What non-fiction books are worth reading? Scientific literature

It's no secret that in our pragmatic age, popular science literature is becoming more and more in demand, giving odds to fiction of all stripes. For those who think it's never too late to learn, Other Literature has compiled a list of real gems in the "sci-pop" genre.

1. Eric Kandel. Looking for a memory

2. Penny Lecuter, Jay Burreson. Napoleon buttons. Seventeen Molecules That Changed the World

3. Chris Frith. Brain and soul.

4. Jessica Snyder Saks. Microbes are good and bad. Our health and survival in the world

5. Armand Marie Leroy. Mutants

6. Nick Lane. Ladder of life. Ten Greatest Inventions of Evolution

7. Ian Stewart. Truth and beauty. World History of Symmetry

8. Alex Vilenkin. World of many worlds. Physicists in search of parallel universes

9. Neil Shubin Inner fish. The history of the human body since ancient times...

10. John Derbyshire Simple obsession. Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics

11. Sean Carroll. Adapt and survive! DNA as a record of evolution

12. Neil Shubin The universe is within us. What do stones, planets and people have in common

13. Manjit Kumar. Quantum. Einstein, Bohr and the great controversy about the nature of reality

14. Mark Changizi. Revolution in vision

15. Matt Ridley. Genome

16. Norman Doidge. Brain plasticity

17. Michio Kaku. The future of the mind

18. N. P. Bekhtereva. Brain magic and labyrinths of life

19. Richard Dawkins. The Selfish Gene

20 Stephen Hawking Brief history of time. From the Big Bang to Black Holes

21. Carl Sagan A world full of demons. Science is like a candle in the dark

22. What we believe but cannot prove. Intellectuals of the 21st century about modern science

23. Richard F. Feynman. Of course you are joking, Mr. Feynman!

24. Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose. The nature of space and time

25. Fridtjof Capra. Tao of physics. An exploration of the parallels between modern physics and the mysticism of the East

26. Mary Roach. Kadavr. How the body after death serves science

27. Shintan Yau, Steve Nadis. String Theory and the Hidden Dimensions of the Universe

28. Karl Zimmer. Evolution. The triumph of the idea

29. Oliver Sachs. Anthropologist on Mars

30. Asya Kazantseva. Who would have thought! How the brain makes us do stupid things

31. Leonard Mlodinov. (Neo)conscious. How the unconscious mind controls our behavior

32. Albert Einstein. The world as I see it

33. Philip Ball. Critical mass. How one thing gives rise to another

34. Bill Bryson. A Brief History of Almost Everything

35. Jared Diamond. Guns, germs and steel. The fate of human societies

36. Irina Levontina. Russian with a dictionary

37. Jack Kelly. Powder. From alchemy to artillery. The story of the substance that changed the world

38. Masha Gessen. Perfect severity. Grigory Perelman: genius and task of the millennium

39. David Deutsch. The structure of reality. The Science of Parallel Universes

40. Stephen Strogatz. Pleasure from x. A fascinating excursion into the world of mathematics from one of the best teachers in the world

41. Thomas Kuhn. The structure of scientific revolutions

42. Jim Baggott. Higgs boson. From a scientific idea to a "particle of God"

43. Paul Halpern. Collider

44. Richard Dawkins. Devil's chaplain. Reflections on hope, lies, science and love

45. Lisa Randall Knockin 'on Heaven. Scientific view of the structure of the universe

46. Michio Kaku. Hyperspace. A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Worlds, Holes in Time, and the Tenth Dimension

47. Stephen Hawking My brief history

48. Yakov Perelman. Entertaining algebra. Interesting geometry

49. Stephen Hawking, R. Penrose, A. Shimoni, N. Cartwright. Big, small and human mind

50. George Johnson. Ten most beautiful experiments in the history of science

You may not have noticed, but this year there are many science books that deserve attention. Perhaps there is no longer any need to complain about the lack of good popular science literature, as it was possible to do just a few years ago. The problem often lies in choosing from all this variety not just good, but really the best books.

We have compiled our subjective list of popular science and simply educational books that we remember this year. They will make the reader think, tell about something new, improve his ability to think about a variety of things, and perhaps even make his life a little more meaningful.

1. Yuval Harari. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

An international bestseller written by an Israeli medievalist historian and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The book was published in 2011 and quickly conquered bookstores in many countries of the world. By 2016, it had already been translated into 30 languages.

Among the devoted fans of the book is Mark Zuckerberg, who encouraged everyone to read this work and included it in his project. "Year of Books", and Bill Gates, who admitted that he would take her with him to a desert island.

The book of Harari is a book about how man got his dominant position on this planet. This is a story about the development of human societies from small tribes of hunter-gatherers to modern states with a complex bureaucratic apparatus, and about the main inventions of mankind, to which the author refers agriculture, religion, money economy, science, and, above all, the ability to create fictions. A great continuation of the tradition of large-scale and exciting non-fiction in the spirit of Jared Diamond.

