mazeltov wrote:
The Greatest Show on Earth By Richard Dawkins (good primer on evolution so far but nothing novel yet)
Yeah, I think the tagline is "outlining the evidence"? Most "popular science accounts" don't have anything new (if you keep up with the news or better yet read papers, to my knowledge a scientist wouldn't publish findings in a book), they just put it out there in a form readable by anyone. And they're refreshing/useful/interesting to scientists/students too in a lot of cases.
Oh, it's on the list for my future readings too.
mazeltov wrote:
ALso I loved the Fenymen books Joklem I read them once in 10th grade for a math course and then again this past summer. Fun reads indeed

I look shit up in the Feynman lectures on physics collection on almost a daily basis. As a sidenote, a lot if not most physics textbooks I've had always start with the boring "pulley, velocity/trajectory of a thrown object, Newtonian gravity, etc" bullshit. Are they trying to attract more carpenters to physics or something? They also use old symbols/annotations/etc (ah the planck constant, what about the reduced planck constant? where are the complex numbers? why are there circuitry constants in my electrodynamics?!) , they tend to be in "historic order", that is it teaches all the old stuff before anything new (why would a professor spend more than 10 minutes on Maxwell/Newton's laws? a good one would start on modern physics, and wouldn't be afraid to mention and introduce more advanced things earlier, to be elaborated on later) and the problems they give are always plugged with numbers (are they teaching me how to use a calculator? what's wrong with algebra? edit: don't get me started about Mathematica...).
Feynman gave one, maybe two lectures on basic physics, then he went quantum alongside relating it to classical mechanics, as well as simplifying with his own explanations for better understanding. (seriously, he was a genius of education)
Some of it is a bit outdated, and there's been tons of new stuff since then, but for having been published in 1970 it's still surprisingly relevant and useful. Someone thinking about going in physics should definitely read that first, or while studying.