A
New Kind of Science
by Stephen Wolfram
 |
Physics and computer science genius Stephen Wolfram, whose Mathematica
computer language launched a multimillion-dollar company, now sets his
sights on a more daunting goal: understanding the universe. Wolfram lets
the world see his work in A New Kind of Science, a gorgeous, 1,280-page
tome more than a decade in the making. With patience, insight, and self-confidence
to spare, Wolfram outlines a fundamental new way of modeling complex systems.
On the frontier of complexity science since he was a boy, Wolfram is a
champion of cellular automata--256 "programs" governed by simple nonmathematical
rules. He points out that even the most complex equations fail to accurately
model biological systems, but the simplest cellular automata can produce
results straight out of nature--tree branches, stream eddies, and leopard
spots, for instance. The graphics in A New Kind of Science show striking
resemblance to the patterns we see in nature every day. Wolfram wrote the
book in a distinct style meant to make it easy to read, even for nontechies;
a basic familiarity with logic is helpful but not essential. Readers will
find themselves swept away by the elegant simplicity of Wolfram's ideas
and the accidental artistry of the cellular automaton models. Whether or
not Wolfram's revolution ultimately gives us the keys to the universe,
his new science is absolutely awe-inspiring. --Therese Littleton - Amazon.com
Hardcover: 1192 pages
Wolfram Media, Inc.; ISBN: 1579550088; (May 14, 2002)
On
the Shoulders of Giants
by Stephen Hawking (Editor)
Hardcover: 1200 pages
Running Pr; ISBN: 0762413484; (September 2002)
Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science
That Changed the Course of World War II
by Jennet Conant
Listed under Inventors
The
Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
by Michael Pollan
(Paperback -- May 28, 2002)
A
Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John
Nash
by Sylvia Nasar
(Paperback -- November 27, 2001)
Lives
of a Biologist: Adventures in a Century of Extraordinary Science
by John Tyler Bonner
(Hardcover -- May 2002)
The
Universe in a Nutshell
by Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking, science's first real rock star, may be the least-read
bestselling author in history--it's no secret that many people who own
A Brief History of Time have never finished it. Hawking's The Universe
in a Nutshell aims to remedy the situation, with a plethora of friendly
illustrations... Read
more
(Hardcover - November 2001)
Linked:
The New Science of Networks
by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Albert-László
Barabási
(Hardcover - May 2002)
Dawkins vs. Gould : Survival of the Fittest
by Kim Sterelny, Jon Turney (Editor)
Kim Sterelny moves beyond caricature to expose the real differences
between the conceptions of evolution of these two leading scientists. He
shows that the conflict extends beyond evolution to their very beliefs
in science itself; and, in Gould’s case, to domains in which science plays
no role at all. Amazon.com
Listed under Evolution
The
Illustrated Brief History of Time, Updated and Expanded Edition
by Stephen W. Hawking
(Hardcover)
Uncle
Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood
by Oliver W. Sacks
Oliver Sacks's luminous memoir charts the growth of a mind. Born in
1933 into a family of formidably intelligent London Jews, he discovered
the wonders of the physical sciences early from his parents and their flock
of brilliant siblings, most notably "Uncle Tungsten" (real name, Dave),
who... Read
more
Knopf; Hardcover - 337 pages
(October 16, 2001)
Animal:
The Definitive Visual Guide to the World's Wildlife
by Don E. Wilson (Editor), David Burnie (Editor)
Over 2,000 species, from the tiny spider mite to the massive blue whale,
are profiled in DK's astonishingly wonderful Animal, produced in cooperation
with the Smithsonian Institution and more than 70 expert zoologists. To
call this book "profusely illustrated" is to seriously underrepresent ...
Read
more
DK Publishing
Hardcover - 624 pages
1st edition (October 1, 2001)
Celestial
Treasury : From the Music of the Spheres to the Conquest of Space
by Marc Lachieze-Rey, et al
Cambridge Univ Pr (Trd)
Hardcover - 210 pages (July 2001)
An
Intimate Look at the Night Sky
by Chet Raymo
Walker & Co
Hardcover - 242 pages (May 2001)
Emergence:
The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
by Steven Johnson
An individual ant, like an individual neuron, is just about as dumb
as can be. Connect enough of them together properly, though, and you get
spontaneous intelligence. Web pundit Steven Johnson explains what we know
about this phenomenon with a rare lucidity in Emergence: The Connected
Lives of Ants,... Read
more
Scribner
Hardcover - 288 pages
(September 2001)
Aquagenesis
: The Origin and Evolution of Life in the Sea
by Richard Ellis
Viking Press
Hardcover - 304 pages
(September 27, 2001)
The
Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers
by Daniel L. Schacter
Illustrating decades of research with compelling and often bizarre
examples of glitches and miscues, Daniel L. Schacter's The Seven Sins of
Memory dusts off an old topic and finds material of both practical and
theoretical interest. Chairman of Harvard's Department of Psychology, Schacter
knows his... Read
more
Houghton Mifflin Co
Hardcover - 270 pages
(May 2001)
The
Borderlands of Science : Where Sense Meets Nonsense
by Michael Shermer
Superstring theory is one of the latest inhabitants of what Shermer
(Why People Believe Weird Things, etc.), editor of Skeptic magazine, calls
the "borderlands" of science: that is, ideas that fall somewhere between
