Science
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Through rugged ways to the stars, Harlow Shapley (ISBN 9781124074719, Charles Scribner’s Sons)
This is the autobiography of Harlow Shapley, the man who discovered size of the milky way and the place of our sun in it. Shapley considered the discovery that our sun was not in the center of the milky way as his most important contribution to our world view because it was more or less…
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The Story of Numbers, John McLeish (ISBN 978-0-449-90938-6, Fawcett Columbine)
The Story of Numbers explores the history of mathematics to trace the rise of various number systems in cultures from Mesopotamia to the modern Computer Era. It is not a traditional history of mathematics or a history of mathematicians. Instead it focuses on the different number systems and calculation methods that evolved in time in…
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Poison
‘Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.‘― Adam Smith
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Logical Proof
‘It is useless, my son. I have read Aristotle through twice and have found nothing about spots on the Sun. There are no spots on the Sun. They arise either from imperfections of your telescope or from defects in your eyes.‘― 17th century Jesuit professor
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Unification
‘What God has put asunder, let no man join together.’― Wolfgang Pauli
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The glory of scientific discovery
‘It is a glorious feeling to discover the unity of a set of phenomena that seem at first to be completely separate.‘― Albert Einstein
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Long live impudence !
‘Long live impudence! It is my guardian angel in this world.‘― Albert Einstein
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Truth
‘Blind respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.‘― Albert Einstein
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The Discoverers, Daniel J. Boorstin (ISBN 978-039472625-0, Vintage)
This book by Daniel Boorstin was first published in 1983. I read the Dutch translation around 1995 at which time it made quite an impression on me. In my mind it was still among the best books I have read. End of last year I decided to read it again but in the original English…
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The Making of the Atomic Bomb : 25th Anniversary Edition, Richard Rhodes (ISBN 978-1451677614, Simon & Schuster)
Last year ‘revolved’ about the history of the atomic bomb with the Oppenheimer movie being released. To brush up on my Oppenheimer I read 2 biographies, one by Abraham Pais and the other one the Pulitzer Prize winning American Prometheus. And then I decided to finally read book by Richard Rhodes about the making of…
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