Literate Scientist

This is a book that I noticed in a bookshop 6 years ago. I was curious by its title and front cover because at school I was interested in foundations of mathematics and abstract algebra ideas. I bought this book and from it I first heard of and learnt about category theory.

Conceptual Mathematics: A First Introduction to Categories

Very accessible and highly recommended as the first introduction but it requires probably the second reading if you are not used to mathematical abstractions. Fortunately there is the second edition coming after almost 15 years that seems have extra 50 pages added and I’m looking forward to reading it too.

Conceptual Mathematics: A First Introduction to Categories (Second Edition)

- 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 -

When stumbled upon this book on Amazon earlier this month when I was looking at the list of recently published science books I recalled how creationists and proponents of intelligent design are instantly dismissed in many science books that never discuss them in any details. In the description this book promised to review various approaches and even to suggest the testable model. The latter intrigued me and without fear of being accused as a non-scientist I bought it. Just started reading and if I find any flaw I would revise this post accordingly. So far it provides description, motivation and origin of many creationist / IDM versions. Should be read even if you are a confirmed scientist.

More Than a Theory: Revealing a Testable Model for Creation

I’m a founder of Memory Religion so I have nothing to loose after reading this book. 

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

Having read Darwin’s Dangerous Idea book I was looking for more comprehensive book and a few months ago I stumbled across this 1,000 page volume in one of bookshops in the centre of Dublin:

Evolution: The First Four Billion Years

After browsing it for 10 seconds I bought it without any hesitation. Richly illustrated, its structure reminds me another excellent volume composed from review articles, short encyclopedic and biographic entries: The Princeton Companion to Mathematics.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

This book I bought some time ago to learn more about biology. I’ve just finished it and found it very good explaining what the science is, what is the difference between physical and life sciences. It also provides great overview of the subject, its history and philosophy, including taxonomy, evolution, ecology and ethics. I now adapt some ideas from biology to the science of memory dump analysis. There are some structural book organization deficiencies that would have made the book better. There are notes and the end of the book but I would prefer to have them to be footnotes. Also there is a very useful glossary at the end of the book too but for the beginner in any science it is useful to have definitions in footnotes ready to read when they are first encountered.

This Is Biology: The Science of the Living World

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I encounter plenty of references to theology and its terminology in many books. My atheistic school education in communist Russia resulted in the lack of any knowledge of religion that I noted already in the review of Breaking the Spell book. A few months ago I saw this book in a local bookshop and immediately bought it to widen my views on religious and theological matters. I’ve read it and it explained lots of terminology very clearly. Highly recommended. One cautious note though: it only surveys key ideas and theologians from Western theology. For Orthodox worldview you need to look elsewhere.

A Brief History of Theology: From the New Testament to Feminist Theology

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

These two volumes I bought a few years ago, started reading the first chapter and then other books got reading priority, for example, Rosen’s “Life Itself”. A few weeks ago I picked up the first volume again and started reading from the beginning. I’m was really amazed how I understand it better after reading Rosen’s books. These volumes are highly recommended to learn about models of reality and mathematical modeling itself. The first chapter that discusses the relationship of models to observation is awesome. The book requires an undergraduate engineering level of mathematics: linear algebra, calculus and a bit of mathematical analysis. You will also learn about catastrophe-theoretic models, chaos, cellular automata, geometry of human affairs, patterns, fractals, and many other things. There is even a discussion about controversies in catastrophe theory involving Rene Thom. I think the first volume of this book set is a prerequisite reading before starting with classic Structural Stability And Morphogenesis.

Reality Rules, 2 Volume Set

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

OpenTask plans to publish the extended and edited version of this blog as a book:

Literate Scientists and Their Books: An Independent Guide to Understanding Reality (ISBN: 978-1906717520)

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I bought this book (as used, it seems no longer available in print) after reading Fashionable Nonsense which refers to it. Highly recommended to anyone starting to write on non-technical subjects to avoid inventing new jargon and repeat obvious as well as to anyone trying to get a (self-)education in social sciences like me and be suspicious to excessive verbiage. I like his formula V = A / K - 1, where V is the amount of produced verbiage, A is the amount of ambition and K is the amount of knowledge on the subject and related disciplines.

Social Sciences as Sorcery

I don’t have its cover jacket with me today but I’ll take a picture of it later and put here.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I admit Semiotics is the big gap in my education which mostly lies in natural and computer sciences. I know less about social sciences and try to fill various gaps. The reason why I came upon this discipline is that I’m interested in signs and their interpretations, especially their relation to various structures. I started reading this book in September and almost read 1/3rd of it during my flight to Russia via Zurich.

Semiotics: The Basics

As a by-product of reading I was able to provide a kind of theoretical explanation for the phenomenon of bugtations:

Bugtations: a semiotic approach

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -