Literate Scientist

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 -

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 -