100 books like Measurement Across the Sciences

By Luca Mari, Mark Wilson, Andrew Maul

Here are 100 books that Measurement Across the Sciences fans have personally recommended if you like Measurement Across the Sciences. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants

Alessandro Ferrero Author Of Forensic Metrology: An Introduction to the Fundamentals of Metrology for Judges, Lawyers and Forensic Scientists

From my list on why good measurements can change your life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve worked in the field of metrology for over 40 years, and I love this field of science. During these many years, I realized that instruments have become an often invisible but always present part of our lives and, if we learn to use them correctly, they can improve our lives, while, on the contrary, if we trust them more than we should, they can easily ruin our lives. For this reason, I like to explore also the philosophical implications of metrology and how it can help justice to render fair decisions and I love to share my passion with other people.

Alessandro's book list on why good measurements can change your life

Alessandro Ferrero Why did Alessandro love this book?

When I introduce measurements to my students, I talk about “an exciting adventure across centuries.” I love this book because it tells the long history of measurement, starting from prehistory and arriving at our days as if it were a true, fantastic adventure humankind has lived since the beginning of its existence.

This is not a technical book, nor a book of history, in a strict sense. It is written by a journalist as an adventure novel, telling the story of a fantastic journey across generations to build our present knowledge.

I read it as a novel, eager to discover the next adventure, always discovering players and facts I ignored. 

By James Vincent,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Beyond Measure as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the cubit to the kilogram, the humble inch to the speed of light, measurement is a powerful tool that humans invented to make sense of the world. In this revelatory work of science and social history, James Vincent dives into its hidden world, taking readers from ancient Egypt, where measuring the annual depth of the Nile was an essential task, to the intellectual origins of the metric system in the French Revolution, and from the surprisingly animated rivalry between metric and imperial, to our current age of the "quantified self." At every turn, Vincent is keenly attuned to the…


Book cover of The Story of Electrical and Magnetic Measurements: From 500 BC to the 1940s

Alessandro Ferrero Author Of Forensic Metrology: An Introduction to the Fundamentals of Metrology for Judges, Lawyers and Forensic Scientists

From my list on why good measurements can change your life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve worked in the field of metrology for over 40 years, and I love this field of science. During these many years, I realized that instruments have become an often invisible but always present part of our lives and, if we learn to use them correctly, they can improve our lives, while, on the contrary, if we trust them more than we should, they can easily ruin our lives. For this reason, I like to explore also the philosophical implications of metrology and how it can help justice to render fair decisions and I love to share my passion with other people.

Alessandro's book list on why good measurements can change your life

Alessandro Ferrero Why did Alessandro love this book?

Joseph Keithley is known as the founder of Keithley Instruments, Inc., one of the most renowned manufacturers of measuring instruments. This book reveals him as a brilliant writer, and I love how it carries the readers away by disclosing facts that are mostly unknown.

Electromagnetism is thought to be a recent discovery that has dramatically changed our lives. We use electrical equipment in every moment, but we ignore that the first experiments with electricity go back to 5 centuries BC and that without good instruments, electromagnetism could have never developed.

I love how this book digs into the pioneering work of our ancestors and, above all, the 19th and 20th-century scientists who built instruments that are as much artworks as technical tools. 

By Joseph F. Keithley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Story of Electrical and Magnetic Measurements as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Joseph F. Keithley, a modern pioneer of instrumentation, brings you a fascinating history of electrical measurement from the ancient Greeks to the inventors of the early twentieth century. Written in a direct and fluent style, the book illuminates the lives of the most significant inventors in the field, including George Simon Ohm, Andre Marie Ampere, and Jean Baptiste Fourier. Chapter by chapter, meet the inventors in their youth and discover the origins of their lifelong pursuits of electrical measurement. Not only will you find highlights of important technological contributions, you will also learn about the tribulations and excitement that accompany…


Book cover of Modern Measurements: Fundamentals and Applications

Alessandro Ferrero Author Of Forensic Metrology: An Introduction to the Fundamentals of Metrology for Judges, Lawyers and Forensic Scientists

From my list on why good measurements can change your life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve worked in the field of metrology for over 40 years, and I love this field of science. During these many years, I realized that instruments have become an often invisible but always present part of our lives and, if we learn to use them correctly, they can improve our lives, while, on the contrary, if we trust them more than we should, they can easily ruin our lives. For this reason, I like to explore also the philosophical implications of metrology and how it can help justice to render fair decisions and I love to share my passion with other people.

