
Science Books of 2019 - Anon84
https://fivebooks.com/best-books/science-2019-barbara-kiser/
======
spacedome
Perhaps a slightly different sort of science book, but I highly recommend
"Foundations of Applied Mathematics" by by Humpherys, Jarvis, & Evans, the
first volume of which was published in 2017, and of which the second
supposedly will be published in 2019. Volume 1 is good overview of the
Analysis needed in various applications, they give as examples "analysis,
optimization, probability, statistics, differential equations, machine
learning, and control theory". I found it useful as an overview of the theory
one might need in a unified exposition, with a modern and pragmatic choice of
topics and notation. Learning the topics previously from many books, all with
different notations and ideas of pedagogy, can be confusing (to me at least),
especially in understanding how different parts of the theory are
interrelated. It even comes with computational "labs", the code for which is
available freely online, something often lacking in books on numerical
analysis, applied math, etc. My only complaint is that it somewhat leaves out
differential equations. Definitely worth looking at! In particular the chapter
on matrix calculus.

~~~
rramadass
How would you compare this to "The Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics"
?

~~~
playing_colours
"The Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics" is an overview of Applied
Mathematics, some applications of different areas of it, brief introduction
into problems and areas. More for curiosity.

This book is a textbook. It is "Foundations", good proper introduction, it
does not go very deep, but it builds solid background. It's is actually going
to be 4 books, so tons of knowledge.

Moreover, here: [https://foundations-of-applied-
mathematics.github.io/](https://foundations-of-applied-mathematics.github.io/)
you can find labs and materials in Python to back reading with practicing.

~~~
rramadass
Thank you; The link is informative.

------
spodek
Like many classmates getting our PhDs, I considered my field, physics, the
most fundamental of all the sciences, joking that we could derive the rest.
That was the 90s. In today's world, I consider the most important role of
anyone who understands nature to help spread understanding of our
environmental situation, though I consider the most important task now to
lead.

As far as science books, I'm going to share three titles I read this year I
highly recommend, though they're about ten years old

\- _Countdown_ , by Alan Weisman, for covering (over)population, especially
for sharing examples of nations that lowered birthrates without coercion or
legislation, yielding greater happiness and prosperity.

\- _The World Without Us_ , by Alan Weisman, for illustrating our effect on
the world colorfully and inspirationally.

\- _The Once and Future World_ , by J.B. MacKinnon, for illustrating how much
more nature there used to be, how much we've lost, and how much more we stand
to lose.

\- _Limits to Growth, the 30-year Update_ , almost 20 years old, but the most
thorough treatment of us and our environment. Critics criticize it, but all
the criticism I've seen actually criticizes straw men and other
misunderstandings (if you know of meaningful criticism please let me know).
Meanwhile, this paper
[https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/publications/research-
pap...](https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/publications/research-papers/is-
global-collapse-imminent) from five years ago shows their "business as usual"
model continues to be unreasonably accurate nearly 50 years later, suggesting
to me LtG's relevance and poignancy.

You can't go wrong reading any of these books, though I'd start with _Limits
to Growth_.

~~~
l0000p
There is an xkcd for that:
[https://www.xkcd.com/435/](https://www.xkcd.com/435/)

------
decebalus1
Very disappointed with (pop-)science books these days. They're basically
science history books. The formula is something like 60% (How it all started
filler) + 5 % (An essay-worth of original relevant content + 35% (personal
stories about conferences and papers).

Looking through some of them on the amazon preview, these seem to be in the
same league. Meh.

~~~
ijustlurk
Are there any science books (pop or not) you could recommend that don’t into
this pattern?

~~~
decebalus1
Some books I enjoyed in the past years:

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28256439-the-hidden-
life...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28256439-the-hidden-life-of-
trees)

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34272565-life-3-0](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34272565-life-3-0)

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19395553-our-
mathematica...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19395553-our-mathematical-
universe)

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28116739-other-
minds](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28116739-other-minds)

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30555486-to-be-a-
machine](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30555486-to-be-a-machine)

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7972148-proofiness](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7972148-proofiness)

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25817279-door-to-
door](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25817279-door-to-door)

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23013953-gut](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23013953-gut)

~~~
harshreality
Other Minds, about cephalopods, is written by a philosopher, not a biologist
or neuroscientist, so take it with a grain of salt[1]. I would also recommend
_Octopus_ by Anderson, Mather, and Wood, who are actual biologists.

[1] Specifically, cephalopods are very intelligent compared to other
invertebrates, but that's it. It's interesting because they represent a
parallel evolution of greater intelligence outside the vertebrates, and
because what they can do with that intelligence is greatly enhanced by their
physical capabilities. Give a fish a human brain and it will have trouble
twisting a lid open.

------
azaras
I have a question about:

"Gender and Our Brains: How New Neuroscience Explodes the Myths of the Male
and Female Minds"

I read "The Female Brain" by Louann Brizendine and all it makes sense to me
but I am beginning to think that I (and this book) are wrong.

¿How is it possible that two opposing theses could be maintained in something
like neuroscience?

I can imagine that it is possible in Economics, Philosophy, Psycology and
other similar sciences but in neuroscience it does not make sense to me.

~~~
Vomzor
Gender and Our Brains cites studies and data that are selectively chosen to
support a predetermined conclusion.

As to why:

> After almost 20 years of hearing the same invalid arguments (like Bill
> Murray in “Groundhog Day” waking up to the same song every day), I have come
> to see clearly that the real problem is a deeply ingrained, implicit, very
> powerful yet 100 percent false assumption that if women and men are to be
> considered “equal,” they have to be “the same.” Conversely, the argument
> goes, if neuroscience shows that women and men are not the same on average,
> then it somehow shows that they are not equal on average. Although this
> assumption is false, it still creates fear of sex differences in those
> operating on it.

A critique: [https://quillette.com/2019/03/29/denying-the-neuroscience-
of...](https://quillette.com/2019/03/29/denying-the-neuroscience-of-sex-
differences/)

~~~
krautsourced
I'm curious: if the male and female brain, from a neuroscientific perspective,
are truly the same - can we assume the book's author would be perfectly fine
with all neuroscience from now on be done on male brains exclusively and the
results then applied to female brains without further research? Somehow I
doubt this.

~~~
tgv
If anybody ever says the brains of men and women are identical, the average
brain has

> a volume of around 1260 cm3 in men and 1130 cm3 in women.

It's nonsense, spawned by fear that acknowledging differences will justify
discrimination.

------
yters
Check out introduction to evolutionary informatics. Very readable application
of information theory to evolutionary algorithms with deep implications.

------
myle
Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought. I believe it is
an excellent book written in a format that is accessible by almost anyone
interested in economics. If you think that a random walk down the wall Street
is a classic, then you should read this, since it suggests a model that expand
on the Efficient Market Hypothesis.

