Question
What are good laymen physics books to read after A Brief History of Time?
Answer
The Superstring theory debates are very interesting to catch up on.
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2007/0...
Penrose's "Road to Reality" is a magisterial and very fat book at a layman++ level that I hope to finish one day.
Digital physics is a fascinating alternative approach to physics. Here's an incomplete 3-part series I started to write.
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2007/0...
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2007/0...
The unwritten part iii would have been about Seth Lloyd's "Programming the Universe" and Charles Seife's "Decoding the Universe." I might still get there. Though I am a rank amateur here, I philosophically lean towards digital physics over traditional.
Michio Kaku and Brian Greene are kinda fun, but not my favorite, since they are kinda mind-candy like. I felt very smart for about 1 hour after reading them, and then promptly forgot everything I thought I'd learned. The books above though, have stayed with me somewhat.
Hawking is actually one of my least favorite.
Also you didn't mention how much of a physics background you have. If you stopped with high school level newton's laws stuff, I'd say you really can't appreciate even the simpler pop-sci books. But if you've had some college physics or the "easier" kinds of grad physics, you can get a lot more out. My recommendations are based on my background (college UG physics for engineers with the basics of quantum theory and special relativity under my belt, some advanced grad courses in classical mechanics, and exposure to enough of the math from an engineering angle -- linear algebra, multivariate calculus, calculus of variations, some topology and differential geometry...). My background still had me struggling in deep deep fog by chapter 3/4 of Penrose, so you probably want to avoid that if you don't have a background at least comparable to mine.
Actually, all my refs assume at least an engineering level understanding... you won't really get much out of them if you are say, a history major who quit math/physics in 8th grade.
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2007/0...
Penrose's "Road to Reality" is a magisterial and very fat book at a layman++ level that I hope to finish one day.
Digital physics is a fascinating alternative approach to physics. Here's an incomplete 3-part series I started to write.
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2007/0...
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2007/0...
The unwritten part iii would have been about Seth Lloyd's "Programming the Universe" and Charles Seife's "Decoding the Universe." I might still get there. Though I am a rank amateur here, I philosophically lean towards digital physics over traditional.
Michio Kaku and Brian Greene are kinda fun, but not my favorite, since they are kinda mind-candy like. I felt very smart for about 1 hour after reading them, and then promptly forgot everything I thought I'd learned. The books above though, have stayed with me somewhat.
Hawking is actually one of my least favorite.
Also you didn't mention how much of a physics background you have. If you stopped with high school level newton's laws stuff, I'd say you really can't appreciate even the simpler pop-sci books. But if you've had some college physics or the "easier" kinds of grad physics, you can get a lot more out. My recommendations are based on my background (college UG physics for engineers with the basics of quantum theory and special relativity under my belt, some advanced grad courses in classical mechanics, and exposure to enough of the math from an engineering angle -- linear algebra, multivariate calculus, calculus of variations, some topology and differential geometry...). My background still had me struggling in deep deep fog by chapter 3/4 of Penrose, so you probably want to avoid that if you don't have a background at least comparable to mine.
Actually, all my refs assume at least an engineering level understanding... you won't really get much out of them if you are say, a history major who quit math/physics in 8th grade.