Here are 100 books that Air and Water fans have personally recommended if you like
Air and Water.
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I’ve been teaching physics applied to biology for decades. When working at the National Institutes of Health, I realized that most biologists don’t know physics. While I appreciate the complexity that evolution generates, I find the simplicity and generality of physics in explaining life to be amazing and captivating. When I taught biological physics to undergraduates at Oakland University, I strived to find elementary “toy” models that the students could analyze and that provided valuable insight. The books on this list all adopt a similar point of view: physics provides unity to the diversity of life.
This was one of those books that shaped my career.
I am constantly amazed by how crucial fluid dynamics is for organisms. Steven Vogel is a biologist who understands and can explain physics to a general audience. His book is full of insight and humor. You’ll never look at plants and animals the same way again.
Both a landmark text and reference book, Steven Vogel's Life in Moving Fluids has also played a catalytic role in research involving the applications of fluid mechanics to biology. In this revised edition, Vogel continues to combine humor and clear explanations as he addresses biologists and general readers interested in biological fluid mechanics, offering updates on the field over the last dozen years and expanding the coverage of the biological literature. His discussion of the relationship between fluid flow and biological design now includes sections on jet propulsion, biological pumps, swimming, blood flow, and surface waves, and on acceleration reaction…
I’ve been teaching physics applied to biology for decades. When working at the National Institutes of Health, I realized that most biologists don’t know physics. While I appreciate the complexity that evolution generates, I find the simplicity and generality of physics in explaining life to be amazing and captivating. When I taught biological physics to undergraduates at Oakland University, I strived to find elementary “toy” models that the students could analyze and that provided valuable insight. The books on this list all adopt a similar point of view: physics provides unity to the diversity of life.
Diffusion is rarely taught in physics classes, yet it’s so important for biology.
I love Howard Berg’s first sentence: “Biology is wet and dynamic.” Few authors can make mathematics so engaging and meaningful.
This book is one of those little books that have a big impact. Diffusion is most important at small scales, so get ready to enter the fascinating realm of swimming bacteria and ions moving across cell membranes.
This book is a lucid, straightforward introduction to the concepts and techniques of statistical physics that students of biology, biochemistry, and biophysics must know. It provides a sound basis for understanding random motions of molecules, subcellular particles, or cells, or of processes that depend on such motion or are markedly affected by it. Readers do not need to understand thermodynamics in order to acquire a knowledge of the physics involved in diffusion, sedimentation, electrophoresis, chromatography, and cell motility--subjects that become lively and immediate when the author discusses them in terms of random walks of individual particles.
I have taught undergraduate and PhD students physics and biophysics for 36 years, and I never get tired of it. I always look for hot new topics and everyday things that we all see but rarely notice as interesting. I also look for “how could anything like that possibly happen at all?”-type questions and the eureka moment when some idea from physics or math pries off the lid, making a seemingly insoluble problem easy. Finally, I look for the skills and frameworks that will open the most doors to students in their future work.
This book will help you develop your own good ideas because the author respects you too much to give a jumble of just-so stories wrapped in glib human interest. Instead, he explains, often with brilliant metaphors from everyday experience. I especially liked the chapters on embryos, organs, the microbiome, and scaling, which are particularly fresh, insightful, and beautifully clear.
Also, unlike so many popularizations, this one is full of graceful but precise illustrations that pull you in and actually clarify key points—not just eye candy. This book will help you have your own ideas by interconnecting physics and biology ideas that are hardly ever mentioned in the same breath.
A biophysicist reveals the hidden unity behind nature's breathtaking complexity
The form and function of a sprinting cheetah are quite unlike those of a rooted tree. A human being is very different from a bacterium or a zebra. The living world is a realm of dazzling variety, yet a shared set of physical principles shapes the forms and behaviors of every creature in it. So Simple a Beginning shows how the emerging new science of biophysics is transforming our understanding of life on Earth and enabling potentially lifesaving but controversial technologies such as gene editing, artificial organ growth, and ecosystem…
Everybody knows that all animals—bats, bears, sharks, ponies, and people—start out as a single cell: the fertilized egg. But how does something no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence give rise to the remarkable complexity of each of these creatures?
I’ve been teaching physics applied to biology for decades. When working at the National Institutes of Health, I realized that most biologists don’t know physics. While I appreciate the complexity that evolution generates, I find the simplicity and generality of physics in explaining life to be amazing and captivating. When I taught biological physics to undergraduates at Oakland University, I strived to find elementary “toy” models that the students could analyze and that provided valuable insight. The books on this list all adopt a similar point of view: physics provides unity to the diversity of life.
Philip Nelson is a giant in the field of biological physics. I’ve never seen anyone combine words, pictures, mathematical formulas, and computer code so seamlessly into physical models of living systems.
His book might not be as relaxing a read as some others—you really have to do the problems and assignments to get the most out of it—but I can think of no other text that will better teach you how to do science at the interface between physics and biology.
