I recently subscribed to a new magazine called Science Illustrated. When I look back at my early academic career, I can see that the chilling, sinking, damp, depressing, suicide-watch-inducing feeling I got every time I had to sit down in a science class was a little bit of a tragedy. I dreaded science. When I think back, it's all boring memorization of photosynthesis elements and experiments that are meant to, but don't, excite young students. The bottom line is that I had a string of terrible science teachers who never made the effort to link their subject to the real world or make it interesting.
Over the past few years, I've become fascinated enough by math and science to go back and read some really cool books aimed at "laymen". Here are a few books that will blow your mind:
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1) This was the cutting edge of physics in 1979. Physics is so fascinating because you're either dealing with numbers too big to imagine (e.g. distances in the Universe) or too small to imagine (e.g. quarks). This book will fry your brain:
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2) Then move on to this, which is current cutting edge "String Theory" physics:
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And then there's this one. Have you ever read about the Fibonacci number sequence that occurs all over Nature (for you finance people, it is also widely used in the charting of market instruments)? I think the Fibonacci number sequence is the result of God sitting around and deciding to stir a super-cool feature into how the world works! (Note: This book is fascinating, but the author tries to be witty and funny, and his efforts go over like a turd in a punchbowl each and every time. Cringe-worthy.)
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Anyway, here's a page about icebergs that I scanned from the premiere issue of Science Illustrated:
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