Library staff don't just check out books to you - we read them, too! Many branches have staff pick displays which you can browse. Here are some staff picks in science, social science, and technology from various staff members. Would you like to see more staff picks in different categories on abcreads? Let us know in the comments! Also, make sure you check out our
Best of 2014 Staff Picks and our Staff Picks in
the catalog.
From one of our foremost thinkers and public intellectuals, a radical new view of the nature of time and the cosmos. What is time?
This deceptively simple question is the single most important problem
facing science as we probe more deeply into the fundamentals of the
universe. All of the mysteries physicists and cosmologists face--from
the Big Bang to the future of the universe, from the puzzles of quantum
physics to the unification of forces and particles--come down to the
nature of time. The fact that time
is real may seem obvious. You experience it passing every day when you
watch clocks tick, bread toast, and children grow. But most physicists,
from Newton to Einstein to today's quantum theorists, have seen things
differently. The scientific case for time being an illusion is formidable. That is why the consequences of adopting the view that time
is real are revolutionary. Lee Smolin, author of the controversial
bestseller The Trouble with Physics, argues that a limited notion of time is holding physics back. It's time for a major revolution in scientific thought. The reality of time
could be the key to the next big breakthrough in theoretical physics.
What if the laws of physics themselves were not timeless? What if they
could evolve? Time Reborn offers a radical new approach to cosmology that embraces the reality of time and opens up a whole new universe of possibilities. There are few ideas that, like our notion of time,
shape our thinking about literally everything, with huge implications
for physics and beyond--from climate change to the economic crisis.
Smolin explains in lively and lucid prose how the true nature of time impacts our world. Staff review: Lee Smolin is the guy to turn to for arguments that time is not an illusion, and that physics is stuck because we don't understand it.
by Pedro G. Ferreira
At the core of Einstein's general theory of relativity are a set of equations that explain the relationship among gravity, space, and time--possibly the most perfect
intellectual achievement of modern physics. For over a century,
physicists have been exploring, debating, and at times neglecting
Einstein's theory in their
quest to uncover the history of the universe, the origin of time, and
the evolution of solar systems, stars, and galaxies. In this sweeping
narrative of science and culture, Pedro Ferreira explains the theory
through the human drama surrounding it: the personal feuds and
intellectual battles of the biggest names in twentieth-century physics,
from Einstein and Eddington to Hawking and Penrose. We are in the midst
of a momentous transformation in modern physics. As scientists look
farther and more clearly into space than ever before, The Perfect Theory
engagingly reveals the greater relevance of general relativity, showing
us where it started, where it has led, and where it can still take us. Staff review: A great book about the history of General Relativity, full of new insights about the theory as well as the people.
Interstellar, from acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan, takes us on a fantastic voyage far beyond our solar system. Yet in The Science of Interstellar, Kip Thorne, the physicist who assisted Nolan on the scientific aspects of Interstellar, shows us that the movie's jaw-dropping events and stunning, never-before-attempted visuals are grounded in real science. Thorne shares his experiences working as the science adviser on the film and then moves on to the science itself. In chapters on wormholes, black holes, interstellar travel, and much more, Thorne's scientific insights many of them triggered during the actual scripting and shooting of Interstellar, describe the physical laws that govern our universe and the truly astounding phenomena that those laws make possible. Staff review: Kip Thorne was the science consultant for the movie, and he's also one
of the top experts on relativity and worm-holes. It's lot's of fun, and
well grounded and speculative, with great pictures.
The
best-selling author of The Drunkard's Walk and coauthor of The Grand
Design (with Stephen Hawking), gives us an examination of how the
unconscious mind shapes our experience of the world and how, for
instance, we often misperceive our relationships with family, friends,
and business associates, misunderstand the reasons for our investment
decisions, and misremember important events. Your preference in
politicians, the amount you tip your waiter, all judgments and
perceptions reflect the workings of our mind on two levels: the
conscious, of which we are aware, and the unconscious, which is hidden
from us. The latter has long been the subject of speculation, but over
the past two decades researchers have developed remarkable new tools for
probing the hidden, or subliminal,
workings of the mind. The result of this explosion of research is a new
science of the unconscious and a sea change in our understanding of how
the subliminal mind affects
the way we live. Employing accessible explanations of the most obscure
scientific subjects, the author takes us on a tour of this research,
unraveling the complexities of the subliminal
self and increasing our understanding of how the human mind works and
how we interact with friends, strangers, spouses, and coworkers. In the
process he changes our view of ourselves and the world around us.
Staff review: Spooky!
We live in a
world where a tweet can be instantly retweeted and read by millions around the
world in minutes, where a video forwarded to friends can destroy a political
career in hours, and where an unknown man or woman can become an international
celebrity overnight. Virality: individuals create it, governments fear it,
companies would die for it. So what is virality and how does it work? Why does
one particular video get millions of views while hundreds of thousands of
others get only a handful? In Going Viral, Nahon and Hemsley uncover the
factors that make things go viral online. They analyze the characteristics of
networks that shape virality, including the crucial role of gatekeepers who
control the flow of information and connect networks to one another. They also
explore the role of human attention, showing how phenomena like word of mouth,
bandwagon effects, homophily and interest networks help to explain the patterns
of individual behavior that make viral events. Drawing on a wide range of
examples, from the Joseph Kony video to the tweet that spread the news that
Osama Bin Laden was dead, from the video of Homer Simpson voting in the US
elections to the photo of a police officer pepper-spraying students at the
University of California Davis, this path-breaking account of viral events will
be essential reading for students, scholars, politicians, policymakers,
executives, artists, musicians and anyone who wants to understand how our world
today is being shaped by the flow of information online.
Staff review: A fascinating and timely study.
*book description is provided by the publisher unless otherwise noted
