The Best of The Best of The Best Modern Science Writing by Scientists
New Scientist: "if you could only ever read one science book, this should probably be it".
There is writing by scientists. There is good writing by scientists. And then there is the best writing by scientists.
For this SDG, we have as our core book, a collection of the very best of the best of the best.
Oxford University Press has published a collection of the absolute best of writings by scientists of the last century. This collection, edited by Richard Dawkins, is uplifting, witty, thought- provoking, amusing, cogent, elegant writing
The 84 interesting and thought-provoking short excerpts give Insight both into science and the scientists who wrote them. But significantly, they are not only informative and thought-provoking, but without exception, are truly exceptional writing
From the perspective of a Plato member, they collectively comprise an ideal collection for an SDG, since each of the short excerpts give us a lot to think and speculate about.
As an aside benefit, most of the short selections are excerpts from books written by the various scientists -- so one of the additional benefits of this SDG is that it may inspire you to read some of the books from which these excerpts are taken.
This sparkling collection of writing reveals how many of the best scientists have displayed as much imagination and skill with words as they have with equations or experiments. Included are the writings by D’Arcy Thompson, Sir Arthur Eddington, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Stephen Jay Gould, j. B. S. Haldane, g. H. Hardy, Lauren Eisley, Rachel Carson, Stephen Hawking, Primo Levi, Peter Medawar, Rodger Penrose, Steven Pinker, Martin Rees, Erwin Schrodinger, Alan Turing, and Francis Crick, among many others.
The 84 short selections, each on one topic, average about 5 pages each, The topics include a huge variety of subjects in mathematics, genetics, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc. including topics as varied as like: are there many possible universes, Darwin and worms, the science of sand piles and wet towels, thermodynamics, the uniqueness of being human, and many, many more.
Together they capture the allure of understanding the world through science, give a taste of the imagination and ideas, the constant striving, and the discoveries and reflections that have ever driven science. They also reflect the lasting value of fine, clear, often literary science writing in a world rapidly changing through science and its applications
Best of all the selections are understandable by those with little or no science background and very thought provoking for those with a scientific background.
If you are like me, after reading thee excerpts you will probably want to go out and read many of the books these selections are taken from.
Oxford University Press describes the Core book as follows: By terms uplifting, witty, thought-provoking, amusing; speculative, cogently argued or skillfully explained; passionate or Coulee elegant, this is a richly varied collection of excerpts, some from classic Works, others now rarely seen, to treasure and returned to again and again.
Used copies of our core book are available very inexpensively online, -- and the entire book is available free on the internet as public domain in full size print for those who prefer to do their reading on their computer.
Come join me as we share and discuss some of the clearest most well written insights of some of the best scientist of the century.
