Book Review

As a grad student, I read a lot of papers. For some reason, I like to relax by reading more. This post will be a review of 3 books that I’ve read whose authors are from academia.

Below a each review, I give my recommendations for it to both a lay audience and a specific audience who I have a different recommendation for. In this case, I use lay to refer to anyone not in the specific audience.

Infinite Powers – Dr. Stephen Strogatz

Infinite Powers – This week I had the pleasure of reading Dr. Strogatz’s new book Infinite Powers. In a nutshell, it’s a history of events leading up to the development of calculus. Or, more precisely, it’s a story about how we grappled about dealing with situations where there were infinitely many, yet infinitesimally small things, and how we dealt with the golem of infinity. Strogatz starts back, way back, in ancient Greece and walks us forward through time visiting different places and people in mathematics that have struggled with infinity.

For a layperson – If you have ever been interested in knowing why calculus is so important I highly recommend this book! Strogatz is an excellent writer and while he does introduce a handful of equations, he sticks mainly to giving intuitive explanations of concepts. At the end of every chapter, he devotes a few pages to explain how the concept he went over is being used in modern technology.

For a technical reader – As a dynamicist, differential equations are my bread and butter, so I didn’t learn too much in this book, but it was still quite an enjoyable read. Dr. Strogatz is one of the best math writers that I know of and this book was no exception. If you haven’t read pop-math books before I’d recommend you give this one a shot. It’ll be an enjoyable read but don’t expect it to be another Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos. It’s a good pop-math book and does not attempt to be anything more.

The Professor Is In – Dr. Karen Kelsky

The Professor Is In – As a first generation grad student, I’ve been worried that in the whirlwind of new experiences I would miss some important unspoken rule. To fix this I’ve turned to read a number (More than I will publicly admit) of grad student “self-help” books/blogs. One of these books is The Professor Is In by Dr. Kelsky. It came to me highly recommended and is all about “turning your PH.D. into a job”. With the academic job market in the terrible shape it is in this book is highly topical and I dove into it earlier this year. It’s full of short chapters devoted to a range of topics from the foolproof grant template to rules of the academic CV.

For a layperson – If you are not in or planning on going to graduate school you can skip this book

For the Grad student – I would recommend this book with caveats. Dr. Kelsky is an anthropologist by training, and I’ve found that some of her advice did not translate well into my specialty of aerospace engineering. For example, in engineering, “the discourse” takes place through writing papers and presenting at conferences, while in anthropology it appears to take place much more through writing books. Dr. Kelsky does give you a heads up that your field might vary from hers, but she doesn’t (nor should she be expected to) explain the nuanced differences between every field. This book will not replace the advice from an adviser, but I’ve found it helped me ask better questions.

The Design of Everyday Things – Dr. Don Norman

The Design of Everyday Things– One pithy joke about engineering is “the ability to improve a design occurs primarily at the interfaces. This is also the prime location for screwing it up.” As engineers, how people interact with your product, whether it is code or a car, is extremely important. Dr. Norman in this book goes over both good and bad design as well as the psychology behind each.

For a layperson – Get this book. It will change the way you see/interact with the world.

For Engineers – In my undergraduate degree I’ve had a few courses structured around design. None have had an impact on me that this book has had. Even if you aren’t directly in a design role, this book will probably change how you see your work.

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