Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Udhay Shankar N]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 10:09 AM, Udhay Shankar N  wrote:

> The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell by
> Luca Turin: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061133841

Apparently, some new evidence for Turin's theory:

http://dev.thedailysmell.com/2011/03/31/vibration-theory-of-smell/

Udhay

-- 
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Udhay Shankar N]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Charles Haynes
 wrote:

> Currently reading "Don't Sleep There Are Snakes" by Daniel Everett
> about his life among the Pirahã Indians in the Amazon jungle. What
> hooked me was the teaser that he had gone there as a missionary to
> convert them, and ended up being "converted." But what's got me so I
> can't put it down is his fascinating discussion of their language, how
> it confounds Chomsky's "universal grammar" and it's relation to the
> Sapir-Worf hypothesis.

Interesting new article that goes into some depth about Sapir-Whorf,
and it sounds like the book from which it is taken is worth adding to
the TBR pile.

Udhay

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html

Does Your Language Shape How You Think?
By GUY DEUTSCHER
Published: August 26, 2010

Seventy years ago, in 1940, a popular science magazine published a
short article that set in motion one of the trendiest intellectual
fads of the 20th century. At first glance, there seemed little about
the article to augur its subsequent celebrity. Neither the title,
“Science and Linguistics,” nor the magazine, M.I.T.’s Technology
Review, was most people’s idea of glamour. And the author, a chemical
engineer who worked for an insurance company and moonlighted as an
anthropology lecturer at Yale University, was an unlikely candidate
for international superstardom. And yet Benjamin Lee Whorf let loose
an alluring idea about language’s power over the mind, and his
stirring prose seduced a whole generation into believing that our
mother tongue restricts what we are able to think.


In particular, Whorf announced, Native American languages impose on
their speakers a picture of reality that is totally different from
ours, so their speakers would simply not be able to understand some of
our most basic concepts, like the flow of time or the distinction
between objects (like “stone”) and actions (like “fall”). For decades,
Whorf’s theory dazzled both academics and the general public alike. In
his shadow, others made a whole range of imaginative claims about the
supposed power of language, from the assertion that Native American
languages instill in their speakers an intuitive understanding of
Einstein’s concept of time as a fourth dimension to the theory that
the nature of the Jewish religion was determined by the tense system
of ancient Hebrew.

Eventually, Whorf’s theory crash-landed on hard facts and solid common
sense, when it transpired that there had never actually been any
evidence to support his fantastic claims. The reaction was so severe
that for decades, any attempts to explore the influence of the mother
tongue on our thoughts were relegated to the loony fringes of
disrepute. But 70 years on, it is surely time to put the trauma of
Whorf behind us. And in the last few years, new research has revealed
that when we learn our mother tongue, we do after all acquire certain
habits of thought that shape our experience in significant and often
surprising ways.

Whorf, we now know, made many mistakes. The most serious one was to
assume that our mother tongue constrains our minds and prevents us
from being able to think certain thoughts. The general structure of
his arguments was to claim that if a language has no word for a
certain concept, then its speakers would not be able to understand
this concept. If a language has no future tense, for instance, its
speakers would simply not be able to grasp our notion of future time.
It seems barely comprehensible that this line of argument could ever
have achieved such success, given that so much contrary evidence
confronts you wherever you look. When you ask, in perfectly normal
English, and in the present tense, “Are you coming tomorrow?” do you
feel your grip on the notion of futurity slipping away? Do English
speakers who have never heard the German word Schadenfreude find it
difficult to understand the concept of relishing someone else’s
misfortune? Or think about it this way: If the inventory of ready-made
words in your language determined which concepts you were able to
understand, how would you ever learn anything new?

SINCE THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that any language forbids its speakers to
think anything, we must look in an entirely different direction to
discover how our mother tongue really does shape our experience of the
world. Some 50 years ago, the renowned linguist Roman Jakobson pointed
out a crucial fact about differences between languages in a pithy
maxim: “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not
in what they may convey.” This maxim offers us the key to unlocking
the real force of the mother tongue: if different languages influence
our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language
allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us
to think about.

Consider this example. Suppose I say to you in English that “I spent
yesterday evening with a neighbor.” You may well wonder whether my
companion was ma

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Vinit Bhansali]

-Original Message-
From: silklist-bounces+vinit=bhansalimail@lists.hserus.net
[mailto:silklist-bounces+vinit=bhansalimail@lists.hserus.net] On Behalf
Of Bharat Shetty
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 8:28 AM
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

Hi *,

A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
some science fiction.

