Here are 100 books that The Nothing That is fans have personally recommended if you like
The Nothing That is.
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I have always been passionate about knowledge and learning and started my higher education by studying and teaching in the sciences. But I soon fell in love with the humanities, an ocean that brought me a new way of looking at the world and reinforced my intuition that the sciences and humanities are not ‘two cultures’ as sometimes portrayed but complementary endeavors as clear by historical studies themselves. My latest training in the history of science and the multi-cultural aspects of early science, in particular, has added a new passion, one for human understanding, tapping into our common heritage, as highlighted in my list, for serving an increasingly divided world.
I find this book outstanding for its various rare and extraordinary features: its expert coverage of the cleverly termed subject of ‘information overload’ in historical and modern contexts, the information explosion of Renaissance Europe, and the information revolution of our own time.
It contains engaging accounts of knowledge collection and management in the comparative context of experiences from premodern Chinese, Byzantine, Islamic, and European cultures; fascinating illustrations capturing the book’s rich content; and a wealth of primary and secondary sources, manuscripts and printed works, further enhanced by a comprehensive Index.
But above all, it is the book’s historically sensitive perspective that makes it literally ‘outstanding’: one not identifying a single factor, whether a technology, an institution, or cultural tradition, in explaining the nature and fate of our common heritage of knowledge transmission.
The flood of information brought to us by advancing technology is often accompanied by a distressing sense of "information overload," yet this experience is not unique to modern times. In fact, says Ann M. Blair in this intriguing book, the invention of the printing press and the ensuing abundance of books provoked sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European scholars to register complaints very similar to our own. Blair examines methods of information management in ancient and medieval Europe as well as the Islamic world and China, then focuses particular attention on the organization, composition, and reception of Latin reference books in print…
An eyewitness account of the first major international war-crimes tribunal since the Nuremberg trials, Twilight of Impunity is a gripping guide to the prosecution of Slobodan Milošević for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed during nearly a decade of wars in the former Yugoslavia.
I have always been passionate about knowledge and learning and started my higher education by studying and teaching in the sciences. But I soon fell in love with the humanities, an ocean that brought me a new way of looking at the world and reinforced my intuition that the sciences and humanities are not ‘two cultures’ as sometimes portrayed but complementary endeavors as clear by historical studies themselves. My latest training in the history of science and the multi-cultural aspects of early science, in particular, has added a new passion, one for human understanding, tapping into our common heritage, as highlighted in my list, for serving an increasingly divided world.
I find this book the most engaging and innovative among several others by the same bestselling author for its novel approach to historical writing.
In her signature style of explaining key scientific concepts in accessible and enjoyable terms, the author integrates into one of the most fascinating histories of the so-called Scientific Revolution of early modern Europe and the Sun-centered universe proposed by Nicolas Copernicus and published by his pupil Rheticus, a two-act play.
Set as an imaginary dialogue between them next to a few others, mostly in their own terms, is an effective way of retelling that fascinating story.
By 1514, the reclusive cleric Nicolaus Copernicus had developed an initial outline of his heliocentric theory-in which he defied common sense and received wisdom to place the sun, and not the earth, at the center of our universe, and set the earth spinning among the other planets. Over the next two decades, Copernicus expanded his theory and compiled in secret a book-length manuscript that tantalized mathematicians and scientists throughout Europe. For fear of ridicule, he refused to publish.
In 1539, a young German mathematician, Georg Joachim Rheticus, drawn by rumors of a revolution to rival the religious upheaval of Martin…
I have always been passionate about knowledge and learning and started my higher education by studying and teaching in the sciences. But I soon fell in love with the humanities, an ocean that brought me a new way of looking at the world and reinforced my intuition that the sciences and humanities are not ‘two cultures’ as sometimes portrayed but complementary endeavors as clear by historical studies themselves. My latest training in the history of science and the multi-cultural aspects of early science, in particular, has added a new passion, one for human understanding, tapping into our common heritage, as highlighted in my list, for serving an increasingly divided world.
