Science Books 2014

The Best Science Books of 2014

by Maria Popova

The math of soul mates, the psychology of nothing, the physics of faith, and more illuminating insights on the universe and our place in it.

On the heels of the year’s most intelligent and imaginative children’s books come the most stimulating science books published this annum. (Step into the nonfictional time machine by revisiting the selections for 2013, 2012, and 2011.)

1. THE ACCIDENTAL UNIVERSE

“If we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from,” Carl Sagan wrote in his timeless meditation on science and religion, “we will have failed.” It’s a sentiment that dismisses in one fell Saganesque swoop both the blind dogmatism of religion and the vain certitude of science — a sentiment articulated by some of history’s greatest minds, from Einstein to Ada Lovelace to Isaac Asimov, all the way back Galileo. Yet centuries after Galileo and decades after Sagan, humanity remains profoundly uneasy about reconciling these conflicting frameworks for understanding the universe and our place in it.

That unanswerable question of where we came from is precisely what physicist Alan Lightman — one of the finest essayists writing today and the very first person to receive dual appointments in science and the humanities at MIT — explores from various angles in The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew(public library | IndieBound)./.../