So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
your answer, if you were asked the same question ?

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

[Vinit Bhansali] 

Or, we could all go to this Google Form and enter our recommendations there
...
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cktDSVVqb1VwcGpSS2ZEWW
JmbFBqdlE6MA..

And then see responses at this spreadsheet ...
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=rKCIUjoUppjRKfDYbflPjvQ

I've added some of the previously emailed responses already.

- Vinit

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Abhijit Menon-Sen]

At 2009-05-12 12:58:08 +0530, j...@pobox.com wrote:
>
> Does anyone else have a problem with the fora.tv server dropping the
> connection every few seconds?

Yes. wget -c handled it, though I had to restart it once (after it
reached its "dropped connection" limit and gave up).

-- ams

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Kiran Jonnalagadda]

2009/5/6 Thaths 

>
> Everett spoke at the Long Now Foundation talk a month ago. The mp3 of
> his talk is at:
>
> http://fora.tv/media/rss/Long_Now_Podcasts/podcast-2009-03-20-everett.mp3
>

Does anyone else have a problem with the fora.tv server dropping the
connection every few seconds? I managed to get this file after two to three
hours worth of hitting Resume, over a period of one and a half days.
I love the SALT podcasts, but getting their media is insanely hard. It
appears to be bandwidth-related: the server knocks me off for downloading
too slowly. If I have a clear pipe, I manage to get a megabyte or two before
each dropped connection. When it is choked, like now, I'm lucky to do more
than 100 kB a go.


-- 
Kiran Jonnalagadda
http://jace.seacrow.com/

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Keith Adam]

> -Original Message-
> From: silklist-bounces+keith.adam0=blueyonder.co...@lists.hserus.net
> [mailto:silklist-bounces+keith.adam0=blueyonder.co...@lists.hserus.net]
> On Behalf Of Dave Long
> Sent: 07 May 2009 14:11
> To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
> Subject: Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?
> 
> In a related but different vein, I'm interested in finding more books
> like _QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter_ or _Naive set
> theory_.
> 
> Any suggestions for science books which actually manage to hit that
> elusive median, where the calculations are neither too daunting for
> novices nor simply handwaved away?
> 
> -Dave


I would recommend 'In Search of Schrodinger's Cat' and 'Schrodinger's Kittens' 
by John Gribbin.  Good balance between science, maths and diagrams.  He also 
manages to come up with some pretty good analogies without diluting the 
science.  

In the second book, quite some time is spent in discussion of QED.  It also 
reminded me of one of the footnotes mentioning Feynman...

'...when a colleague of mine, Marcus Chown, was a student at CalTech he asked 
Feynman to explain to his (Chown's) mother why physics was important.  Feynman 
wrote to her to put things in perspective.  He told her not to worry about what 
her son's work was all about.  "Physics is not important," said Feynman in that 
letter, "love is"'. 

Keith
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com 
Version: 8.5.325 / Virus Database: 270.12.22/2105 - Release Date: 05/08/09 
11:43:00

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[ashok _]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 5:58 AM, Bharat Shetty  wrote:
> A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
> science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
> some science fiction.
>

I would strongly recommend both these books :

'the case of the midwife toad' - by Arthur Koestler

(its probably out of print ...) - its the biography of a lamarckian
evolution theorist whose research was sabotaged by the nazis

And this one :
Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (also
by arthur koestler)

provides historical perspectives of cosmology

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Udhay Shankar N]

Dave Long wrote, [on 5/7/2009 6:40 PM]:

> In a related but different vein, I'm interested in finding more books
> like _QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter_ or _Naive set theory_.
> 
> Any suggestions for science books which actually manage to hit that
> elusive median, where the calculations are neither too daunting for
> novices nor simply handwaved away?

I like this:

Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers by Jan Gullberg
http://www.amazon.com/dp/039304002X

Udhay
-- 
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Dave Long]

In a related but different vein, I'm interested in finding more books  
like _QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter_ or _Naive set  
theory_.


Any suggestions for science books which actually manage to hit that  
elusive median, where the calculations are neither too daunting for  
novices nor simply handwaved away?