I find this book fascinating and pioneering in more than one way. Not only does it uncover the historical development of the important science of optics in terms of theories of vision, the predominant form of the subject in premodern times.
But the book also covers key concepts and models in visual theory starting from ancient and medieval periods, including the extramission models of ancient Greek mathematicians and physicians, the intromission models of medieval Islamic and European natural philosophers, and the critical combination of those models and disciplines in generating dependent breakthroughs.
This is among a few monographs devoted to the subject that successfully draw on our common heritage in documenting and explaining the course of the field’s transmission and transformation.
Kepler's successful solution to the problem of vision early in the 17th century was a theoretical triumph as significant as many of the more celebrated developments of the scientific revolution. Yet the full import of Kepler's arguments can be grasped only when they are viewed against the background of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance visual theory. David C. Lindberg provides this background, and in doing so he fills the gap in historical scholarship and constructs a model for tracing the development of scientific ideas.
Many of the words used to describe disease ('infection', 'transmission', 'virus') are also used to characterize cyber security (for example: a computer is infected by a virus that can be transmitted to other currently uninfected computers). Using models from the population biology of disease shows this correspondence much deeper than…
I have always been passionate about knowledge and learning and started my higher education by studying and teaching in the sciences. But I soon fell in love with the humanities, an ocean that brought me a new way of looking at the world and reinforced my intuition that the sciences and humanities are not ‘two cultures’ as sometimes portrayed but complementary endeavors as clear by historical studies themselves. My latest training in the history of science and the multi-cultural aspects of early science, in particular, has added a new passion, one for human understanding, tapping into our common heritage, as highlighted in my list, for serving an increasingly divided world.
I find this book valuable for its humanized approach to the history of science and its emphasis on the human response to major conceptual developments.
The book is rich with instructive and inviting treatments of major developments within the astronomical traditions in particular, from critical episodes within Greek, Babylonian, medieval, and early modern traditions, to decisive moments leading to what it termed the "Copernican Revolution."
Despite a limited coverage of pre-Copernican developments, the book’s stories around humans adopting and abandoning scientific concepts and models have wider impacts than any specific case, on our understanding of how knowledge develops and transforms.
This newly revised edition of Professor Crowe's accessible and enlightening book recreates one of the most dramatic developments in the history of thought: the change from an earth-centered to a sun-centered conception of the solar system. Written in a clear and straightforward manner, the work is organized around a hypothetical debate: Given the evidence available in 1615, which planetary system (Ptolemaic, Copernican, Tychonic, etc.) was most deserving of support? Beginning with an introductory chapter on celestial motions, Dr. Crowe proceeds to a discussion of Greek astronomy before Ptolemy, mathematical techniques used by ancient astronomers, the Ptolemaic system, the Copernican and…
My professional life has been focused on teaching and research on chemical food safety as well as scientific applications of mathematics to animal and human health. The books on this list were riveting and eye-opening examples of how complex mathematical concepts, including zero and nothing, often get misused when applied to practical problems such as food safety and cancer. This misapplication is often a result of the unique properties and history of numbers like zero, which are hard to translate into practical endpoints. These books have given me a better understanding of this issue, as well as plunging me into the fascinating history of numbers through Eastern and Western civilizations.
This book was my first exposure to the practical application of many scientific principles to societal issues and their laws.
As a scientist who fully understands the limitations of certain statistical tests and chemical assays, I was shocked to see how these could be so misapplied. This book presents numerous examples of how statistics improperly conducted or interpreted can be simply wrong when they are taken out of context.
This foray into the popular literature transformed my thinking on the application of mathematical principles to everyday problems.
Here, by popular demand, is the updated edition to Joel Best's classic guide to understanding how numbers can confuse us. In his new afterword, Best uses examples from recent policy debates to reflect on the challenges to improving statistical literacy. Since its publication ten years ago, Damned Lies and Statistics has emerged as the go-to handbook for spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers.