Other animals that ended up at the top of the pyramid - lions, sharks - went to this for millions of years, and a person got to the top almost instantly. Many historical catastrophes, including devastating wars and ecosystem violence, stem from our too hasty rise to power. Mankind is not a pack of wolves that suddenly took possession of tanks and atomic bombs, but rather we are a herd of sheep, which, due to an incomprehensible whim of evolution, has learned to make and use tanks and missiles. And armed sheep are much more dangerous than armed wolves.

2. Frank Wilczek The beauty of physics. Comprehending the structure of nature

The book by the famous physicist and Nobel Prize winner tells how people comprehended the Universe throughout history, and what we know about its structure thanks to modern scientific discoveries. Wilczek starts with the ideas of Pythagoras and Plato, stops at the discoveries of Newton and Maxwell, and then, through Einstein, approaches the physical theory of the late 20th century.

In this narrative, scientific theories are intertwined with reflections on the beauty of the cosmos, the universe and the process of scientific research.

The complex and multifaceted narrative that turned out as a result will give each reader something of his own. The text is complemented by beautiful illustrations that make the book an even more interesting example of popular science literature. It is important that the author does not simply try to convey some scientific truth to us, but makes assumptions and seeks to make the reader an accomplice in his thoughts.

Recent advances in cosmology suggest that the part of the universe that we can currently explore with even the most powerful instruments is just a small part of the multiverse, the distant parts of which could look completely different. If this became known for sure, it would reinforce the idea that has repeatedly sounded before: the "world" given in the sensations of each person is only one of billions of the same (at least one per person); Earth is only one of the planets of our Sun; our Sun is just one of the billions of stars in our Galaxy called the Milky Way; our galaxy is just one of billions in the visible universe.

3. Paul Kalanithi When breath dissolves into air

The autobiography of a neurosurgeon who died of cancer at the age of 37, who continued to observe the course of the disease for the last two years of his life, to study, work, improve and write penetrating notes, which are included in this book. It quickly reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list, was translated into 37 languages, and was a revelation to many readers.

Kalanithi's book is a brilliant story about the everyday life and everyday tragedies of a neurosurgeon, a sincere and deep story about how our sense of self changes on the eve of death. It can hardly be called a popular science work, although science is present in it. Rather, it is a reflection on the meaning of life, felt from one's own experience and in style balancing somewhere on the verge between the works of Montaigne and Oliver Sachs.

The morning was coming to an end and I was washing my hands before my last operation. Suddenly I was terrified. Am I doing this for the last time? Maybe it is so. I looked at the soapy water dripping from my hands into the sink. A few minutes later he entered the operating room, dressed in surgical clothes and covered the patient, leaving the operating field. I wanted this operation to be perfect.

4. Frans de Waal. Are we smart enough to judge the intelligence of animals?

A new book by an ethologist and primatologist, who has earned recognition both for his research and experiments, and for his remarkable popular science works (his "Origins of Morality" and "Politics in Chimpanzees" have already been translated into Russian). This is a thoughtful and engaging story about how we differ from animals and whether these differences are really as great as we sometimes think.

Even Charles Darwin wrote that "no matter how great the difference in the mental abilities of man and higher animals, it undoubtedly lies in quantity, and not in quality."

Frans de Waal's book draws on the results of modern research to shed new light on this claim. To what extent are animals capable of experiencing emotions? Do they have friendship, love and hate, politics, enmity and cooperation? Through a story about the evolution of animal cognitive abilities, observations and experiments, the author answers these questions and leads us to a new understanding of what it means to be human.

Yes, we are smart enough to appreciate other species, but it took hundreds of facts, initially completely rejected by science, to break through our stubbornness. The reasons why we got rid of excess prejudice and anthropocentrism are to be found in what we have learned and rethought in the past. In evaluating these changes, I inevitably bring in my own point of view, which favors the integrity of evolution at the expense of traditional dualism.

5. Lisa Randall. Dark matter and dinosaurs. The amazing interconnection of events in the universe

Lisa Randall is a professor at Harvard University, a theoretical physicist and science communicator. Her hypothesis that the death of dinosaurs 66 million years ago is associated with the passage of dark matter through the disk was put forward back in 2014 and received conflicting assessments. The opinion of scientists boils down mainly to the following: it looks plausible, but there is not enough evidence. However, the book deserves attention not only because of this hypothesis.

In fact, "Dark Matter and Dinosaurs" is a fascinating introduction to modern ideas about cosmology, the solar system and the development of biological species, in which astrophysics is intertwined with particle physics, geology and even biology. Scattered across disciplines, scientific knowledge and theories need to be brought together if we are to better understand our place in this universe.

I would like to show the variety of incredible interconnections, as a result of which we appeared and were able to understand what is happening now. […] As I began to ponder the conceptual ideas of the book, I was struck not only by the extent of current knowledge about our environment (on Earth, in the solar system, in the galaxy, and in the universe), but also by how much we hope to eventually understand based on on the bits of knowledge gained here on Earth.

