Aahhh, I've been looking for a book like this! So glad you're writing it. In no particular order:
George Dyson's new one, Analogia: The Entangled Destinies of Nature, Human Beings and Machines, touches upon analogue machines, trees that count.. all kinds of wonderful computational things.
James Bridle's Ways of Being, also for the nature & computation angle.
I like the way Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian, Thomas L. Griffiths, and Tom Griffiths balances between technically solid, but still approachable.
There seems to be more "humanistic" math books out there - Once Upon A Prime, Weil Conjectures, A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age - that might serve as inspiration on introducing ideas. Oh, and of course anything by Carlo Rovelli for poetic physics!
Samuel, I love the sound of this book. It is the kind of book I would actually buy for money, even if I didn’t know the author. And there can be no higher praise for a book concept! Best of luck with it.
It gives me the same feeling I got when I stumbled on James Gleick's The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood. "Oh! Someone wrote a whole BOOK about this! From this interesting angle! Hurray!" I think you will find an audience for it.
I’m glad you’re writing this. It’s difficult to convey why computing is a natural science. You have the liberal arts acumen to connect the two. How technical do you think you’ll take this book? Would you even attempt to convey something like lambda calculus as a basis for anything computable? I always found that incredibly provocative but also difficult to express to a lay person (or an uninitiated JavaScript developer).
Thanks! And I'm definitely hoping to go somewhat technical and deep. I'm excited to find the right balance that properly conveys the wonder happening in computing.
I'd highly recommend exploring Christopher M. Kelty's work, particularly Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software (https://twobits.net/). It's a great look at the how programming also reoriented and organized our ways of working and being together through a model of open source software development and community.
Aahhh, I've been looking for a book like this! So glad you're writing it. In no particular order:
George Dyson's new one, Analogia: The Entangled Destinies of Nature, Human Beings and Machines, touches upon analogue machines, trees that count.. all kinds of wonderful computational things.
James Bridle's Ways of Being, also for the nature & computation angle.
I like the way Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian, Thomas L. Griffiths, and Tom Griffiths balances between technically solid, but still approachable.
There seems to be more "humanistic" math books out there - Once Upon A Prime, Weil Conjectures, A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age - that might serve as inspiration on introducing ideas. Oh, and of course anything by Carlo Rovelli for poetic physics!
Thanks so much for all of this! These are wonderful pointers!
I enjoyed browsing your stack of books. I hope you will write about Don Knuth. There are so many layers to Don, he deserves an entire book!
Probably also The Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an eternal golden braid (Douglas Hofstadter) should be part of your background reading material too.
2 more books you might think of reading:
Computers and Society by Richard Hamming
(1972). Computers and Society. New York: McGraw-Hill. IBSN 0070285937. https://archive.org/details/computerssociety0000hamm
and
The Real World of Technology by Ursula Franklin
1992 The Real World of Technology. (CBC Massey lectures series.) Concord, ON: House of Anansi Press ISBN 0-88784-531-2. https://archive.org/details/realworldoftechn0000fran_u9w8/
Recordings of Franklin's lectures the book is based are also available: https://archive.org/details/the-real-world-of-technology
Thanks for these suggestions!
Congratulations, sounds like an awesome project. As the meme goes, "Shut up and take my money!"
Thanks so much!
Congrats Sam, looking forward to read it! Enjoy the writing journey :)
Thanks!
Samuel, I love the sound of this book. It is the kind of book I would actually buy for money, even if I didn’t know the author. And there can be no higher praise for a book concept! Best of luck with it.
Thanks so much for the kind words. That is so wonderful.
It gives me the same feeling I got when I stumbled on James Gleick's The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood. "Oh! Someone wrote a whole BOOK about this! From this interesting angle! Hurray!" I think you will find an audience for it.
Thanks! I'm hoping that if you and me are both interested in this, there will be others as well!
I’m glad you’re writing this. It’s difficult to convey why computing is a natural science. You have the liberal arts acumen to connect the two. How technical do you think you’ll take this book? Would you even attempt to convey something like lambda calculus as a basis for anything computable? I always found that incredibly provocative but also difficult to express to a lay person (or an uninitiated JavaScript developer).
Thanks! And I'm definitely hoping to go somewhat technical and deep. I'm excited to find the right balance that properly conveys the wonder happening in computing.
Sounds super cool. Good luck!
Looking forward to the book!
I'd highly recommend exploring Christopher M. Kelty's work, particularly Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software (https://twobits.net/). It's a great look at the how programming also reoriented and organized our ways of working and being together through a model of open source software development and community.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Looking forward to reading it!
I have my own ideas about the nature of cognitive computation. Consider reading my post here - https://alexandernaumenko.substack.com/p/intelligence-and-language