-Dave

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Charles Haynes [07/05/09 10:52 +1000]:


"We don't kill those," they said. "They eat cockroaches and do no harm."



Much - even occasional painful bites - can be forgiven an efficient eater
of cockroaches.

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Charles Haynes]

On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 12:26 AM, Venkatesh Hariharan  wrote:

> I am ripe for a lifestyle change. Two hours a day of work sounds
> exactly right. Where exactly does this tribe live?

S 7° 21.642' W 62° 16.313' according to the book.

Of course I left out the part where they have no electricity, no
plumbing, no modern medicine, and an expected lifetime of somewhere
around forty years.

In addition, they have to deal with things like this:

None of us, not even Keren [his more experienced wife], had
anticipated all that this new life would entail. One of our first
nights as a family in the village, we were having dinner by gas lamp.
In the living room I saw Glasses, Shannon's [his daughter's] puppy,
chasing something that was hopping in the dark, though I couldn't make
it out. Whatever it was, it was hopping toward me. I stopped eating
and watched. Suddenly, the dark thing hopped on my lap. I focused the
beam of my flashlight at it. It was a gray-and-black tarantula, at
least eight inches in diameter. But I was prepared. I worried about
snakes and bugs, so I kept a hardwood club with me at all times.
Without moving my hands toward the tarantula , I stood quickly and
thrust my pelvis to throw the spider to the floor. My family had just
seen what was on my lap and they stared wide-eyed at me and the hairy
hopper. I grabbed my club and smashed it. The Pirahãs in the front
room were watching. When I killed the spider they asked what it was.

"Xóooí" (Tarantula), I replied.

"We don't kill those," they said. "They eat cockroaches and do no harm."

-- Charles

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Venkatesh Hariharan]

1) Longitude by Dava Sobel. Slim book but reads like a thriller. I
never imagined that the discovery of longitude was filled with so much
intrigue and backstabbing.

2) The professor and the madman on how the Oxford English Dictionary
was created. This was the original collaborative project that preceded
Wikipedia. It took 70 years to put together and countless volunteers
contributed to the OED. It is said that two tons of written materials
were shipped back and forth between the editors and contributors!

Venky

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Venkatesh Hariharan]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Charles Haynes
 wrote:
> Currently reading "Don't Sleep There Are Snakes" by Daniel Everett
> about his life among the Pirahã Indians in the Amazon jungle. What
> hooked me was the teaser that he had gone there as a missionary to
> convert them, and ended up being "converted." But what's got me so I
> can't put it down is his fascinating discussion of their language, how
> it confounds Chomsky's "universal grammar" and it's relation to the
> Sapir-Worf hypothesis.
>
> For example, they have no counting numbers (not even "one", "two",
> "many",) no comparatives (A is "bigger" than B) and refer only to
> things that they directly experience or have heard from some living
> person who directly experienced it. They have no creation myths, no
> birth, death, or adulthood rituals. Marriage is a matter of moving in
> with someone, divorce is moving out.
>
> They're also hunter gatherers and spend something like 50 hours a week
> in basic survival activities - per family group! That includes
> hunting, fishing, gathering food from the jungle. That  works out to
> about 2 hours a day of "work" and the rest of the time for other
> things. They have more "leisure" time than I do!
>
> Anyway, I can't put it down.
>
> -- Charles

I am ripe for a lifestyle change. Two hours a day of work sounds
exactly right. Where exactly does this tribe live?

Venky

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Biju Chacko]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 8:28 AM, Bharat Shetty  wrote:
> Hi *,
>
> A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
> science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
> some science fiction.
>
> So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
> your answer, if you were asked the same question ?

Most of the books I would have suggested have been mentioned already.
The only ones that I'd add are:

- The Science of Diskworld I, II and III.

- Most stuff by John Gribbin

- Big Bang and Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh

- Prisoner's Dilemma by William Poundstone

-- b

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Pavithra Sankaran]

Not really science, but natural history:

1. Song of the Dodo - David Quammen (and everything else by him, especially 
this essays)
2. The Beauty of the Beastly - Natalie Angier
3. Consilience, Future of Life and all other books by - E O Wilson
4. Stones of Silence - George Schaller

And if you want something from India

5. The End of the Trail: the cheetah in India: Divyabhanusinh Chavda


  

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Kiran K Karthikeyan]

> The ascent of man (anthropology) - the BBC series of the same name in book
> form.


