Which Popular Physics Book Should I Read?

[anthonych414]

So I have two popular physics book in my possession at the moment and I don't know which one to start reading. The books are: The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene and The Edge Of Physics bu Anil Ananthaswamy. Also any suggestions on different books with more maths in them? (The concepts I was taught this year in maths are: The Binomial Theorem, Differentiation And Application Of The Derivative, Arithmetic and Geometric Progressions, Integration, Trigonometry In Space, and Logarithmic and Exponential Functions)

Any help is appreciated :)

 

[sora]

Both books that you have are wonderful (not only information-wise; they're also good reads); I am currently reading The Edge of Physics. You could start with either one (sorry if that isn't very helpful).

I would suggest Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time (if you haven't read it already). While the book isn't too math intensive, Hawking does incorporate some higher level math, at least qualitatively.

 

[George Jones]

Also any suggestions on different books with more maths in them?

You could try The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe by Roger Penrose,

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679454438/?tag=pfamazon01-20.

This is a truly amazing book. This ambitious book attempts to give an overview to everyone, from interested laypersons to research scientists, of all of fundamental physics and of all the math (and more) underlying fundamental physics. Even though Penrose advises readers to skip over any and all math not to their liking, I think that readers who don't have math backgrounds will find it heavy going. It's not necessarily meant to be read from cover - just open it to whatever topic tickles your fancy. If you don't understand something in one paragraph, try to find some background elsewhere in the book, or go on to the next paragraph or chapter.

My biggest complaint is that, at 1100 pages, the book is too short! My desert island book.