Books: Science
by rrusczyk, Jul 9, 2009, 4:22 AM
What's Next: Dispatches on the Future of Science by Max Brockman
This book comes from the folks at http://www.edge.org, so I read it with some trepidation, as I often find the writing at edge.org a bit smug and self-satisfied. Brockman did an excellent job with this compilation, though. There was none of the haughtiness or pomposity that infects edge.org at time. It's a collection of articles by young scientists at the, well, cutting edge of their disciplines discussing the problem they're working on in terms that I'm able to at least somewhat appreciate their work. There's very little of the overreaching you see in a lot of writing about science, and perhaps that's because the writers know how really hard these problems are. I expect in 10 years, I'll pick up a book just like this one and recognize a few AoPSers among the writers..... I look forward to that day, and it's a not small part of the reason I do what I do.
OK, that's around 10 books down. I wonder if I'll ever get around to blogging the others. Sigh. Maybe I just ought to take my losses and start afresh with the books I'm finishing now. (Special thanks to Sandor for asking me what I'm reading, and thereby prompting me to scribble my thoughts on some of the books I've read in the last 6 months or so.)
This book comes from the folks at http://www.edge.org, so I read it with some trepidation, as I often find the writing at edge.org a bit smug and self-satisfied. Brockman did an excellent job with this compilation, though. There was none of the haughtiness or pomposity that infects edge.org at time. It's a collection of articles by young scientists at the, well, cutting edge of their disciplines discussing the problem they're working on in terms that I'm able to at least somewhat appreciate their work. There's very little of the overreaching you see in a lot of writing about science, and perhaps that's because the writers know how really hard these problems are. I expect in 10 years, I'll pick up a book just like this one and recognize a few AoPSers among the writers..... I look forward to that day, and it's a not small part of the reason I do what I do.
OK, that's around 10 books down. I wonder if I'll ever get around to blogging the others. Sigh. Maybe I just ought to take my losses and start afresh with the books I'm finishing now. (Special thanks to Sandor for asking me what I'm reading, and thereby prompting me to scribble my thoughts on some of the books I've read in the last 6 months or so.)
February 2012
January 2012