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Brian Cox's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Brian Cox recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Brian Cox's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1
The aim of this groundbreaking new book is to bring general relativity into the undergraduate curriculum and make this fundamental theory accessible to all physics majors. Using a "physics first" approach to the subject, renowned relativist James B. Hartle provides a fluent and accessible introduction that uses a minimum of new mathematics and is illustrated with a wealth of exciting applications. The emphasis is on the exciting phenomena of gravitational physics and the growing connection between theory and observation. The Global Positioning System, black holes, X-ray sources, pulsars,... more
Recommended by Brian Cox, and 1 others.

Brian Cox@rationalist44 (1) is easy - there are two components, but for distant galaxies the so-called ‘proper motion’ is negligible. (2) You need a little GR. Look up cosmological redshift. The best intro text book in my view is Hartle - the calculation is in section 18.2. (Source)

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2
In 1945 Britain was the world's leading designer and builder of aircraft - a world-class achievement that was not mere rhetoric. And what aircraft they were. The sleek Comet, the first jet airliner. The awesome delta-winged Vulcan, an intercontinental bomber that could be thrown about the sky like a fighter. The Hawker Hunter, the most beautiful fighter-jet ever built and the Lightning, which could zoom ten miles above the clouds in a couple of minutes and whose pilots rated flying it as better than sex.

How did Britain so lose the plot that today there is not a single aircraft...
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Recommended by Brian Cox, and 1 others.

Brian Cox@thestigmaster And I agree with you on this. There is a great book called Empire of the Clouds which describes how we damaged our aviation industry with a series of short-sighted political decisions in the late 60s and 70s. (Source)

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3
“Original and awe-inspiring . . . an exhilarating tour of some of the most profound and important ideas in biology.”—New Scientist

Where does DNA come from? What is consciousness? How did the eye evolve? Drawing on a treasure trove of new scientific knowledge, Nick Lane expertly reconstructs evolution’s history by describing its ten greatest inventions—from sex and warmth to death—resulting in a stunning account of nature’s ingenuity. 20 figures
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Recommended by Brian Cox, and 1 others.

Brian Cox@StrongLikeBear @ShalanSharma @Dagk Yes, that’s right. I think it’s correct to say that many biologists (not all) believe the step from prokaryote to eukaryote was highly unlikely. See for example Nick Lane’s Life Ascending - a great book for many reasons. (Source)

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4
Every physicist agrees quantum mechanics is among humanity's finest scientific achievements. But ask what it means, and the result will be a brawl. For a century, most physicists have followed Niels Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation and dismissed questions about the reality underlying quantum physics as meaningless. A mishmash of solipsism and poor reasoning, Copenhagen endured, as Bohr's students vigorously protected his legacy, and the physics community favoured practical experiments over philosophical arguments. As a result, questioning the status quo long meant professional ruin. And yet,... more
Recommended by Brian Cox, and 1 others.

Brian CoxThis great podcast from @seanmcarroll talking to David Albert about the measurement problem in Quantum Mechanics introduced me to a terrific book - What is Real? by Adam Becker. It’s fascinating on the history of QM, Bell’s theorem, Many Worlds .... https://t.co/Cl5cNMbjPq (Source)

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