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Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?

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Re: Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?

#22

Post by aerovistae »

It's not my field, but feels like an appropriate answer.

After the recent death of the myrmecologist EO Wilson, I decided to order a couple of his books and have spent the last few nights reading "Journey to the ants". It has been completely fascinating, I can't put it down.

Re: Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?

#23

Post by dgeiser13 »

ericd wrote: post #15
zeta0134 wrote: post #14

My "field of study" is more like a hobby, but the definitive book is "Racing the Beam" by Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort. If you're at all interested in retro game consoles and especially the clever tricks old programmers used to push these systems to their limits, it's an incredibly fun dive.

(Racing the Beam) :-) and agreed, amazing book.

I want to Race the Bean

Re: Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?

#25

Post by luminadiffusion »

Physics & Mathematics - Anyone who seriously pursues these fields learns to embrace the challenges as beautiful and the struggle to unravel their nature as fulfilling. To do this, we embrace the beauty in nature and see the connection with everything around us. Four books come to mind.

Physics:

1. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard P. Feynman

2. The Universe in a Nutshell by Steven Hawking

Mathematics:

1. Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by J.A. Paulos

2. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by D. Hofstadter

These books brilliantly illuminate the beauty in these fields. They show you that underneath all of that complex notation and "math speak" are beautiful ideas about life, the universe, and the nature of reality. These fueled me, even in to my PhD research. I still love them today.

Re: Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?

#26

Post by [deleted] »

karambahh wrote: post #19
anyfactor wrote: post #17

Accounting... The rule of accouting is that if anything excites you about accounting you shouldn't do accounting. The most fun I had studying accounting was learning about tax evasion, money laundering, defrauding stakeholders etc. Any academic book about forensic accounting could be deemed interesting if you just read only the case studies.

What book on forensic accounting would you recommend for entertainment value? I have some knowledge of french accounting, been exposed to US style, and thoroughly enjoyed long forms involving forensic accounting, money laundering and the like...

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?

#29

Post by Errancer »

I would go with "Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical" by Lakatos, its a dialog-form history of defining Euler's formula and it shows the human side of mathematics as a science. I think its great as math has this unique status as providing with undoubtable knowledge but history shows that human error is possible even in this field.

Alternately "The Unreality of Time" by McTaggart, it has less than 20 pages and argues that time doesn't exist since it is logically incoherent.

Not sure if this would get someone hooked up but for me those two were extremely fun reads.

EDIT: Just to be clear – both are meant as philosophy books, even if they touch on other things. :)

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