Not to be confused with Darwin's work, it turns out the book is not just a
novelization of the series, but based on it.

More at http://www.strategicforesight.com/bookreview_ascentofman.htm

Kiran

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Udhay Shankar N]

Abhishek Hazra wrote, [on 5/6/2009 10:34 AM]:

>>> And on that note, _Godel, Escher, Bach_.
> 
> Finally!! i was waiting with eager anticipation for GEB to pop-up,
> particularity given its silk list.
> and Udhay, had you invited Rucker too ? or is he already a lurker?

No to both questions, AFAIK - though we do have a number of common
friends and acquaintances, some of whom are on this list. If any of you
want to invite him to silk, feel free.

Udhay
-- 
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Thaths]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 11:30 PM, Charles Haynes
 wrote:
> Currently reading "Don't Sleep There Are Snakes" by Daniel Everett
> about his life among the Pirahã Indians in the Amazon jungle.

Everett spoke at the Long Now Foundation talk a month ago. The mp3 of
his talk is at:

http://fora.tv/media/rss/Long_Now_Podcasts/podcast-2009-03-20-everett.mp3

I have a request placed on the book at the local public library.

Thaths
-- 
   "You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel." -- Homer J. Simpson

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Balaji Dutt]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Deepa Mohan  wrote:

>
>
> Wow Charles. Must get hold of this book. A human being with no words
> for numbers? Incredible
>
> Deepa.
>
>
Deepa - you can hear a lecture that Daniel Everett gave about the Pirahã
Indians from the Long Now foundation - http://is.gd/r7r9. TBH, it was this
lecture that finally clued in me on the importance of preserving languages
and oral traditions (the whole field of anthropology I would say).

--
Balaji

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Deepa Mohan]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Charles Haynes
 wrote:
> Currently reading "Don't Sleep There Are Snakes" by Daniel Everett
> about his life among the Pirahã Indians in the Amazon jungle. What
> hooked me was the teaser that he had gone there as a missionary to
> convert them, and ended up being "converted." But what's got me so I
> can't put it down is his fascinating discussion of their language, how
> it confounds Chomsky's "universal grammar" and it's relation to the
> Sapir-Worf hypothesis.
>
> For example, they have no counting numbers (not even "one", "two",
> "many",) no comparatives (A is "bigger" than B) and refer only to
> things that they directly experience or have heard from some living
> person who directly experienced it. They have no creation myths, no
> birth, death, or adulthood rituals. Marriage is a matter of moving in
> with someone, divorce is moving out.
>
> They're also hunter gatherers and spend something like 50 hours a week
> in basic survival activities - per family group! That includes
> hunting, fishing, gathering food from the jungle. That  works out to
> about 2 hours a day of "work" and the rest of the time for other
> things. They have more "leisure" time than I do!
>
> Anyway, I can't put it down.
>
> -- Charles
>

Wow Charles. Must get hold of this book. A human being with no words
for numbers? Incredible

Deepa.

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Charles Haynes]

Currently reading "Don't Sleep There Are Snakes" by Daniel Everett
about his life among the Pirahã Indians in the Amazon jungle. What
hooked me was the teaser that he had gone there as a missionary to
convert them, and ended up being "converted." But what's got me so I
can't put it down is his fascinating discussion of their language, how
it confounds Chomsky's "universal grammar" and it's relation to the
Sapir-Worf hypothesis.

For example, they have no counting numbers (not even "one", "two",
"many",) no comparatives (A is "bigger" than B) and refer only to
things that they directly experience or have heard from some living
person who directly experienced it. They have no creation myths, no
birth, death, or adulthood rituals. Marriage is a matter of moving in
with someone, divorce is moving out.

They're also hunter gatherers and spend something like 50 hours a week
in basic survival activities - per family group! That includes
hunting, fishing, gathering food from the jungle. That  works out to
about 2 hours a day of "work" and the rest of the time for other
things. They have more "leisure" time than I do!

Anyway, I can't put it down.

-- Charles

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Sumant Srivathsan]

*Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History* - Penny Le Couteur
and Jay Burreson
*Flatland* - Edwin A. Abbott (not exactly science, but WIN nevertheless)
Anything Gamow wrote is quite enjoyable, particularly *Mr. Tompkins in
Wonderland* and *1, 2, 3...Infinity*.
James Watson's *The Double Helix* is a nice read, but I haven't read the
follow-up that Abhishek mentioned.
Michio Kaku's book on parallel universes - can't remember the title offhand,
too lazy to Google.

