Popular Physics & Math Books 2014 & 2015

AI Thread Summary
The discussion focuses on the search for comprehensive lists of popular, non-technical books on particle physics, astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, and mathematics published in 2014 and 2015. The requester emphasizes the need for freely accessible resources that include book titles, authors, and short descriptions. They express a preference for works by professional authors, particularly those with Ph.D. credentials, and mention authors they admire, such as Lawrence Krauss and Michio Kaku. Suggestions include using websites like Goodreads for recommendations and exploring open-source platforms like Project Gutenberg and Archive.org for free educational materials. However, the requester specifically seeks curated lists from scientific organizations rather than general book recommendations or open-source texts.
RJ Emery
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I seek comprehensive lists of the best or most recommended popular books on particle physics, astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology and mathematics published in 2014 and 2015. These lists should be freely accessible on the web and not hidden behind any paywall or limited to subscribers only. Besides the title and author, a short description of the book is desirable.

By popular, I mean non-technical. Simple equations or mathematical relations are fine, but no PDEs please!

In the past few years, a new generation of authors have emerged, and I do not know who is worth reading on the topics I have enumerated above.
 
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RJ Emery said:
I seek comprehensive lists of the best or most recommended popular books on particle physics, astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology and mathematics published in 2014 and 2015. These lists should be freely accessible on the web and not hidden behind any paywall or limited to subscribers only. Besides the title and author, a short description of the book is desirable.

By popular, I mean non-technical. Simple equations or mathematical relations are fine, but no PDEs please!

In the past few years, a new generation of authors have emerged, and I do not know who is worth reading on the topics I have enumerated above.

Generally speaking you can't download recent books legally for free. You can however download open source books for free. There are 2 websites for this. They are legal in most countries. You need to check if it's legal where you're located. I'm not aware about publishing date but there's always a filter to sort.
https://www.gutenberg.org/
https://archive.org/

Personally I'm a big fan of archive.org. They're doing an awesome job.
There are free books written by professors. They're written for students to study from. No pop science books.
Please do not download illegal books. Authors take great pain to write them. Have respect for their efforts.
 
@Giant : OP didn't ask for free BOOKS, but for free LISTS.
 
Giant said:
Woah. I'm sorry
Here you go. https://www.goodreads.com Goodreads is your friend here.

Thanks, but too general. I'm seeking popular books written by professional (Ph.D.) physicists, astrophysicists and astronomers in recent years. Authors whose books I have enjoyed in the past include Lawrence Krauss, Ray Jayawardhana, Frank Close, Michio Kaku, Alan Dressler, Ken Croswell and a number of others. Updated lists of books similar to what those authors wrote are of keen interest to me. Popular (non-quantitative) yes but serious science only, please, written for the layman.
 
Go to Amazon, put in titles of books of your quoted authors, and somewhere in the info about each book there is a section "people who bought this book also bought..." and that should lead to a high fraction of the sort of books that may interest you, plus several reviews by readers useful in telling you if they are books you want to read.
 
Been there, done that. Not a satisfactory solution.

I still seek book lists prepared preferably by scientific organizations for the topical areas previously mentioned.
 

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