Real Works of Physics

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Here is a quick test:
1) Did you find it at Barnes and Noble? Not a real work of physics.
2) Was it in the top 100,000 at Amazon.com? Not a real work of physics.
3) Did a professor who is not a physicist assign to you in a class? Not a real work of physics.

Similarly:
1) Did you find it at Barnes and Noble? Not a real work of history.
2) Was it in the top 100,000 at Amazon.com? Not a real work of history.
3) Did a professor who is not an historian assign to you in a class? Not a real work of history.

Comments

  1. J D2:34 AM

    With this criterion in mind, I can't help but ask you to list some of your favorite history texts.

    In particular I wonder if any relatively modern one-volume world history does it for you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. J D2:52 AM

    I hadn't read your entry on abridgment when I wrote that comment. My guess was that one-volume world histories weren't likely to meet your standard because the format implied certain authoring and publishing goals. My mistake. After all of these posts I'd still love a "Gene's Best of History", though.

    ReplyDelete
  3. gcallah11:36 AM

    John D, I love popular books on quantum mechanics, and find them extremely useful. And so I love "general histories" of various periods and so on. I *even* really enjoyed _Guns, Germs, and Steel_, despite its flaws. I don't object to such works being written at all... just to judging what physicists or historians do by judging such works.

    ReplyDelete

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