Math and Physics Textbooks for fun reading

I am a bit biased on this since I am a grad. student in Mathematics, but even amongst my graduate peers, I find that I enjoy reading Math and Physics texts way more than the average person in my department. Unfortunately, that has NOT correlated to me excelling over them academically! It doesn't matter, though, I just love to read whatever texts I can get my hands on.

So who else likes leisurely reading math/physics/science textbooks? It is like a totally different breed of book. It is like comparing how to read a newspaper to how to read a novel. Very different, but both fun.

I found that in my junior year of undergrad., I would go into the university library and pick out random textbooks on material that seemed interesting but not of which I was taking as a course at the time. I also spent a year of essentially doing nothing between the Spring I graduated and the summer of the next year, so I really got interested in reading textbooks.

My favorite ones have no pictures, lots of crazy notation to decipher (my version of doing a Sudoko), and generally concise (like 200 or less pages).

I am really happy now, since at my grad. program, I recently have been given access to the database of Springer Publishing (the most famous math and science publisher these days) e-books. It took awhile to get used to e-books, but I use an iPad, so it is easy on the eyes, and saves paper!


Sorry to ramble, but I thought I'd see who else likes textbooks.

 

I also think it is fun. My husband is also a very keen reader of this kind of books. We have never run out of interesting subjects to discuss. I'd say only 1% of what he reads is fiction.

We also have a common interest on statistics.

 

I've never read a math/physics text book for fun... but I did enjoy Godel, Escher, Bach... that was quite a read... educational, yet surprisingly entertaining. Love the turtle... Mr. T!

 

I have read a few text books math , phy. , sci. refergation books , auto repair manuals , ect. I just cant see them as fun to read . If they get you off its ok with me .

 

Programming related books. Pure math/phys not so much, but if I can join programming and science to make something awesome, then I'm happy.

Recently reading about artificial neural networks.

 

The Feynman Lectures.

 

i love reading science books. and i have too many on my to-read list. Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by Griffiths, Quantum Physics by Eisberg and Resnick, The Feynman Lectures, Principles of Neurobiology (Liqun Luo), Aircraft Structures for Engineering Students, The Hippocampus Book (Andersen et al).....these are only a few giants on my list of books i want to read immediately.

 

I enjoy reading academic books. I have this book, "Hacker's Delight" by Henry S. Warren, Jr. Fascinating book, and I'll admit a lot of it goes way over my head, hardcore computer science stuff. I highly recommend it though, lots of cool optimization techniques and hacks using somewhat non-intuitive mathematics to squeeze every last bit of efficiency out of your code. Don't be scared of the math in here though, math is good for you

 

I always got into reading scientific articles/books/research much more so than fiction.


BUT................................

Whatever happened to etkearne??
was nice having someone around here that actually knew what they were talking about with pharmacology and drugs

I know he was fighting his own battles, hope addiction didn't win