johnfial_qr8lrr The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements (2010) Sam Kean Here Sam Kean takes us on both an academic, colorful history, and a personal tale of experiences relating the periodic table. I’d recommend this as a good introduction for … Read more
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery (2015) Sam Kean “We crowned ourselves Homo sapiens, the wise ape, but Homo limbus might have been more apt.” For anyone even slightly interested in the brain, which should include all primates, I … Read more
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan “The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.” The Demon-Haunted World is nothing shy of a manifesto for science, reason, and wonder. Indeed, the balance (required!) between both healthy skepticism and wonder is Sagan’s introduction to … Read more
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll “Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.” –The Duchess Alice in Wonderland! What a shame it took me … Read more
The Time Machine (Wells, H. G., Herbert George) “Above me shone the stars, for the night was very clear. I felt a certain sense of friendly comfort in their twinkling. All the old constellations had gone from the sky, however: that slow movement which is imperceptible in a hundred human lifetimes, had long since rearranged … Read more
Not Your Mother’s Rules: The New Secrets for Dating, (2013) The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right (1995) Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider An update of the 1995 book The Rules, according to Gerardo, this book spawned Neil Strauss’ Rules of the Game. I’m glad I read both, but Strauss’ book … Read more
About Time, Adam Frank Julian Barbour’s solution to the problem of time in physics and cosmology is as simply stated as it is radical: there is no such thing as time. 3 “If you try to get your hands on time, it’s always slipping through your fingers,” says Barbour. “People are sure time is there, … Read more