Today when my son Dylan and I were out walking, he asked if I would write down a list of serious but popular science books. So here goes. I have most of them at various points in my life — high school, university, sometimes much later.
- George Gamow, One, Two, Three, Infinity. This is a classic, written by a great physicist, known for his work on the Big Bang as well as other things. I read this book in high school. It had a great influence on me.
- Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law. See this review by Frank Wilczek.
- Richard Feynman, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.
- Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes. This books talks about what happened during the first three minutes after the big bang.
- George Johnson, The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments. Of course there are more than ten, but this is a very good selection.
- A. Douglas Stone, Einstein and the Quantum.
- Adam Hart-Davis, Le Chat de Schrödinger: 50 éxperiences qui ont revolutionné la physique.
- Chad Orzel, How to Teach Quantum Physics to your Dog. The title may seem bizarre, but Orzel’s literary device of using his dog actually works, and his explanations are both clear and beautiful
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