Alessandro's book list on why good measurements can change your life

Alessandro Ferrero Why did Alessandro love this book?

This book is a collection of contributions from different authors on modern measurements, and I love it because it covers the basis of a very technical subject in a rather simple way so that non-specialists can also find a comprehensible answer to their curiosity on instruments, such as multimeters and oscilloscopes, they have probably seen many times without really knowing why they were used.

I also love the way the explained fundamental concepts are applied to real-life applications that have a significant impact on our lives: by reading this book, for instance, I could understand how the reliability of devices we normally use, from our washing machine to our cars, is measured.

By Alessandro Ferrero (editor), Dario Petri (editor), Paolo Carbone (editor) , Marcantonio Catelani (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Modern Measurements as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book is a collection of chapters linked together by a logical framework aimed at exploring the modern role of the measurement science in both the technically most advanced applications and in everyday life

Provides a unique methodological approach to understanding modern measurements Important methods and devices are presented in a synthetic and easy-to-understand way Includes end-of-chapter exercises and solutions


Book cover of The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves

Daniel M. Gerstein Author Of Tech Wars: Transforming U.S. Technology Development

From my list on understanding current tech war future of humanity.

Why am I passionate about this?

Everyone uses technology, but few stop to think about where these technologies come from and what this trajectory means to humanity. During my professional career, I have dedicated myself to public service focused on security and defense as a U.S. Army officer, senior government civilian, and in think tanks, industry, and academia. My journey has taken me to over 60 countries where I have witnessed humankind's best and worst. The difference is often in how our technologies are used—to build cities, feed populations, and develop life-saving vaccines or to oppress peoples or as tools of war. 

Daniel's book list on understanding current tech war future of humanity

Daniel M. Gerstein Why did Daniel love this book?

I had never thought much about what technology was and where it came from before reading this book. This book opened my eyes and made me understand the history of humanity and the history of technology are one and the same.

The book vividly describes the theory of technology’s origin and evolution. In doing so, the author reminds us that technology creates our world, which in turn creates our wealth, our economy, and our way of being.

By W. Brian Arthur,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Nature of Technology as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“More than anything else technology creates our world. It creates our wealth, our economy, our very way of being,” says W. Brian Arthur. Yet despite technology’s irrefutable importance in our daily lives, until now its major questions have gone unanswered. Where do new technologies come from? What constitutes innovation, and how is it achieved? Does technology, like biological life, evolve? In this groundbreaking work, pioneering technology thinker and economist W. Brian Arthur answers these questions and more, setting forth a boldly original way of thinking about technology.

The Nature of Technology is an elegant and powerful theory of technology’s origins…


Book cover of The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

Wyman Wicket Author Of 23 Skiddoo: Way Back Beyond Across the Stars

From my list on magical realism for metapolitical non-fiction fans.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a free man of flesh-and-blood I trust in time-tested verities and traditions; as a spiritual entity I am a man of faith; and as a thinking being I explore in my writing the malleability of consciousness and reality. Through a broad range of experiences I offer images for the minds of readers in novels of a twisted magical realism. I seek the mysteries of God, the beauty of poetry, and the freedom to explore all and everything. I am an American State National who critiques modern society, culture, and politics as an independent scholar who will not be silenced. Awaken, oh human beans, from normative conditioning and screen-gazing complacency!

Wyman's book list on magical realism for metapolitical non-fiction fans

Wyman Wicket Why did Wyman love this book?

An open mind and creative imagination are needed to explore reality. In making sense of the most significant science fiction writer of the 20th century, Philip K. Dick, we might refer to the dying words of his Berkeley buddy, Jack Spicer: “My vocabulary did this to me.” Like a Zen stone mason in a hall of mirrors, Dick often seems to depart from the most inscrutable of semantic pebbles. Exegesis offers us a lexical labyrinth infused with the most profound heuristic paranoia, to yield a vast shifting matrix of uncountable speculative origins. Anyone who reads this book and does not write at least one of their own, even as a prophylactic, is indeed “duller than the fattest weed on the wharf of Lethe.” (Paraphrased from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5)

By Philip K. Dick, Pamela Jackson (editor), Jonathan Lethem (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Based on thousands of pages of typed and handwritten notes, journal entries, letters, and story sketches, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick is the magnificent and imaginative final work of an author who dedicated his life to questioning the nature of reality and perception, the malleability of space and time, and the relationship between the human and the divine.

