{ Networks: An Introduction } by Mark Newman
& { Basic Physics: A Self-Teaching Guide } by Karl F. Kuhn

I’m really excited about both of these books and want to share them with those of you who have interests in science (physics), networks, and systems theory.

Of course, I’d read good reviews about both of these prior, but actually beginning to read them solidified any preconceived notions: I downloaded them both in one evening, meant to check them out quickly before tuning out for the night… and ended up staying up until 4 am. It’s rare to find a non-fiction so engaging, especially as both of these are quasi-textbooks.

I’ve put Basic Physics on hold momentarily, but got 10% through Networks — ~ 72 pages. (Tilde because both of these are available on Kindle! Amazing, for someone who often reads on the go and likes to take notes while reading (without carrying a whole bunch of crap around), and to have instant dictionary access (& Wikipedia where there’s wifi) for learning about new terms.)

As the author states, Networks increases in difficulty with each chapter. Not sure I’ll be able to have a grasp on some of the matter in the later chapters just yet, but so far (through Chapter 5) it’s easy to understand and I’ve learned quite a bit.

Basic Physics is basic, but offers hope for anyone seeking to gain a deeper understanding of nature, “from the ground up”. Just like Networks, it’s easy to follow — no BS. A good companion for an interactive online class like Udacity’s { PH100 }. …And well worth $9.99.

…real sharing is conscious sharing, a recommendation to read or not to read something rather than a data exhaust pipe of mental activity.

…what’s at stake is “intellectual privacy,” [Richards’] term for the idea that records of our reading and movie watching deserve special protection compared to other kinds of personal information.

“The films we watch, the books we read, and the websites we visit are essential to the ways we try to understand the world we live in,” he says.”

“Intellectual privacy protects our ability to think for ourselves, without worrying that other people might judge us based on what we read. It allows us to explore ideas that other people might not approve of, and to figure out our politics, sexuality and personal values, among other things.

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Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

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If you’ve ever picked this book up, you know it’s a gigantic, heavy monster. Please click through ( or { click here } ) & reblog to request that it be published on Kindle.

There are PDF’s available, but it’d be nice to have a high-quality ebook as they don’t read too well.

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wildcat2030:

Remember the good old days when everyone read really good books, like, maybe in the post-war years when everyone appreciated a good use of the semi-colon? Everyone’s favorite book was by Faulkner or Woolf or Roth. We were a civilized civilization. This was before the Internet and cable television, and so people had these, like, wholly different desires and attention spans. They just craved, craved, craved the erudition and cultivation of our literary kings and queens.All this to say: our collective memory of past is astoundingly inaccurate. Not only has the number of people reading not declined precipitously, it’s actually gone up since the perceived golden age of American letters. (via The Next Time Someone Says the Internet Killed Reading Books, Show Them This Chart - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic)

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OS: However, also important:

some good points: 1) This chart does not establish that high-quality literature readers have increased. That is true. 2) There are a lot of factors that go into these numbers and variables that are unaccounted for. 3) The big spike is partially driven by higher levels of higher education attainment. 4) Perhaps the quality of books has fallen, even as the number of readers has grown.

Personally, first thing I wondered is: “Where the hell did they get these numbers?” I don’t understand surveys, partially because I don’t remember ever participating in one…

The 2005 numbers make more sense because just browsing the internet is in itself a kind of gigantic survey: we basically, freely give up information about ourselves with every click. But in 1949? Who was answering this?

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{ Damn }… I just got a Kindle.

acrylic-kitty asked: I want to cultivate a desire of knowledge within myself like you seem to have! Any recommended reading? I am very interested in Darwin and the Theory of Evolution, but would like to branch out a little and learn about other things. What is your favorite book right now?

Thank you for asking, I think I answered another question similarly — learning is driven by your questions. As you read, look up what you’re curious about! We have a gigantic library of information at our fingertips! And don’t stop until you’re sure you got every angle of the story. I don’t know where you’re headed, but personally, from Evolution my mind goes right to Abiogenesis. A different type of “evolution”, certainly a different use of the word… But nonetheless, it’s brilliant that from supermassive explosions of non-life, all the way to complex systems like ourselves, we see a pattern: like a domino effect, little things react and compete and eat and grow and multiply and become a whole variety of other things, some more “complex”, some simple. It’s really magical. I don’t know if there’s a book about abiogenesis specifically, and I’m getting a little monotonous because I keep mentioning this book: The Quark and the Jaguar, by Murray Gell-Mann, but it does cover all of those things.

Anonymous asked: I just finished A Brief History of Time but have no idea where to go from there. What are other good beginner's physics books?

Hi,

I’d say it depends on where you want to go… what questions do you have? If you’ve written any down while reading, google them and see if it leads you to more books that will answer those questions.

Or, what kind of interest do you have in physics? Do you want to read more “scholarly” books, or something more general, but inspiring? For the latter, you could go with something like Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams. It’s really fantastic & a fiction, but does allude to concepts in Einstein’s theories.

Right now I’m re-reading The Quark and the Jaguar by Murray Gell-Mann. I didn’t finish it the first time, it’s one to work on… but it’s one of my favorites because he doesn’t bullshit — he explains ideas, especially in quantum mechanics, in a succinct, understandable way without all the crazy stuff people usually say about it. I recommend that one, for sure.

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Top row from left: Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, George Washington Carver and Betty Friedan. Bottom row from left: Charles R. Drew, Germaine Greer, John Maynard Keynes and Marshall McLuhan.

The New York Times, Neal Gabler: { The Elusive Big Idea }

… And there is the rise of an increasingly visual culture, especially among the young — a form in which ideas are more difficult to express.

… We are certainly the most informed generation in history, at least quantitatively.

… We also collected information to convert it into something larger than facts and ultimately more useful — into ideas that made sense of the information. We sought not just to apprehend the world but to truly comprehend it, which is the primary function of ideas. Great ideas explain the world and one another to us.

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Why do what you’re doing, collect what you’re collecting, post what you’re re-posting, make what you’re making, produce what you’re producing? For it to pile up, and now, of all times? Isn’t there too much of it, already? Or don’t we need the useless…? It’s true that from the useless, curious things, come the most wonderful, also. The most important. But then, there seem to be some rules about that, also. About the difference between sandwiches and really, really going there. Being the most useless, doing the worst, producing the most, being most curious, most wrong.

I’m making something here as well, but I don’t know what it is, yet. It’s scary.

OCW.MIT: Gödel, Escher, Bach: A Mental Space Odyssey ›