Award-winning prof brings you from first-year classes to the frontiers of systems and synthetic biology, epidemic modeling, and imaging. Physical Models of Living Systems is a university textbook that integrates those cutting-edge topics with classic results in statistical inference, control theory, biophysical chemistry and mechanobiology, immunology, and neuroscience, as well as guiding you to create your own stochastic simulations. Instead of offering a huge pile of facts, the discovery-style exposition frequently asks you to reflect on "How could anything like that happen at all?" and then shows how scientists have incrementally peeled back the layers of mystery surrounding these beautiful…
I spent the first decade of my journalistic career focused on calamity, malevolence, and suffering. By my early thirties, I wasn’t just struggling to feel happy about the world — I was struggling to feel anything at all. It was an encounter with awe — a visit to an aspen colony in central Utah that is the world’s largest known singular organism — that jarred me from this increasingly colorless world. As an author, teacher, researcher, and radio host, I strive to connect others with a sense of wonder — and I feel very fortunate that so many other science communicators continually leave me feeling awestruck for this amazing world.
Among the biggest frustrations in my life are the moments I call “commuter questions”. These are the sorts of ponderings that pop into my head when I’m making the 90-minute drive from my home to the university where I teach, and when — safe driver that I am — I can’t simply hop online to hunt for an answer. Inevitably, by the time I’ve found a parking spot on campus, the question has disappeared from my mind. But where do those questions go? Well, apparently, they somehow wind up in Bristol, England, where science writers Matin Durrani and Liz Kalaugher are based. In Furry Logic, Durrani and Kalaugher address in-and-out-of-your-head questions like “Can mosquitoes fly in a rainstorm?” and “How do eels generate electricity?” And the answers are delightful.
The animal world is full of mysteries. Why do dogs slurp from their drinking bowls while cats lap up water with a delicate flick of the tongue? How does a tiny turtle hatchling from Florida circle the entire northern Atlantic before returning to the very beach where it hatched? And how can a Komodo dragon kill a water buffalo with a bite only as strong as a domestic cat's?
These puzzles - and many more besides - are all explained by physics. From heat and light to electricity and magnetism, Furry Logic unveils the ways that more than 30 animals…
My undergraduate physics textbook asked, “What is an electric field? Is it something real, or is it merely a name for a factor in an equation which has to be multiplied by something else to give the numerical value of the force we measure in an experiment?” Here, I thought, is a good question! But the textbook said that since electromagnetic theory “works, it doesn’t make any difference" what an electric field is! Then it said, "That is not a frivolous answer, but a serious one.” I felt ashamed. But my physics teacher helpfully suggested that I “speak to the philosophers.” I am very pleased that I decided to become one!
When a world-class philosopher of physics is also a spectacularly gifted writer, you have the makings of an extraordinary book. This book offers a comprehensive introduction to various interpretations of quantum mechanics, while Maudlin's companion volume on the philosophy of space and time is equally highly recommended. Maudlin is a (very) opinionated guide, which makes these books even more valuable (and enjoyable to read). I especially enjoy Maudlin’s refusal to tolerate any of the nonsense that one often finds in quantum mechanics textbooks that depict the “Copenhagen interpretation” of quantum mechanics as indeed a genuine interpretation of quantum mechanics. Rather, as Maudlin forthrightly says, the “Copenhagen interpretation” amounts to a failure to offer any interpretation at all of quantum mechanics. Instead, it treats quantum mechanics merely as a device for predicting the chances of our making various observations.
A sophisticated and original introduction to the philosophy of quantum mechanics from one of the world's leading philosophers of physics
In this book, Tim Maudlin, one of the world's leading philosophers of physics, offers a sophisticated, original introduction to the philosophy of quantum mechanics. The briefest, clearest, and most refined account of his influential approach to the subject, the book will be invaluable to all students of philosophy and physics.
Quantum mechanics holds a unique place in the history of physics. It has produced the most accurate predictions of any scientific theory, but, more astonishing, there has never been any…
Citizen Scientist begins with this extraordinary statement by the Keeper of Entomology at the London Museum of Natural History, “Study any obscure insect for a week and you will then know more than anyone else on the planet.”
As the author chases the obscure Western red-bellied tiger beetle across New…
Fascination by the night sky as a young child led to an ambition to become an astronomer. This ambition took me to an honors degree in physics from the University of Sydney in Australia and later to a PhD in astronomy. Afterward, I joined Sydney Observatory, initially as one of four astronomers, and later, after the Observatory became part of a large museum, as Curator of Astronomy. During my 30 years working full-time at Sydney Observatory, I became intrigued by the history of astronomy. A manifestation of that interest was the 2011 book Transit of Venus: 1631 to the Present and, more recently, my book, listed below.
What I most enjoyed about the book was the description of the famous eclipse flight of Concorde 001 in 1973, a flight in which one of the authors had a senior role. As the track of a solar eclipse sweeps across the Earth, lucky watchers in the right place, at the right time, see totality for a maximum of a few minutes.
