The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture

The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist

Richard Feynman · 133 pages

In April 1963, Richard P. Feynman gave a series of remarkable lectures at the University of Washington in Seattle. These three consecutive talks were classic Feynman - full of wit and wisdom - but their subject matter was wholly unexpected: Feynman spoke not as a physicist but as a concerned fellow citizen, revealing his uncommon insights into the religious, political, and social issues of the day

The Ascent of Man

Jacob Bronowski · 448 pages

Traces the development of science and the discoveries that have made man unique among animal species.

Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science

Carl Sagan · 398 pages

Explorers various aspects of several fields of science and examines the role of the intellect in scientific achievement.

The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

David Deutsch · 487 pages

"A bold and all-embracing exploration of the nature and progress of knowledge from one of today's great thinkers. Throughout history, mankind has struggled to understand life's mysteries, from the mundane to the seemingly miraculous. In this important new book, David Deutsch, an award-winning pioneer in the field of quantum computation, argues that explanations have a fundamental place in the uni

Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story

Jim Holt · 309 pages

Why is there a world rather than nothing at all? This question remains the most curious and most enduring of all metaphysical mysteries. Moving away from the narrower paths of Christopher Hitchens, Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking who insist that science alone is capable of explaining how our cosmos came into being, the author enters this debate as he examines our efforts to grasp the origins of

Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder

Richard Dawkins · 352 pages

Did Newton "unweave the rainbow" by reducing it to its prismatic colors, as Keats contended? Did he, in other words, diminish beauty? Far from it, says Dawkins - Newton's unweaving is the key to much of modern astronomy and to the breathtaking poetry of modern cosmology. Mysteries don't lose their poetry because they are solved; the solution is often more beautiful than the puzzle, uncovering deep

Theory of Colours

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 423 pages

The Society of Mind

Marvin Minsky · 339 pages

An authority on artificial intelligence introduces a theory that explores the workings of the human mind and the mysteries of thought.

Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientist's Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature

Steven Weinberg · 340 pages

Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science

David Lindley · 272 pages

The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.--Werner HeisenbergThat God would choose to play dice with the world is something I cannot believe.--Albert EinsteinNothing exists until it is measured.--Neils BohrThe remarkable story of a startling scientific idea that ignited a battle among the greatest minds of the twentieth

Think: Why You Should Question Everything

Guy P. Harrison · 270 pages

"This accessible and introductory guide to critical thinking will help you think like a scientist, learn to question everything, and understand how your own brain can trip you up. This fresh and exciting approach to science, skepticism, and critical thinking will enlighten and inspire readers of all ages. With a mix of wit and wisdom, it challenges everyone to think like a scientist, embrace the s

Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity

David Foster Wallace · 340 pages

*"A gripping guide to the modern taming of the infinite."*—The New York Times. With a new introduction by Neal Stephenson. Is infinity a valid mathematical property or a meaningless abstraction? David Foster Wallace brings his intellectual ambition and characteristic bravura style to the story of how mathematicians have struggled to understand the infinite, from the ancient Greeks to the ninete

Coming of Age in the Milky Way

Timothy Ferris · 495 pages

From the second-century celestial models of Ptolemy to modern-day research institutes and quantum theory, this classic book offers a breathtaking tour of astronomy and the brilliant, eccentric personalities who have shaped it. From the first time mankind had an inkling of the vast space that surrounds us, those who study the universe have had to struggle against political and religious preconcepti

About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution

Paul Davies · 316 pages

The traditional association between time and creation is at the heart of science, cosmology, and religion. When scientists began to explore the implications of Einstein's time for the universe as a whole, they discovered that time is elastic, and can be warped by rapid motion or gravitation, that time cannot be meaningfully divided into past, present, and future, nor does time flow in the popular

The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age

John Horgan · 368 pages

Questioning the Millennium: A Rationalist's Guide to a Precisely Arbitrary Countdown

Stephen Jay Gould · 199 pages

L'ecrivain scientifique tente ici de comprendre comment un simple probleme de calendrier a pu donner lieu a tant d'elucubrations irrationnelles. Il est question "de la perception des nombres ronds, du soleil et de la lune, de l'age de la terre et de la naissance de Jesus-Christ", pour apprecier le retour cyclique des vieilles questions irresolues que provoquera immanquablement l'an 2000.

The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates

Frans de Waal · 304 pages

A renowned primatologist argues that ethical behavior witnessed in animals is the evolutionary and biological origin of human fairness and explains that morality has more to do with natural instincts than with religion.

How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like

Paul Bloom · 280 pages

In this fascinating and witty account, Yale psychologist Paul Bloom draws on insights from child development, philosophy, neuroscience, and behavioral economics to examine the science behind our curious desires, attractions, and tastes, covering everything from the animal instincts for sex and food to the uniquely human taste for art, music, and stories.

Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk

Massimo Pigliucci · 332 pages

"Creationists who dismiss Darwin's theory of evolution. Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. Climate change deniers who dismiss the warming planet as a hoax. These are just some of the groups that, despite robust scientific evidence, embrace pseudoscientific beliefs and practices. Why do they believe bunk? And how does their ignorance threaten us all? Noted skeptic Massimo Pigliucci set

The presence of the past

Rupert Sheldrake · 391 pages

The Grand Design

Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow · 200 pages

When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? What is the nature of reality? Is the apparent grand design of our universe evidence for a benevolent creator who set things in motion? Or does science offer another explanation? In The Grand Design, the most recent scientific thinking about the mysteries of the universe is presented, in language marked by both brilliance and simplicity. The G

The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe

Roger Penrose · 1,099 pages

Un libro definitivo e imprescindible para tener en la mano, en un solo volumen, todo el saber acumulado hasta la actualidad sobre el universo, el espacio, las leyes que lo rigen y los conceptos esenciales.

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

War of the Worldviews: The Struggle Between Science and Spirituality

Deepak Chopra, Leonard Mlodinow · 336 pages

Two authors--one from the field of physics, the other from the realm of spirituality--debate the most fundamental questions about human existence.