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Friday, August 25, 2006

Reading for your university interview

Title

Author

My Humble Opinion

The Ascent of Man

Jacob Bronowski

A history of science, an award winning TV programme in its day by an eminent scientist. Very readable

Isaac Newton

James Gleick

A biography, rather dry but a good insight into a genius. Not as long as it first appears as at least 1/3 of the book is the author’s references

The Code Book

Simon Singh

More Maths than Physics. A history of code breaking. Very readable.

Bad Astronomy

Phil Plait

The moon landing a was hoax? This book blows this idea away (and other popular myths)

A Brief History in Time

Stephen Hawking

Never was a book bought by so many to be read by so few. As one of the few I can only say it was a bit of a struggle.

The Time and Space of Uncle Albert

Russell Stannard

Uncle Albert is, of course, Einstein. Thoroughly enjoyable introduction to relativity (hard to believe I know).

Critical Mass

Philip Ball

How physics relates to the everyday world. Intellectual. (So I enjoyed it!)

A Short History of Nearly Everything.

Bill Bryson

Excellent book. Read it. Don’t mention it your interview as Bryson is not a scientist and university professors have strong views on writers of popular fiction.

The New Scientist

A magazine

Read it every week (for at least a month before your university interview)

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