I Read Many Things

Tag: Science

  • A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking

    For someone who has read dozens of science books in the past few years, it might be a bit surprising to hear that I hadn’t read Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time” before now. It’s widely considered to be one of the most influential science books – destined to the public – ever written.   Clearly…

  • The Once and Future World, by J.B. Mackinnon

    Like many, I’ve been dealing with some form of eco-anxiety for the past few years. Not surprising, since we’re constantly bombarded with apocalyptic news about the state of the environment, whether it’s global warming, deforestation, mass extinction of species or any other similar subject. Usually, any book that dabbles in these issues can be hard…

  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

    While browsing on various reading forums to get new ideas for future reads, I often came across mentions of this book. Finding the title intriguing by itself, I looked it up online and learned that it was about some extremely resilient cancer cells – called HeLa, for Henrietta Lacks – able to reproduce at a…

  • Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir

    I started reading this book at 10 one evening and, an instant later, it was 11 and I had to be a reasonable adult and turn off the lights. As I fell asleep, I kept thinking about what I had just read and decided then that I had to write about it. This might be…

  • L’Univers à Portée de Main, par Christophe Galfard

    Je suis tombé sur ce livre un peu par hasard dans une petite boutique de livres usagés. Je ne connaissais pas l’auteur, mais ma curiosité et mon amour pour la vulgarisation scientifique m’ont conduit à le “googler” rapidement dans la rangée. Christophe Galfard est un physicien théorique français qui a étudié sous Stephen Hawking à…

  • Origins : How Earth’s History Shaped Human History, by Lewis Dartnell

    It’s easy to look at the title of that book and think “Well that seems like a rather obvious statement of fact” and go on your way. In some respect, it is. No sane person will disagree that our planet and its physical characteristics have influenced humans in many ways. A quick look at a…

  • Cosmos, by Carl Sagan

    By now you’ve figured out that I really enjoy the work of science communicators. The teacher in me appreciates how some experts manage to explain complex subjects in a clear and accessible vocabulary. For a lot of people, the term science communicator is synonymous with Carl Sagan, who delighted the generation before mine with the…

  • Existential Physics, by Sabine Hossenfelder

    Working with children, I get to hear a lot of questions. More importantly, I get asked a lot of questions I certainly don’t have the answer to, either because I just do not have the required knowledge, or simply because there is actually no answer. A good example I heard this year is “Was there…

  • The Book of the Moon : A Guide to Our Closest Neighbor, by Maggie Aderin-Pocock

    By now, anyone who knows me even a little understands that I have a deep passion for most sciences, especially physics and astronomy in the past couple of years. It seems like every time I come across a science book that looks remotely interesting, I’ll be tempted. And now it’s much worse since I have…

  • Why does E = mc^2? by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw

    Is there a more famous equation in all of science? Even kids have told me lately that E was equal to mc2 (they’ll say the two out loud as “two” and not as “squared” when they are younger) and usually feel like geniuses for even remembering the order of the letters. I probably did that…