If you were going to read one book on X subject what would you read?

[AceofSpades]

Insert X with any subject related to science, math, or philosophy.

What is the best book you have read on that subject?

[Jshuttlesworth]

if X = baseball, then "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis

[Central Limit]

If X = pedophilia, then "Lolita" by Nabokov.

[Rduke55]

Brain Evolution - Principles of Brain Evolution by Georg Striedter

Animal Behavior - Animal Behavior by John Alcock

I guess it's not a very interesting list.

[luckyme]

GED - Godel, Escher, Bach.
for a layman it's the way to grasp emergent properties, level confusion, recursion,holism,and a leg up to features of consciousness, and a good read to boot.

luckyme

[Roland32]

Globalization - The World is Flat Thomas Friedman

[sweetjazz]

Good science/philosophy books I have read:
QED - Feynman
Meditations - Descartes
Enquiry concerning human understanding - Hume
Summer for the Gods - Larsen
The significance of philosophical skepticism - Stroud

[guesswest]

Existentialism = Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky.

[siegfriedandroy]

Hume is a douche. Nite

[siegfriedandroy]

My bro is reading this. What is so good about it?

[siegfriedandroy]

you are wrong. change ur mind. i am like 99.58% sure that most of ur posts are wrong. if you can beat antonius heads up, then maybe ill change my mind. but u cant. not in the long run. u r smart, but your thought is utterly misguided.

[siegfriedandroy]

true. most of the books you guys choose are very deutsche (i know thats misspelled thanks) worthy. jk im sure they are great books. these books would all be great for me to read. im sure they'd fix my psychotic mind (made thus by blind godless evolution- cept for bunny the theistic evolutionist). when im drunk it is obvious who is who

[guesswest]

[ QUOTE ]
My bro is reading this. What is so good about it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Way too much to get into. Guilt and salvation, religion and suffering - all kinds of existential themes. It's also just a great read, it's definitely a novel before it's a philosophical text. Why don't you read it and find out?

[Metric]

By far my favorite textbook on the interface of quantum theory and relativity has been "Quantum Gravity" by Carlo Rovelli. It is quite possibly my favorite textbook of all time.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
By far my favorite textbook on the interface of quantum theory and relativity has been "Quantum Gravity" by Carlo Rovelli. It is quite possibly my favorite textbook of all time.

[/ QUOTE ]
What sort of level do we have to be at to understand it?

chez

[Metric]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
By far my favorite textbook on the interface of quantum theory and relativity has been "Quantum Gravity" by Carlo Rovelli. It is quite possibly my favorite textbook of all time.

[/ QUOTE ]
What sort of level do we have to be at to understand it?


[/ QUOTE ]
Frankly, I have used "Part 1" (which is concerned with covariant theories in general -- general relativity, and a "nearly complete" covariant formulation of quantum theory) much more than "Part 2" which is more about the specifics of loop quantum gravity. So basically, if you are familiar with Hamiltonian classical and quantum mechanics, you should be able to get your hooks in -- but basically, the book is pitched at the physics grad student level. The nice thing is that Rovelli has several sections discussing the guiding principles of the field, comparisons to other approaches, etc. which is needed. There is actually an online preprint version that is very close to the published version, which you can take a look at if you're curious.

http://www.cpt.univ-mrs.fr/%7Erovelli/book.pdf

[Metric]

To get a feel for the flavor of the book, I recommend reading the small section on pages 20 and 21, "Physics Without Time."

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My bro is reading this. What is so good about it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Way too much to get into. Guilt and salvation, religion and suffering - all kinds of existential themes. It's also just a great read, it's definitely a novel before it's a philosophical text. Why don't you read it and find out?

[/ QUOTE ]

C&P is my favorite book of all time, but I'm about to read Brothers Karamozov, so that might all change.

[cliff]

probability/random processes:
A. M. Yaglom, "An Introduction to the Theory of Stationary Random Functions" - one of the great series of translated Russian texts.

Information Theory/Communications:

R. G. Gallager, "Information Theory and Reliable Communication"

[siegfriedandroy]

"How to Play Poker like the Pros" by Phil Helmuth

[MrMon]

For a good, non-mathmatical overview of modern physics, "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene.

You didn't ask on history, but for WWII, "A World At Arms" by Gerhard Weinhard. Now 10 years old, it will be the standard for one volume WWII histories until someone writes a better one in 2039.

[atrifix]

Quantum physics - Schroedinger's Cat and the Search for Reality, John Gribbin
Free will - Free Will, ed. Gary Watson
Bounded rationality - Satisficing and Maximizing, ed. Michael Byron
Game theory - Behavioral Game Theory, Colin Camerer
Ethics - Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant
Ancient philosophy - Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle
Logic - A Mathematical Introduction to Logic, Hebert Enderton
Philosophy of science - Conjectures and Refutations, Karl Popper
Economic theory - The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
Political philosophy - A Theory of Justice, John Rawls
Philosophy of religion - Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas

[mosquito]

Does "The Cat in the Hat" by Dr. Suess count as philosophy?

[guesswest]

It counts as brilliant!

[guesswest]

[ QUOTE ]
"How to Play Poker like the Pros" by Phil Helmuth

[/ QUOTE ]

Is that sarcasm?

[Go Blue]

Let's see...my 3 favorite topics:

Evolution: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

Math/Science/Whatever: Flatland by Edwin Abbott

Gambling: Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich

Oh by the way, Flatland = Greatest book ever

[chrisnice]

Philosophy/Religion- The Confessions by St Augustine

[purnell]

Walden, by Thoreau. Philosophy, I guess?

[billygrippo]

porn