🧲 Books like this
Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy
Robert M. Hazen, James S. Trefil · back to the book
What’s in it
Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.
24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorWhat 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 Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors
John Gribbin · 647 pages
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
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain
Maryanne Wolf · 320 pages
In the Book. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Harper Perennial, 2008. This is an account of how our brains change as we learn to read.
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Bill Bryson · 560 pages
A Short History of Nearly Everything by American author Bill Bryson is a popular science book that explains some areas of science, using easily accessible language that appeals more so to the general public than many other books dedicated to the subject. It was one of the bestselling popular science books of 2005 in the United Kingdom, selling over 300,000 copies. A Short History deviates from
Origins: 14 Bllion Years of Cosmic Evolution
Neil deGrasse Tyson, Donald Goldsmith · 336 pages
"Drawing on the current cross-pollination among geology, biology, astrophysics, and cosmology, Origins explains the soul-stirring leaps in our understanding of the universe while capturing the importance of such extraordinary events as the first image of a galaxy being born and the exploration of Martian frontiers by Spirit Rover. Distilling complex science into clear and lively prose, coauthors N
Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics By Its Most Brilliant Teacher
Richard Feynman · 146 pages
"It was Feynman's outrageous and scintillating method of teaching that earned him legendary status among students and professors of physics. From 1961 to 1963, Feynman delivered a series of lectures at the California Institute of Technology that revolutionized the teaching of physics around the world. 'Six Not-So-Easy Pieces', taken from these famous 'Lectures on Physics' represent some the most s
Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution
Nick Lane · 344 pages
Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology
Johnjoe McFadden, Jim Al-Khalili · 368 pages
30-Second Theories: The 50 Most Thought-provoking Theories in Science, Each Explained in Half a Minute
Paul Parsons · 160 pages
Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention
Stanislas Dehaene · 388 pages
A renowned cognitive neuroscientist's fascinating and highly informative account of how the brain acquires readingHow can a few black marks on a white page evoke an entire universe of sounds and meanings? In this riveting investigation, Stanislas Dehaene provides an accessible account of the brain circuitry of reading and explores what he calls the "reading paradox": Our cortex is the product of m
Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live
Marlene Zuk · 328 pages
Debunks beliefs based on the assumption that human beings have finished evolving and defends the assertion that modern man is not biologically the same as our caveman ancestors.
The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics
Marcus du Sautoy · 351 pages
Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation
Alan Burdick · 301 pages
""Time" is the most commonly used noun in the English language; it's always on our minds and it advances through every living moment. But what is time, exactly? Do children experience it the same way adults do? Why does it seem to slow down when we're bored and speed by as we get older? How and why does time fly? In this witty and meditative exploration, award-winning author and New Yorker staff w
Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
Mary Roach · 348 pages
The irresistible, ever-curious, and always best-selling Mary Roach returns with a new adventure to the invisible realm we carry around inside. “America’s funniest science writer” (Washington Post) takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: the questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit
Killer Germs: Microbes and Diseases That Threaten Humanity
Barry E. Zimmerman, David J. Zimmerman · 272 pages
The book goes on a fascinating journey into the amazing world of viruses, bacteria, protozoa, fungi, and worms and explores the roles they have played in shaping the course of human history. From biblical plagues, to the AIDS crisis, to supergerms of the future, this updated and revised edition of the original covers the whole gamut of diseases that have threatened humanity since its origins. It a
How Music Works: The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Beatles and Beyond
John Powell · 264 pages
John Powell, a scientist and musician, answers questions about harmony, timbre, keys, chords, loudness, musical composition, and many more in this intriguing and original guide to acoustics.
Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life, in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies
Geoffrey West · 479 pages
"From one of the most influential scientists of our time, a dazzling exploration of the hidden laws that govern the life cycle of everything from plants and animals to the cities we live in. The former head of the Sante Fe Institute, visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term "complexity" can be misleadi
The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture
Fritjof Capra · 464 pages
Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague
Richard Rhodes · 259 pages
It lurks in the meat we eat. Undetectable, it incubates for years. It kills by eating holes in people's brains, so that they stagger and collapse and lose their minds. It's one hundred percent fatal. And it's already abroad in America. Deadly Feasts reads like a Michael Crichton thriller - but it's documented fact, bringing sober early warning of a new threat to our very lives that every one of us
Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality
Jared Diamond · 176 pages
Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History
Bill Schutt · 350 pages
"Eating one's own kind is completely natural behavior in thousands of species, including humans. Throughout history we have engaged in cannibalism for reasons relating to famine, burial rites, and medicinal remedies. Cannibalism has been used as a form of terrorism but also as the ultimate expression of filial piety. With unexpected wit and a wealth of knowledge, Bill Schutt, a research associate