Summer reading
Since it is summer I like to suggest a little light summer reading. In class today I mentioned two books that are relevant to the evolution section.The first was Bill Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything. This is also on the Berkeley Summer Reading List - Books for Future Presidents. This book covers a suprising amount of the material we cover in the evolution section and a little of the material in the ecology section. Being a mass market book it is a tremendous deal at only a little over $10 for the paperback version.
The second book is a little more obscure and is recommended for fans of the graphic novel. Jay Hosler is both a biologist and a talented cartoonist. The Sandwalk Adventures is the story of a conversation about evolution between Charles Darwin and a follicle mite named Mara living in his left eyebrow. If that sounds a bit wacky, it is, but the book is very clear and you'll learn a lot about both Darwin and evolution. You can read about his books and order them, if you are so inspired, at his website. If anyone asks me really nicely and promises to give it back I'll lend you my copy.
Labels: Evolution
posted by John Latto @ 10:06 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
If you haven't already lent it out, may I please borrow your copy of Sandwalk Adventures? I promise to take good care of it and give it back!
Sure, I'll try to remember to bring it to class on Monday. Ask me for it afterwards.
i'm reading the short history of nearly everything right now, and so far it's been an amazingly interesting story!
I must say that Bryson really spent a lot of time on that book...
By the way, he claims that aliens can't be getting to earth because it would take them hundreds of years, but what if they have way advanced spacecrafts?
This is a really interesting question. Just because we can't invent something doesn't mean it can't be invented. However Einstein's theory of special relativity would seem to present some particular problems for faster than light travel. So it may be prevented by the laws of physics rather than any lack of human ingenuity. Assuming, that is, that the laws of physics we have so far deduced apply throughout the universe. There appear to be only a limited number of ways to justify Faster-Than-Light travel. As usual Wikipedia has a good summary of some of the problems and lists seven different options for obtaining faster than light behavior. These range from the intriguing (become faster without acceleration) to the ever popular 'warping' of space-time.
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