Best Science Education for Kids
This fully up-to-date edition of Basic Physics: * Has been tested, rewritten, and retested to ensure that you can teach yourself all about physics. * Requires no math--mathematical treatments and applications are included in optional sections so that you can choose either a mathematical or nonmathematical approach. * Lets you work at your own pace with a helpful question-and-answer format. * Lists objectives for each chapter--you can skip ahead or find extra help if you need it. * Reinforces what you learn with end-of-chapter self-tests.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I bought it expecting a simple "Physics for Dummies" type of approach, but what I found was a detailed breakdown of physics, chemistry, electricity, and a handful of other fascinating subjects that are all directly connected to Physics. My favorite part is that each section includes a "Prerequisites" list, which is just a list of other sections in the book you should read first. This isn't an academic book that just throws information at you non-stop."
"I tried to understand a few things on Wikipedia about laws of nature that use principles of physics; having never studied calculus or physics."
"Great book it has what I have learn it high school."
"Great price, book was in excellent shape!"
"For the price you just cant beat it, does fine at the price point."
"I always wanted to understand a little about physics, so this was my. chance."
"Just the book needed for this course and I would thoroughly recommend it."
He guides us through his discoveries, showing how communication can be improved through learning to relate to the other person: listening with our eyes, looking for clues in another’s face, using the power of a compelling story, avoiding jargon, and reading another person so well that you become “in sync” with them, and know what they are thinking and feeling—especially when you’re talking about the hard stuff. Exploring empathy-boosting games and exercises, If I Understood You is a funny, thought-provoking guide that can be used by all of us, in every aspect of our lives—with our friends, lovers, and families, with our doctors, in business settings, and beyond. And that is who will find his book invaluable: everyone.” —Deborah Tannen, #1 New York Times bestselling author of You’re the Only One I Can Tell and You Just Don’t Understand “Alda’s curiosity, intelligence and desire to wipe out baffled and bewildered faces make a compelling case for clarity, communication and, always, empathy.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Alda uses his trademark humor and a well-honed ability to get to the point, to help us all learn how to leverage the better communicator inside each of us.” — Forbes. Aided by his warm, conversational style, Alda’s message shows that the lessons also apply to the rest of us—and at a time when we could really use it.” — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Alda developed this compelling conversation technique to help scientists distill down complex scientific principles for a general audience.” — Entrepreneur Magazine. “A distinguished actor and communication expert shows how to avoid ‘the snags of misunderstanding’ that plague verbal interactions between human beings. “In this charming, witty, and thought-provoking book, full of rich anecdotes, Alan Alda describes some of the tools of communication that he teaches in his work with the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and shows how everyone—from lovers to politicians to scientists—can benefit from being better communicators.” —Lawrence M. Krauss, author of The Greatest Story Ever Told . Alda played Hawkeye Pierce on the classic television series M*A*S*H, and his many films include Crimes and Misdemeanors,Everyone Says I Love You,Manhattan Murder Mystery, and Bridge of Spies .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Alan Alda's book has the one idea, that we have to relate to each other in order to communicate, and then he embroiders on that theme for the rest of the book, but it is so entertaining and chatty, that I enjoyed it well after buying into the big idea."
"He also focuses on improving communication through listening with our eyes, using a story to make a point, eliminating confusing jargon, and paying close attention to what the other’s person’s face is telling us. After I finished it, I immediately emailed my daughter’s teachers suggesting they use it to support a creative combined math and science class that she took last year."
"Very useful for me and I am practicing its suggestion and pay attention (listen intensively) to what speaker says, body language and facial expression."
"Got a few pages to go."
"Alan Alda's words are worth reading and paying attention to."
"A great book and a pretty quick read."
"I only wish there was a little more "take away" from the book."
"Alan follows his own advice of telling stories, and the result is a book that reads fast and smoothly. Precisely because Alan tells stories (mostly about all the "fascinating" projects he's been involved in to improve how scientists communicate) but never brings it all together into a clear, memorable framework -- like, say, the four steps of Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication. If you take an improv class, it may improve your skill to communicate complex information to a lay audience, at least for a while. In the comments, I would love it if people would suggest books that contain actual practical advice about how to communicate better."
