Customer Reviews

The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics: From Albert Einstein to Stephen W. Hawking and From Annie Dillard to John Updike - an ... Than 90 of This Century's Best-Known Writers

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
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This book is obviously only geared towards those remotely interested in physics, so that's what it does: cater to the contemplative individual. Believe it or not, this collection of writings grabbed me from the first subtitle, 'Atoms in Motion', and literally propelled me through the next 800 pages of lectures and dissertations, ranging from Mr. Isaac Asimov to Albert Einstein. If you've been looking for a comprehensive and sometimes exhaustively extensive glimpse into the universe of physics and mathematics, Mr. Ferris' treasury will not disappoint. What's more, if you buy it here at Amazon, you definitely get every penny's worth. I mean, c'mon, 18 bucks? This sucker is hard-bound. Don't pass this one up.

This is a well-chosen collection of delightful writings, mostly written by scientists. In this book, one can learn the thought processes of great minds such as Feynman, Planck, Hardy, Turing, etc., in their own words. This reasonably-priced book will serve as a source of inspiration and ideas to an intelligent reader.

I loved this book. It brings together the writings of some of the worlds greatest minds on the subject of science. This is a most read.

Two of the worlds' most odious clichés relate to the scientific elite and are unfortunately often perpetrated by non-scientific academics. The first is that scientists crawl into an artificial environment and create monstrous things without regard to the consequences. The second is that the scientific upper-echelon finds it impossible to "lower" themselves to the level of everyone else. This collection of over 90 essays, written by the prime scientists of the 19th and 20th centuries, demolishes those beliefs.
The pioneers of modern understanding have often been the vanguard of those trying to educate the public about what the newest scientific discoveries really mean. And scientists have always written for the masses, such as they were. Even Kepler and Galileo wrote popular works to explain their positions.
The material in this book represents scientists at their best. You read of joy, anguish, fulfillment, shock, puzzlement, success and failure. In short, you read about humans experiencing the world. The level of difficulty is very low, suitable for high school on up.
Showing scientists at their human best, this book will convince all but the stone-minded that scientists really are at home in the world.

An excellent book to read on science and mathematic related ideas. It's easy to understand and fun to read. It doesn't only stop at the scientists' and mathematicians' lives and their work. Read it and find out... More!

This book contains 97 essays written by the giants of 20th century physics and mathematics. These include essays by Einstein, Planck, Bohr, Dirac, von Neumann, Feynman, Hawking, Penrose and Bertrand Russell. Almost all are non-mathematical, but a few (for instance, the essay by Dirac) do require some mathematical expertise. The essays are, on the whole, quite good. My only reservation is that many of the selections are quite dated. This is to be expected, since many of the authors are deceased, and some have been dead for a half-century or more. Furthermore, being compiled in 1989 (the publication date for the original hard cover edition) even the essays by living authors, such as Hawking and Penrose, are somewhat obsolete, hence I can only give this book four-stars. However, even if they do not reflect the most up-to-date understanding of the subject matter that they cover, they are still well worth reading.

This book is certainly a "Treasury" of Scientific thought.
There is an article by Edwin Hubble of the "Universe is expanding" fame and the Hubble Space Telescope.
Likewise another article by Isaac Asimov.
I have not finished reading this book as it is not read as a novel.
It covers all the sciences,not just Astronomy.
If you are even slightly interested in Science this is a great addition to your library.THE WORLD TREASURY OF PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY, AND MATHEMATICS,EDITED BY TIMOTHY FERRIS, WITH A FOREWORD BY CLIFTON FADIMAN, GENERAL EDITOR

In a set of articles by great men that could have been worthwhile
we have a failure. I know because I have something real to compare this to
as contrastSource Book in Mathematics. What results is very like "The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age" in content.
What we have here is an anti-mathematics thesis with only vague points
to the real stuff.What results is a dumbed down collection that is really unworthy of the author.
Praising this book is like praising vanilla pudding!
Without the whipped cream of the mathematics the pudding is
limp and colorless. What we really need is a true source book
with the real material in it.
The closest I've seen is Roger Penrose's "The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe".
In dumbing it down there is no protection against science and the mathematics
that makes it work .