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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorTo Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design
Henry Petroski · 247 pages
How did a simple design error cause one of the great disasters of the 1980s--the collapse of the walkways at the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel? What made the graceful and innovating Tacoma Narrows Bridge twist apart in a mild wind in 1940? How did an oversize waterlily inspire the magnificent Crystal Palace, the crowning achievement of Victorian architecture and engineering? These are some of th
Galileo's Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science
Alice Domurat Dreger · 337 pages
"An investigation of some of the most contentious debates of our time, Galileo's Middle Finger describes Alice Dreger's experiences on the front lines of scientific controversy, where for two decades she has worked as an advocate for victims of unethical research while also defending the right of scientists to pursue challenging research into human identities. Dreger's own attempts to reconcile ac
Uncle Tungsten
Oliver Sacks · 337 pages
"From his earliest days, Oliver Sacks - the distinguished neurologist who is also one of the most remarkable storytellers of our time - was irresistibly drawn to understanding the natural world. Born into a large family of doctors, metallurgists, chemists, physicists, and teachers, his curiosity was encouraged and abetted by aunts, uncles, parents, and older brothers. But soon after his sixth b
Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society
Bill Bryson · 503 pages
As editor of "Seeing Further," Bryson has rounded up an extraordinary roster of scientists who write and writers who know science in order to celebrate 350 years of the Royal Society, Britain's scientific national academy. The contributors include Margaret Atwood, Steve Jones, Richard Dawkins, James Gleick, Richard Holmes, and Neal Stephenson, among many others, on subjects ranging from metaphysic
Rain: A Natural and Cultural History
Cynthia Barnett · 355 pages
Weaving together science with the human human story of our ambition to control rain, Barnett tells the story of rain -- elemental, mysterious, precious, and destructive.
How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of de-Extinction
Beth Shapiro · 220 pages
"Could extinct species like mammoths and passenger pigeons be brought back to life? The science says yes. In [this book], Beth Shapiro, evolutionary biologist and pioneer in 'ancient DNA' research, walks readers through the astonishing and controversial process of de-extinction. From deciding which species should be restored, to sequencing their genomes, to anticipating how revived populations mig
Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior
Jonathan Weiner · 310 pages
The story of a biologist's search for the foundations of behavior. Looking over the shoulder of some of the premier scientists in the field, biologist Weiner takes us into their laboratories to show us how pieces of DNA actually shape behavior. He focuses on the work of Seymour Benzer, who, decades ago, with James Watson and Francis Crick, helped to crack the genetic code. Then, in a simple experi
The Best American Science Writing 2011
Jesse Cohen, Floyd Skloot · 327 pages
This book collects into one volume the most crucial, thought-provoking, and engaging science writing of the year. Culled from a wide variety of publications, these selections cover the full spectrum of scientific inquiry. Provocative and engaging, The Best American Science Writing 2011 reveals just how far science has brought us — and where it is headed next.
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Richard Rhodes · 886 pages
Here for the first time, in rich, human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan. Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly -- or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the brig
The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworm
Amy Stewart · 240 pages
A Little History of Science
William F. Bynum · 272 pages
Science is wonderful. It tells us about the infinite reaches of space, the tiniest living organism, the human body and the history of our planet. Science has always been about making sense of the world and harnessing its power. From ancient Greek philosophers through Einstein and Watson and Crick to the computer-assisted scientists of today, men and women have wondered, examined, experimented, cal
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character
Richard Feynman · 350 pages
The biography of the physicist and Nobel prize winner Richard P. Feynman - a collection of short stories, chapters told to and written down by Ralph Leighton. Feynman tells of his childhood and youth and goes into his adult life, both personally and professionally.
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis
Edward O. Wilson · 708 pages
Woman: An Intimate Geography
Natalie Angier · 407 pages
Natalie Angier lifts the veil of secrecy from that most enigmatic of evolutionary masterpieces, the female body, exploring the essence of what it means to be a woman. Angier takes on everything from organs (breasts "are funny things, really, and we should learn to laugh at them") to orgasm (happily for women, the clitoris has 8,000 nerve fibers, twice the number in the penis). Also delving into t
My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs
Brian Switek · 264 pages
The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-First Century
John Brockman · 310 pages
The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age
John Horgan · 368 pages
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
Dava Sobel · 192 pages
The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of one man's forty-year obsession to find a solution to the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--"the longitude problem." Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day-and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailo
Chemical Chaos
Nick Arnold · 160 pages
**Science with the squishy bits left in!** *Chemical Chaos* could make your brain explode! Are you burning to find out: why glass eyes aren't really made of glass? what would make the worst stink bomb ever? how to make your own toothpaste? If you think you can stomach the *sick* side of Science, then read on as chaotic chemistry is put to the test. Find out about some extraordinary experiment
Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life
Stephen Jay Gould · 248 pages
"Stephen Jay Gould sheds new light on a dilemma that has plagued thinking people since the Renaissance. Instead of choosing between science and religion, Gould asks, why not opt for a golden mean that accords dignity and distinction to each realm?". "At the heart of Gould's penetrating argument is a lucid, contemporary principle he calls NOMA (for nonoverlapping magisteria) - a "blessedly simple
The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earth's Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe
Anil Ananthaswamy · 329 pages
Why is the universe expanding at an even faster rate? What is the nature of the 'dark matter' that makes up almost a quarter of the universe? Why does the universe appear fine tuned for life? And are there other universes besides our own? In this timely and original book, science writer Anil Ananthaswamy sets out in search of the world's most audacious physics experiments: the telescopes and detec
Chaos: Making a New Science
James Gleick · 360 pages
The author describes how scientists studying the growth of complexity in nature are discovering order and pattern in chaos. He explains concepts such as nonlinearity, the Butterfly Effect, universal constants, fractals, and strange attractors, and examines the work of scientists such as Mitchell J. Feigenbaum, Edward Lorenz, and Benoit Mandelbrot.
Relativity: The Special and the General Theory
Albert Einstein · 158 pages
The present book is intended, as far as possible, to give an exact insight into the theory of Relativity to those readers who, from a general scientific and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics. The work presumes a standard of education corresponding to that of a university matriculation examina