Somehow, French astronomers managed to obtain permission to use the prototype supersonic aircraft to attempt to keep up with the shadow of the Moon. The flight was a phenomenal success, allowing the scientists onboard to observe a phenomenal 74 minutes of totality. This record has not been equaled in the half-century since, nor is it likely to be equaled for a long time to come.
Lively and easy to understand, Total Eclipses presents the myths and legends associated with solar and lunar eclipses through the ages, the mechanisms governing these events, their beauty, and the wealth of information gleaned from them by astronomers and astrophysicists. "Gives a wide variety of information on observing eclipses for the novice as well as on the value of eclipses to professionals...any reader can find information at an interesting and appropriate level and can be sure that he is being guided knowledgeably." -NATURE
I got hooked on superheroes from a very early age. My mom grew up in the Golden Age of comics and loved superheroes. She'd bring home a random assortment of adventures—Batman, Iron Man, Flash, Avengers, Justice League, Iron Fist, Captain America. I was especially keen on the martial arts mayhem so many could bring to bear. That got me started (and I've never stopped since) in martial arts as a teen and took me into a career in science. I bring my own interest, my knowledge of martial arts, and my extensive career and training as a sensorimotor neuroscientist as I explore the science of human achievement through the lens of comic book superheroes.
I love learning cool and niche nerdy science stuff. James Kakalios unpacks fundamental physics and the fun of superheroes in a crazy solid read.
Trust me, you need to know how many cheeseburgers the Flash would need to eat in order for his metabolism to power his runs around the Earth. Why Gwen Stacy’s death wasn’t Spider-Man’s fault and more. Also how high Superman could really jump, how Iron Man's suit would really work and more.
C'mon. These are fundamental truths of modern civilization and they are all laid bare in this fun and engaging foray into physics!
A complete update to the hit book on the real physics at work in comic books, featuring more heroes, more villains, and more science
Since 2001, James Kakalios has taught "Everything I Needed to Know About Physics I Learned from Reading Comic Books," a hugely popular university course that generated coast-to-coast media attention for its unique method of explaining complex physics concepts through comics. With The Physics of Superheroes, named one of the best science books of 2005 by Discover, he introduced his colorful approach to an even wider audience. Now Kakalios presents a totally updated, expanded edition that features…
I am a philosopher of science who has an obsession with time. People think this interest is a case of patronymic destiny, that it’s due to my last name being Callender. But the origins of “Callender” have nothing to do with time. Instead, I’m fascinated by time because it is one of the last fundamental mysteries, right up there with consciousness. Like consciousness, time is connected to our place in the universe (our sense of freedom, identity, meaning). Yet we don’t really understand it because there remains a gulf between our experience of time and the science of time. Saint Augustine really put his finger on the problem in the fifth century when he pointed out that it is both the most familiar and unfamiliar thing.
I’ve never met Nahin but I recognize in him a kindred spirit of someone similarly obsessed with time. If you want to know about time travel, here it is in all its glory. The “tech notes” at the end show that this is a labor of love. Not only will you encounter some of the most fascinating physics (in the works of Godel, Novikov, Thorne, Tipler, and dozens more), but you’ll also learn about early science fiction, the threat of fatalism, the history of the idea that time is the fourth dimension, and more.
This book explores the idea of time travel from the first account in English literature to the latest theories of physicists such as Kip Thorne and Igor Novikov. This very readable work covers a variety of topics including: the history of time travel in fiction; the fundamental scientific concepts of time, spacetime, and the fourth dimension; the speculations of Einstein, Richard Feynman, Kurt Goedel, and others; time travel paradoxes, and much more.
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
I am a physics professor with a passion for teaching. When I was a graduate student, I took required courses in classical mechanics, classical electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics. Some of the textbooks assigned by my professors were good; some were not so good. In every case, it was extremely helpful to read what other authors had to say about these foundational subjects. Four of the five books I recommend below are my personal favorites among these serious physics books. My fifth book choice is less serious and does not teach physics, but it will improve your graduate student experience nonetheless.
I love this book! Of course, it teaches the mathematics of the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian approaches to classical mechanics. But its real uniqueness lies in how the author explains the basic concepts of the subject with a constant emphasis on intuitive physics. It was only after reading Lanczos that I finally understood what variational calculations were really about. Ditto for virtual work, non-holonomic constraints, Liouville’s theorem and Hamilton-Jacobi theory. I barely noticed that I was learning about the history and philosophy of classical mechanics at the same time.
Analytical mechanics is, of course, a topic of perennial interest and usefulness in physics and engineering, a discipline that boasts not only many practical applications, but much inherent mathematical beauty. Unlike many standard textbooks on advanced mechanics, however, this present text eschews a primarily technical and formalistic treatment in favor of a fundamental, historical, philosophical approach. As the author remarks, there is a tremendous treasure of philosophical meaning" behind the great theories of Euler and Lagrange, Hamilton, Jacobi, and other mathematical thinkers. Well-written, authoritative, and scholarly, this classic treatise begins with an introduction to the variational principles of mechanics including…
