good read

[Anjaneya Thimmappa]

Recently finished reading HYPERSPACE by Michio Kaku, it makes a very good read, I could never finish "Shadows of the mind" by Roger Penrose...too technical for me ..also i would recommend "Moon dust" by Andrew Smith great book if you are into astronomy.

[Karthik Subramanian]

Not to pick nits too much, but isn't Moondust more about space exploration than Astronomy?

I'd probably peg Simon Singh's "Big Bang" as a better Astronomy read. It's well written, engaging,

and didn't have any glaring errors in it as far as I could see. (I guess it also helps that Simon Singh

did his Ph.D in Physics before going on to become what he is now. Also, I'm not a scientist, just

a layman - so take what I say with a few pinches of salt.). 

K.

[Anjaneya Thimmappa]

yes karthik you are right its more about space exploration rather than astronomy, nevertheless a good book though. 

[Shiva Shankar]

Second that. What makes "Big Bang" more interesting to me at least was the history of how we eventually arrived at the Big Bang theory. How did we measure the radius of the Earth, why did Copernicus think of the Heliocentric model, how was CMBR discovered by accident (clue: pigeons ) etc are things that i learnt from it. Also minor details (like how Tyco Brahe actually died after he held his pee for too long:)) gives a more "interesting" picture of the people who pushed scientific boundaries, their context, rather than just focusing on their accomplishments.

Somewhat related, i also recommend "A brief History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. I ROFL many times while reading the book.

Regards,

Shiva

On Friday, March 25, 2016 at 8:08:27 AM UTC+5:30, Karthik Subramanian wrote:

[Akarsh Simha]

Hi

To add to the contribution, my undergraduate adviser had a liking
towards Simon Singh's books, and considered them very good from a
scientific standpoint. A lot of popular science writers make loose
statements in an exaggerated manner so as to captivate imagination;
but I'm told that Simon Singh is a no-nonsense writer.

A book that I like and enjoyed reading is Bernhard Schutz's "Gravity
from the ground up". It is one of those popular physics books that
does not spare the mathematical details -- he assumes only a working
knowledge of high school math. It's very low-key physics, but yet,
very fascinating. He explains things like tidal locking, gravitational
slingshot, bok globules very nicely. I'm planning to give the book a
full read, and maybe it will inspire me to read some of Lyman
Spitzer's more advanced books.

Regards
Akarsh

[Balathandapani Ramasamy]

Dear Akarsh,

Thanks for suggesting this book. amazing stuff. the website for this book has excellent links to related areas. www.gravityfromthegroundup.org

I have attended your BAS workshop sessions in Bangalore ( 2010  i suppose). 

After struggling to understand Newton's laws for a long time (almost 7 years), started writing articles from the way i understood. Kindly i request you to review and comment on these.

Please go through the articles in the same order

http://openneuron.blogspot.in/2016/03/galileo-sees-pendulum-when-other-see.html

http://openneuron.blogspot.in/2016/03/euclid-has-point.html

http://openneuron.blogspot.in/2016/03/acceleration-bridge-between-space-time.html

http://openneuron.blogspot.in/2016/03/power-cause-of-motion.html

http://openneuron.blogspot.in/2016/03/power-of-rest.html

http://openneuron.blogspot.in/2016/03/power-discrete-or-continuous.html

Please send your personal mail id (sorry if this post is not relevant for the group)

Thanks and regards

Bala

www.aatrralacademy.com

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[Akarsh Simha]

Hi Bala

Thanks for the link to the website of the book. That could be helpful.
I have temporarily halted reading the book in view of trying to learn
some more advanced calculus.

I had a brief look at your blog posts. They seem to be detailed and
have depth. I think you must have already looked at the Feynman
lectures in physics, but if not, they are an excellent reference.
Another book you might enjoy is the "Berkeley series" "Statistical
Physics" book by F. Reif, which is now available at affordable price
through Tata McGraw-Hill. Also, if you have not yet had an occasion to
learn calculus, that might be of great help too.

I think some physics discussion is okay for the main BAS list, but you
can find my personal email in the email to the list itself.

Regards
Akarsh