What science-y or engineering-related book(s) should I buy my father?

June 22, 2023 3:31 PM

Looking for science or engineering non-fiction books to buy my father. He has dementia, but still likes to read difficult books. I haven't been too successful with the books I've given him recently, so thought I'd crowd-source some ideas (and he will enjoy that concept too).

Ones I've got him that I don't think he's got on with have included Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension and The Quantum Astrologer's Handbook. I know he really enjoyed and returns to What We Cannot Know: Explorations at the Edge of Knowledge, various biographies of Einstein, and Nevil Shute Norway's autobiography. Other than non-fiction, he enjoyed the poetry of the astronomer Rebecca Elson. I don't think he can read new novels now.

He is very picky about style (was both an engineer and a novelist) and doesn't like anything too popularist, so for instance Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World didn't go down well. He has almost certainly read anything sailing-related, unless published in the last five years, and most things aircraft-related published at any time in English. He's read most of the slightly older popular science books, Feynman, Steven Jay Gould, Dawkins, John Gribbin. I don't think he's especially interested in computing or AI.

He quite likes vintage science too and I will probably buy him an old copy of James Jeans's The Mysterious Universe.

Any ideas? Thank you.

posted by paduasoy to Science & Nature (33 answers total)

I liked Birth of a New Physics a ton and have recommended it to quite a few people, many of whom also went on to read and enjoy it.
posted by phunniemee at 3:50 PM on June 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

He might like William Poundstone's Labyrinths of Reason— mostly about paradoxes, lots of mind-blowing stuff.

Has he read Oliver Sacks? His neuroscience books are great. My father, who sounds a lot like yours, enjoyed his childhood memoir, Uncle Tungsten.

Mary Roach's books are delightful, if he can take her cheeky style.

Does he like biology at all? Anything by Konrad Lorenz is good; there are also deep dives into various groups— Journey to the Ants (Hölldobler/Wilson) stands out for me, or Jane Goodall's books on the chimps.
posted by zompist at 3:52 PM on June 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

Hmmm. A long time ago I read a book about the crossing of the Atlantic in a balloon Double Eagle II which is also covered in this shaky Wikipedia article, in case you don't want to spring for the 1979 hardback, and/or want to see if it's something that your father would enjoy. I mention it because it's kind of like sailing only in an ocean of air. And there are certainly meteorologic and other engineering/logistical challenges.

I don't suppose he would like the What If books by Randall Munroe since I suspect he would find them whimsical as opposed to serious. They are quite detailed though.
posted by forthright at 3:58 PM on June 22, 2023

He might like Nature Loves to Hide by Shimon Malin (about quantum physics) -- it's a little speculative but not too much, and has some interesting details about the philosophical thinking of the people involved in the development of quantum mechanics.
posted by heatherlogan at 4:01 PM on June 22, 2023

Suspended in Language: Niels Bohr's Life, Discoveries, And The Century He Shaped is a graphic novel, but for adults and really really good.
posted by heatherlogan at 4:03 PM on June 22, 2023

Are computer software and hardware engineering on the table? If so, the Platform Studies books from MIT are universally fascinating to me, with Racing the Beam as a personal favorite.

Can also recommend Tracy Kidder's "Soul of A New Machine."
posted by Sauce Trough at 4:23 PM on June 22, 2023

Shit, I missed your final sentence. "Not interested in computers or AI." Apologies. Won't feel bad at all if the mods scrub my un-apt answer.

How about biomedical stuff? Right now I am reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks which concerns the massive breakthrough in cell biology and medicine that was harvested without compensation or permission from the cervical cancer of Ms. Lacks.
posted by Sauce Trough at 4:26 PM on June 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

Cautiously seconding The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which was fantastic. The only reason I'm doing so "cautiously" is because you say he "doesn't like anything too popularist"; TILOHS is to a large degree about social issues rather than purely about the science.
posted by Flunkie at 5:03 PM on June 22, 2023

Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World is a sailing book my father-in-law loved.
posted by AbelMelveny at 5:13 PM on June 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think he'll love the Phillip Ball series Nature's Patterns, a Tapestry in three Parts. The books are Shapes, Branches, and Flow, and each explores these themes in a fairly detailed and rigorous manner. Think the physical, mathematical, and biological bases of pattern formation. They are sort serious pop-sci, Ball is a long time Editor at Nature and these books also pass as the lighter side of scholarly review monographs. But, they are short, well written, and have nice pictures too, so he (or anyone) can get a lot out of them, at a variety of depths.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:21 PM on June 22, 2023

I found Neil deGrass Tysons Astrophysics for People in a Hurry a very enjoyable read. The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements is a bit of popular style science, but also had a lot of very interesting facts and I found it a fun read.

