Sign in with Facebook
First Principles Books
Showing 1-50 of 146
The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts (Audiobook)
by (shelved 4 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.07 — 10,708 ratings — published 2018
Principles: Life and Work (Audio CD)
by (shelved 4 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.09 — 69,860 ratings — published 2017
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (Hardcover)
by (shelved 4 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.14 — 408,939 ratings — published 2014
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Hardcover)
by (shelved 4 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.10 — 58,802 ratings — published 2012
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character (Paperback)
by (shelved 4 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.26 — 220,731 ratings — published 1985
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Paperback)
by (shelved 4 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.33 — 1,296,032 ratings — published 2011
Thinking In Systems: A Primer (Paperback)
by (shelved 3 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.18 — 23,511 ratings — published 2008
Thinking, Fast and Slow (Hardcover)
by (shelved 3 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.17 — 603,023 ratings — published 2011
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (Hardcover)
by (shelved 3 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.37 — 233,232 ratings — published 2017
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (Paperback)
by (shelved 3 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.29 — 53,303 ratings — published 1979
Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher (Paperback)
by (shelved 2 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.20 — 31,480 ratings — published 1994
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as first-principles)
avg rating 3.97 — 13,694 ratings — published 2010
Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.14 — 12,516 ratings — published 2015
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Paperback)
by (shelved 2 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.21 — 180,861 ratings — published 1984
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.17 — 10,066 ratings — published 2011
Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.02 — 2,642 ratings — published 2019
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.35 — 204,500 ratings — published 2018
Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow (ebook)
by (shelved 2 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.18 — 292,149 ratings — published 2015
Black Box Thinking: Why Some People Never Learn from Their Mistakes - But Some Do (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.28 — 14,787 ratings — published 2015
Reality is Not What it Seems (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as first-principles)
avg rating 4.33 — 17,044 ratings — published 2014
The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 3.94 — 36,127 ratings — published 1990
The Health And Wealth Paradox: How to Use First Principles Thinking to Achieve Both (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.16 — 50 ratings — published
General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications (Revised Edition)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 3.87 — 439 ratings — published 1969
Six Not So Easy Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.26 — 9,585 ratings — published 1963
Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don't Have To (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.12 — 26,974 ratings — published 2019
The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.23 — 1,726 ratings — published 2018
Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.06 — 28,306 ratings — published 1999
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.05 — 17,397 ratings — published 1993
Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.16 — 5,432 ratings — published 2014
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.08 — 212,141 ratings — published 2017
The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.18 — 10,417 ratings — published 2016
The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.18 — 6,074 ratings — published 2015
The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 3.73 — 6,507 ratings — published 2015
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 3.98 — 68,551 ratings — published 2014
How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.12 — 16,030 ratings — published 2014
The Biology Book: From the Origin of Life to Epigenetics, 250 Milestones in the History of Biology (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.09 — 129 ratings — published 2015
The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.24 — 3,237 ratings — published 2012
The Joy of X: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.05 — 8,985 ratings — published 2012
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 3.92 — 57,185 ratings — published 2010
The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--and Its Implications (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.14 — 6,038 ratings — published 1996
Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.40 — 10,726 ratings — published 1999
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings (Wiley Investment Classics)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.14 — 16,689 ratings — published 1957
Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.18 — 1,494 ratings — published 1982
Haskell Programming From First Principles (ebook)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.32 — 271 ratings — published 2015
The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 4, Fascicles 0-4 (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 5.00 — 16 ratings — published 2009
The Art of Computer Programming: Volume 3: Sorting and Searching (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.42 — 509 ratings — published 1973
The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 2: Seminumerical Algorithms (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.43 — 524 ratings — published 1969
Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 3.31 — 584 ratings — published 2007
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.04 — 465,510 ratings — published 1997
Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as first-principles)
avg rating 4.16 — 50,722 ratings — published 2024
“To select arbitrarily a set of first principles, and to make all our studies subordinate to them, is in effect to establish an intellectual dictatorship amd to kill the freedom of mind. It is true that it would give us orderliness, but it would be the orderliness of death.”
― The Interpreter's House - The Chancellor's Installation Address Delivered Before the University of Edinburgh, July 20th 1938
― The Interpreter's House - The Chancellor's Installation Address Delivered Before the University of Edinburgh, July 20th 1938
“We also tend to undervalue the elementary ideas and overvalue the complicated ones. Most of us get jobs based on some form of specialized knowledge, so this makes sense. We don’t think we have much value if we know the things everyone else does, so we focus our effort on developing unique expertise to set ourselves apart. The problem is then that we reject the simple to make sure what we offer can’t be contributed by someone else. But simple ideas are of great value because they can help us prevent complex problems.
In identifying the Great Mental Models we have looked for elementary principles, the ideas from multiple disciplines that form a time-tested foundation. It may seem counterintuitive, to work on developing knowledge that is available to everyone, but the universe works in the same way no matter where you are in it. What you need is to understand the principles, so that when the details change you are still able to identify what is really going on. This is part of what makes the Great Mental Models so valuable—understanding the principles, you can easily change tactics to apply the ones you need.”
― The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts
In identifying the Great Mental Models we have looked for elementary principles, the ideas from multiple disciplines that form a time-tested foundation. It may seem counterintuitive, to work on developing knowledge that is available to everyone, but the universe works in the same way no matter where you are in it. What you need is to understand the principles, so that when the details change you are still able to identify what is really going on. This is part of what makes the Great Mental Models so valuable—understanding the principles, you can easily change tactics to apply the ones you need.”
― The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts
