Chaos by James Gleick

This isn't an easy subject. It was very fashionable 20 years ago for a couple of reasons. One was the Butterfly Effect idea: "Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?". The other was the beautiful fractal patterns that come from the theory. It is based on the discovery that science is far more complicated that we thought. We normally do experiments in which we control one variable, change another and measure a third. This leads to nice straight line graphs - LINEAR results where you double one thing and the other doubles too. In the real world, this doesn't often happen. Results are NON-LINEAR. If you double one thing, the other might get stupidly big.

Actually, Chaos Theory is badly named. It predicts things. It says that there are stable states. You know that staying still is pretty stable - things tend to stay like that unless knocked. The same applies to straight line, constant speed and also to regular orbital motion. Chaos Theory suggests that things can be stable by going round and round without ever repeating themselves. The weather is a good example. It goes round and round much the same for years at a time without ever quite repeating itself. This book takes you through the discovery of this branch of Physics.

Darwin for Beginners

This is another Biology book and another in my favourite cartoon book series. I read this in September. I thought I knew a lot about Darwin but discovered quite a bit that I didn't already know. I wasn't aware that he sat on his discoveries for so long. What I liked most is that the person who was most enthusiastic about his discoveries, T.E. Huxley, said "The idea of Evolution by Natural Selection is so obvious that I can't believe I didn't think of it myself." I've felt like that myself over some teaching ideas I've been shown this term!

HOW MUSIC WORKS by John Powell

In this book, John Powell sets out to explain the Physics of music. It deals a lot with ideas about waves. I just play guitar in a rock band. I'm self taught and know no music theory. This book made clear links between the Physics that I do know and the music theory that I don't know. You should read it.

THE WONDERS OF THE UNIVERSE by Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen

This is the book of the brilliant TV series.  The book is both easy and difficult to read.  I found it quite hard to try to read it from cover to cover because I'd seen the programmes anyway. But it is a brilliant book for dipping into.  SO IF YOU DON'T REALLY LIKE READING, THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU! There are lots of interesting details. My favourite thing was learning what a "geoid" was for the first time. So - a great book to borrow, dip into and bring back.

EINSTEIN FOR BEGINNERS

This is the book I used to learn Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It's back to my favourite cartoon book series. I used to own a copy but lent it to a girl called Rebecca in 1993.  I never saw it again.  But what stuck with me was the way in which Einstein did thought experiments to figure out what was going on.  I still teach about the way in which Einstein went about answering this question: if I am travelling at the speed of light, can I still see my reflection in a mirror that I am holding in front of my face?  This is the book that sorted it all out for me.  You should read it too!

THE DOUBLE HELIX by James Watson

This is almost the perfect science book.  OK, so it is clearly about Biology because it is about the discovery of the structure of DNA.  But a lot of what goes on looks like Chemistry to me.  And there is a lot of Physics involved. In fact, Watson and his fellow researcher, Francis Crick, worked in the Cambridge Physics labs. Crick WAS  a Physicist. The main tool for looking at molecules in those days was called X-ray diffraction - making X-rays spread out and interfere through the gaps between molecules and then working out what it meant. Sir Lawrence Bragg, who ran the laboratory, had won the Nobel Prize for Physics.  He has a Wigton connection - his father, the Nobel Prize for Physics winner William Bragg, was born in Westward, 5 miles from here.

The book is fast paced and easy to read. It is really more about the process of scientific research and the personalities involved. I read it in a week. It is brilliant. 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME by Stephen Hawking

Everyone knows who Stephen Hawking is, but this is the book that made him famous. It was the best selling book in the UK 25 years ago - a first for a book about Physics. The book is the story of the Universe from the beginning of time up to the present - yes, there was a start to time, and therefore, before that, there was no time at all. It's OK to get part way in and not finish it. That happens to most people. I've never got all the way through because I keep going off to research areas from it that have inspired me. Maybe it's a Sixth Form book, but there's no harm in reading Sixth Form books when you are younger - that's how I developed my thinking in Year 9!

THE SELFISH GENE by Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is one of the most controversial and brilliant scientists in the country. He is controversial because he argues strongly against religion. I am a religious man and yet I find his science both brilliant and compelling. You really should read this, the most famous of his books. He explains that we are basically machines created by our genes to make sure that they are copied into future generations. It is Darwinism on a genetic scale. OK, so his views have developed a bit since this early book, but if you want a brilliant summary of how life works from a scientific point of view, this is it!

WHY DOES E=MCsquared? by Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw

Yes, that's right.  It is the Brian Cox who is all over BBC doing Physics programmes.  He knows what he's talking about. 

I really enjoyed this book.  It explains a lot about Albert Einstein's famous theory of Relativity.  When you travel much faster, close to the speed of light, time starts to stretch like elastic so that if someone were watching you, they would think that your seconds lasted much longer than theirs.  Also distance start to shrink, and things start to get heavier

It's not a cartoon book but I found it quite readable and it explained things so well that it improved my own understanding.

So go on!  You really should read it!

HAWKING FOR BEGINNERS

I cannot praise the "For Beginners" series highly enough.  They are set out like cartoon books, so they are easy to read, but the cartoons are there to space out the text.  You can rip through something that would be deadly dull otherwise.  Try this one for starters:

 

So everyone knows Stephen Hawking.  He does Physics.  People say he's the cleverest man in the world.  He was at the Paralympics opening ceremony.  He talks through a computer.  He's been on The Simpsons.  But do you know what theory he is famous for?  And if you do, do you understand it?  This book takes you though some of Einstein's theory of General Relativity to the discovery of black holes and then Hawking's reasons for believing that they can evaporate.  It also tells some of the story of Hawking's life.

 

Borrow it from the school library and read it.  I dare you.

The Language of the Genes by Steve Jones

Borrow this book from the school library!  Perhaps it's odd for a Physics teacher to start with a Biology book, but, honestly, you'll really like it!

Steve Jones is a famous Biology professor.  Evolutionary genetics is his specialist subject.  This book was written 20 years ago.  The first bit is a little out of date - as he predicts, the human genome was mapped.  But I was captivated by the rest of the book.  It is an account of the evolution of the human species. I was amazed by ideas such as that which suggests that all Europeans are decended from just 4 females.  I'm after an update on this research now.

 

Borrow the book.  Try it.  If you don't like it, just take it back.  What have you got to lose?