My professional life has been focused on teaching and research on chemical food safety as well as scientific applications of mathematics to animal and human health. The books on this list were riveting and eye-opening examples of how complex mathematical concepts, including zero and nothing, often get misused when applied to practical problems such as food safety and cancer. This misapplication is often a result of the unique properties and history of numbers like zero, which are hard to translate into practical endpoints. These books have given me a better understanding of this issue, as well as plunging me into the fascinating history of numbers through Eastern and Western civilizations.
My exposure to the number zero over four decades teaching and doing research in mathematics, nanoscience, chemical toxicology, and food safety made me wonder why this number, quantifying nothing, was such a problem whenever it is encountered.
This easy-to-read book gives a complete history of zero from the ancients to the present, as well as illustrating some of its unique properties across numerous disciplines. It is an eye-opening journey into the fascinating properties of a truly unique number.
The author argues that the biggest questions in science and religion often involve nothingness and eternity, with the resulting clashes over zero shaping the foundations of philosophy, science, mathematics, and religion.
Simply a wonderful book about such a peculiar number!
The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshipped it, and the Christian Church used it to fend off heretics. Today it's a timebomb ticking in the heart of astrophysics. For zero, infinity's twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything.
Zero has pitted East against West and faith against reason, and its intransigence persists in the dark core of a black hole and the brilliant flash of the Big Bang. Today, zero lies at the heart of one of the biggest scientific controversies of all time: the…
This book is a collection of essays on Asian affairs written over the author's half century career as a Professor of Chinese at New York University. The author's point of view is critical of Washington's policies in Asia as a modernized continuation of European and especially Japanese colonialism and imperialism,…
My professional life has been focused on teaching and research on chemical food safety as well as scientific applications of mathematics to animal and human health. The books on this list were riveting and eye-opening examples of how complex mathematical concepts, including zero and nothing, often get misused when applied to practical problems such as food safety and cancer. This misapplication is often a result of the unique properties and history of numbers like zero, which are hard to translate into practical endpoints. These books have given me a better understanding of this issue, as well as plunging me into the fascinating history of numbers through Eastern and Western civilizations.
This book is the best I have read on how simple and sound properties in science can be so misapplied in the legal system.
Thresholds and tolerances defined by specific scientific principles and studies, once incorporated into laws, can have unattended consequences when applied to scenarios never anticipated by the original studies.
The book gives numerous examples of well-intentioned laws creating havoc and causing harm when misapplied to new scenarios. It is a book that often comes to mind when I read the basis of a new regulation based on data that we never generated for that purpose.
“We need a new idea of how to govern. The current system is broken. Law is supposed to be a framework for humans to make choices, not the replacement for free choice.” So notes Philip K. Howard in the new Afterword to his explosive manifesto The Death of Common Sense. Here Howard offers nothing less than a fresh, lucid, practical operating system for modern democracy. America is drowning—in law, lawsuits, and nearly endless red tape. Before acting or making a decision, we often abandon our best instincts. We pause, we worry, we equivocate, and then we…
My professional life has been focused on teaching and research on chemical food safety as well as scientific applications of mathematics to animal and human health. The books on this list were riveting and eye-opening examples of how complex mathematical concepts, including zero and nothing, often get misused when applied to practical problems such as food safety and cancer. This misapplication is often a result of the unique properties and history of numbers like zero, which are hard to translate into practical endpoints. These books have given me a better understanding of this issue, as well as plunging me into the fascinating history of numbers through Eastern and Western civilizations.
This book provides an interesting take on the history of mathematics from a truly global perspective, a viewpoint often ignored in traditional history books on this subject.
I found it fascinating as it showed how crucial the development of numbers was to a myriad of different societies, as well as how mathematical concepts emerged independently at different times in different cultures over the last six thousand years.