6. Simon Singh, Edzard Ernst. No wallet, no life. Alternative medicine under investigation

A book by eminent British experts on alternative medicine, published with the support of the Evolution Foundation, talks about whether acupuncture, homeopathy, herbalism and other similar practices really help to cope with diseases. Edzard Ernst had been a homeopath himself for a long time, but abandoned these methods when he began to understand how they work. Thanks to this experience, the book not only retained its scientific authenticity, but also added depth and brightness to the material.

"No wallet, no life" will introduce the reader to the basics of scientific medicine. How are medicines and medical practices tested? What is double blind method? Which doctor's statements can be trusted, and which ones should you stay away from? In addition to answering these questions, the book contains a small guide to non-traditional therapies, from anthroposophic medicine to Bach's flower therapy.

Vaccination eradicated deadly infections. Diseases that affect millions of people and were previously considered incurable - appendicitis, diabetes and many others - are now treatable. Child mortality has dropped significantly. Pain can be controlled in most cases. And in general, we live longer and enjoy a better quality of life. And all this thanks to the application of the scientific method in health care and medicine. Alternative medicine, on the other hand, is by its very nature a relic of the Middle Ages.

7. Asya Kazantseva. Someone is wrong on the internet

In the latest book by renowned science communicator and Illuminator Award winner, you'll find out what the latest scientific research has to say about these important questions: Is the theory of evolution correct? Does homeopathy work? Are GMOs Dangerous? Is it good to be a vegetarian?

People can argue passionately on these and other topics, but very rarely use the right arguments.

Kazantseva's book not only answers the questions posed, but also helps to understand where to take these arguments. It begins with an analysis of the main thinking errors that constantly mislead us, and ends with a "Short Course in the Search for Truth." The main advantage of the book is not even that it presents scientific facts in a fascinating and accessible way, but that it helps the reader get rid of prejudices, learn to think critically and independently.

My ambitions as a writer are mostly not to force a set of correct memes on you, to convince you that homeopathy does not work, GMOs are safe, and so on. I have another main task: to cut down the branch on which I sit, to make the reader less dependent on a scientific journalist in the search and analysis of information. In this case, it is not even the question of whether homeopathy works that matters to me. It is more important to show exactly how I arrived at the answer.

8. Sergey Kavtaradze. Anatomy of architecture. Seven Books on Logic, Form and Meaning

This book by a Russian art historian, dedicated to how to understand, study and love architecture, was published a year ago, but this year it attracted our attention: in 2016, the author was awarded the Enlightener Prize for it in the Humanities nomination . The book appeals not to a specialist, but to the widest readership: it will acquaint you with the history of the development of architecture on a global scale and teach you to see meaning where only forms were seen before.

We all live among and within architecture, but we rarely think about what that means. How did architectural canons change, what values do architects put into their works? How does architecture evoke feelings in us and even serve as a way to connect with God? The book combines the author's narration, images and photographs, as well as quotations from important writings on architecture. For those who want to learn more about this topic, it will serve as an excellent introduction.

No art has power over people like architecture. Architecture can imperceptibly give commands, effectively controlling human behavior, forcing him to move not only in certain directions, but also in a certain rhythm, at the desired pace and even in the right manner. And that is not all. Architecture has power over both feelings and thoughts.

9. Ian Tattersall Skeletons in the closet. Dramatic human evolution

The book of one of the world's largest experts in paleoanthropology is the result of more than half a century of work on the study of the origins of mankind from ancient people and primates. Like Wilczek's The Beauty of Physics, this book is written in the genre of intellectual history: Tattersall tells how our ideas about the origin and nature of man have changed from Aristotle to the present day.

This story is full of facts and stories from the workshop of paleoanthropologists, in which the author spent most of his life. How did people learn to ask new questions? How did the discovery of scientific methods and tools like radiocarbon dating come about? The author offers the reader not only a presentation of the theoretical foundations of his discipline, but also gives him the opportunity to immerse himself in the process of scientific knowledge - with all its contradictions, subtleties and details.

The science of human evolution continues to be oppressed by the past, our ideas of yesterday have a huge impact on what we think today. [...] This is a strange and confusing story of paleoanthropology, showing how every new fact about human evolution calls into question everything we knew before, even if there are often a lot of convincing counterarguments against it.

10. Maria Konnikova. The psychology of distrust. How not to get scammed

A well-known American psychologist of Russian origin, columnist for The New Yorker and Scientific American wrote a book about the principles that underlie trust and deceit and why we sometimes believe false promises so easily. We may think that we will easily expose fraud if we encounter it in our lives. This book proves that it is not necessary to be so self-confident: we are all deceived, and very often we do not even notice it.

Scientific narrative at times flows into a detective story. How do scammers pull off their scams by playing on our fears, hopes and doubts? How not to succumb to deception and notice traps even before you fall into them? The reasons for lying lie in our relentless need to believe in something, to feel empathy, and to lie to ourselves when it seems right or useful to us. These are the reasons behind not only individual cases of deceit, but also behind the manipulation of public opinion.

