Physics 55: General Interest Books
Astronomy
- Big Bang: The Origin Of The Universe by
Simon Singh (Fourth Estate, 2005).
- Black Holes & Time Warps by Kip Thorne
(W. W. Norton & Company, 1994). One of the better books
about black holes, by one of the main contributors to
black hole physics.
- Coming of Age in the Milky Way (a
historical view of astronomy and its impact) and other
books by Timothy Ferris such as The Whole Shebang: A
State-of-the-Universe(s) Report, a summary of
current cosmology.
- The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the
Origin of the Universe, Second Edition by Steven
Weinberg (Basic Books, 1993).
- Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape
the Universe by Martin Rees (Basic Books, 2001). A
short, nontechnical, but fascinating book by the
British Royal Astronomer about how the existence of
patterns and structures (life, stars, planets) depend
on a few key physical constants whose values are such
that, if changed by just a tiny tiny bit, would cause
the universe to have a drastically different structure
and likely no life as we know it.
- Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos by
Alan W. Hirshfeld (Henry Holt and Company,
2001). Interesting historical summary of key people who
figured out how to measure the distances to stars.
- The Sleepwalkers : A History of Man's Changing
Vision of the Universe by Arthur Koestler (Penguin,
1990).
Science
- The Discoverers by Daniel J. Boorstin (Random
House, 1983). An engaging and enjoyable nontechnical book about
the history of science, with an emphasis on how cultures and
perceptions of the world evolve because of advances in
science. Not just about astronomy but mentions many astronomical
discoveries.
- The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden
Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
by Brian Greene (W. W. Norton & Company, 1999). A
deservedly popular and well-written nontechnical
discussion of string theory, a leading approach to
unify quantum mechanics with general relativity.
- The End of Science: Facing the Limits of
Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age by
John Horgan (Little Brown & Company, 1997, New
York). Will science continue to make significant
discoveries arbitrarily far into the future or will
science come to an end, where the basic principles of
all phenomena become known? This books takes the
controversial view that science will come to an end and
is likely in its twilight now.
- The New World of Mr. Tompkins by George
Gamow and Russell Stannard (Cambridge University Press,
1999). See also Gamow's book One, Two,
Three...Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science.
- Out of the Shadows: Contributions of
Twentieth-Century Women to Physics, by Nina Byers
and Gary Williams (Cambridge University Press, 2006,
498 pages).
-
Physics for Entertainment, Volume I by Yakov
Perelman. (Free online copy of 1936 book.)
- Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters
Consciousness, by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner. An
up-to-date and non-mathematical survey of what makes quantum
mechanics so strange and intriguing. Makes contact with
and explains some recent experiments.
Astronomy-Related Science Fiction:
- The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem.
- Return From the Stars by Stanislaw Lem.
- Spin by Robert Charles Wilson.
- Tau Zero by Poul Anderson.
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