91–95 of 95 posts
This set of blog posts that turned into a book is a great history of the underlying technologies that ultimately led to the computer, from the discovery of electricity onward. It's not a complete history of science, as it focuses on just one area, but it really brings out the nature of the interaction of discovery and practical development within their social context. I found it fascinating and enlightening.
This thread was like walking into a candy store on a Monday morning! Hearty thanks for all your recommendations. Time to go hoard!!!!!!
Yes, I didn't expect so many answers !! I have a whole page of reading recommendations now. Just have to choose where to start.
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To be fair, I didn’t say he was wrong, I said it’s out of date.
Well, you kind of made it sound like he was predicting it wouldn't be found for a century (though I suppose is he'd written the book just 4 years earlier, he'd then be right). It actually goes into some detail about why the Higgs boson is important, it just says "it hasn't been found yet". If you fill in the epilogue of "the Higgs boson was found in 2012" yourself, those pages are still consistent, correct and useful…
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I'd be very interested in hearing about a more recent synthesis on the topic, if you know of one! A lot of the other suggestions in this thread seem to be more about science popularization than directly about philosophy of science.
In another comment, I pointed out the Open Syllabus Project, which collects and surveys college class syllabuses. There you can find what professors in the field think are the best and most important books, which may be the best recommendations you'll find. https://blog.opensyllabus.org/about-the-open-syllabus-projec...