This is a thread of some outstanding books that explain a STEM or technical idea with more depth and insight than usual without requiring much math. A couple of these are fairly well known but most are not.
I will tag some folks at the end.
The grand daddy of them all. A famous book but if you haven’t read it you really should. The essence of non Euclidean geometry charmingly explained.
amazon.com/Flatland-Roman…
The essentials of how expression drives development. Also some history, and some art history.
amazon.com/Art-Genes-Orga…
A related topic, embryology in humans. More conventional and less theoretic than Coen.
amazon.com/Triumph-Embryo…
My favourite book in this thread, by the charmingly named Lewis Carroll Epstein. Simple unusual problems with insightful solutions. His motto is “There is a simple way to explain anything, it’s just hard to find.”
amazon.com/Thinking-Physi…
Epstein again. Self explanatory; shockingly little math.
amazon.com/Relativity-Vis…
Okay, a bit technical and mathy. This attempts to make entropy intuitive as a macroscopic state variable. Brief.
amazon.com/Understanding-…
Another famous book, and rightly. Advanced quantum theory explained with almost no math. Brilliantissimo.
amazon.com/QED-Strange-Pr…
Another one a bit mathy, but an outstanding intuitive explanation of Shannon information and entropy. If you know, you know.
amazon.com/Introduction-I…
No math beyond F= ma.
amazon.com/Understanding-…
Another book with a following. This was recommended to me in person by John Tukey.
amazon.com/Visual-Display…
Pretty old now but a two volume Scientific American set of cell biology. De Duve was a Nobel Prize winner.
amazon.com/Guided-Tour-Li…
Tagging some people. If I left you off it’s doubtless because I assume you know all this anyway 😎
@eigenuser1 @omni_american @James_West_PhD @akoz33 @aryehazan @RogerParton @stuartlosaltos @Klassical_Kat @HeywoodFloyd10 @heterodoxan @uppity_witch
@eigenuser1 @omni_american @James_West_PhD @akoz33 @aryehazan @RogerParton @stuartlosaltos @Klassical_Kat @HeywoodFloyd10 @heterodoxan @uppity_witch Oops @DavidWootton69
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