What are you reading now? (STEM only)

What book are you reading now, or have been reading recently? Only STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) books are counted.

D. J. Tritton, Physical Fluid Dynamics. I never formally learned this topic, but I now need it for my teaching. I really like the way the book is structured, starting with phenomenology before delving into the equations.

Recently I was reading J. MacCormick, Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691158193/?tag=pfamazon01-20
Some of the most widely used computer algorithms explained in a simple non-technical way. Very readable.

Demystifier said:

Recently I was reading J. MacCormick, Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691158193/?tag=pfamazon01-20
Some of the most widely used computer algorithms explained in a simple non-technical way. Very readable.

I'll have to add this to my reading list.

Computational Electromagnetics for RF and Microwave Engineering, David Davidson

This semester, I've to create problems for a GR/cosmology lecture. So I'm right now reading a bit in the literature. Whenever there's something unclear, I turn (of course) to

S. Weinberg, Gravitation and Kosmologie, Wiley&Sons, Inc., New York, London, Sydney, Toronto, 1972.

DrClaude said:

D. J. Tritton, Physical Fluid Dynamics. I never formally learned this topic, but I now need it for my teaching. I really like the way the book is structured, starting with phenomenology before delving into the equations.

I like this book for the same reason, along with the experimental results that are included throughout the book. Was easy to read as a student - much nicer than Landau and Lifshitz, the other book we used for the class.

I've been reading "Mathematics for the physical sciences" by Laurent Schwartz, mostly to see how he presents distribution theory for an audience of non-mathematicians.

Tom M. Apostol, Calculus I, II. I never had a chance to study rigorous Calculus, so back to the basics!

I am reading "Perfect Rigour" - Masha Gessen, I don't know if that counts.

vanhees71 said:

This semester, I've to create problems for a GR/cosmology lecture. So I'm right now reading a bit in the literature. Whenever there's something unclear, I turn (of course) to

S. Weinberg, Gravitation and Kosmologie, Wiley&Sons, Inc., New York, London, Sydney, Toronto, 1972.

If I had to make a list of books on this topic I would put that at the end. No, in fact I will not put it in the list.

I am reading Zee's Gravitation. I am going really slow as I find it is a relatively hard book to read but it is very rewarding... What I am really enjoying though is the video series on Mathematical Physics by Prof. Balakrishnan. I am also reading a bit on AP calculus topics (more like getting familiar with) as I will soon have to teach my daughter.

Rereading MTW Gravitation. Much prefer this canonical geometric GR approach to Weinberg's book which I read about a year ago.

I am now reading https://www.amazon.com/dp/3642372759/?tag=pfamazon01-20.
I consider it a really amazing textbook on the subject. If I remember well, Leonard Susskind somewhere in his Modern Physics Special Relativity lectures remarked that SR can be learned within days. This book doesn't support this opinion. Looks like I'm definitely not in Susskind's league :-)

I've been reading the 2nd edition of Sutton and Barto's Reinforcement Learning, trying to learn how the biology and machine learning ideas are related.

Explorations in Mathematical Physics by Don Koks. I want to see physics math done from a geometric algebra point of view. (But I am afraid that the physics will be too tough for me.)

I'm preparing for uni in September by working through Newtonian Mechanics by French, and reviewing calculus from Lang/Kline. Occasionally I'll reference HRW if I find myself struggling with a problem.

I am reading Jackson's ED 3rd edition, Aitchinson's and Hey's Gauge book latest edition, also Peskin's, Brown's, Ryder's and Zuber's books and Ashcroft's book accompanied with a problem book by Han on Solid state physics.

A few months ago (November,December a bit of january), I was also reading books of Munkres on Analysis on Manifolds and a book on representation of finite groups by Liebeck's and Gordon's; I should really return to these book someday.

I'm working through the new 5th edition (2016) of Gilbert Strang's https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0980232775/?tag=pfamazon01-20. I like Strang because he puts a lot of effort into showing you how to think of the subject on an intuitive level.

Also, I stumbled across this little gem... Kuldeep Singh's https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199654441/?tag=pfamazon01-20 I find it a great, light book for very quickly building up intuition and the big picture. Much of the book is devoted to Question/Answer dialog as if you were conversing with a prof and it has many fully solved problems. Sometimes I find it light enough that I just skim some pages but that's perfect because there are plenty of other books that are tough slogging. I could see folks who are self studying, finding this book very appealing as an appetizer before taking on something more meaty like Friedman or Treil.

FactChecker said:

Explorations in Mathematical Physics by Don Koks. I want to see physics math done from a geometric algebra point of view. (But I am afraid that the physics will be too tough for me.)