In this follow-up to the New York Times best-selling The Theoretical Minimum , Susskind and Friedman provide a lively introduction to this famously difficult field, which attempts to understand the behavior of sub-atomic objects through mathematical abstractions. The writing is fresh and immediate, with plenty of detail packaged into the smooth narrative.... [O]n their own terms, I found Susskind and Friedman's explanations crisp and satisfying.... For students in a similar position, trying to draw together the fragments of formalism into a clear conceptual whole, Susskind and Friedman's persuasive overviewand their insistence on explaining, with sharp mathematical detail, exactly what it is that is strange about quantum mechanicsmay be just what is needed.” David Seery, Nature [T]he book will work well as a companion text for university students studying quantum mechanics or the armchair physicists following Susskind's YouTube lectures.” Publishers Weekly.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Physics lectures are of three types according to this anecdote of Niels Bohr: “A young man was sent by his own village to a neighboring town to hear a great Rabbi. When he returned he told his eagerly awaiting fellow citizens: “The Rabbi spoke three times. Realistically, you need Susskind’s first book (6) plus a preliminary YouTube series of 9 x 1.5 hour lectures on Quantum Entanglement (7). For those who enjoyed science and mathematics to a reasonable level (16) but who had to follow a career to survive in the world, this is more an opportunity than a challenge. The fascinating history of Archimedes, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton fitting an ellipse to the Mars orbit and concluding with the Law of Gravity is only the half of it. Understand how the mathematics of vectors and matrices are fitted to the real world being Quantum Mechanics. There must be a value in doing this (other than ex-auto workers retraining themselves for jobs at CERN) as the work will inevitably not continue to be publically funded unless tax-payers have some idea what it is. (6) The Theoretical Minimum – What you Need to Know to start doing Physics Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky. It seems that the old unadorned lecture format has stood the test of time with only the whiteboard and marker (when it works) replacing the blackboard and chalk. This is a 6 to12 month project – reading, watching YouTube lectures, frantic note taking hoping you might understand it later (the iPad pause button being a luxury unavailable in university lectures), revision, pushing forward, retreating, then finally with your newfound knowledge applying for a job at CERN. (16) Realistically, for those who think they know classical Newtonian Physics and remember studying vectors and matrices, exponentials such as eiθ = cosθ + isinθ and who once knew the expansion of sin(θ + Φ)."
"Some typose and could use more examples and/or workbook."
"‘Quantum Mechanics – The Theoretical Minimum..’ is an absolute gem, right up there with Feynman’s ‘Lectures on Physics’ but still a very different work; where Feynman is comprehensive, Susskind is essential in his development of a conceptual distillate that motivates and unifies the requisite mathematical apparatus."
"I am a fan of Mr. Susskind."
"Excellent!"
"I want to read everything on the subject including the math that is used to determine the state of space."
"The book takes full advantage of the symbolic representations of vectors, matrices, and integrals.This is the type of book that is compatible with the efforts of anyone who has some familiarity with these topics and desires to increase her/his understanding of Quantum Mechanics. During the latter part of the book, some understanding of Classical Mechanics would be helpful (See Susskind's book on Classical Mechanics.). I like this book because (1) it introduces one to a modern presentation of the subject, (2) it emphasizes the statistical nature of quantum states from the very beginning, and (3) it has exercises interspersed throughout the book so that one can check progress."
"Can't read the formulas."