established, likely explanations for reality (or some small part thereof)
and... Read
more
Oxford Univ Pr (Trade)
Hardcover - 320 pages
(May 2001)
Ether
Day: The Strange Tale of America's Greatest Medical Discovery and the Haunted
Men Who Made It
by Julie M. Fenster
On Friday, 16 October 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital a gas
that had for a half century been a source of entertainment was first used
as an anesthetic during an operation. New York columnist Fenster tells
the story of the transformation, the people who brought it about, and its
aftermath.... Read
more
HarperCollins
Hardcover - 278 pages
1 Ed edition (August 2001)
The
Invention of Clouds : How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language
of the Skies
by Richard Hamblyn
British science writer Richard Hamblyn skillfully blends biography
with scientific and cultural history to capture for modern readers the
remarkable achievement of Luke Howard (1772-1864), the quiet Quaker whose
classification of cloud types we still employ today. "Cirrus," "cumulus,"
and "stratus"... Read
more
Farrar Straus & Giroux
Hardcover - 256 pages
1 Ed edition (August 2001)
The
Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples
by Tim Flannery
Reading The Eternal Frontier might be the closest you'll get to taking
a class from Tim Flannery--and that alone makes it an opportunity just
too good to pass up. This ambitious retelling of North America's dramatic
ecological history grew out of a course that Flannery taught at Harvard
surveying... Read
more
Atlantic Monthly Pr
Hardcover - 368 pages
(May 10, 2001)
Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life
by Peter Raby
Listed under Evolution
Dr
Folkman's War: Angiogenesis and the Struggle to Defeat Cancer
by Robert Cooke, C. Everett Koop
Early in 1998, New York Times science reporter and author Gina Kolata
happened to be seated at a banquet next to the Nobel Prize-winning scientist
James Watson. When Kolata asked Watson what was new in the world of science,
he replied, "Judah Folkman and angiogenesis, that's what's new. Judah is...
Read
more
Random House
Hardcover - 366 pages
(February 15, 2001)
The
Hole in the Universe : How Scientists Peered over the Edge of Emptiness
and Found Everything
by K. C. Cole
Most of science journalist K.C. Cole's journey into nothing is about
physical nothing. "In the quantum realm, even nothing never sleeps. Nothing
is always up to something. Even when there is absolutely nothing going
on, and nothing there to do it." The nothingness of the vacuum is the background
to... Read
more
Harcourt Brace
Hardcover - 240 pages
(January 25, 2001)
Mauve:
How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World
by Simon Garfield
In 1856, while trying to synthesize artificial quinine, 18-year-old
chemistry student William Perkin instead produced a murky residue. Fifty
years later, he described the event: he "was about to throw a certain residue
away when I thought it might be interesting. The solution of it resulted
in a...
Read
more
W.W. Norton & Company
Hardcover - 224 pages
(April 2001)
Aquatics
by Henry Horenstein
Photographer Henry Horenstein has a unique vision of the natural world.
His abstract views create intense, sometimes provocative, and yet always
revealing portraits of animal life. In praise of Horenstein's work, the
Boston Globe has written "His carp and jellyfish are weightless and oddly
graceful,... Read
more
Stewart Tabori & Chang
Hardcover - 84 pages
(November 2001)
Kosmos
by Adam Bartos (Photographer), Svetlana Boym (Introduction)
The Space Race was an exhilirating moment in history, alternately frighten-ing,
thrilling, awe-inspiring, and ultimately, sublime. Its most enigmatic element
was the competition. The Soviets seemed less technologically sophisticated
(at least from the American perspective) but in fact won many of... Read
more
Princeton Architectural Press
Hardcover - 176 pages
(November 2001)
Fly:
The Unsung Hero of 20th-Century Science
by Martin Brookes
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana, and biologists
like fruit flies. Evolutionary geneticist and science journalist Martin
Brookes explores the not-quite-microscopic world of Drosophila in Fly:
The Unsung Hero of 20th-Century Science. Instantly familiar to any student
of high school... Read
more
Ecco Press, Hardcover - 215 pages (September 2001)
Rock
of Ages, Sands of Time
by Warren Allmon, et al
University of Chicago Press (Trd)
Hardcover - 376 pages
(June 2001)
The Mummy Congress : Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead
by Heather Pringle
Mummies fascinate us. As we peer at their withered flesh, we are glimpsing
a type of immortality. Heather Pringle tells the stories of some of these
"frail elders"--and the scientists who study them--in The Mummy Congress.
Pringle details the tension between the preservationists, who want to...
Listed under Archaeology
Chance
in the House of Fate: A Natural History of Heredity
by Jennifer G. Ackerman
Houghton Mifflin Co
Hardcover - 272 pages
(June 2001
Dinner
at the New Gene Cafe : How Genetic Engineering Is Changing What We Eat,
How We Live, and the Global Politics of Food
by Bill Lambrecht
It may be true that we are what we eat. Now, with a flood of genetically
modified foods overtaking the market, it is possible to eat what we are.
But the prospect of genetic cannibalism is the least of the worries of
food activists, and journalist Bill Lambrecht's Dinner at the New Gene
Café... Read
More
St. Martin's Press
Hardcover - 383 pages
1 Ed edition (September 2001)
Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship
by George Dyson
Listed under Space Flight
» Click
here for top sellers in Science
Loading