He might enjoy the works of Edward Tufte, who talks about data presentation. Tufte's books are really beautiful objects and the figures are really beautifully printed.
posted by ice-cream forever at 6:14 PM on June 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

Anything by Henry Petroski. In particular, I'd suggest "To Engineer is Human" and "The Evolution of Useful Things." He passed away recently, so there are a number of obits that give a sense of his attitude towards the Engineering profession and its products.
posted by ReferenceDesk at 6:58 PM on June 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

"The Social Conquest of Earth" is the only Edward O Wilson book I've read, but any of his should work if he likes biology.
posted by umwelt at 7:32 PM on June 22, 2023

"What if?" By Randall Munroe.
posted by dhruva at 8:52 PM on June 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

Seconding Sacks and Petroski and Lorenz.

In "he's probably read this, but if not, !!!": Primo Levi, The Periodic Table. Lewis Thomas, all.

And Metafilter gave me what I have not forgotten: Asher Treat's Mites of Moths and Butterflies is a literary treasure.
posted by away for regrooving at 12:47 AM on June 23, 2023

If biographies are ok, I can recommend:

The Man from the Future (John von Neumann)
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers (Paul Erdos)
A Mind at Play (Claude Shannon)

They're 3 of the most brilliant mathematical minds of the last century, and while von Neumann and Shannon both played seminal parts in the developments of computers, you don't need any interest in that to enjoy their biographies.

Carrying the Fire (Michael Collins' autobiography) is engineering and test flight heavy, plus (of course) a lot about NASA and the trip to the moon

The Invention of Nature (Alexander von Humboldt) is about the greatest natural scientist of all time and person who has more things named after him than anyone else ever. Not engineering, but a stunning biography of an incredible scientist and thinker.

Non-biographies:

A Universe from Nothing - Lawrence Krauss
Hyperspace - Michio Kaku
The Information - James Gleick
Godel, Escher, and Bach - Douglas Hofstadter (not mathematics, not biology, not philosophy, but combines all 3 and your father may love it or may hate it. But it gets recommended in most non-fiction questions on Ask MeFi because it is mind-expandingly intelligent and thought provioking)
posted by underclocked at 2:17 AM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Maybe the autobiographical Half Mile Down, about the bathysphere.
posted by trig at 2:18 AM on June 23, 2023

Perhaps Michael Ruhlman’s Wooden Boats
posted by sciencegeek at 3:42 AM on June 23, 2023

I enjoyed Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik which is about materials science. Maybe too breezy in tone for him? But I thought it was an excellent read.

In the realm of engineering meets biography meets flight, I thought of The Wright Brothers by David McCullough. I also love The Great Bridge by McCullough (about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge) and there’s also The Path Between the Seas (about the Panama Canal). All of those would be firmly in the realm of biography/history, but with a (for me) very interesting dose of engineering.
posted by bluebird at 4:16 AM on June 23, 2023

"The Design Of Everyday Things" by Don Norman.
posted by james33 at 4:18 AM on June 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
posted by SemiSalt at 4:24 AM on June 23, 2023

Engineering and the Mind’s Eye by Eugene Ferguson is an interesting read about the history and importance of visual thinking in engineering.
posted by bluebird at 4:25 AM on June 23, 2023

These two are more biographical / historical than going into the hard science/engineering (though both touch on the science and engineering aspects quite a bit) but are amazing books. In both cases, I worried I wouldn't be that excited about the topic but the quality of writing made it fascinating.

The Alchemy of Air by Thomas Hager: A biography of Fritz Haber (inventor of the Haber process that Bosch later industrialized; it allows feeding the world via fertilizers but also its nitrogen is a critical ingredient in explosives that made the massive scale of WW1 and WW2 possible).

