Not a book, but the History of Science series from Crash Course on youtube is very entertaining.
Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
31–40 of 95 posts
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#32I recommend "To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science" by Steven Weinberg.
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#33The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick
This is specific to "Information, communication, and information theory." but it's still quite broad and a great read.
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#34[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#35Koyre's From the Closed World to Infinite Universe
Koyre is basically the orginator of the history of science. This was his popularization.
Einstein & Infeld's Evolution of Physics
Picks up where Koyre leaves off.
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#36For "serious" studies - for mathematics there are lot of really good books that go through the evolution of the methodologies over the centuries - I've read David Bressoud's "Calculus Reordered" and John Stillwell's "Mathematics and it's history" and can recommend both.
For physics the field is so wide it's hard to pinpoint where to start. On Quantum Physics Jim Baggot's "The meaning of Quantum Theory" is the best introductory text by any measure for "mediacore academics" like myself. It tries to hand hold the reader through the firs steps of the historical evolution of quantum theory and why quantum theory is so weird as it is - as a physics MSc I wish I had read this book two decades ago :)
For "light" approach the newer "Cosmos" series is pretty damn good in highlighting some of the key scientific work of past centuries. Don't let the cute animation fool you, this is deep, deep stuff and the producers should be regarded among the top science communicators. I've never seen a better "generalist" explanation for Faraday's and Maxwell's work, the discovery Cepheid variable stars and lots of other stuff.
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#37- The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson is a great book that taught me a lot. It covers the gradual discovery of computers from Babbage and comes to modern ages. I highly recommend it. This book is also very fun to read.
- Seven Brief Lessons in Physics by Carlo Rovelli is a brief, enjoyable, and great read. This book is good for both layperson and experts.
- Albert Einstein is Einstein's biography by Walter Isaacson. Really nice book.
- The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick (author of Chaos and The Information) is another great biography. This biography shows the evolution of his science as well as evolution of his person and thoughts. Great book. Background in Physics will be very helpful if you want to read this one.
- The Mathematical Experience David, Hersh is a very succinct and pleasant book on the history of Maths. Will recommend.
- Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges is a good mathematician's biography. I have not finished it, but fully intend to.
- I have just read some of The Man from the Future by Ananyo Bhattyacharya is a biography of John von Neumann. It already seems very good and I plan to read through the end.
- The Annotated Turing deals a lot with history and is a read of a lifetime.
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- I have not read A Mind at Work yet. It is a biography of Claude Shanon. I would recommend you to check it out.
- Sylvia Nasar's A Beautiful Mind is also recommended highly. I plan to read it.
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I have recently watched a BBC Documentary that I thoroughly liked. One of its themes that had striken me was the change of science from fully deterministic to probabilistic. It's an extremely important paradigm shift for all of science.
The name is Dangerous Knowledge (2007).
The people covered are- Cantor, Boltzmann, Godel, and Turing.
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#38- The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson is a great book that taught me a lot. It covers the gradual discovery of computers from Babbage and comes to modern ages. I highly recommend it. This book is also very fun to read. - Seven Brief Lessons in Physics by Carlo Rovelli is a brief, enjoyable, and great read. This book is good for both layperson a…
Throw me similar, related, or unrelated documentary recommendations. I will be grateful.
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#39Ivar Ekeland's The Best of All Possible Worlds
> "Ivar Ekeland takes readers on a journey through scientific attempts to envision the best of all possible worlds. He begins with the French mathematician Maupertuis, whose least action principle [...] was a pivotal breakthrough in science, because it was the first expression of the concept of optimization, or the design of systems that are the most efficient or functional. [...] Tracing the profound impact of optimization and the unexpected ways in which it has influenced the study of mathematics, biology, economics, and even politics, Ekeland reveals throughout how the idea of optimization has driven some of our greatest intellectual breakthroughs..."
Very readable style, and a lot of historical context around the names of scientists I've only heard in passing.
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#40It's not quite what you're asking (more about engineering, and only post-war British projects, from Black Knight to the Beagle probe), but Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford is very interesting.
I especially liked the battle to sequence and publish the human genome before Celera could do the same and slap down a patent on it. The story of the development of Elite is also a fun insight into the challenges of programming in the 80s where every byte mattered.