Are you on vacation? Carlos Violhaes recommends science books for the summer

Summer is the time to read. Being a good time to read any kind of literature, I recommend, with brief comments, some popular science books that have recently appeared among us.

Sort alphabetically by author’s last name.

– Bernardo, Luis Miguel. In the reasons for the Portuguese scientific delay. Historical tour. UMinho . Publisher.

A book by a physicist and a historian of science, which I presented recently in Braga, that details the reasons for our lesser evolution. It can be accessed for free on the Internet.

– Carvalho, A. M. Galobim, Stones in Science and Culture. anchor.

A true geological encyclopedia by the esteemed Dean of Portuguese Science Expats.

Cobb, Matthew. Brain history. The past and future of neuroscience. Themes and debates / readers circle.

An essay, written by an English psychologist and geneticist, on the history of our ideas about the brain, in which the author tells about fascinating episodes of neuroscience, and, finally, gives us an overview of current problems.

– Eagleman, David. The brain at work, behind the scenes of an ever-changing mind. moon leaves.

After writing the brain. Upon discovering who we are (at the same publisher), the author, an American neuroscientist, best explains, in this book, which has an introduction by me, the way our most precious organs function.

– Greene, Brian, Until the End of Time. Man and the universe and our search for the meaning of life. disturbances.

The American superstring theory physicist and author of The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos, both from Gradiva, provides in this book his “unified” view of the world.

Haskell, David George, Songs of Trees. A story about the great webs of nature. gradual.

The author, a UK-born American biologist, and author of another award-winning book on the forest, speaks in this book, as well as endowing, in a sometimes poetic tone, our deep connection to the world of trees. . Contains an introduction by Antonio Bajao Felix.

– Hess, Boris, Einstein and Lenin in Moscow. The Philosophical Controversy of Soviet Science, Parsifal.

The Stalinist terror that influenced science is well known: just think of Lysenko. But there are more dark stories from that time. Selected and presented by physicist Roy Borges, texts of an unknown Russian scientist, born in 1883, who resisted attacks on “bourgeois science” and who was arrested and executed in 1936, were among Stalin’s first victims, are presented.

– Klein, Grady and Bowman, Yoram, Introduction to comic book calculus, Gradiva.

BD can be a light and fun way to learn or integrate calculus. Among the authors, who have already published Introduction to the Economics of Comic Books at the same publisher, the first is a cartoonist and the second defines himself as “the world’s first and only economist”.

– Teacher, Sharon. the better half. On the genetic superiority of women. Topics and debates / readers circle

A Canadian doctor and writer writes about the difference between the sexes in a book dedicated to your “better half.” We already knew that on average women live longer than men. But we learn that the fact that they have an X chromosome instead of a Y makes them stronger. For both men and women to read…

Nurse, Paul. What is life? Understand life in 5 lessons.

Sir Paul Nurse, 2001 Nobel laureate in medicine, former president of the Royal Society and director of the Francis Crick Institute in London, presents in a brief work the phenomenon of life in a very educational way: to be quite different, what living beings have in common, with which we are part of it?

– Reese, Martin. about the future. Views of humanity. disturbances.

Sir Martin Rees, royal English astronomer, former president of the Royal Society and author of Toward Infinity. Horizontes da Ciência (Gradiva), who has already visited Portugal at the invitation of the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, talks about the threats hovering above the earth and about the power and limits of science.

Rovelli, Carlo, Anaximander Miletus or The Birth of Scientific Thought. Number 70.

The famous Italian theoretical physicist, who in many books tried to unravel the mysteries of time, talks here about one of the first Greek philosophers, who is considered the founder of science, and talks about scientific thought. After Anaximander, we began to understand science without the need for gods.

Simões, Ana and Diogo, Maria Paula (general editors), Science, Technology and Medicine in Construction in Portugal, Ink from China.

From the pen of several authors, there are four volumes, taken together, that provide a broad and varied overview of the history of science in Portugal. It will definitely be a reference work. In the final volume, David Marsall and I wrote a text on scientific culture throughout the 20th century.

Happy readings!

author: Carlos Violhaes is Professor of Physics at the University of Coimbra