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Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern
Douglas R. Hofstadter · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe Emperor's New Mind Concerning Computers, Minds and the Laws of Physics
Roger Penrose, Martin Gardner · 480 pages
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Nassim Nicholas Taleb · 400 pages
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
A Mathematician's Apology
G.H. Hardy · 153 pages
G. H. Hardy was one of this century's finest mathematical thinkers, renowned among his contemporaries as a 'real mathematician … the purest of the pure'. He was also (as C. P. Snow recounts in his Foreword to the 1967 edition) 'unorthodox, eccentric, radical, ready to talk about anything'. This 'apology', written in 1940 as his mathematical powers were declining, offers a brilliant and engaging ac
The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul
Douglas R. Hofstadter, Daniel C. Dennett · 431 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.
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 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.
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
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
Mysticism and Logic
Bertrand Russell · 234 pages
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
Thinking In Numbers: On Life, Love, Meaning, and Math
Daniel Tammet · 288 pages
An engrossing blend of Autobiography, mathematical theory, and 'what if' speculations. A fascinating even dizzying series of fresh perspectives on things we thought we knew -Billy collins
From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time
Sean Carroll · 451 pages
A rising star in theoretical physics offers his awesome vision of our universe and beyond, all beginning with a simple question: Why does time move forward?Time moves forward, not backward-everyone knows you can't unscramble an egg. In the hands of one of today's hottest young physicists, that simple fact of breakfast becomes a doorway to understanding the Big Bang, the universe, and other univers
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 Number Mysteries
Marcus du Sautoy · 284 pages
Every time we download music, take a flight across the Atlantic or talk on our cell phones, we are relying on great mathematical inventions. In The Number Mysteries, one of our generations foremost mathematicians Marcus du Sautoy offers a playful and accessible examination of numbers and how, despite efforts of the greatest minds, the most fundamental puzzles of nature remain unsolved. Du Sautoy t
The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
Brian Greene · 456 pages
In this refreshingly clear book, Brian Greene, a leading string theorist, relates the scientific story and the human struggle behind the search for the ultimate theory. String theory, as the author vividly describes, reveals a vision of the universe that is sending shock waves through the world of physics. Thrilling and revolutionary ideas such as new dimensions hidden within the fabric of spac
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
A New Kind of Science
Stephen Wolfram · 1,197 pages
A Devil's Chaplain
Richard Dawkins · 272 pages
'Moet u zich eens voorstellen wat voor boek een kapelaan van de duivel zou kunnen schrijven over de onhandige, verspillende, blunderende en gruwelijk gemene werken van de natuur.' Dit schreef Darwin in 1856 aan een vriend. Maar, hoe gruwelijk en onhandig ook, willekeurig zijn de evolutionaire processen allerminst, zo laat Richard Dawkins zien in zijn even nuchtere als helder onderbouwde werk. Ka
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 Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
Oliver Sacks · 243 pages
In his most extraordinary book, “one of the great clinical writers of the twentieth century” (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who
What Is Mathematics?: An Elementary Approach to Ideas and Methods
Richard Courant, Ian Stewart · 521 pages
Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities
Ian Stewart · 310 pages
Knowing that the most exciting math is not taught in school, Professor Ian Stewart has spent years filling his cabinet with intriguing mathematical games, puzzles, stories, and factoids intended for the adventurous mind. This book reveals the most exhilarating oddities from Professor Stewart's legendary cabinet.Inside, you will find hidden gems of logic, geometry, and probability-like how to extra