In 2002 I graduated from the Open University with an excellent (2:1 Honours) Open Science degree, at a time when their fees were much lower. This enabled me to boot-strap my education as an adult, after a pretty lacklustre grammar school experience.
Working from the basement level up, using the OU’s distance-learning materials, I essentially taught myself the foundations of degree-level maths to support my real interests in Astronomy, Physics and Cosmology, and other Planetary Sciences including Geology, Geochemistry and Oceanography. Learning in this way gave me a solid platform for understanding how the physical world works, and left me with a lifelong drive for continual learning.
Decades later, I’m still exploring those physical science themes through personal study and casual reading. There is a reasonable market for so-called ‘popular science’ books which bring to life the concepts from their disciplines without needing a post-doc education. I’ve found many of these very helpful for building my interest and background knowledge, often inspiring me to take my learning further with deeper study. I found the following popular science books both helpful and enjoyable enough to retain them on my shelves… I hope you enjoy them as well!
Physics
Fundamentals – Frank Wilczek
The Order of Time – Carlo Rovelli
Reality Is Not What It Seems – Carlo Rovelli
Black Holes – Professors Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw
QED – Richard P. Feynman
Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman – Richard P. Feynman
Genius, Richard Feynman and modern physics – James Gleick
Through Two Doors At Once – Anil Ananthaswamy
In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat – John Gribbin
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe #1, Space, Time and Motion – Sean Carroll
Dreams of a Final Theory – Steven Weinberg
Why Does E=MC2 (and Why Should We Care?) – Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw
Black Holes – Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw
Cosmology
Our Mathematical Universe – Max Tegmark
Endless Universe, Beyond The Big Bang – Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok
The Inflationary Universe – Alan H. Guth
A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking
The Universe in a Nutshell – Stephen Hawking
Before The Big Bang, Our Origins in the Multiverse – Laura Mersini-Houghton
The First Three Minutes – Steven Weinberg
After the First Three Minutes: The Story of Our Universe – T. Padmanabhan
Just Six Numbers – Martin Rees
Something Deeply Hidden – Sean Carroll
The Big Picture – Sean Carroll
The Hidden Reality – Brian Greene
The Fabric of the Cosmos – Brian Greene
Astronomy
First Light, Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time – Emma Chapman
Water and the Search for Life on Mars – David M. Harland
Jupiter Odyssey: The Story of NASA’s Galileo Mission – David M. Harland
Beyond Pluto: Exploring the Outer Limits of the Solar System – John Davies
Titan Unveiled: Saturn’s Mysterious Moon Explored – Ralph Lorenz and Jacqueline Mitton
The Great Comet Crash: The Collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Jupiter – John R. Spencer and Jacqueline Mitton (eds)
Satellites of the Outer Planets: Worlds in Their Own Right – David A. Rothery
The Worlds of Galileo: The Inside Story of NASA’S Mission to Jupiter – Michael Hanlon
Like most of us, I have a big ‘to be read’ pile! I became fascinated with Leonard Susskind’s lectures a couple of years ago, so my next indulgences will be:
Classical Mechanics – Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky
Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory – Leonard Susskind and Art Friedman
Quantum Mechanics – Leonard Susskind and Art Friedman
General Relativity – Leonard Susskind and André Cabannes
You can leave a comment on this post, or anything else on my website, with this form.
Image credits:
Alan Guth by Betsy Devine aka Betsythedevine – Uploader’s Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6181859
Brian Greene by Steve Jurvetson – https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/6971396150/, CC BY 2.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46203070
Carlo Rovelli by Fronteiras do Pensamento – Carlo Rovelli no Fronteiras do Pensamento São Paulo 2017, CC BY-SA 2.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62518717
Frank Wilczek by Justin Knight Photography
Leonard Susskind by Acmedogs – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29623199
Neil Turok by AIMS – Next Einstein Initiative African Institute for Mathematical Sciences – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22121574
Richard Feynman by The Nobel Foundation – http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-bio.html, PD-Sweden,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34664654
Sean Carroll by Sgerbic – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55134467
Stephen Hawking by NASA – Original. Source (StarChild Learning Center). Archived directory listing at the Wayback Machine., Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1657641
Steven Weinberg by Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11861018
Lee J. Russell, Author 
You must be logged in to post a comment.