Edited and introduced by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem, this will be the definitive presentation of Dick's brilliant, and epic, final work. In The Exegesis, Dick documents his eight-year attempt to fathom what he called "2-3-74", a postmodern visionary experience of…


Book cover of We Have Never Been Modern

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm Author Of The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences

From my list on to shatter the myth of modernity.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an award-winning historian and philosopher of the human sciences. But I got here by means of an unusually varied path: working for a private investigator, practicing in a Buddhist monastery, being shot at, hiking a volcano off the coast of Africa, being jumped by a gang in Amsterdam, snowboarding in the Pyrenees, piloting a boat down the canals of Bourgogne, playing bass guitar in a punk band, and once I almost died from scarlet fever. Throughout my journey, I have lived and studied in five countries, acquired ten languages, and attended renowned universities (Oxford, Harvard, and Stanford), all while seeking ways to make the world a better place.

Jason's book list on to shatter the myth of modernity

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm Why did Jason love this book?

The late French philosopher Bruno Latour was infamous for his iconoclastic work in the history and sociology of science and technology.

If you read only one of his books, I’d say go for We Have Never Been Modern because it cuts to the heart of things by disrupting the conventional understanding of modernity as a clear separation between nature and culture. Latour argues that even as “moderns” have been rhetorically invested in this particular bifurcation of the world, nature-culture hybrids are continually proliferating.

So if you’ve ever asked yourself, why are cities not considered natural landscapes? Or why are animals always presumed to be without culture? Or what does it even mean to be modern? Then this is the book for you.

By Bruno Latour, Catherine Porter (translator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked We Have Never Been Modern as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With the rise of science, we moderns believe, the world changed irrevocably, separating us forever from our primitive, premodern ancestors. But if we were to let go of this fond conviction, Bruno Latour asks, what would the world look like? His book, an anthropology of science, shows us how much of modernity is actually a matter of faith.

What does it mean to be modern? What difference does the scientific method make? The difference, Latour explains, is in our careful distinctions between nature and society, between human and thing, distinctions that our benighted ancestors, in their world of alchemy, astrology,…


Book cover of Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy

Matt Zandstra Author Of PHP 8 Objects, Patterns, and Practice: Mastering OO Enhancements, Design Patterns, and Essential Development Tools

From my list on non-fiction that turn their topics upside down.

Why am I passionate about this?

Software developers love to question the assumptions that underpin their practice. Some of the most exciting phases of my career have come about as a result of such questions. Often they are revolutionary in the literal sense that they ask you to turn your thinking upside down – to design systems from the bottom up rather than the top down, for example, or to write your tests before your components. I may not adopt every practice, but each challenge enriches the conceptual world in which I work. Over the years, I have come to look for similar shifts and inversions across other subject areas. Here are some recommendations from my reading.

Matt's book list on non-fiction that turn their topics upside down

Matt Zandstra Why did Matt love this book?

In between other projects, I have been conducting research for a non-fiction book about the particular kinds of parallel universe that every story world creates. And that's how I came across Reality+.

The question as to whether we are living in a simulation is beloved of moviegoers, stoners, and undergraduates (quite a large intersection in that Venn diagram). It's also worthy of serious philosophical and scientific inquiry. David J Chalmers is a philosopher, and his book treats the question with entertaining rigour.

The book goes beyond the simulation hypothesis, though, to examine the philosophical implications of our inevitable colonisation of the virtual realm. At the heart of Chalmers' argument is a rejection of the opposition between the real and the simulated.

Lived experience, Chalmers claims, is real experience, as freighted with value and possibility in the virtual world as it is out here in the probably real, possibly simulated universe.

By David J. Chalmers,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Reality+ as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Virtual reality is genuine reality; that's the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of "technophilosophy," David J. Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already.

Along the way, Chalmers conducts a grand tour of big ideas in philosophy and science. He uses virtual reality technology to offer a new perspective on long-established philosophical questions. How do we know that there's an external world? Is there a god?…


Book cover of Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine

Martin Erwig Author Of Once Upon an Algorithm: How Stories Explain Computing

From my list on computer science without coding.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a professor of computer science at Oregon State University. My research focus is on programming languages, but I also work on computer science education and outreach. I grew up in Germany and moved to the United States in 2000. Since computer science is a fairly new and not widely understood discipline, I am interested in explaining its core ideas to the general public. I believe that in order to attract a more diverse set of people to the field we should emphasize that coding is only a small part of computer science.

