An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals and Noise

The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World

Edward Dolnick · 398 pages

Quantum Computing Since Democritus

Scott Aaronson · 369 pages

Written by noted quantum computing theorist Scott Aaronson, this book takes readers on a tour through some of the deepest ideas of maths, computer science and physics. Full of insights, arguments and philosophical perspectives, the book covers an amazing array of topics. Beginning in antiquity with Democritus, it progresses through logic and set theory, computability and complexity theory, quantum

A New Kind of Science

Stephen Wolfram · 1,197 pages

17 Equations that Changed the World

Ian Stewart · 342 pages

Einstein: His Life and Universe

Walter Isaacson · 704 pages

The first full biography of Albert Einstein since all of his papers have become available shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the rebellious nature of his personality. Biographer Isaacson explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk--a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn't get a teaching job or a doctorate--became the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom an

The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography

Simon Singh · 402 pages

In his first book since the bestselling *Fermat's Enigma*, Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption, tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes have had on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisit

The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of the Higher Universes

Rudy Rucker · 228 pages

In text, pictures, and puzzles, the author immerses his readers in an amazing exploration of a mysterious realm -- a realm once seen only by mystics, physicists, and mathematicians.

Cybernetics: or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine

Norbert Wiener · 212 pages

Acclaimed one of the "seminal books ... comparable in ultimate importance to ... Galileo or Malthus or Rousseau or Mill", Cybernetics was judged by twenty-seven historians, economists, educators, and philosophers to be one of those books published during the "past four decades," which may have a substantial impact on public thought and action in the years ahead."--Saturday Review.

Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers

John MacCormick · 219 pages

Linked: The New Science of Networks

Albert-Laszlo Barabasi · 294 pages

A cocktail party. A terrorist cell. Ancient bacteria. An international conglomerate. All are networks, and all are a part of a surprising scientific revolution. Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, the nations foremost expert in the new science of networks, takes us on an intellectual adventure to prove that social networks, corporations, and living organisms are more similar than previoulsy thought. Grasping

Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum

Leonard Susskind, Art Friedman · 384 pages

Explains the theory and associated mathematics of quantum mechanics, discussing topics ranging from uncertainty and time dependence to particle and wave states.

A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein

Palle Yourgrau · 217 pages

It is a widely known but little considered fact that Albert Einstein and Kurt Godel were best friends for the last decade and a half of Einstein's life. The two walked home together from Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study every day; they shared ideas about physics, philosophy, politics, and the lost world of German-Austrian science in which they had grown up. What is not widely known is the

The Infinite Book: A Short Guide to the Boundless, Timeless and Endless

John D. Barrow · 328 pages

The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy & Mathematics from Albert Einstein to Stephen W. Hawking & from Annie Dillard to John Updike

Timothy Ferris · 880 pages

Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics

John Derbyshire · 435 pages

Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way To Be Smart

Ian Ayres · 266 pages

Why would a casino try and stop you from losing? How can a mathematical formula find your future spouse? Would you know if a statistical analysis blackballed you from a job you wanted? Today, number crunching affects your life in ways you might never imagine. In this lively and groundbreaking new book, economist Ian Ayres shows how today's best and brightest organizations are analyzing massive dat

Euclid's Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace

Leonard Mlodinow · 306 pages

Physicist/writer Mlodinow leads us on a journey through five revolutions in geometry, from the Greek concept of parallel lines to the latest notions of hyperspace. Here is a new alternative history of math revealing how simple questions anyone might ask about space have been the hidden engine of the highest achievements in science and technology. The journey goes from Pythagoras through Gauss and

If: A Mind-Bending New Way of Looking at Big Ideas and Numbers

David J. Smith · 40 pages

Compares large, complicated numerical concepts with smaller-scale facsimiles to examine such statistics as the size of the Milky Way, the history of human population, and the history of Earth.

One, Two, Three...Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science

George Gamow

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Charles Petzold · 393 pages

What do flashlights, the British invasion, black cats, and seesaws have to do with computers? In CODE, they show us the ingenious ways we manipulate language and invent new means of communicating with each other. And through CODE, we see how this ingenuity and our very human compulsion to communicate have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries. Using everyday objects an

Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality

Max Tegmark · 432 pages

"Max Tegmark leads us on an astonishing journey through past, present, and future, and through the physics, astronomy and mathematics that are the foundation of his work, most particularly his hypothesis that our physical reality is a mathematical structure and his theory of the ultimate multiverse. In a dazzling combination of both popular and ground-breaking science, he not only helps us grasp h

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

Randall Munroe · 312 pages

Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. His stick-figure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have a large and passionate following. Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a

The Emperor's New Mind Concerning Computers, Minds and the Laws of Physics

Roger Penrose, Martin Gardner · 480 pages

The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics

Marcus du Sautoy · 351 pages