It does not matter what we are dealing with - a financial pyramid or falsification of data, information stuffing or deliberately false information, artistic forgery or a dubious diagnosis, an unreliable presentation of the past or dubious promises for the future. At a fundamental level, it all boils down to trust - or rather, abuse of it.

In the design of the article, Boris Kustodiev’s painting “Maslenitsa” (1916) was used.

11 books in which famous scientists from different fields of science share their experiences, observations and theories in a way that is understandable, interesting and useful for everyone.

Stephen Fry. "The Book of General Delusions"

Stephen Fry on his "Book of General Fallacies": "If you liken all the knowledge accumulated by mankind to sand, then even the most brilliant intellectual will be like a person to whom one or two grains of sand accidentally stuck."

Annotation. The Book of Common Delusions is a collection of 230 questions and answers. Stephen Fry helps the reader get rid of often encountered pseudoscientific prejudices, myths, false facts through a chain of reasoning and real evidence. The reader will find answers to completely different questions in the book: what color is Mars really, where is the driest place on Earth, who invented penicillin and more. It's all written in typical Stephen Fry style - witty and engaging. Critic Jennifer Kay argues that The Book of Common Misconceptions will not make us feel stupid, but will make us more curious.

Richard Dawkins. "The Greatest Show on Earth: Evidence for Evolution"

Comments by Neil Shubin, associate of Richard Dawkins and bestselling author of The Inner Fish: “To call this book an apology for evolution would be to miss the point. “The Greatest Show on Earth” is a celebration of one of the most significant ideas… Reading Dawkins, one is in awe of the beauty of this theory and bows to the ability of science to answer some of life’s greatest mysteries.”

Annotation. The world famous biologist Richard Dawkins considers evolution to be the only possible theory of the origin of all living things and supports his point of view with evidence. The Greatest Show on Earth: Evidence for Evolution explains how nature works and how certain animal species, including humans, appeared on Earth. After reading his book, even an adherent of the divine theory will not find arguments against evolution. Dawkins' bestseller came out on the 200th anniversary of Darwin and the 150th anniversary of his On the Origin of Species.

Stephen Hawking. "A Brief History of Time"

Stephen Hawking on his book A Brief History of Time: “All my life I have marveled at the major questions we face and tried to find a scientific answer to them. Maybe that's why I've sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex."

Annotation. In his youth, Stephen Hawking was forever paralyzed by atrophic sclerosis, only the fingers of his right hand remained mobile, with which he controls his chair and voice computer. In 40 years of activity, Stephen Hawking has done as much for science as a whole generation of healthy scientists has not done. In the book A Brief History of Time, the famous English physicist tries to find answers to eternal questions about the origin of our universe. Each person at least once thought about how the Universe began, whether it is immortal, whether it is infinite, why there is a person in it and what the future holds for us. The author took into account that the general reader needs fewer formulas and more clarity. The book was published back in 1988 and, like any work by Hawking, was ahead of its time, so it is a bestseller to this day.

David Bodanis. "E=mc2. Biography of the most famous equation in the world

Annotation. David Bodanis teaches at European universities, writes brilliant popular science books and popularizes technical sciences in every possible way. Inspired by Albert Einstein's revolutionary discovery in 1905, the equation E=mc2, David Bodanis opened up new ways to understand the universe. He decided to write a simple book about the complex, likening it to an exciting detective story. The heroes in it are outstanding physicists and thinkers such as Faraday, Rutherford, Heisenberg, Einstein.

David Matsumoto. “Man, culture, psychology. Amazing mysteries, research and discoveries»

David Matsumoto on the book: "When cultural differences emerge in the study of culture and psychology, natural questions arise about how they arose and what makes people so different."

Annotation. Professor of Psychology and Ph.D. David Matsumoto has made many contributions both to the practice of psychology and intercultural relations and to the world of martial arts. In all his works, Matsumoto refers to the diversity of human connections, and in the new book he is looking for answers to strange questions, for example, about the incompatibility of Americans and Arabs, about the relationship between GDP and emotionality, about people's everyday thoughts ... Despite the easy presentation, the book is scientific labor, and not a collection of conjectures. “Man, culture, psychology. Amazing mysteries, research and discoveries” is not a scientific work, but rather an adventure novel. Both scientists and ordinary readers will find food for thought in it.

Frans de Waal. "The origins of morality. In search of the human in primates"

Frans de Waal on his "Origins of Morality": "Morality is not a purely human property, and its origins must be sought in animals. Empathy and other manifestations of a kind of morality are inherent in monkeys, and dogs, and elephants, and even reptiles.

Annotation. For many years, the world-renowned biologist Frans de Waal has studied the lives of chimpanzees and bonobos. After researching the animal world, the scientist was struck by the idea that morality is inherent not only in humans. The scientist studied the life of great apes for many years and found real emotions in them, such as grief, joy and sadness, then he found the same in other animal species. Frans de Waal touched upon issues of morality, philosophy, and religion in the book.