-- 
Sumant Srivathsan
http://sumants.blogspot.com

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[sankarshan]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 10:27 AM, Udhay Shankar N  wrote:

> And on that note, _Godel, Escher, Bach_.

An interesting factoid (as put forward by the Landmark store locally)
is that GEB seems to fly off the shelves together with any book from
Feynman and, sometimes on Feynman ex. Genius: The Life and Science of
Richard Feynman by James Gleick . Whereas Hawking tends to get added
with either a Paul Davies or, an Einstein book.

Two of the recently (re)read books include God Created the Integers:
The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History and, The Man Who
Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer by David
Leavitt. Wouldn't especially recommend the second one though.


-- 
You see things; and you say 'Why?';
But I dream things that never were;
and I say 'Why not?' - George Bernard Shaw

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Abhishek Hazra]

>> And on that note, _Godel, Escher, Bach_.

Finally!! i was waiting with eager anticipation for GEB to pop-up,
particularity given its silk list.
and Udhay, had you invited Rucker too ? or is he already a lurker?
that book of Rucker is of course, brilliant. (including little gems like
describing Godel's laughter) incidentally, like Gamow, Rucker too does his
own drawings.

abhishek

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 10:27 AM, Udhay Shankar N  wrote:

> ss wrote, [on 5/6/2009 10:13 AM]:
>
> > Something by George Gamow would be a good idea.
>
> This reminds me (via the alchemy of free association) of one book that
> quite literally changed my life: _Infinity and the Mind_ by Rudy Rucker.
> And on that note, _Godel, Escher, Bach_.
>
> Aside: I once invited Douglas Hofstadter to silklist, and received a
> polite, though terse, note that he was not interested in the internet at
> all.
>
> Udhay
> --
> ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
>
>


-- 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
does the frog know it has a latin name?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Deepa Mohan]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 10:27 AM, Udhay Shankar N  wrote:

> Aside: I once invited Douglas Hofstadter to silklist, and received a
> polite, though terse, note that he was not interested in the internet at
> all.

Oh..that's really VERY interestingI would have thought that he, of
all people, would eagerly embrace the net

Deepa.

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Deepa Mohan]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Deepa Mohan  wrote:
>>
>>> On Wednesday 06 May 2009 8:28:08 am Bharat Shetty wrote:
>>> > Hi *,
>>> >
>>> > A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
>>> > science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
>>> > some science fiction.
>>> >
>>> > So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
>>> > your answer, if you were asked the same question ?
>
> Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time"...I found it unputdownable.
>
>
> Deepa.
>

Also, Goedel,Escher, Bac the Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

you can't READ the book, I had (and continue) to take in bits and
pieces each time

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Udhay Shankar N]

ss wrote, [on 5/6/2009 10:13 AM]:

> Something by George Gamow would be a good idea.

This reminds me (via the alchemy of free association) of one book that
quite literally changed my life: _Infinity and the Mind_ by Rudy Rucker.
And on that note, _Godel, Escher, Bach_.

Aside: I once invited Douglas Hofstadter to silklist, and received a
polite, though terse, note that he was not interested in the internet at
all.

Udhay
-- 
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Deepa Mohan]

>
>> On Wednesday 06 May 2009 8:28:08 am Bharat Shetty wrote:
>> > Hi *,
>> >
>> > A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
>> > science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
>> > some science fiction.
>> >
>> > So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
>> > your answer, if you were asked the same question ?

Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time"...I found it unputdownable.


Deepa.

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Abhishek Hazra]

:)
Watson, in his sequel to Double Helix (Genes, Girls and Gamow) has some
wonderful recollection on his friendship with Gamow and their work at
cracking the genetic code. and added benefit of the book are the multiple
facsimile reproductions of letters written by Gamow to Watson. (with all his
doodling and cartoon figures jostling for space with speculations on the
RNA)

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 10:13 AM, ss  wrote:

> On Wednesday 06 May 2009 8:28:08 am Bharat Shetty wrote:
> > Hi *,
> >
> > A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
> > science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
> > some science fiction.
> >
> > So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
> > your answer, if you were asked the same question ?
> >
> > -- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb
>
> Something by George Gamow would be a good idea.
>
> shiv
>
>


-- 
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does the frog know it has a latin name?
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Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[ss]

On Wednesday 06 May 2009 8:28:08 am Bharat Shetty wrote:
> Hi *,
>
> A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
> science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
> some science fiction.
>
> So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
> your answer, if you were asked the same question ?
>
> -- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Something by George Gamow would be a good idea.

shiv

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Kiran K Karthikeyan]

The ascent of man (anthropology) - the BBC series of the same name in book 
form. 

