Recommend your favorite Science or Technology book.

[1001001]

Arrghman said:
The Elegent Universe by Brian Greene. Great book on the basics of relativity, quantum mechanics and string theory using little to no math, so it's really accessable.

I haven't read the book, but the documentary was fascinating. It did a good job introducing difficult concepts, like 11 dimensions and membrane universes.

Great stuff. I'll have to pick up the book.

[Turbo]

I feel dumb now...I must remember to pick up one of these books.

[20-Backwards]

National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our Universe by Roy A. Gallant and Margaret Sedeen. A sizeable hardback. This was my favorite childhood book and is mainly responsible for my passion for astronomy. It's a great read for children of all ages, beautifully illustrated and engrossing in the tapestry it weaves between sci-fi supposition (it was written in 1980 after all) and science fact. In fact, I bought the 1980 version (for all of $1.50) and now I read it to my little daughter. If you have kids, buy this book.

[Naraht]

This list will focus on my favourite books about NASA and the American space program.

Apollo: The Race to the Moon by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox.
If you only read one book about the space program, this should be the one, even though it only focuses on the Apollo program. Its style, brilliance and insight put it head and shoulders above any competitors. Murray and Cox see the space program as a whole, and offer so much more than a bland recitation of mission details. Their book has been recommended by several former flight controllers, and has been used fairly intensively by NASA historians. The website is good too.

The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture and Deviance at NASA by Diane Vaughan.
A very insightful and densely written book that cuts through many of the myths surrounding the Challenger accident. Before reading this book, I thought that I understood what had happened to Challenger. I was wrong.

Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins.
This is the only astronaut memoir that I have any time for (although I haven't read as many as I should). Collins is much more eloquent and reflective than the typical Apollo-era astronaut.

Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth by Andrew Smith.
At a basic level, this is an account of has what happened to the men who walked on the moon in the nearly forty years since it happened. It is also a very subtle study of how what they did affected them, how it affected all of us, and what the moon landings really meant to the world. This is a very accessible and non-technical book, but I found it stayed with me for a long time.

Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module by Thomas Kelly.
The development and construction of the lunar module, as narrated by its chief engineer. This book hits the perfect balance between autobiography and historical narrative, and between technical detail and readability. It is also very fluidly written. Tom Kelly, sadly no longer alive, was a remarkable man.

[syc]

TerriO said:
Parallel Worlds : A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos by Michio Kaku--Kaku has, IMO, an astonishing ability to make quantum theory accessible to the average person. I just tend to recommend his books in general, but I found this one particularly fascinating on the subject.

I got Parallel Worlds by Michio and Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian, for christmas last year and I haven't found the time to read either. I recieved Hyperspace for christmas the year before and really enjoyed it. I love Michio Kakus views of theoretical physics and cosmology. I highly recommend any of Michio's books.

[firehawk12]

The Code Book by Simon Singh... hell, anything by Simon Singh... including that Fermat's Last Theorem book.

[Llama]

Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay Gould

a great read! this is an exerpt from a review:

"Wonderful Life is a description of one of the biggest fossil finds ever — a collection of invertebrate remains dating from the early Cambrian (550 million years ago) dug out of the Burgess Shale in British Columbia. Gould presents an outline of the analysis of the remains and uses it to support his own ideas about evolution and history, in particular the theory of "punctuated equilibrium", which argues that the course of evolution, rather than being smooth, is more like some kind of fractal. Intertwined with the rest of the book is Gould's usual brilliant analysis of how the interpretation of scientific evidence is moulded by the beliefs and assumptions of scientists — the hero/ villain in this case being the American geologist and palaeontologist Walcott."

[Agent Richard07]

Neopeius said:

Yeah--that's a good one.

That was the first thing I thought of when I saw the title.

[Saffron]

For those of us with kids or someone who is looking for a gift for a favorite child in their life, one book I'd highly recommend as a 'world of science' overview is the beautiful and highly enjoyable DK- Visual Encyclopedia of Science

[firehawk12]

Ohoh, Escher, Godel, Bach. A must read for any mathematician/computer scientist/philosopher.

[Naraht]

firehawk12 said:
Ohoh, Escher, Godel, Bach. A must read for any mathematician/computer scientist/philosopher.

Already recommended that one. And I'm not any of the above.

[firehawk12]

Perhaps, but it's definitely a must read for anyone in those categories.

Gentzen Calculus CAN be fun!

[John O.]

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

The Origin of the Universe - John D. Barrow

[M'Sharak]

Arrghman said:
The Elegent Universe by Brian Greene. Great book on the basics of relativity, quantum mechanics and string theory using little to no math, so it's really accessable.

Yep, that's a good one.

Another one I like, The Whole Shebang by Timothy Ferris, is a little older, so not completely up to date anymore. What I really like is that Ferris explains cosmology and the theories and mechanics behind it in such a way that doesn't require the reader to possess a heavy background in the field, and it's much more readable (and somewhat closer to current) than Hawking's Brief History, which can get a bit thick in places.

[O'Dib]

Rare Earth:Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe, by Peter Ward & Donald Brownlee. They do UW proud!