Armand Marie Leroy. "Mutants"

Armand Marie Leroy on "Mutants": "This book is about how the human body is created. About techniques that allow a single cell, immersed in the dark nooks and crannies of the womb, to become an embryo, fetus, child, and finally an adult. It provides an answer, albeit tentative and incomplete, yet clear at its core, to the question of how we become what we are.”

Annotation. Armand Marie Leroy traveled from an early age, becoming a renowned evolutionary biologist, doctor of science and teacher. In Mutants, biologist Armand Marie Leroy explores the body through the shocking stories of mutants. Siamese twins, hermaphrodites, fused limbs... Once Cleopatra, being interested in human anatomy, ordered pregnant slaves to rip open their stomachs... Now such barbaric methods are in the past and science is developing with the help of humane research. The formation of the human body is still not fully understood, and Armand Marie Leroy shows how the human anatomy remains stable despite genetic diversity.

John Lehrer. "How We Make Decisions"

Foreword by Jonah Lehrer to her book: "Each of us is capable of coming to a successful decision."

Annotation. The world-famous popularizer of science, John Lehrer, has gained a reputation as a connoisseur of psychology and a talented journalist. He is interested in neuroscience and psychology. In her book How We Make Decisions, Jonah Lehrer describes the mechanics of decision making. He explains in detail why a person chooses what he chooses, when to indulge intuition, how to make the right choice. The book helps to better understand yourself and the choices of other people.

Frith Chris. “Brain and soul. How nervous activity shapes our inner world

Frith Chris on the book "Brain and Soul": "We need to look a little more at the connection between our psyche and the brain. This connection must be close ... This connection between the brain and the psyche is imperfect.

Annotation. The famous English neuroscientist and neuropsychologist Frith Chris studies the structure of the human brain. On this topic, he wrote 400 publications. In the book "Brain and Soul" he talks about where images and ideas about the world come from in the head, as well as how real these images are. If a person thinks that he sees the world as it is in reality, then he is greatly mistaken. The inner world, according to Frith, is almost richer than the outer world, since our mind itself conjectures the past, present and future.

Michio Kaku. "Physics of the Impossible"

Quote by Michio Kaku from the book The Physics of the Impossible: “I have been told more than once that in real life you have to give up the impossible and be content with the real. In my short life, I have often seen how what was previously considered impossible turns into an established scientific fact.

Annotation. Michio Kaku is Japanese by origin and American by citizenship, is one of the authors of string theory, a professor, and a popularizer of science and technology. Most of his books are international bestsellers. In the book "Physics of the Impossible" he talks about the incredible phenomena and laws of the universe. From this book, the reader will learn what will become possible in the near future: force fields, invisibility, mind reading, communication with extraterrestrial civilizations and space travel.

Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner. Freakonomics

“Stephen Levitt tends to see a lot of things very differently than any other average person. His point of view is not like the usual thoughts of the average economist. It can be great or terrible, depending on how you think about economists in general.” – New York Times Magazine

Annotation. The authors seriously analyze the economic background of everyday things. A non-standard explanation of such strange economic issues as quackery, prostitution and others. Shocking, unexpected, even provocative topics are considered through logical economic laws. Steven Levitt and Steven Dubner sought to awaken interest in life and deservedly received many flattering reviews. Freakonomics was written not by ordinary economists, but by real creatives. It was even included in the list of the best books of the decade according to the Russian Reporter.

It's no secret that in our pragmatic age, popular science literature is becoming more and more in demand, giving odds to fiction of all stripes. For those who think it's never too late to learn, we've compiled a list of real gems in the sci-pop genre.

