During breaks, I take the opportunity to enrich my bookshelf. One of the best ways to do this is a used book store. There are a few stores that I have completely fallen in love with, for the simple reason that their science sections are out of this world. One of them is in Mountain View, CA, and the other is in Niantic, CT. During this break, I’ve gotten my hands on a few interesting titles that will come in handy in improving scientific communication and expression. In addition, some of them are just a little unnerving. Here I list the titles, authors, and brief synopsis, as well as what I hope to get from them.
- “Beamtimes and Lifetimes” by Sharon Traweek:once a tour guide at SLAC in the Public Information Office, she went on to study high energy physicists at SLAC, KEK, and FNAL as an anthropologist. This falls under the “unnerving” category – it is quite strange to see one’s culture dissected and analyzed. However, I feel like HEP needs an eye-opener, if it is ever to reinvent itself in the public eye as a pursuit worth doing both inherently and for its benefits. Particle physicists must understand their own culture if they are to evolve. Amazingly, most of what she describes in the opening prologue and chapter of her book still seem to apply to our culture. She makes particular note of racial and gender ratios in each department she describes.
- “Scientific Papers and Presentations”, by Martha Davis: a guide to doing better at each. The quotes opening each chapter are priceless and speak to the humor and delicacy inherent the scientific enterprise.
- “Women Changing Science – Voices from a Field in Transition”, by Mary Morse: Over a decade old, this book likely still holds a number of important observations and themes about the diversity of gender in science. A large section of the book is devoted to interviews; I am very interested in seeing how her interviewees describe their experience.
- “The Art of the Personal Essay”, by Philip Lopate: replace “personal essay” with “blog entry” and you pretty much see what I want out of this.
- “The Universe and Doctor Einstein”, by Lincoln Barnett: I mentioned in my personal blog [1] (in 2006) that over one summer break in high school my father gave me a book about Einstein and his theory of relativity that crystallized my curiosity about the true nature of the universe. It was a short thing, and I am pretty sure this book was it. I grabbed it just to be safe. I’ll have to read through it to be sure, but skipping to the end I recognized the layout of the several equations in the book (all having to do with time and distance in relativity). This was a scene-changing book for me, something I hope to one day use to inspire somebody else to think harder about the universe.
With just days left in most people’s vacation, I strongly urge you to head to the local used book store and dig up your own gems. If the above sound interesting, check the library. You might find them as useful as I hope to.
[1] http://steve.cooleysekula.net/blog/2006/08/18/test-232/