I have this book/ Looks great. Been meaning to read it for a while now...so much to read and so little time.

I was reading Shankar Quantum Mechanics but I had to take it back to the library.
Now I am browsing Whittaker, Analytical Dynamics, and also Torge, Geodesy.

Geometry and The Imagination: David Hilbert. Fascinating Stuff.

Foundations of Geometry, also by David Hilbert. I'm reading this because I've been working on automatic theorem proving as applied to Euclid. Hilbert filled in some logical gaps in Euclid.

Linear Alegebra and its applications - Gilbert Strang
Introduction to Mechanics - kleppner and kolenkow
Electricity and Magnetism - Edward Purcell

I borrowed these physics books but now I find them very difficult.

Be warned about Purcell. It's quite confusing and unnecessarily complicated in its attempt to be pedagogical. It's easier to use the mathematics of Minkowski space rather than handwaving pedagogics.

Buffu said:

Linear Alegebra and its applications - Gilbert Strang
Introduction to Mechanics - kleppner and kolenkow
Electricity and Magnetism - Edward Purcell

I borrowed these physics books but now I find them very difficult.

Buffu,

If you haven't already studied vector calculus and introductory calculus-based mechanics and electromagnetism (from a source such as Halliday and Resnick, or some other equivalent book) then those physics books will be quite difficult. I took a course out of Purcell, and even with access to very helpful Professor and TA it was brutal.

Strang should be fine - perhaps it just isn't your style. Have you looked at the mit open courseware site for the class that is based on that book?

"Structures (Or why things don't fall down)" ...by EJ Gordon

jasonRF said:

If you haven't already studied vector calculus and introductory calculus-based mechanics and electromagnetism (from a source such as Halliday and Resnick, or some other equivalent book) then those physics books will be quite difficult. I took a course out of Purcell, and even with access to very helpful Professor and TA it was brutal.

I have studied Electromagnetism and Mechanics in school. I think the maths is hitting me most but I think I will understand it after some time.
It is hard but I just love reading them. They are so very well written and formatted in Latex. No bullshit pictures and no hyperlinks to some "help" sites.

martinbn said:

I am reading "Perfect Rigour" - Masha Gessen, I don't know if that counts.

It counts, popular STEM books are also STEM books.

I've been reading this:

http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1562_web.pdf

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YSILNL0/?tag=pfamazon01-20 by Sebastian Raschka. Very good overview of the subject. After this, I want to go back and fill in much of the statistical background that I'm missing for machine learning. I've become the machine learning guy at work because of my Python skills, but I'm woefully lacking in the statistics background.

Demystifier said:

What book are you reading now, or have been reading recently? Only STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) books are counted.

Richard Dawkins - The Greatest Show On Earth
One of his better, more science focused book. He tends often go on about his anti-religious antics from time to time, that even shows up sometimes in his books. Which I don't care about in my opinion, I don't practice a belief system. But for those, like me who just wants to gobble up in science and/or biology in general. This is a great book.

I started to read '' The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics'' by David A.Edwards

Ssnow said:

I started to read '' The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics'' by David A.Edwards

This is a long review paper, so I think we can count it as a "book".

Well, then one has to define, how a long review paper becomes a book. I'd say that some review articles well deserve the status of a book (e.g., Abers and Ben Lee's review article about gauge theories, which is among the best presentations of the subject I know:

E. Abers and B. Lee, Gauge Theories, Phys. Rept., 9 (1973), p. 1–141.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0370-1573(73)90027-6 [Broken]

I'm reading one of the "Very Short Introduction" books from Oxford University Press: Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction.

I've noticed in a couple of threads on PF that some folks get offended or disdainful when they hear the phrase "philosophy of science"; and will even scoff that "science needs no philosophy." I've never agreed with this attitude as it makes little sense. Philosophy of science touches on not just the history of science, but the evolution of scientific communities, standards, and methods; all of which is relevant to not just the doing of science, but the understanding of it by the public (I count myself as a member of the public).

So far this particular book seems well done & I'm learning things as I go along that seem very relevant to science today, including topics I read about on this forum as well as in the mainstream media. E.g. the chapter on scientific inference has a primer on causation that is basic, but still useful for lay readers; the chapter then precedes to explain the importance of probability to inference, the distinction between objective and subjective probabilities, the rules of conditionalization, etc. I know a little about this because I studied the math of classical probability some years back; however conditional probability is something I need to learn more about, and this offers a what seems a decent conceptual introduction.