1. Eric Kandel. In search of memory.
2. Penny Lecuter, Jay Burreson. Napoleon buttons. Seventeen molecules that changed the world.
3. Chris frit. Brain and soul.
4. Jessica Snyder Sax. Microbes are good and bad. Our health and survival in the world.
5. Armand Marie Leroy. Mutants.
6. Nick lane. Ladder of life. Ten Greatest Inventions of Evolution.
7. Ian Stewart. Truth and beauty. World history of symmetry.
8. Alex Vilenkin. World of many worlds. Physicists in search of parallel universes.
9. Neil Shubin Inner fish. The history of the human body since ancient times ....
10 John Derbyshire Simple obsession. Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics.
11. Sean Carroll. Adapt and survive! DNA as a chronicle of evolution.
12. Neil Shubin The universe is within us. What do stones, planets and people have in common.
13. Manjit Kumar. Quantum. Einstein, Bohr and the great controversy about the nature of reality.
14. Mark changizi. Revolution in vision.
15. Matt Ridley. Genome 16. Norman Doidge. Brain plasticity.
17. Michio kaku. The future of the mind 18. N. P. Bekhtereva. The magic of the brain and the labyrinths of life.
19. Richard Dawkins. selfish gene.
20 Stephen Hawking Brief history of time. From the big bang to black holes.
21. Carl Sagan. A world full of demons. Science is like a candle in the dark 22. What we believe but cannot prove. Intellectuals of the XXI century about modern science.
23. Richard F. Feynman. Of course you're joking, Mr. Feynman!
24. Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose. The nature of space and time.
25. Fridtjof capra. Tao of physics. An exploration of the parallels between modern physics and the mysticism of the East.
26. Mary Roach. Kadavr. How the body serves science after death.
27. Shintan Yau, Steve Nadis. String theory and the hidden dimensions of the universe.
28. Karl Zimmer. Evolution. The triumph of the idea.
29. Oliver Sax. Anthropologist on Mars.
30. Asya Kazantseva. Who would have thought! How the brain makes us do stupid things.
31. Leonard Mlodinov. (Neo) conscious. How the unconscious mind controls our behavior.
32. Albert Einstein. The world as I see it.
33. Philip ball. Critical mass. How one thing gives rise to another.
34. Bill Bryson. A short history of almost everything.
35. Jared diamond. Guns, germs and steel. The fate of human societies.
36. Irina Levontina. Russian with a dictionary.
37. Jack Kelly. Powder. From alchemy to artillery. The story of a substance that changed the world.
38. Masha Gessen. Perfect severity. Grigory Perelman: genius and task of the millennium.
39. David Deutsch. The structure of reality. Science of parallel universes.
40. Stephen Strict. Pleasure from x. an exciting excursion into the world of mathematics from one of the best teachers in the world.
41. Thomas Kuhn. The structure of scientific revolutions.
42. Jim Baggott. Higgs boson. From a scientific idea to a "God Particle".
43. floor helpern. Collider 44. Richard Dawkins. Devil's chaplain. Reflections on hope, lies, science and love.
45. Lisa Randall Knockin 'on Heaven. A scientific view of the structure of the universe.
46. Michio kaku. Hyperspace. A scientific odyssey through parallel worlds, holes in time and the tenth dimension.
47. Stephen Hawking. My short history.
48. Yakov Perelman. Entertaining algebra. Entertaining Geometry 49. Stephen Hawking, R. Penrose, a. Shimoni, N. Cartwright. Big, small and human mind 50. George Johnson. Ten most beautiful experiments in the history of science.

Non-fiction books for children grade 3 surrounding. The fastest book

Ripol has already published three books in the 30 Seconds series, and they are all wonderful. In addition to "Discoveries", these are "Earth in 30 seconds" and "Space in 30 seconds". The principle of the books is simple: each page is one topic that can be mastered in 30 seconds, and a task that can be done in about the same time. In our book - 30 discoveries that turned the world upside down. Scientific theories are presented in historical order, so that the child makes discoveries along with humanity. The book has a lot of infographics, unusual use of color and fonts. She, like the whole series, is focused on modern children and speaks the same language with them. On our website, read also about another book by Mike Goldsmith, Eureka.

What is popular science style?

A feature of the popular science sub-style is the combination of polar stylistic features in it: logic and emotionality, objectivity and subjectivity, abstractness and concreteness. In contrast to scientific prose, popular science literature has much less special terms and other proper scientific means.

Popular science books on history. Popular science books on the history of a country or period

A little detour for overclocking
As a child (like many) I was a bright and promising child. And I really, really liked to read "adult" books, trying to understand them, and I got great pleasure from these difficulties. I remember that at the age of 6-7 I took up Tolstoy's "Peter 1st" and my mother's school history of the Middle Ages. And after all, I overcame and enjoyed it! According to this logic, I would grow with age, develop and switch to reading professional historians in the original language. But no - from the age of 15 she began to read fairy tales en masse, and then gradually switched to pop-science.
But in fact, this is all a saying, and the fairy tale will just be about historical science fiction, namely about books (and films) on long periods of the history of the country (s) - in the wake of disappointment with Akunin’s “History”, I want to collect a list of those stories from different countries that the participants liked communities. I want a combination of interest, emotions and undistorted (or at least minimally distorted) scientific facts. And also - the show and history in general - the feudal system there, capitalism is emerging, they began to print books, and personalities. Because in order for the story to be interesting, you can’t go anywhere without personalities, and you don’t want to read without them, and it’s impossible to remember which king followed which one. And let professional historians throw stones at me, but for me, bad-good ratings do not make a history book unusable.
* My favorite is Churchill's History of the English-speaking Peoples, or rather the first two volumes of 4. With the third volume, too much party struggle between Whigs and Tories begins for my taste. This, of course, is close to the author, but I feel like a schoolboy who is flooded with political information about the next congress of the CPSU.
* Druon's "Paris from Caesar to Saint Louis" would also be good, but the book is too short. I wouldn’t get tired of reading before De Gaulle, well, before Napoleon III for sure, but I won’t demand too much, but why didn’t the author of Damned Kings tell about the Hundred Years War ?!
* Barbara Merz - two books on the history of Ancient Egypt and a book on the history of Rome. Here, by the way, about personality in books. Alas, there is little left of the memories of personalities from Ancient Egypt, even about such interesting ones as Hatshepsut or Akhenaten. But besides the ancient Egyptians, there are those who study them, so whoever read Merz will not forget about Petri.
* If not about books, but about films, then I really like Saiman Shama's History of Britain, David Starkey's History of Scotland with Neil Oliver and The Monarchy, and Kings of France, 15 centuries of history, if worse, then not much .
* Slightly behind in my personal rankings are Deitch's Metronome and Mauroy's History of France. Moreover, I read it for the 1st time - I liked everything very much, but love, as you know, is checked by a 2nd glance, and a book - by re-reading. As for "Wonderful Greece" by Gasparov, I am clearly unfair. It's just that the history of ancient Greece is less interesting to me than medieval and Renaissance Europe. But I read the book with interest.
I forgot, forgot, foolishly suddenly forgot: Turnbull "Samurai. Military History". Not exactly what I would like - too much "war", too little "peace" (mores, customs and life in general), but I still liked it

