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1 Einstein鈥檚 Dice and Schr枚dinger鈥檚 Cat: How two great minds battled quantum randomness to create a unified theory of physics, Paul Halpern, Basic Books
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In the centenary of general relativity, Albert Einstein and Erwin Schr枚dinger are celebrated in a book framing the contributions of both: Einstein for his theories of relativity, the photoelectric effect and his explanation of Brownian motion; Schr枚dinger for his wave equations explaining quantum objects鈥� behaviour. Unusually, Paul Halpern also looks at their post-glory days, when the two spent longer on fruitless attempts to unify quantum physics and relativity than on their breakthroughs.
2 Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rovelli, Allen Lane
Feeling daunted by even attempting to scale Mount Einstein? This Italian bestseller, now translated into English, may be for you. Physicist Carlo Rovelli pulls off the trick of vividly capturing everything from elementary particles to dark matter in 78 pages. It鈥檚 not just for novices: there are also heady pages on loop quantum gravity.
3 The Vital Question: Why is life the way it is?, Nick Lane, Profile
No physics envy here, just biology vast in scope and ambition, brimming with bold ideas and questions. They don鈥檛 get much bigger than these: why did complex cells evolve just the once, how did life first evolve, what would life be like on other planets, why do we age? This is incredible, epic stuff, beautifully done and likely to transform the way we look at the world.
4 How to Clone a Mammoth: The science of de-extinction, Beth Shapiro, Princeton University Press
This is big biology too, but big in the most literal sense. Beth Shapiro鈥檚 鈥渉ow-to鈥� manual couldn鈥檛 be more timely given the news that mammoth genes were cloned in living elephant cells earlier this year. She lobs a few ethical grenades too: where will the new beasts live? Why do it at all? That鈥檚 easy 鈥� everyone loves mammoths and the idea of de-extinction.
鈥淲hy clone mammoths at all? That鈥檚 easy 鈥� everyone loves mammoths and the idea of de-extinction鈥�
5 Beyond Words: What animals think and feel, Carl Safina, Henry Holt
If you like your animals living rather than re-created, then Beyond Words challenges you to rethink how we relate to Earth鈥檚 other creatures. It is a fresh report from the field, detailing what animals do, how they are studied in the wild, and what it 鈥渇eels鈥� like to be them. This is essential reading for a deeper understanding of life and cognition on Earth.
6 The Man Who Wasn鈥檛 There: Investigations into the strange new science of the self, Anil Ananthaswamy, Dutton
Some people think that they are dead, others that their limbs are alien, and still others that they have a doppelg盲nger. This world is far from the one in which we sit comfortably within our bodies, taking a sense of self for granted. Anil Ananthaswamy, a consultant for New 杏吧原创, looks at how a brain trying to make predictive sense of conflicting internal and external signals tells us a lot about 鈥渕aladies of the self鈥�. An excellent if unnerving book: 鈥測ou鈥� turn out to be more fluid than 鈥測ou鈥� thought.
7 How to See the World, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Pelican
In our fluid world, we need reminding how strange our visual culture has become. Artist John Berger did that job for the 1970s with his classic book Ways of Seeing; now Nicholas Mirzoeff teaches us how to 鈥渞ead鈥� an astronaut鈥檚 2012 space-walk selfie 鈥� and how to decode military photos smothered with labels that claim to show weapons we cannot in fact see.
8 The Future of the Professions: How technology will transform the work of human experts, Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind, Oxford University Press
The latest in a slew of accounts of an automated future, in which machine learning algorithms stalk the land, human values are optional and Big Data has replaced Big Brother. The Susskinds, a father and son team, take on the 鈥渢ransformation鈥� of the professions. What they see is doctors, teachers and lawyers becoming guides-on-the-side rather than sages-on-the-stage. But they would prefer a type of commons where our collective knowledge and experience 鈥渋s nurtured and shared without commercial gain鈥�.
9 The Age of Sustainable Development, Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University Press
With the Paris climate talks a few hours away, it鈥檚 worth remembering the clear agenda laid out by guru of sustainable development, Jeffrey Sachs. For him, it combines managing the planet so as not to destroy it for our children and understanding the world as a 鈥渃omplex interaction of economic, social, environmental and political systems鈥�, with an ethical view that ensures the well-being of its citizens. Optimistic 鈥� heroic even 鈥� but will it be enough?
10 Mixed Messages: Cultural and genetic inheritance in the constitution of human society, Robert A. Paul, University of Chicago Press
Most of the time our genes and culture both work to enhance our survival, but in this riveting book Robert Paul argues that our genetic and cultural inheritances are often in conflict. His exploration takes us from the Mbaya people of South America to the fundamentalist Shaker people in the US to Japan鈥檚 kamikaze pilots. Who are we really? Robots controlled by our genes or robots of our cultures? Read this book to find out.
11 Scientific Babel: The language of science from the fall of Latin to the rise of English, Michael Gordin, Profile Books
English is the universal language of science 鈥� but it wasn鈥檛 always so. Latin, German, French, Russian, Esperanto and Ido all crashed out along the way. But as Michael Gordin discovers in his excellent exploration into what drives the languages science uses, there was nothing innately superior about English, no one reason for its dominance. Will its domination continue?
12 Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the reinvention of seeing, Laura J. Snyder, W. W. Norton
Two 17th-century giants, scientist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and artist Johannes Vermeer, are the subjects of Laura J. Snyder鈥檚 enthralling joint biography. This is the story of how both were fascinated with visual perception, 鈥渆mploying optical instruments as 鈥榓rtificial eyes鈥� to supplement the natural organs鈥� 鈥� Van Leeuwenhoek building 500 single-lens microscopes that could magnify objects 450-fold, Vermeer using observation through lenses to craft his paintings 鈥� and how both transformed the way we perceive the world.
(Image: Adam Hirons/Millennium Images, UK)
Like this? Read about the best books, films and art of 2015 as picked by the staff at New 杏吧原创