More or less

Comments from a dilettante

6 books on Quantum Mechanics and Cosmology
6 books on Quantum Mechanics and Cosmology

In this post I will talk about some books about quantum mechanics and cosmology that I have read recently. It’s been a while since I’ve commented on a book. Like most of us, I prefer to skip to the next reading rather than synthesise what I learn from the previous one. And that is a... » read more

The Demon in the Machine (Paul Davies)
The Demon in the Machine (Paul Davies)

“The huge gulf that separates physics and biology -the realm of atoms and molecules from that of living thing- is unbridgeable without fundamentally new concepts.” The quote that begins this article is one of the main theses that Paul Davies defends in his book published in 2019 “The Demon in the Machine“. There is no... » read more

No-Nonsense Classical Mechanics (Jakob Schwichtenberg)
No-Nonsense Classical Mechanics (Jakob Schwichtenberg)

Until now I had referred to popular science or essays books, but in this post I comment on “No-Nonsense Classical Mechanics” by Jakob Schwichtenberg, which would be more akin to a textbook. The content of the book is an introduction to the different formulations of Classical Mechanics – Newtonian, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian, mainly (*) –... » read more

A world without work (Daniel Susskind)
A world without work (Daniel Susskind)

“What technological progress has done to horses, it would eventually do to human beings as well: drive us out of work”Wassily Leontief (Nobel Prize in Economics 1973) “A World Without Work” is a book by Daniel Susskind, an economist (professor and researcher at Oxford University) who was an advisor to the British Government. He made... » read more

The Beginning of Infinity (David Deutsch)
The Beginning of Infinity (David Deutsch)

David Deutsch is an Israeli physicist, trained at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, who is able to think about major issues in a very original way. He seems to me an outstanding example of “out of the box” thinking that does not shy away from speculating on fundamental issues in a radical and provocative... » read more

Good habits, bad habits (Wendy Wood)
Good habits, bad habits (Wendy Wood)

  «Nuestros hábitos suponen una manera de suceder las cosas, una vaga coherencia del mundo» (Adolfo Bioy Casares) Habits govern much of our daily activity and we perform them without conscious decisions: we operate in a kind of automatic mode according to behaviors learned over time. This is one of the main theses you will... » read more

Mysteries of the Quantum Universe (Damour & Burniat)
Mysteries of the Quantum Universe (Damour & Burniat)

As I wrote in the post about Logicomix, I wanted to see what result can be achieved using a medium like comics to present and explain scientific concepts. So I tried it with another book: “Mysteries of the Quantum Universe” by the theoretical physicist Thibault Damour and the author of graphic novels Mathieu Burniat. After... » read more

The Universe that discovered itself (Barrow)
The Universe that discovered itself (Barrow)

One of my favorite popular science book writer is John D. Barrow. His books focuses on his two academic and research specialties: mathematics and physics. He writes about these matters quite clearly, although in this facet I think there are other authors who elaborate or take more risks to explain complex concepts to a general... » read more

Science comics: Logicomix
Science comics: Logicomix

I wanted to see what can be achieved by using a comic format to tell us something about science. I chose a couple of examples that I found interesting. The first work is Logicomix, a colour graphic novel with a detailed and pleasant visual style. Note: I don’t enter into the discussion of whether  mathematics... » read more

Learning about Quantum Computing (and don’t forget it!)
Learning about Quantum Computing (and don’t forget it!)

Quantum Computing for the very curious is an interesting content that you can consult on the web Quantum Country and that includes two aspects: Content with which you can learn about quantum computing that is based on a serie of videos by the author Michael Nielsen (assumes some ‘basic’ math background and it goes far... » read more