A Brief History of Time (subtitled From the Big Bang to Black Holes) is a popular science book written by noted physicist Stephen Hawking, first published in 1988 by the American publishing house Bantam Books. . The book tells about the emergence of the Universe, the nature of space and time, black holes, superstring theory and some mathematical problems, but on the pages of the publication you can find only one formula E=mc² . The book has become a bestseller since its release, as it is written in a living language and is designed for the average reader. Over 10 million copies have been sold in 20 years.

1988 - First edition with a foreword by Carl Sagan.
1996 - revised, expanded and illustrated edition.
1996 - paperback release with a few charts added.
2005 - A Brief History of Time is released, which is a revised edition of A Brief History of Time. Serious changes have been made to the text regarding the scientific discoveries of recent years. The physicist Leonard Mlodinov helped Hawking write the book.

In 1991, American director Errol Morris made a documentary of the same name. Although the film and book have the same title, the film tells about the life, outlook and scientific achievements of a British scientist and is not an adaptation of Hawking's book.
The 1993 album Chronologie by Jean-Michel Jarre was influenced by the book A Brief History of Time.
The book makes cameo appearances in J. Safran Foer's book Creepy Loud and Incredibly Close, the films Donnie Darko (2001), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Total Bummer (2006), Love Through Time (2014).

Stephen Hawking "Three Books on Space and Time"

This is a collection of three bestselling books by a British theoretical physicist. "A Brief History of Time" is the first work of a scientist devoted to the origin of the Universe and the cosmos. Black Holes and Young Universes is a collection of philosophical essays and autobiographical notes written by Hawking from 1976 to 1992. The third book, The Theory of Everything, consists of 7 lectures by the scientist, in which he tries to combine several disparate physical theories into one comprehensive one.

Michio Kaku "Physics of the Impossible"

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku is one of the key popular science authors of our time. The Physics of the Impossible, released in 2008, became a bestseller and gave readers a new perspective on technologies that seem incredible now, but may soon become an integral part of people's lives. The author considers the possibilities of creating a teleporter, super-development of robots and telepathy, as well as time travel and the creation of a perpetual motion machine.

Other books by Michio Kaku are also of interest - "Hyperspace" and "The Future of the Mind". The first is about the multidimensionality of space and time travel; the second is about empowering people through technology.

Hawking's most famous book

Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time is considered one of the best scientific books. The scientist dedicated it to the search for an answer to the most important question posed by Einstein: did God have a choice when he created the Universe? When writing his work, Hawking was convinced that each of the scientific formulas could halve the number of potential buyers, and the author decided to present all his theories in an accessible language.

In one of the best popular science books, Hawking lays out the ideas of the theory of quantum attraction in simple terms. This area of physics is not yet complete and combines Einstein's general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. Hawking begins his book by describing how man's understanding of the universe has evolved, from the celestial spheres of the ancient Greek philosophers Aristotle and Ptolemy, to the realization that the Sun is an ordinary yellow, medium-sized star located in the arm of a spiral galaxy - right in the middle of hundreds billions of other similar galaxies.

The Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku

Another of the best scientific books, has long been recognized by readers. In it, the famous researcher Michio Kaku studies those technologies, physical phenomena or devices that today seem impossible from the point of view of their implementation in the future. The scientist, in a language accessible to the reader, also talks about the structure of our Universe, about the Big Bang and mysterious objects - black holes.

More recently, it was difficult for us to even imagine those things that have become familiar today. Mobile phones and the Internet seemed impossible even a century ago. Michio Kaku in his best scientific book (there is a lot of literature of this kind, but this book is one of the most fascinating of its kind) writes about what today's forecasts of science fiction writers can come true in the near future. Already in the 21st century, invisibility, mind reading, communication with interplanetary civilizations, and even travel from galaxy to galaxy can be realized.

"Blue Dot", Carl Sagan

Many readers consider this work to be the best scientific book that tells about our limitless universe and about the imaginary significance of man in it. writes that even if there were civilizations similar to ours (or which would be much more ancient and developed than humanity), they would not be able to overcome those significant distances that separate our worlds.

The scientist writes that even if the most optimistic estimates are justified, according to which there is a luminary per 1 million stars, not far from which a technological civilization develops, and such centers are distributed evenly in the Universe, then the closest one to us will be at least a hundred light years away. Even if humanity starts sending a signal to this civilization today, it will only reach it in 150 years. With these estimates, which the scientist rightly calls extremely uncertain, a mutual response from an extraterrestrial civilization will come only by 2350.

