City Travel Guides > Books > Physics

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.The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
City Travel Guides > Books > Physics
by: Leonard Mlodinow

May 13, 2008
As a teacher of high school mathematics and statistics, I have read many such books on the subject at hand. Few of them are as readable and enjoyable as The Drunkard's Walk.

What Mlodinow's brings to the table is a great sense of humor and a writing style that is entertaining and engaging, with great stories to go along with the mathematical ideas he shares. He brings in historical anecdotes and psychological research to highlight how mathematical truth and human perception clash. I found myself very impressed by his ability to bring in the perfect study or story to illustrate a point.

Essentially, the book is a course in Statistics 101, but reading it, you'd never know. It is geared to the average intelligent reader, ... Read More:
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.This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
City Travel Guides > Books > Physics
by: Daniel J. Levitin

August 28, 2007
This was a fascinating book more so because I am a deafened adult. I had my memories when I lost all hearing in 1977. Experiences I've had since seem weird to me because I remember. Now I understand why. This is a very informative book from both the music lover and indifferent listener points of view.


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.Icarus at the Edge of Time
City Travel Guides > Books > Physics
by: Brian Greene

September 02, 2008
This is an excellent rework of the ancient story of Icarus and Daedalus. There is very little science in this; but after introducing them to the old tale, mixing in some Einstein and special relativity, then reading about the new Icarus, my 7th grade science class was amazed.

Greene does a great job and the illustrations are beautiful. Suitable for small children too.

Highly recommended.
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.The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
City Travel Guides > Books > Physics
by: Daniel J. Levitin

August 19, 2008
Daniel Levitin is both a rock musician and a cognitive scientist. That is, he looks at how the brain behaves as you perceive things. Music is one of those interesting puzzles that allows people like Levitin to see the brain behave in ways different than our other everyday behaviors, even speech. He wrote an interesting book "This Is Your Brain On Music" that I liked and reviewed. You can see it here: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession

In this book, the author uses what he knows about music (almost always popular music) and the brain to speculate about what these imply about human evolution and how our development as a species and in our various social cultures was influenced by music and how these inner human qualities influence ... Read More:
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.Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces
City Travel Guides > Books > Physics
by: Frank Wilczek

August 25, 2008
Wilczek got his Nobel Prize for his part in developing Chromodynamics, the theory of quarks and gluons and their strong force interaction. In this book we get an awe-inspiring jaunt through the most modern views of the quantum vacuum (which W. calls "The Grid") and unification theories (including SUSY).

Lots of stuff I hadn't understood before - for example, the mass of protons and neutrons (actually hadrons in general) is not at all a primary attribute. Instead it's Nature's optimisation compromise between the energy in the colour field (decreases as quarks and antiquark, for example, get closer together) and the increasing energy of 'localisation' as the said quarks and antiquarks are constrained into the same place: (more precision in location means higher momentum ... Read More:
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.Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel
City Travel Guides > Books > Physics
by: Michio Kaku

March 11, 2008
In Physics of the Impossible, author and physicist Michio Kaku reviews "a scientific exploration into the world of phasers, force fields, teleportation, and time travel" (the subtitle).

He also discusses faster than light travel, perpetual motion machines, parallel universes, UFOs, precognition, and psychokinesis. In other words, Kaku covers a wide range of topics, from cutting edge theoretical physics (parallel universes) to patently silly "stunts" (psychokinesis).

The organizing theme of the book is the amazing things humans can do, or will probably be able to do, as described in science fiction films and books. We have Star War's planet-busting Death Star and phasers, Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, and more. Kaku explores whether there is science to back ... Read More:
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.The Field Updated Ed: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe
City Travel Guides > Books > Physics
by: Lynne Mctaggart

January 02, 2008
With a little imagination and a lot of scientific corroboration, THE FIELD gives a unifying model for life and its relationship with the universe and ultimately with the life force called God.
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.Einstein: His Life and Universe
City Travel Guides > Books > Physics
by: Walter Isaacson

May 13, 2008
Walter Isaacson has done a masterful job of retracing Albert Einstein's life, including his earliest childhood, his miracle year of 1905, the development of general relativity and his political activism. This book is an erudite yet thoroughly readable and entertaining look at the man.

His genius was in being able to see physical meaning to equations; to him an equation was a representation of physical reality. His weakness was in not accepting quantum mechanics, to which can be attributed his famous quote about God and dice. Most enjoyable about the book were his exchanges with the quantum scientists such as Max Born and Niels Bohr. Isaacson was completely objective, illustrating his strengths in science, his weaknesses in relationships, and his naïveté in politics.

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.The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics
City Travel Guides > Books > Physics
by: Leonard Susskind

July 07, 2008
WELL WRITEN CHRONICLE OF A FAIRLY ARCANE SUBJECT. INTENDED FOR READERS WITH AN INEREST IN QUANTUM MECHAMICS, COSMOLOGY AND PHYICS IN GENERAL.
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.Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA
City Travel Guides > Books > Physics
by: Richard C. Hoagland, Mike Bara

October 16, 2007
Highly technical, but ultimately well worth the purchase price... however, it raises a host of new questions regarding NASA's TRUE purposes behind missions to both the moon and Mars.

Obviously thoroughly researched, this book is quite frankly critical of NASA, and will surely create doubts in the minds of readers concerning the nearly-sacred status of that agency. NOT light reading!!
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