Quantum - by Manjit Kumar, is a very accessible book covering the history of quantum mechanics.
Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
51–60 of 95 posts
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#52Some few I liked a lot:
* Bill Bryson's A brief history of Everything
* Siddartha Mukherjee's The Gene: an intimate history and The Emperor of All Maladies (on Cancer)
* Carl Zimmer's Evolution, the triumph of an idea
* James Gleick's Information, A History, a Theory, a Flood
* Walter Isacson's Codebreaker about the creation of the CRISPR -CAS9 gene editing technology
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#53 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#54Books by Matt Ridley:
- The Evolution of Everything: How Ideas Emerge
- How Innovation Works
- Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#55Try the Open Syllabus Project, a database of college syllabuses. You can find which books are most recommended by history of science professors to their classes. In some ways, it's the best source of information, objectively-measured consensus from domain experts.
http://opensyllabusproject.org/
Caveat: I haven't used it in awhile and I don't remember how the search tools work.
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#56The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
A seminal, perspective-shifting book, but not a general history of science. Also, one historian of science that I spoke to said it was a bit outdated now (as of ~10 years ago).
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#57The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
Not Kuhn's fault, but this book started a different kind of revolution: > Postmodernists interpreted Thomas Kuhn's ideas about scientific paradigms to mean that scientific theories are social constructs, and philosophers like Paul Feyerabend argued that other, non-realist forms of knowledge production were better suited to serve people's personal and spiritual needs. > Kuhn described the development of scientific kno…
That is some unknown people's broad-based interpretation of others' interpretations of Kuhn's theories of science. That is far from the source and through a filter of unknown accuracy - very unscientific!
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#58I recommend "To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science" by Steven Weinberg.
+1 was going to recommend this too
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#59You have to like his writing style but bill Bryson’s short history of everything. James burke’s day the universe changed is thought provoking and bronowski’s ascent of man is also good. Timothy Ferris (not that one) and John gribbin have also trod this area.
It's just unfortunately very out of date. He says something like, "finding the Higgs-Boson Wil be a task for a different century" or something to that effect.
Re: Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?
#60The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester isn't so much a survey of fundamental scientific advancements, but precision engineering goes hand in hand with modern developments in physics, chemistry, microbiology, and medicine. Simply skimming the index of that book, or Starrett's catalogues, can provide some hints about things that might be overlooked in a general history of (modern) science. Scientific ideas come from th…
100% agree… the history of technology is, in some ways, the history of more and more precise engineering. Bonus - Winchester reads the audiobook himself and he’s everything you’d want in a wise and worldly old British guy