This work is one of the best scientific books, as it allows readers to understand how complex the process of space exploration is, and how slowly it happens. It is not easy to accept the fact that man is not the center of the universe. He is just a small island in a vast, boundless ocean. The scientist, in his best science book, talks about what man has already been able to learn about other worlds and how to understand our own world.

Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

Many readers write that this book is able, if not to turn the worldview, then at least to look at the world around us from a completely different angle. They write that for them biology has become as exciting as other disciplines - although before that it seemed that this was not at all the case. In his best science book, Dawkins writes that genes make a person. In fact, he is an animal that exists in order to ensure its survival and transport genes. The universe of the "selfish gene" is a world where fierce competition and ruthless exploitation of one living being by another rules the ball.

But what about the altruistic actions sometimes seen in nature? Like the bees that commit noble suicide when they sting an enemy to protect the hive? Dawkins argues in his book that this does not at all contradict the fundamental rule that the gene is selfish. Dawkins, in his best science book, hopes that the Homo Sapiens species is the only one capable of fighting back against the selfish gene. This book for many readers has become more interesting and exciting than the most action-packed novel. And besides, it allows you to understand that biology is not at all a boring discipline, as it might seem at first glance.

Top 10 most popular books

Richard Dawkins, An Ancestor's Tale. Pilgrimage to the origins of life.

Alexander Panchin, "The sum of biotechnology".

Robert Hazen, History of the Earth. From stardust to a living planet. The first 4,500,000,000 years".

Svetlana Burlak, "The Origin of Language".

Alexander Sokolov, Myths about human evolution.

Rob Knight, "Look what's inside you. How the microbes that live in our body determine our health and our personality.

Sergei Popov, "Superobjects: Stars the size of a city".

Christopher Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth. What 4,000 hours in orbit have taught me."

Michio Kaku, The Future of the Mind.

M. Faraday, "The History of the Candle."

Best book in the category "Natural Sciences" in 2017

It is worth noting the book by Daria Varlamova and marketer Anton Zainiev “Go crazy! A guide to mental disorders for a city dweller, which won the best scientific book of the year in 2017 in the Natural Sciences category. This book is not intended for psychiatrists, but for a general audience. With her help, everyone can figure out what depression is, bipolar affective disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Best Science Fiction: Books and Ranking

Those who are fond of the works of popularizers of science may also be interested in works of the science fiction genre. The difference between this direction and others similar to it lies in the way of explaining fantastic events. For example, with regard to the fantasy world, it is completely unrealistic, and its existence is of a supernatural nature. The phenomena in these worlds need not be further explained.

For example, elves can read minds, and no further explanation is required, unlike science fiction books (the best of which will be discussed later). Consider the rating of the most interesting works of this genre:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (1979).
"Time Machine", HG Wells (1895).
Dune, Frank Herbert (1965).
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Philip Dick (1968).
The Martian, Andy Weir (2011).

Other Interesting Science Fiction Books

In addition to those listed, for those who like this genre, a few more publications will be of interest. One of the best works of its kind remains "Solaris" by Stanislav Lem. It is about the psychologist Kelvin, who, at a great distance from the Earth, lands on a planetary station, strangely cluttered. No one meets Kelvin, except for one person who is frightened almost to the point of fainting at the sight of a guest. The greeter does not answer his questions, but gives the order not to touch the other inhabitants of the station and do nothing. After some time, Kelvin meets a huge naked black woman, "the monstrous Aphrodite."

Another interesting book is "The End of Eternity" by A. Azimov. It is called a true example of the writer's virtuoso play with space and time. "The End of Eternity" is one of the best and fascinating works of the writer, who considered himself primarily a science fiction writer. Although in reality Asimov is considered an excellent popularizer of science and the history of its development. He compiled collections of science fiction, wrote books of the detective genre, commented on Shakespeare, Byron and even the Bible.

Many readers write about his book "The End of Eternity" as the most interesting and fascinating work. There are no boring descriptions in it, and behind the external plot there are interesting thoughts about how man has evolved, about interplanetary travel, about the dangers that lie in wait for those who want to correct the mistakes of the past. The work provides answers to important questions that are rarely found in the pages of science fiction.

Seal

Also interesting:

Fruits and vegetables delicious dishes

Cooking homemade lasagna according to the best recipes Store-bought lasagna dough

Tomatoes in tomato juice - the most delicious

We recommend reading:

2022-05-16 20:27:01

Why bats can dream

2022-05-16 20:27:01

How to make gelatin jelly

2022-05-16 20:27:01

A proven conspiracy to make a guy fall in love with you forever How to make a man fall in love with you with your behavior

Continuing the topic:

Adviсe

Profitability and Efficiency of Lemonade Production in a Mini Plant

Engineering LLC sells complex lemonade bottling lines designed according to individual specifications of manufacturing plants. We manufacture equipment for...