Martin's book list on computer science without coding

Martin Erwig Why did Martin love this book?

This book is about the design of artifacts that are used by humans. It discusses, in particular, how specific features of cognitive artifacts can support or impede their effective use. The physical artifacts discussed in this book provide concrete illustrations for some abstract computer science notions such as types. I have used some of the examples successfully in talks about computer science for the general audience. A focus of this book is on representations, which plays an important role in many areas of computer science. If you enjoy the examples discussed in this book and like to think about representations, then you are thinking like a computer scientist. 

By Donald A. Norman, Tamara Dunaeff,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Things That Make Us Smart as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Things That Make Us Smart, Donald A. Norman explores the complex interaction between human thought and the technology it creates, arguing for the development of machines that fit our minds, rather than minds that must conform to the machine.Humans have always worked with objects to extend our cognitive powers, from counting on our fingers to designing massive supercomputers. But advanced technology does more than merely assist with thought and memory,the machines we create begin to shape how we think and, at times, even what we value. Norman, in exploring this complex relationship between humans and machines, gives us the…


Book cover of Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech

Gabriella Rosen Kellerman Author Of Tomorrowmind: Thriving at Work with Resilience, Creativity, and Connection—Now and in an Uncertain Future

From my list on how work is changing and what it means for workers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve devoted my career to helping people achieve their potential and improve their wellbeing. One of the greatest challenges we’re all facing today is the highly unnatural world of work in which we all must perform. I’ve been fortunate both to lead large teams in this environment and to guide the Fortune 1000 on how to help their people thrive in its midst. Achieving sustainable peak performance requires that we understand what we are up against. This book list is a great place to start!

Gabriella's book list on how work is changing and what it means for workers

Gabriella Rosen Kellerman Why did Gabriella love this book?

Future Politics takes the conversation to the societal level, looking at how technology will change the fabric of our communities. Susskind brings an expert eye to a sweeping body of knowledge and resists simple narratives. This book is dense, but worth the effort for those looking to understand the dynamics that will shape society as we know it, for better and for worse.

Susskind is a scholar of history and politics and brings that love of fundamental political questions to this work. I enjoy how he anchors modern questions about the implications of technology for freedom, for example, in much older debates about freedom and the State.

By Jamie Susskind,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Future Politics as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Politics in the Twentieth Century was dominated by a single question: how much of our collective life should be determined by the state, and what should be left to the market and civil society?

Now the debate is different: to what extent should our lives be directed and controlled by powerful digital systems - and on what terms?

Digital technologies - from artificial intelligence to blockchain, from robotics to virtual reality - are transforming the way we live together. Those who control the most powerful technologies are increasingly able to control the rest of us. As time goes on, these…


Book cover of The Age of AI: And Our Human Future

Donald Firesmith Author Of A Cauldron of Uncanny Dreams

From my list on future world of ai and robots.

Why am I passionate about this?

I spent over forty years developing complex, software-intensive systems, and the Association of Computing Machinery honored me with the title of distinguished engineer. AI and robotics have been my main technical focus for the last 5 years. For the last couple of years, I have been binge-watching videos on advances in AI and robotics and binge-reading books on the topic. I am also a multi-award-winning author of science fiction novels and short stories. Most of the short stories in my coming book involve AI and robots.

Donald's book list on future world of ai and robots

Donald Firesmith Why did Donald love this book?

I loved this book because it provides a unique view of the ramifications of AI, including its impact on politics, international relations, and the military. While not a book one would use to learn the basics of the technology of artificial intelligence, it nevertheless provides a useful view of its important non-technical ramifications.

By Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Daniel Huttenlocher

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Age of AI as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Three of the world’s most accomplished and deep thinkers come together to explore Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the way it is transforming human society—and what this technology means for us all.

An AI learned to win chess by making moves human grand masters had never conceived. Another AI discovered a new antibiotic by analyzing molecular properties human scientists did not understand. Now, AI-powered jets are defeating experienced human pilots in simulated dogfights. AI is coming online in searching, streaming, medicine, education, and many other fields and, in so doing, transforming how humans are experiencing reality.

In The Age of AI,…


Book cover of Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants
Book cover of The Story of Electrical and Magnetic Measurements: From 500 BC to the 1940s
Book cover of Modern Measurements: Fundamentals and Applications

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