A real straggler of a list for your reading and collection development pleasure.
- Alex's Adventures in Numberland
by Alex Bellos
- Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages
by Guy Deutscher
- The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
by Sam Kean
- The Wave Watcher's Companion: From Ocean Waves to Light Waves via Shock Waves, Stadium Waves, andAll the Restof Life's Undulations
by Gavin Pretor-Pinney
- Massive: The Missing Particle That Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science
by Ian Sample
- The Rough Guide to The Future (Rough Guide Reference)
by Jon Turney
Earlier entries in this year's list of lists can be found here and the 2009 summary post here. The list of top books for 2010 is here. And no, I won't be recalculating the rankings at this late date.
More like this
Yes, this can be very complicated. But what should a middle-school student understand about light? You see stuff in textbooks that is either wrong or just a bunch of disconnected factoids (I like the word factoid).
He of uncertain principles asks Which do you prefer: transverse waves, or longitudinal waves? The fact builder chimes in with a
Transverse or longitudinal waves, purely as a matter of aesthetic preference? Transverse all the way, of course.