David’s Comments (group member since Dec 13, 2009)

David’s comments from the Science and Inquiry group.

Krishna wrote: "The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography

this is one of the best science books i have read so far.... :-)"

Krishna, that looks like a wonderful book. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

Joel wrote: "Genome: the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley.

My review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

Joel,
Thanks for mentioning this book. I am putting it on my "To Read" list. And your review is great!

Krishna, what is mechatronics engineering?

Betsy wrote: "This looks interesting:

The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life by David Quammen, author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic and [bo..."

This looks like a fabulous book!

Joel, you have a lot of excellent, fascinating books on your list!

I read this book about a year ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Like his previous book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Harari proposes some rather unorthodox ideas about humans. Whether or not he fully backs up his ideas, they are certainly thought-provoking. I wrote a fairly detailed review here.

I just finished reading this book. It is excellent! The first half of the book is rather tough-going, while the second half is easily understandable. Here is my review.

Debbie's Spurts (D.A.) wrote: " The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us by Lucy Jones. "By the world-renowned se..."

This book was published less than two months ago, so I think we should defer this nomination. Please nominate it again in a couple of months. Thanks!

Welcome to our group, Katie!

Welcome back to the group, Michael. And congratulations on your graduation!

Betsy wrote: "Coming at the end of February 2018, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker. Here is a review by Bill Gates:

https://..."

Earlier this month, I heard Steven Pinker give a talk about his new book, at the Cato Institute. He comes off as a very soft-spoken, humble person. Not exactly what I anticipated. I haven't read his book yet, but I think that he quickly flipped through all 75 of the charts in the book.

He ordered a beer.

The bartender asked what he would have.

A tachyon went into a bar.

I finished this book, and it is excellent. I enjoyed very much reading about what people really think, rather than what they say they think.

What do people think about it?

Here is my review.

I just started this one. All about research mining large data sets to learn what people really are thinking. Very interesting.

I just finished this book; it is fantastic! I highly recommend it to everyone. Here is my review.

Betsy wrote: "This book looks really interesting, but the 500 page length is really daunting to me. I'm a slow reader. At my normal rate it would probably take me three or four months.

Can one of you let me kn..."

Betsy, the book proper ends at page 426. Following this there is a 22-page Afterword, an 8-page Postscript and Acknowlegments, 8 pages of Notes, a 15-page Index, and finally a 1-page List of Illustrations.

I have started reading this book. It is marvelous! In this book, Geoffrey West describes, step by step, a theory that explains a vast range of scaling phenomena, including animals, plants, cities and companies. Before starting the book, I thought that it would be ho-hum. But instead, I am just amazed by how all-encompassing his ideas are. I have not yet gotten to the point in the book where he explains his theory why all of the many biological scaling laws scale as multiples of 1/4. For me, this is an exciting book.

Di wrote: "A friend of mine recommended The Science of Discworld by Terry Pratchett. My friend insists it has decent science in it (she is a scientist herself), but goodreads has l..."

I have not read The Science of Discworld, but I have read many long excerpts. This is a unique book. It combines both supernatural fantasy and science. Chapters alternate between a supernatural fantasy novel and "science" chapters. The science is at a very basic level, probably at a middle school level. The subject within the science chapters bounces around a lot, If you love reading about magic, and you have never read a science book before, it would be a good start. But, if you want more than a superficial look at science, you won't find it here.

Thea, welcome to our group!
Please let us know when your book is available.

Welcome to our group, Kevin!