Literate Scientist

I read this book from cover to cover while flying on a plane from Dublin to St. Petersburg and back. That was so wonderful reading experience - I couldn’t put the book down during those flights. I recall that I visited the Department of Mathematics a few times when I studied Chemistry in Moscow State University although at that time I knew next to nothing about Russian mathematicians. The book touched me so deeply that I bought the main work of Florensky: The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, the history of Russian philosophy and several books explaining Orthodox Church. This is the best mathematics history book I have ever read, my feelings perhaps comparable to those that I experienced when I finished reading Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty by Morris Kline but that was more than 20 years ago.

Naming Infinity: A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

After I finished A Brief History of Theology I wanted to read more about Religion in general, not from an evolutionary point of view like in Breaking the Spell but more from the cultural perspective. So I bought this book in a local bookshop and read from cover to cover. I like the book, in fact some ideas I encountered there are similar to my own philosophy of Memoidealism and Memorianity (Memory religion) and now I understand better even my own private religion. Recommended for scientists with reductionist background or having narrow views about religion like I had before reading this book.

Religion: The Basics

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I bought this book in Eason book shop in Dublin city center a month ago when I had a large break while waiting for my ticket number in the Visa office. I finished Homework for Grown-ups in that queue and needed to buy something to read next. Now I finished this book and I can say that I like all chapters, especially about politics, ethics, mind and art because these areas of philosophy were missing in my education. Today I was again in Eason book shop in Dublin city center when I had a large break while waiting for my ticket number in the Visa office. And guess what? I bought Religion: The Basics book…

Philosophy: The Basics

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

This was a nice short book for me to see some derivations and mathematics behind physical concepts discussed in more popular books that I read before such as The Road to Reality, Deep Down Things and The Great Design, Not Even Wrong and the Trouble With Physics and The Comprehensible Cosmos. Although I accelerated a bit skipping some derivations by the end of the book I was able to grasp most of them including explanations of Feynman rules and path integrals. Because I have never read anything mathematical about QFT some additional reading will definitely improve understanding. Perhaps I come back to this book again for a second read. For now, I start reading another book: A Unified Grand Tour of Theoretical Physics.

Quantum Field Theory Demystified

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I read this book in a few days briefly glancing at problem solutions because my aim was to review QM I studied long time ago. Highly recommended for a quick review. I noticed some misprints in derivations even during quick read but all explanations (physical semantics) are very clear. Now I venture into mathematics and physics of Quantum Field Theory Demystified that I hope to finish in a few days too. Here detailed mathematics (especially derivations) of QFT is almost unfamiliar to me so I expect to learn something new here and my future book review will reflect this reading and learning experience.

Quantum Mechanics Demystified

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

As soon as I finished Linear Algebra Demystified I started reading this book and read it in a week. This book is about general relativity, only a few pages cover special one. Lots of equation derivations which I mostly skipped while approaching the end of the book. The algebraic treatment of tensors is refreshing after The Road to Reality which uses mostly graphical notation devised by Roger Penrose. I finally understood what Christoffel symbols are for and the distinction of holonomic and nonholonomic coordinate bases. I would say that this book is very heavy on the syntax of physics and has less discussion of physical semantics. I’ve started reading Quantum Mechanics Demystified and then I plan to start with Quantum Field Theory Demystified. After that I approach a bit more semantics by reading A Unified Grand Tour of Theoretical Physics by Ian Lawrie.

Relativity Demystified

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

It is interesting to compare core school subjects in 70-80s USSR with those in UK and Ireland. I certainly missed any religious education and many art-isms. Physical education (games) was also different except football and climbing a rope. So I bought this book in a local bookshop a few months ago to align my basic school education and finished reading yesterday while waiting in a queue in Irish visa office near Dublin O’Connell Bridge:

Homework for Grown-ups: Everything You Learnt at School…and Promptly Forgot

It was also useful for me to learn some English words from basic biology, classics and geography.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I bought a dozen Demystified books a few years ago to teach myself several subjects I missed from my education or to quickly refresh my knowledge. One of them was:

Linear Algebra Demystified

I read it quickly yesterday and it really refreshed my knowledge and cleared some confusion aroused from reading more advanced applied mathematics books. My next reading sequence is Relativity Demystified, Quantum Mechanics Demystified and Quantum Field Theory Demystified.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I bought this book in a local bookshop just before finishing Young Stalin and started reading it 2 weeks ago. I must say it is a breathless read. I’m very curious about the real story of communism in Russia and other countries because I only remember official USSR communist party interpretation from my school years in 80s. In Moscow University we also had a subject called the History of Communist Party of the Soviet Union (KPSS) and the textbook was called “kirpich” (a brick).

Comrades: Communism: A World History

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

This book I bought a few years ago but only started reading 4 months ago and just finished:

Understanding the Infinite

I must say that it was not a light read and it requires certain mathematical maturity beyond undergraduate courses. The first part deals with Cantor and Zermelo set theories and axioms. It is very dry sometimes and chapters are long which was not good for me because I was only reading 10 - 12 pages per week while commuting. In many places the author assumes that a reader already knows a lot about logic and set theory, for example, at the end, he devotes a page or two about Putman modal logic and uses freely its quantifiers without explaining them. Some glossary at the end would have greatly benefited this book. What I found clarifying is the fact that there are two foundations of set theory: the notions of logical and combinatorial collections. For the latter the Axiom of Choice is self-evident and is no longer controversial. The second part starting from chapter VI is more philosophical and concerns with epistemology and ontology of the infinite. At least at the beginning it clarifies the difference between potential and actual infinity. In the middle we see the use of schemas to avoid quantifiers. At the end of the book the author discusses the theory of indefinite large and small, its extrapolations to infinite and provides examples from mathematical analysis. The main theme of the book, as I understand it, is that our intuition about infinity arises from intuitive understanding of indefinitely large sets, their hierarchies and extrapolations.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -