Discuss: June Book Club Picks

Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life by Helen Czerski

 

There are lots of everyday science books in the marketplace, but Helen Czerski’s unique perspective as a bubble scientist makes this book a little more… moist. A favorite of PopScienceBookClub.com, Storm in a Teacup teaches you about snot-bubble snails, the science of waves and reflections, the “Fram” floating bowl ship, and also sweat, oysters, and fried cheese. Visceral and delightful, this book is hard to forget!

Discuss this book with other 533 people 🢂

 

Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe by Steven H. Strogatz

 

Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves (a phenomenon predicted by calculus). Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes “backwards” sometimes; how to make electricity with magnets; how to ensure your rocket doesn’t miss the moon; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS.

Discuss this book with other 251 people 🢂

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

There’s no better guide through the cosmos than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson. While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.

Discuss this book with other 3,407 people 🢂

Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jared Lanier

 

In Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, Lanier, who participates in no social media, offers powerful and personal reasons for all of us to leave these dangerous online platforms. Lanier’s reasons for freeing ourselves from social media’s poisonous grip include its tendency to bring out the worst in us, to make politics terrifying, to trick us with illusions of popularity and success, to twist our relationship with the truth, to disconnect us from other people even as we are more “connected” than ever, to rob us of our free will with relentless targeted ads. Lanier remains a tech optimist, so while demonstrating the evil that rules social media business models today, he also envisions a humanistic setting for social networking that can direct us toward a richer and fuller way of living and connecting with our world.

Perception: A Very Short Introduction by Brian Rogers

 

In this Very Short Introduction, Brian J. Rogers, Emeritus Professor of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, discusses the philosophical question of what it means to perceive, as well as describing how we are able to perceive the particular characteristics of objects and scenes such as their lightness, color, form, depth, and motion.  The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly.