Mother lode of reading available for science lovers
Saturday, April 7, 2007 10:55 PM PDT
By Chris Skaugset / For The Daily News
Printable version
E-mail this articleI'm still sometimes surprised that I didn’t become a scientist of some sort. As a child and adolescent I dreamed of becoming a paleontologist, an archaeologist, a physicist or an astronomer.
While my career path veered towards history and librarianship, I still have a deep love of science that I fulfill by reading. Following in the tradition of the great popular science writers Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould, a number of great writers, great scientists and great writer/scientists continue to fill our minds with the wonder and awe of the universe.
Visit your local library today and discover some of the more recent titles listed below and all of the other great discoveries waiting to be found.
"Scientist as Rebel," by Freeman Dyson. In this collection of essays, book reviews and speeches, Dyson expertly and adroitly covers a number of topics and ideas including the title essay about scientists as free thinkers reacting against their time and place.
"The Weather Makers," by Tim Flannery. A self-described skeptic researches global warming and ends up writing a well-written and convincing account that global warming is leading to climate change. Flannery also outlines steps we need to right the planet.
"The Ghost Map," by Steven Johnson. London’s facing a massive cholera epidemic in 1854 and one scientist is bound to prove that the contagion is spread through contaminated water and not through the air. By doing so, the scientist changes the course of modern medicine.
"In Search of Memory," by Eric Kandel. A Nobel laureate and cognitive scientist, Kandel’s career mirrors the study of memory from its beginnings in psychotherapy to the cellular and molecular level of today. Both make for fascinating reads in this work.
"This is Your Brain on Music," by Daniel Levitin. The author is both a neuroscientist and a musician, and in this interesting book he studies the interconnectedness of music and your brain.
"Uncertainty," by David Lindley. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and the scientists surrounding it, is the topic of discussion in Lindley’s well-written book giving both the history and the science for this ground-breaking theory.
"Programming the Universe," by Seth Lloyd. Lloyd theorizes that every particle interaction not only conveys energy but also information. Because of this, the universe is one giant quantum computer. He makes a complicated subject both interesting and understandable.
"Decoding the Universe," by Charles Seife. In an attempt to answer some of the mysteries of the Universe, science journalist Seife takes readers on a fascinating journey to the place where Information Theory and theoretical physics meet.
"The Trouble with Physics," by Lee Smolin. Physicist Smolin sees a problem with today’s physics and thinks that too many physicists are going down the wrong path, chasing after an elusive theory of everything using strings. While not everyone’s going to agree with his theories it still makes for interesting reading.
"Death by Black Hole," by Neil de Grasse Tyson. A collection of essay originally published in Natural History magazine make for fascinating reading on a number of scientific subjects involving the cosmos.
"Before the Dawn," by Nicholas Wade. Science writer Wade unravels how DNA analysis is helping us understand our distant, and not-so-distant, past.
"The Creation," by Edward O. Wilson. Written as a letter to a Southern Baptist pastor, this is well-known biologist Wilson's plea to humanity, and especially the religious faithful, that we need to work together to preserve biodiversity and do more to protect life on the planet before much or all of it becomes extinct.
Chris Skaugset, MLS, is the director of the Longview Public Library, 1600 Louisiana St., 360-442-5309; chris.skaugset@ci.longview.wa.us
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