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes: Exactly what it sounds like, mostly a biography of the scientists involved but a bit about the project itself. The sequel, Dark Sun: Making of the Hydrogen Bomb is worse.
posted by bsdfish at 4:27 AM on June 23, 2023

It may be a bit too niche depending on your father's exact interests, but I had a good time with Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John D. Clark. It's a mix of memoir, history, and technical detail, written by a former rocket fuel chemist. Expect quite a lot of chemistry discussion. And it's often darkly funny, given the propensity of rocket propellants to explode.

Also available to borrow on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/ignitioninformal0000clar
posted by apparatchik at 5:01 AM on June 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I think A Beautiful Question by Frank Wilczek might go down well... I've read a lot of popular books on 20th century physics, this one recently really jumped out as having some excellent perspectives from someone Nobel-level involved who makes a really determined effort to explain difficult concepts effectively to a lay audience. Even down to picking apart some of the standard terminology and commonly used textbook analogies and explaining where and why he finds them lacking or leading to less clear overall understanding.

Carlo Rovelli maybe as well... certainly hits the nail on challenging science and prosey prose. I love the playfulness and ambulation of his writing, but it's not everyone's cup of tea. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics would be good as a very short introduction / test case, under a hundred pages.
posted by protorp at 6:01 AM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I (computer scientist) and my dad (electronic engineer) both really enjoyed W. David Woods' How Apollo Flew To The Moon - plenty of technical detail. This podcast interview with him gets the style of the book across pretty well.

We also both liked Phil Lapsley's Exploding the Phone, although that's a bit less technical.
posted by offog at 6:17 AM on June 23, 2023

How about The Elements by Theodore Gray? It resembles a coffee table book, large hardcover with a double-page spread devoted to each of the elements of the periodic table. But the writing is delightful, both erudite and quirky, as it's a passion project by one person (one of the co-founders of Mathematica and Wolfram Research) who is a passionate "element collector". He even made a wooden periodic table table!
posted by snarfois at 6:40 AM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I really liked Carlo Rovelli's The Order of Time (and the audiobook is great, read by Benedict Cumberbatch).

I read Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World a couple years and remember liking it (it's a good overview of geology with the aim of putting the timescale of the Anthropocene in context).
posted by pjenks at 7:46 AM on June 23, 2023

Response by poster: There are some really good ideas here - thank you all, I was feeling stuck and discouraged but should now be able to find something that will work from this list. Will update when I've checked some of these out. Hopefully it will keep me / him going for Christmas and next year too.

It's a difficult combination of dementia + personality meaning he needs something that will be a bit engaging but still has all his old irritation with being talked down to. Plus lack of inhibition means he doesn't leave me in any doubt if I get it wrong.
posted by paduasoy at 9:39 AM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I enjoyed Sailing School, a recent book about how (mostly) Dutch and English sailors created modern celestial navigation for sailing ships in the 17th century. The immediate need to train thousands of ship's crews in emerging technology with enough understanding of spherical trigonometry and astronomy and do it quickly is fascinating. Additionally, the curriculums and instructional techniques had profound knock-on effects and heavily influenced how we conduct almost all technical and engineering education today. So, bonus that it's about sailing, and probably new enough that he hadn't read it yet, and additional bonus that it's also about wider science and technology education. Maybe slight demerit-- the author is an academic, but it is slightly retooled from her normal writing to be accessible to a modern audience. I gave the link to the publisher, but I'm sure you can find the book cheaper on other websites.
posted by seasparrow at 9:46 AM on June 23, 2023

Autobiographies are often pretty good at being engaging but not talking down, I think.
posted by trig at 1:49 PM on June 23, 2023

Response by poster: I went for Carlo Rovelli's Helgoland - having read the sample, it looks like something he would enjoy. There are many other possible suggestions here so thank you, I will be referring to the thread again.
posted by paduasoy at 3:14 AM on June 25, 2023

On the slightly more technical side, Materials for the Engineering Technician is actually a really fun read.
posted by TheCoug at 7:20 AM on June 26, 2023