Best Theater Acting & Auditioning
He guides us through his discoveries, showing how communication can be improved through learning to relate to the other person: listening with our eyes, looking for clues in another’s face, using the power of a compelling story, avoiding jargon, and reading another person so well that you become “in sync” with them, and know what they are thinking and feeling—especially when you’re talking about the hard stuff. Exploring empathy-boosting games and exercises, If I Understood You is a funny, thought-provoking guide that can be used by all of us, in every aspect of our lives—with our friends, lovers, and families, with our doctors, in business settings, and beyond. And that is who will find his book invaluable: everyone.” —Deborah Tannen, #1 New York Times bestselling author of You’re the Only One I Can Tell and You Just Don’t Understand “Alda’s curiosity, intelligence and desire to wipe out baffled and bewildered faces make a compelling case for clarity, communication and, always, empathy.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Alda uses his trademark humor and a well-honed ability to get to the point, to help us all learn how to leverage the better communicator inside each of us.” — Forbes. Aided by his warm, conversational style, Alda’s message shows that the lessons also apply to the rest of us—and at a time when we could really use it.” — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Alda developed this compelling conversation technique to help scientists distill down complex scientific principles for a general audience.” — Entrepreneur Magazine. “A distinguished actor and communication expert shows how to avoid ‘the snags of misunderstanding’ that plague verbal interactions between human beings. “In this charming, witty, and thought-provoking book, full of rich anecdotes, Alan Alda describes some of the tools of communication that he teaches in his work with the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and shows how everyone—from lovers to politicians to scientists—can benefit from being better communicators.” —Lawrence M. Krauss, author of The Greatest Story Ever Told . Alda played Hawkeye Pierce on the classic television series M*A*S*H, and his many films include Crimes and Misdemeanors,Everyone Says I Love You,Manhattan Murder Mystery, and Bridge of Spies .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Alan Alda's book has the one idea, that we have to relate to each other in order to communicate, and then he embroiders on that theme for the rest of the book, but it is so entertaining and chatty, that I enjoyed it well after buying into the big idea."
"He also focuses on improving communication through listening with our eyes, using a story to make a point, eliminating confusing jargon, and paying close attention to what the other’s person’s face is telling us. After I finished it, I immediately emailed my daughter’s teachers suggesting they use it to support a creative combined math and science class that she took last year."
"Very useful for me and I am practicing its suggestion and pay attention (listen intensively) to what speaker says, body language and facial expression."
"Got a few pages to go."
"Alan Alda's words are worth reading and paying attention to."
"A great book and a pretty quick read."
"I only wish there was a little more "take away" from the book."
"Alan follows his own advice of telling stories, and the result is a book that reads fast and smoothly. Precisely because Alan tells stories (mostly about all the "fascinating" projects he's been involved in to improve how scientists communicate) but never brings it all together into a clear, memorable framework -- like, say, the four steps of Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication. If you take an improv class, it may improve your skill to communicate complex information to a lay audience, at least for a while. In the comments, I would love it if people would suggest books that contain actual practical advice about how to communicate better."
Best Science Education Research
The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their "crashes" into the human race. And in 1989 Philippine monkeys in a Reston, Va., research lab, found to be infected with Ebola, were the target of a U.S. Army-led biohazard task force that decontaminated the lab, exterminating hundreds of monkeys to prevent the possible airborne spread of the disease to humans. In a horrifying and riveting report, portions of which appeared in the New Yorker , Preston ( American Steel ) exposes a real-life nightmare potentially as lethal as the fictive runaway germs in Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I'm writing this review now because, 1- the current (July 2014) outbreak of Ebola is "the deadliest in recorded history," and 2- I've NEVER forgotten the book. The thing that is so terrifying is the way the poor people who contract the disease die."
"I learned a lot about the virus. After reading this book, im able to read between the headlines of what is being said and more importantly, what's NOT being said. Medical researchers working with the virus give share their information."
"I bought this book in its hard-cover version when it first came out, quite a few years ago, and what with the recent Ebola crisis in Africa and now in the news here in the U.S., I wanted to re-read it. I am dismayed that the CDC is still "learning" how to contain this disease, when the knowledge has been in use by the U.S. Army, and various charitable organizations in Africa for many years."
"A scary, eye opening book about Ebola. He describes in detail the Ebola Reston outbreak in Maryland."
"A must read for anyone who wants the scientific truth about this disease, how it can be spread & how easily & quickly it can mutate."
"Although twenty years old, the information is timely and so. pertinent for our age when Ebola is devastating Africa and may be advancing thought the world."
"Because you will be terrified every time you have a tiny headache. Because you will want strangers to stay far away from you, especially if they are breathing. Because you will realise that your government, our government, the government will probably be unable to stop a proper Ebola virus. Because you will forgive the sometimes over detailed writing because you are completely absorbed in the horror. Because this is not fiction, this is real, this is here, this is now. And this is a gripping, interesting, well put together, well researched non-fiction book that reads like an adventure, a horror and a thriller all at once. Viruses are clever little buggers and best we be afraid."