Introduction to the Professions

Booklist for fall 2003

Any of these books may be chosen either for the semester project or as free reading outside the semester project.

You need not choose these editions.

Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1991, 3rd Ed. 366pp., paper.
I don't agree with everything Capra has to say, but he provides some interesting approaches to interconnections between Eastern mysticism and modern physics.

Kevin Davies, Cracking the Genome: Inside the Race to Unlock Human DNA. New York: The Free Press, 2001. This book describes the often-competitive and always-intriguing effort by Craig Venter, Francis Collins, James Watson, and many others to construct a complete gene sequence of the human genome. He describes the polities, the funding controversies, and the science of this struggle, and keeps a mostly positive view of the process.

Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe. New York: Doubleday, 2001, paper. An autobiographical and philosophical discussion by an eminent physicist. Dyson has thought more carefully about extraterrestrial intelligence than most other writers.

James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science New York: Penguin USA, 1988. 352 pp., paper.
According to amazon.com,

Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. New York: W.W.Norton, 1999. 448 pp., cloth. This now-famous popularization of string theory attempts to give a non-specialist a sense of where this field is going and how it might actually tell us something important about the largest and smallest size-scales of the universe: the interior of subatomic particles and the universe itself. A good read.

Alan H. Guth, The Inflationary Universe. Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1997, 358 pp., paper. A rambling and chatty account of the cosmology of the 1990's, up through the theories that suggest that our universe might be one of millions, each separated by astonishing distances from one another. Guth gives you some idea of how these theories have developed, and he puts a human face on the process.

Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time. Toronto: Bantam, 1988. 198 pp., cloth. A fascinating popular account of current astrophysics, written by (arguably) the leading cosmologist of our day. There is also an updated and expanded edition, The Illustrated Brief History of Time New York: Bantam, 248pp., cloth, that provides an additional chapter on wormholes and time travel, as well as updates on some of the original round of topics.

Robert F. Hazen and James Trefil, Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy New York: Anchor / Doubleday, 1991. 295pp., paper. Hazen and Trefil are among the best scientific writers around. This book covers all of physics, astronomy, chemistry, and geology in eighteen chapters, and provides clear expositions of the connections among these disciplines. It's light on chemistry: there's almost nothing about chemical reactions or thermodynamics.

Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond. publication data not available (I can't find my copy!). Heisenberg's autobiography, full of interesting insights. Based on reading I've done since reading this, I suggest you take some of what he says with a grain (or several millimoles) of salt. This one is out of print, but another book of Heisenberg's: Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (Great Minds Series New York: Prometheus Books, 1999, 220pp., paper is available. amazon.com.

John Horgan, The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 308pp., cloth. Horgan's thesis is that the fundamental laws of science are either known or will be known in a few more decades. He therefore asks how science will respond to the accomplishment of its underlying objectives, and he has interviewed a dozen or so eminent scientists to see how they view this issue. Whether you agree with his thesis or not (and I don't), you should find this a thought-provoking book.

Horace F. Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979. 686 pp., cloth. A journalistic account of the early days of molecular biology, up through the beginnings of the understanding of how translation and transcription really work.

Leon Lederman and Dick Teresi, The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question? New York: Delta, 1994, paper. An entertaining summary of the search for fundamental particles, culminating in the search for the top quark (successfully completed at Fermilab shortly after this book was published) and the Higgs boson (still being sought at CERN, Fermilab, and elsewhere). Lederman has numerous interesting anecdotes to relate, and he has a healthy disrespect for pure theory in science. He's on the IIT BCPS faculty.

John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences New York: Hill & Wang, 2001, 180 pp., paper. According to amazon.com,

John Allen Paulos, Mathematics and Humor. Chicago: U. Chicago Press, 1980. 116 pp., paper. This is not a joke book: it is an inquiry into the ways in which humor and mathematics exercise some of the same faculties in a human. It's intriguing and well-written.

Thomas Powers, Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb. New York: Little, Brown, 1994, paper. A scholarly and thorough inquiry into the German effort to develop nuclear fission either into an energy source or a weapon during World War II. The fundamental question raised by Powers is: did Heisenberg deliberately mislead the Nazis into thinking that a nuclear bomb was an impossibility?

James Watson, The Double Helix. New York: Norton, 1980. 300 pp., paper. This Norton critical edition includes several papers by Watson and Crick, and several commentaries on The Double Helix by other players in the molecular biology game. An account of the determination of the three-dimensional structure of DNA in the late 1940's and early 1950's. Watson has a breezy, journalistic style that makes him an entertaining read. This book illustrates the fact that academic scientists can be and often are ambitious and competitive. Like Heisenberg, Watson has some axes to grind and should not be taken as absolutely factual.

Barry Werth, The Billion Dollar Molecule. New York: Touchstone, 1994. 455 pp., paper. Account of the founding and maturation of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a biotech startup company in Cambridge, MA. Vertex has succeeded scientifically and financially, although its financial success was obtained in a different field from that originally envisioned by its brilliant and opinionated founder, Joshua Boger.

David R. Williams, Sin Boldly: Dr. Dave's Guide to Writing the College Paper. New York: Perseus, 2000. 202 pp., paper. This is a different kind of book from the rest of the ones on this list in that it has little to do with science or its cultural implications. Instead, it's a massively useful book for anyone who wants to improve his or her writing. The title comes from Martin Luther.