3 Science Books That Can Change Your Perspective Towards Life
Books that you must read as a science enthusiast
Book stories are not a new topic in my blogs. I’ve been writing about books and recommending books for the past couple of years now. I have been an avid reader myself ever since I was a kid. My father bought me a science encyclopedia when I was around 10 and since then I get fascinated by science and scientific literature. I’ve written several articles on books and book recommendations that are particularly associated with physics and mathematics. In this article, however, I shall be sharing three popular science books that I’ve read which have changed how I think about life and the world in general. Books are a great source of knowledge and information and I always wish I had known the importance of reading books and developed this habit of reading books from the earlier days of my school. Please be noted that these are my recommendations based on what I have experienced and learned.
Mindset by Dr. Carol S. Dweck
I read this book recently during the end of 2021. First published in 2006, Mindset — Updated Edition: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential is a gem in itself written by one of the world’s leading experts in social psychology and personality development, Dr. Carol Dweck. The book contains a total of eight chapters with different sub-sections in each chapter that talks about a wide range of psychological, social, and emotional aspects of an individual. Dr. Dweck beautifully focuses upon the importance of having a growth mindset in one’s life and how important it is to keep one in order to grow personally, socially, and professionally, and achieve success in every area of life. The author compares a growth mindset with a fixed one and showcases the respective consequences with so much clarity, wit, and wisdom. This is not an ordinary self-help book, but a masterpiece that is backed up by years of research, psychological analysis and social experiments, that you can read and literally apply in your life to experience the changes in how you think about yourself and the world. Highly recommended. Dr. Dweck gives a beautiful lesson about parenting in the book:
“If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise. They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence.”
The God Delusion by Dr. Richard Dawkins
I might get a lot of hatred for recommending this book but trust me you won’t regret reading it even if you come from a religious background. I’ve read The God Delusion multiple times. I was in twelfth standard when I was gifted this book by a friend and I remember engrossing myself into it every minute of my days. The book was first published in 2006 and is written by one of my favorite scientists, evolutionary biologist, and prolific author Dr. Richard Dawkins.
The book contains a total of 10 chapters each of which is an argument against religious irrationality debunks the myths about theism and atheism with mind-bending arguments for and against different types of gods and religions. I come from an extremely religious and traditional Hindu background myself and I had so many questions and arguments about the existence of God. The book, brilliantly, answered several of my questions. The book is passionately argued and the author has been extremely straightforward to make it as informative, and splendidly beautiful as possible. Dawkins, p. 31 of the hardcover edition and p. 51 of the paperback edition, states
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
Genius by James Gleick
“In the discovery of secret things and in the investigation of hidden causes, stronger reasons are obtained from sure experiments and demonstrated arguments than from probable conjectures and the opinions of philosophical speculators of the common sort.”
— James Gleick, Genius
This book literally gave me a headache when I first read it. It beautifully portrays the life and science of theoretical physicist Richard Feynman. Now, those of you reading this article must probably already know that I have been a great fan of Dr. Feynman and his quirky and amusing perspective towards life. Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman was first published in 1992 and is written by prolific biographer and science historian James Gleick. The book does a brilliant job in describing the life of the physicist from Far Rockaway to Caltech. It was this book that increased my interest in Richard Feynman and inspired me, in many ways, to start the ProfFeynman blog on Twitter. Feynman’s way of living, his methods to simplify things, see the world from a different perspective, are some great lessons to take away from this masterpiece. It teaches you that life doesn’t have to be complicated and that it is us who complicate it at many instances. It teaches us to study hard and work hard and enjoy our learning. Highly recommend this book to all the science fanatics out there.
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