Books Noted

• QE 514.D47 1988 Chemical Cycles in the Evolution of the Earth

• QE 514.F75 2011 Frontiers in Geochemistry

• QH 327.F548 2008 Fitness of the Cosmos For Life

• This is about tuning of universal constants, for the chemistry of life. Nothing significant about our particular planet, star, or solar system.

• YA 510 PASK 2015 Great Calculations by Colin Pask

• Amusing but time consuming.

• 301.31 VAI 2013 Triumphs of Experience by George E. Vaillant

• Mildly interesting - how Harvard graduates have faired in life, multiple lifetime study

• 363.3251 MUE 2016 Chasing Ghosts by John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart

• The security state is far more costly, damaging, and distracting than terrorist damage

• 153.4 HAR 2012 50 popular beliefs that people think are true by Guy P. Harrison

• Dumb things people think when they don't think - #19 Television news is interesting, much of the rest is "television noise". No "tough" questions involving character

• 509.173 PRI 2011 A Professor, a President, and a Meteor The Birth of American Science, by Cathryn J. Prince (CJP)

• Benjamin Silliman investigates Weston Connecticut Meteor of 1807, promotes science (chemistry and geology) at Yale, launches "The American Journal of Science"

• p63 CJP quotes chemist Jabir ibn Hayyan: "... conduct experiments ... mayest acquire knowledge" see HouseOfWisdom

• p195 CJP paraphrases Flight to Arras, 1942 by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "you are the knot into which my soul is tied."

  • actual Flight to Arras quotes, 1942 Reynal and Hitchcock hardback, Beaverton Library 940.54 SAI:

  • p105 chapter 12, paragraph 5: "... Man is a knot into which relationships are tied, ..."
  • p183 chapter 19, paragraph ~~ 25: "Man does not die. ... Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied."
  • I like Prince's paraphrase better

• 946.02 MEN 2002 The Ornament of the World How Muslims,Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain by María Rosa Menocal

• some history, mostly art, little science Umayyad Abd-al-Rahman 750 to destruction by fundamentalist Almoravid Berber mercenaries in 1009

• 530.11 C877w 2009 Why does E=mc2 by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. Clearly explains special relativity, with just enough math to quantify results like the mass-energy equation.

• 620 Madhavan 2015 Applied Minds - how engineers think, by Guru Madhavan.

• 005.7 H2829b 2016 Big Data - Does Size Matter? by Timandra Harkness. Jokey journalism, no analysis, no economics. My question going in - who pays (NSA? Sears?) for the apps we use, and what is it costing us (money, freedom, cognitive depth)? No answers here.

• QC168.V55 1975 Introduction to Physical Gas Dnamics by Walter Vincenti and Charles Kruger Jr. (Stanford) ... more physics and fundamentals, good for deep understanding but not quick approximations.