Which Physics and Mathematics Coffee Table Books Are Must-Reads?

[TheShapeOfTime]

Recommend "coffee table" books

Could anyone recommend some good physics and mathematics "coffee table" books (ie. some "must reads".) I'm talking along the lines of "Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture" and "Euclid's Window".

 

[arildno]

Well, Simon Singh's "Fermat's last theorem" is great, I also liked his "Codes" book.

 

[Integral]

Any and all of John Gribbins books also George Gamov is intertaining.

 

[honestrosewater]

Well, Simon Singh's "Fermat's last theorem" is great

If you read this book, be prepared to spend every waking moment of the next few months searching for a "better, simpler" proof until finally deciding you've worked out the major steps and you'll "iron out the details later". Or was that just me?
Richard Feynman's "QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter" was enlightening and is "coffee table"-appropriate. Learn from the masters, as they say.
Edit: Actually, the book I have is called "Fermat's Engima" by the same author. Google tells me the UK edition was called "Fermat's Last Theorem", but they're the same book.

 

[ZapperZ]

Whoa!

You people have a very interesting concept of what a "coffee table" book is. I thought coffee table book are large, heavy, lots-of-picture books that people can browse through during a rather short amount of time?

In any case, my physics coffee table book is "Physics in the 20th Century" by Curt Suplee. It was produced in cooporation with the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Physics, in conjuction with the APS's 100'th Anniversary in 1999. The book first appeared at the APS March Meeting in Atlanta that year to celebrate tha centenial. I think 12,000 people showed up, making it the largest ever conglomeration of scientists in the history of human civilization.

Zz.

 

[Integral]

Zz,

I have traditionally called a coffee table physics book, anything that someone can read in week, which then makes them an expert in Relativity and/or QM. Of course lots of pictures does not impede this laborious line of study.

 

[Dr Transport]

Mandelbrot's book on Fractals comes to mind...

 

[Andromeda321]

Lawrence Krauss has written a few good books that qualify as coffee table literature. "The Physics of Star Trek" and "Quintessence" come to mind.

 

[honestrosewater]

You people have a very interesting concept of what a "coffee table" book is. I thought coffee table book are large, heavy, lots-of-picture books that people can browse through during a rather short amount of time?

Oh, like a dictionary? Okay, Kenneth Libbrecht's "The Snowflake: Winter's Secret Beauty".

 

[arildno]

Whoa!

You people have a very interesting concept of what a "coffee table" book is. I thought coffee table book are large, heavy, lots-of-picture books that people can browse through during a rather short amount of time?
Zz.

Well, not all of us have coffee tables made of mahogany.
Some of us must cope with a rather more fragile construction.

 

[Tom McCurdy]

The Elegant Universe
or fabric of the cosmos
Brian Greene

 

[TheShapeOfTime]

Thanks for all your recommendations. I can add some of these books to my christmas list :-).