









						Bad Blood
					

The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of a multibillion-dollar startup, by the prize-winning journalist wh...



					www.goodreads.com
				




I think the next one I'll tackle is the Milk of Paradise - a history of opium, by Lucy Inglis.









						Milk of Paradise
					

Poppy tears, opium, heroin, fentanyl: humankind has been in thrall to the “Milk of Paradise” for millennia. The latex of papaver somnifer...



					www.goodreads.com


----------



## Mation (Mar 20, 2021)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Viruses, plagues & history - past, present and future, by Michael BA Oldstone.
> 
> Unsurprisingly all about viruses throughout history and how spectacularly nasty they can be.


You were ahead of the curve!


----------



## dessiato (May 7, 2021)

Not science but history. I’m reading Ghosts of Spain. It’s interesting, but the style doesn’t lend itself to me. However, it is worth reading.

(I’m also reading The Toyminator. It’s Robert Rankin, and exactly what you’d expect from him.)


----------



## hash tag (May 7, 2021)

dessiato said:


> Not science but history. I’m reading Ghosts of Spain. It’s interesting, but the style doesn’t lend itself to me. However, it is worth reading.
> 
> (I’m also reading The Toyminator. It’s Robert Rankin, and exactly what you’d expect from him.)


 a history book in a science thread.....oooookay


----------



## farmerbarleymow (May 8, 2021)

Mation said:


> You were ahead of the curve!


I've read quite a few books on virology - it's fascinating.  I remember getting odd looks on trains as a result - especially when reading this one.  One thing I remember from it is that when men enter the final phase of rabies they ejaculate something like 10-15 times a day.  Hopefully they die happy.


----------