The emperor's new mind - by Penrose, his thesis on why computers can never be 
sentient and conscious like humans but I am oversimplifying. Tough going, took 
me a little over a year to finish. 

Great Physicists - from Galileo to Hawking by William H Cropper - life and 
times with an introduction to the concepts they discovered etc. 

Kiran

-original message-
Subject: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?
From: Bharat Shetty 
Date: 06/05/2009 8:29 am

Hi *,

A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
some science fiction.

So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
your answer, if you were asked the same question ?

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Udhay Shankar N]

Bharat Shetty wrote, [on 5/6/2009 8:28 AM]:

> A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
> science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
> some science fiction.

In addition to those already recommended, some slightly more unusual ones:

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven
Pinker: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143114247

The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell by
Luca Turin: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061133841

The Big Bang by Joseph Silk: http://www.amazon.com/dp/080507256X

The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum
Cryptography by Simon Singh : http://www.amazon.com/dp/0385495323

Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0812971426

Udhay
-- 
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Abhishek Hazra]

talking of literature and science, if you have liked the Proust book, then
you might also like Alan Lightman, particularly his Einstein's Dreams
http://humanistic.mit.edu/people/faculty/homepage/lightman

and of course, there is Schrodinger's original "What is Life" (the Canto
edition includes Mind and Matter too) that inspired a generation of
geneticists.
Abraham Pais' Einstein biography "Subtle is The Lord.." although a
scientific biography is beautifully written and touches upon many of the
philosophical disagreements that Einstein had with Bohr. apparently when
Bohr visited India in the 50s(?) at a lecture in TIFR he apparently broke
down while remembering the legendary arguments with his good friend


On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 9:46 AM, Deepak Jois  wrote:

> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 7:58 PM, Bharat Shetty 
> wrote:
> > Hi *,
> >
> > A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
> > science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
> > some science fiction.
> >
>
> From my reading list (these books are very unlike Sagan, Bryson or
> Hawking and that is why I like them):
>
> 1. The Fabric of Reality
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Reality-Parallel-Universes-Implications/dp/014027541X
>
> 2. Prouse was a nueroscientist
> http://www.amazon.com/Proust-Was-Neuroscientist-Jonah-Lehrer/dp/0618620109
>
> 3. Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the
> Soul of Science
> http://www.amazon.com/Uncertainty-Einstein-Heisenberg-Struggle-Science
>
> Deepak
>
>


-- 
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does the frog know it has a latin name?
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Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Venkatesh Hariharan]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 8:28 AM, Bharat Shetty  wrote:
> Hi *,
>
> A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
> science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
> some science fiction.
>
> So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
> your answer, if you were asked the same question ?
>
> -- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Also, Longitude by Dava Sobel. Slim book but reads like a thriller.

Venky

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Deepak Jois]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 7:58 PM, Bharat Shetty  wrote:
> Hi *,
>
> A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
> science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
> some science fiction.
>

>From my reading list (these books are very unlike Sagan, Bryson or
Hawking and that is why I like them):

1. The Fabric of Reality
http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Reality-Parallel-Universes-Implications/dp/014027541X

2. Prouse was a nueroscientist
http://www.amazon.com/Proust-Was-Neuroscientist-Jonah-Lehrer/dp/0618620109

3. Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the
Soul of Science
http://www.amazon.com/Uncertainty-Einstein-Heisenberg-Struggle-Science

Deepak

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Abhishek Hazra]

just a quick, random one, not in any particular order)
_ One, Two Three Infinity by George Gamow (or even his Mr. Tompkins books)
_ On Being the Right Size and other essays by JBS Haldane
_ Any Oliver Sacks Book (my favorite is Uncle Tungsten - memories of a
chemical boyhood)
_ Any Stephen Jay Gould ( Full House, The Panda's Thumb, Wonderful Life etc)
_ The Man who loved Only Numbers (biography of the mathematician Paul Erdos)

abhishek

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Venkatesh Hariharan wrote:

> Surely, you are joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman.
>
> On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 8:28 AM, Bharat Shetty 
> wrote:
> > Hi *,
> >
> > A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
> > science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
> > some science fiction.
> >
> > So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
> > your answer, if you were asked the same question ?
> >
> > -- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb
> >
> >
>
>


-- 
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does the frog know it has a latin name?
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Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Thaths]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 8:34 PM, Bharat Shetty  wrote:
> Ok, from what I've discussed with him, he has done the Bryson thing
> and Carl Sagan's Cosmos as well. I remember him telling that he wanted
> something similar to them.

