100 Books Like The Lady Tasting Tea

Once I finished reading Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, it wasn’t long before I learned that he had followed it up with a collection of deeper analyses in the realm of the philosophy of science.

His sequel book took me deeper into the minds and conflicts of noted greats of science whose scientific contributions’ acceptance is now taken for granted by most. Yet, in their own day, they, too, often had to contend with the tension of science’s and scientists’ history of preferring what consensus had ordained as settled knowledge instead of welcoming new insights and discoveries.

In this classic book, Kuhn introduces the idea of a "paradigm" and shows that real progress comes through paradigm shifts.

That hit me like a rock when I first read it. I love how in the second edition, Kuhn talks about the difficulties of deep change: "the problem is that the new paradigm is always worse than the old one." 

The new paradigm may be better in some way, but it is also sketchy, unformed, and it creates lots of new uncertainties. So, for somebody to shift to a new paradigm always requires a leap of faith!

Though I have been a scientist for nearly all of my life, as a student and as a professional, not until I read this book did I understand what an amazing human activity science is. I had never imagined a world without the word or practice of “science” or even “scientist,” as I do now because of this captivating book.

Wootton’s book is more than a history of how humankind invented and developed one of its most powerful tools. It also reveals the many simply exquisite workings of that tool over the centuries. After pondering its many remarkable revelations, interconnections, and insights, even as a scientist, my appreciation of the significance of science and scientists in the world has re-blossomed.

I don’t remember how this book made it into my hands, but I am so glad it did! This book has made me a better scientist because it taught me scientific humility. Popper rips apart the very fabric of experimental science’s unique and most powerful tool, the scientific method.

When I taught students at MIT how to apply experimental analysis with the scientific method to establish that an observed effect was, in fact, caused by an identified factor, always in my head, I would hear the words of Popper. Past relationships between factors and effects are not necessarily maintained in the future. This understanding of the nature of the universe reveals the imperfections of science, which rarely proves the world’s truths but often does elucidate them.

This is a fascinating analysis of the works of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes, Gilbert, Boyle, and Newton. It not only establishes the reasons for the triumph of the modern perspective but also accounts for certain limitations in this view that continue to characterize contemporary scientific thought.

A criticism as well as a history of the change that made possible the rise of modern science, this volume is also a guide to understanding the methods and accomplishments of the great philosopher-scientists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

What child isn’t curious about the night sky and all the stars that live up there? Did you know that the Sun is a giant star?  This book is full of fun facts, not just about stars but about our planet. It helps to put things into perspective, so to speak. It talks about gravity and how many miles away the moon is from the earth. I think kids will learn a lot from reading this book and will even be able to impress their friends with all of their newly acquired knowledge. Did you know the earth looks green because it’s covered in 3,000,000,000,000 trees?? I love this book because learning new things is fun and this book is all about fun. I felt very smart after reading this book.

I love this book because it illustrates how a deep understanding of one subject area (mathematics) can help develop a deeper understanding of another (biology). This is a common theme in my teaching. I love how the author links the two fields of mathematics and biology in a way that is accessible to people in both fields.

This book will extend the knowledge of anyone working in the interdisciplinary area of mathematical biology and encourage the reader to see the value of viewing the world through interdisciplinary eyes. 

The Univalent Foundations program in foundations of mathematics launched by Voevodsky and others in the past decade and a half has contributed to a promising new paradigm unifying computation, mathematics, logic, and proof theory.

Understanding the core elements of this research program, Homotopy Type Theory, is essential for contemporary philosophers who want to engage directly with current developments in mathematics and computer science.

Corfield is a well-established name in philosophy of mathematics, and this book is the best introduction to Homotopy Type Theory for philosophers.

Working within themes and problematics that will be familiar to philosophers with a basic background in logic, Corfield covers the elementary constructions of homotopy types from a logical point of view and provides plenty of provocative suggestions for how these formal tools might reinvigorate philosophical research today.

Far too many math books are written in a style so terse and ungenerous that all but the most mathematically gifted readers hardly have a fair chance of understanding.

On the other hand, the discursive style of much philosophy of mathematics gains readability at the expense of formal rigor. Button and Walsh strike the perfect balance in this exceptionally rich introduction to model theory from a distinctively philosophical perspective.

There’s no getting around the fact that the mathematics of model theory is hard going. But this book works through all the relevant proofs in clear and detailed terms (no lazy “we leave this as an exercise for the reader”), and the authors are always careful to motivate each section with well-chosen philosophical concerns right up front.

An Everest, but worth it.

Many undergraduate mathematics books – even those aimed at new students – are dense, technical, and difficult to read at any sort of speed. This is a natural feature of books in a deductive science, but it can be very discouraging, even for dedicated students. Houston’s book covers many ideas useful at the transition to proof-based mathematics, and he has worked extensively and attentively with students at that stage. Consequently, his book maintains high mathematical integrity and has lots of useful exercises while also being an unusually friendly read.