A revisionist, completely accessible and radically inclusive history of maths
'Lively, satisfying, good at explaining difficult concepts' The Sunday Times
Mathematics shapes almost everything we do. But despite its reputation as the study of fundamental truths, the stories we have been told about it are wrong. In The Secret Lives of Numbers, historian Kate Kitagawa and journalist Timothy Revell introduce readers to the mathematical boundary-smashers who have been erased by history because of their race, gender or nationality.
From the brilliant Arabic scholars of the ninth-century House of Wisdom, and the pioneering African American mathematicians of the twentieth century, to…
I was trained in physics and applied mathematics, but my mother—a teacher of literature and history—secured a place for the humanities in my intellectual luggage, and I finally ended up in the social sciences. One of my first encounters with economics was John Nash’s theory of bargaining, illustrating how a wealthy person will gain more from a negotiation than a pauper, thus reinforcing inequality and leading to instability. Decades later, I returned to this problem and found that relatively little had still been done to analyze it. I believe that a combination of mathematical tools and illustrations from history, literature, and philosophy is an appropriate way of approaching the complex of inequality.
Most people, when asked to name a philosopher who wrote about inequality, would think of Rousseau. Condorcet was the last of the Encyclopédistes, young enough to experience the revolution in 1789—sadly, also one of its victims.
Unlike his philosopher colleagues, he participated actively in public policymaking, first in the Ministry of Finance, later as an elected member of the Legislative Assembly after the revolution. He chaired an organization working for the abolition of slavery. He argued for equal rights for women before Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft had published their more well-known pamphlets. He co-authored the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and also wrote a proposal for new constitution for France.
Most importantly, he realized the fundamental role of education as a means to reduce inequality and liberate mankind, and he even developed curricula for the various stages of a general…
A premium flagship range from Letts Educational, the brand leader in home study. The Premier series is specifically designed to be the most accessible and fresh series on the home study market and to work closely alongside the primary curriculum. The series strengthens numeracy, literacy and ICT skills from playschool right through to secondary school. Each book covers thirty topics to provide thorough revision and a solid learning foundation, and comes with twenty flashcards to give additional visual stimulus for key concepts.
Hedging and Conflict in the South China Sea
by
John Rennie Short,
This book unpacks the conflicting and competing interpretations of what is going on in the South China Sea.
It will allow readers to understand the depth and complexity of the issues. It expands our understanding by looking not only at the competing imaginaries of China and the US but also…
I'm a British writer, (though I now live and work in California) and a Stanford professor who is passionate about helping everyone know they have endless potential and that math is a subject of creativity, connections, and beautiful ideas. I spend time battling against math elitism, systemic racism, and the other barriers that have stopped women and people of color from going forward in STEM. I am the cofounder of youcubed, a site that inspires millions of educators and their students, with creative mathematics and mindset messages. I've also made a math app, designed to help students feel good about struggling, called Struggly.com. I love to write books that help people develop their mathematical superpowers!
This is a beautiful book filled with glossy color photos, that would be a lovely gift for any girl or woman interested in mathematics, or really, any human.
Inside the book are the “rebel women” who have specialized in mathematics (and yes it seems you still need to be a rebel to succeed in this male-dominated field). I learned so much about the mathematics the women studied and created, as well as the ways they battled for recognition to be able to contribute to mathematics.
The book is filled with powerful and creative mathematics produced by inspirational women.
From rocket scientists to code breakers, discover the incredibly inspiring stories of more than 30 women who fought through the obstacles, shattered the stereotypes, and embraced their STEM passions.
Prepare to be inspired. With more than 200 photos and original interviews with several of the amazing women covered, Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics is a full-color volume that takes aim at the forgotten influence of women on the development of mathematics over the last two millennia.
Each biography reveals the amazing life of a different female mathematician, from her childhood and early influences, to the obstacles she…