Here are some in the same vein:

* Mathematics: From the birth of Numbers
* A Brief History of Time
* Most books by Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould
* Connexions (an old BBC TV programme. Though there might be a
companion book to the TV series. Some people do not like the
Connexions series host and the connections he draws)
* My Life with the Chimpanzees and In the Shadow of Man by Jane
Goodall (who somehow became my role model when I was growing up)

Thaths
-- 
   "You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel." -- Homer J. Simpson

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Bharat Shetty]

Thanks for pointers so far.

Ok, from what I've discussed with him, he has done the Bryson thing
and Carl Sagan's Cosmos as well. I remember him telling that he wanted
something similar to them.

Best,

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb


On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 11:25 PM, Thaths  wrote:
> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 8:18 PM, Venkat Mangudi's Silk Account
>  wrote:
>> A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson is an interesting read.
>>
>> http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/0767908171
>
> *cough* top-post *cough*
>
> Speaking of that book there was a good AskMefi thread about similar
> books about History:
>
> http://ask.metafilter.com/120433/Is-there-a-book-in-the-same-vein-as-Brysons-A-Short-History-of-Nearly-Everything-only-covering-history-instead-of-science
>
> And AskMefi seems to have some good threads on book recommendations:
>
> http://www.metafilter.com/contribute/search.mefi?site=ask&q=science+book
>
> What is your friend's level of education wrt to Science? And exactly
> what sort of book is she looking for? "Nice and interesting" are
> pretty vague filters to apply on the thousands of science books out
> there.
>
> S.
>
>>
>> On 5/6/09, Bharat Shetty  wrote:
>>> Hi *,
>>>
>>> A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
>>> science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
>>> some science fiction.
>>>
>>> So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
>>> your answer, if you were asked the same question ?
>>>
>>> -- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Sent from my mobile device
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
>   "You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel." -- Homer J. Simpson
>
>

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Venkatesh Hariharan]

Surely, you are joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman.

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 8:28 AM, Bharat Shetty  wrote:
> Hi *,
>
> A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
> science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
> some science fiction.
>
> So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
> your answer, if you were asked the same question ?
>
> -- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb
>
>

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Thaths]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 8:18 PM, Venkat Mangudi's Silk Account
 wrote:
> A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson is an interesting read.
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/0767908171

*cough* top-post *cough*

Speaking of that book there was a good AskMefi thread about similar
books about History:

http://ask.metafilter.com/120433/Is-there-a-book-in-the-same-vein-as-Brysons-A-Short-History-of-Nearly-Everything-only-covering-history-instead-of-science

And AskMefi seems to have some good threads on book recommendations:

http://www.metafilter.com/contribute/search.mefi?site=ask&q=science+book

What is your friend's level of education wrt to Science? And exactly
what sort of book is she looking for? "Nice and interesting" are
pretty vague filters to apply on the thousands of science books out
there.

S.

>
> On 5/6/09, Bharat Shetty  wrote:
>> Hi *,
>>
>> A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
>> science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
>> some science fiction.
>>
>> So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
>> your answer, if you were asked the same question ?
>>
>> -- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb
>>
>>
>
> --
> Sent from my mobile device
>
>



-- 
   "You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel." -- Homer J. Simpson

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Venkat Mangudi's Silk Account]

A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson is an interesting read.

http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/0767908171

- Venkat

On 5/6/09, Bharat Shetty  wrote:
> Hi *,
>
> A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
> science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
> some science fiction.
>
> So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
> your answer, if you were asked the same question ?
>
> -- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb
>
>

-- 
Sent from my mobile device

[silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Bharat Shetty]

Hi *,

A friend asked me minutes ago - "suggest to me, a nice and interesting
science book to read", and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
some science fiction.

So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
your answer, if you were asked the same question ?

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb