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What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

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Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#31

Post by viewer5 »

cgh wrote: post #28
rndn wrote: post #13

"Gödel, Escher, Bach", "QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter", "The Adapted Mind"

I've never read "The Adapted Mind" but the first two are exactly my recommendations. GEB in particular was life-altering for me. I read it twice in high school and several times since. Growing up in a small town, it really opened my eyes to a larger world somehow and initiated a real craving for knowledge. Oddly enough, learning 6502 assembly had the same effect at the same age.

What's so significant about GEB? I bought it on recommendation from a friend, but haven't gotten that far in my reading queue yet.

Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#32

Post by johan_larson »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #27
brador wrote: post #23

Maths maths maths. Come on, it's a nice skill but not very practical by itself. How about an intro to IOS/android programming?

I agree, the more math I learn the less useful I think it is for most people, but if you enjoy it it can be rewarding to study on its own. I think some more practical stuff would be great, unfortunately I can't remember ever coming across a good introduction to programming. The way I learned was just by finding example programs and then modifying them to do something different. That's a hard skill to teach though.

I wonder what a clever 14-year-old would make of an advanced introduction to programming, such as SICP. It's written for students only four years older, although those are very important four years.

Has anyone tried pointing a highschool student at that book?

Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#33

Post by seanlinehan »

I would definitely recommend How to Win Friends and Influence People as an addition to the list. I'd say that learning how to deal with people and communicate ideas effectively is at least as important as learning how to think.

This is also a book I recommend reading, re-reading, and then re-reading again for people of all ages.

Edit: I'd also probably recommend Innumeracy[0] which is a fun book about dealing with numbers. It has some pretty great strategies for coming up with good back-of-napkin estimations which is a pretty useful skill.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Innumeracy-Mathematical-Illiteracy-Its...

Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#34

Post by borgia »

brador wrote: post #23

Maths maths maths. Come on, it's a nice skill but not very practical by itself. How about an intro to IOS/android programming?

> Come on, it's a nice skill but not very practical by itself.

Why focus on practical skills instead of more abstracted concepts? Teaching someone to think for themselves rather than dictating a set of "must have" skills for them to learn?

Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#35

Post by drhayes9 »

The first three books of "The Wrinkle in Time" series.

The first three books of the Earthsea cycle by Ursula K. LeGuin.

These both skew young but I valued re-reading them as I got older:

The Dot and the Line: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dot_and_the_Line

The Phantom Tollbooth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Tollbooth

Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#38

Post by cgh »

viewer5 wrote: post #31
cgh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never read "The Adapted Mind" but the first two are exactly my recommendations. GEB in particular was life-altering for me. I read it twice in high school and several times since. Growing up in a small town, it really opened my eyes to a larger world somehow and initiated a real craving for knowledge. Oddly enough, learning 6502 assembly had the same effect at the same age.

What's so significant about GEB? I bought it on recommendation from a friend, but haven't gotten that far in my reading queue yet.

It's a profound and singular book that made a huge impression on my young mind as I'd never encountered anything like it - in fact, I had no idea something like it existed. It might not make such an impact on the modern reader, I don't really know.

Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#39

Post by Retra »

viewer5 wrote: post #31
cgh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never read "The Adapted Mind" but the first two are exactly my recommendations. GEB in particular was life-altering for me. I read it twice in high school and several times since. Growing up in a small town, it really opened my eyes to a larger world somehow and initiated a real craving for knowledge. Oddly enough, learning 6502 assembly had the same effect at the same age.

What's so significant about GEB? I bought it on recommendation from a friend, but haven't gotten that far in my reading queue yet.

Most explanations you hear about phenomena experienced in your life are packed in a kind of "made for popular consumption" language. People say things and pretend that the explanations are sufficient as understanding.

GEB is a book that _tries_ to explain things that we don't have words for. There is no facade of popular packaging. You won't understand it unless you're willing to think about things with an open mind -- things that you would be unable to explain to someone else concisely.

(By 'open mind' I mean _actual_ open mindedness, not the meaning it is normally employed to assert -- that is: "willingness to be manipulated.")

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