Skip to main content

Authors - R

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z



Tim Radford

V. S. Ramachandran (with Sandra Blakeslee)

Ainissa Ramirez

Lisa Randall

Marc Read

Dave Reay

Gregory Reece

  • Weird Science and Bizarre Beliefs ***
  • Amanda Rees (with Charlotte Sleigh)

    Martin Rees (with Alan Lightman)

  • The Shape of Wonder: how scientists think, work, and live ****
  • Martin Rees

    Eugenie Samuel Reich

    Jörg Resag

    Alastair Reynolds

    Gretchen Reynolds

    Alison Richard

  • The Sloth Lemur's Song: Madagascar from the deep past to the uncertain present ***
  • Jeffrey Richelson

  • Defusing Armageddon ***
  • Jon Richter

    Matt Ridley

    Mary Roach

    Adam Roberts

    Alice Roberts

    Keith Roberts

    Al Robertson

    Andrew Robinson

    Richard Robinson

    Lucy Rogers

    Jennifer Rohn

    Simon Rogers

    Jesse Rogerson (with John Moores)

    Will Rood (with Ralph Edney and Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon)

    Michael Rose

    Todd Rose (with Ogi Ogas)

    Larry Rosen(with Adam Gazzaley)

    Nick Rosen

    William Rosen

    Paul Rosenbaum

  • Causal Inference ***
  • Bruce Rosenblum (with Fred Kuttner)

    Lawrence Rosenblum 

    Hans Rosling

    Julia Ross

  • The Laughing Robot (SF) ***
  • Nicola Rossi

    David Rotary

    Veronica Roth

    Tony Rothman (with Fukagawa Hidetoshi)

    Wade Roush (Ed.)

    Carlo Rovelli

    Paulina Rowińska

    Gordon Rugg (with Joseph d'Agnese)

    Alvaro de Rújula

    Comments

    Popular posts from this blog

    God: the Science, the Evidence - Michel-Yves Bolloré and Olivier Bonnassies ***

    This is, to say the least, an oddity, but a fascinating one. A translation of a French bestseller, it aims to put forward an examination of the scientific evidence for the existence of a deity… and various other things, as this is a very oddly structured book (more on that in a moment). In The God Delusion , Richard Dawkins suggested that we should treat the existence of God as a scientific claim, which is exactly what the authors do reasonably well in the main part of the book. They argue that three pieces of scientific evidence in particular are supportive of the existence of a (generic) creator of the universe. These are that the universe had a beginning, the fine tuning of natural constants and the unlikeliness of life.  To support their evidence, Bolloré and Bonnassies give a reasonable introduction to thermodynamics and cosmology. They suggest that the expected heat death of the universe implies a beginning (for good thermodynamic reasons), and rightly give the impression tha...

    The Infinite Alphabet - Cesar Hidalgo ****

    Although taking a very new approach, this book by a physicist working in economics made me nostalgic for the business books of the 1980s. More on why in a moment, but Cesar Hidalgo sets out to explain how it is knowledge - how it is developed, how it is managed and forgotten - that makes the difference between success and failure. When I worked for a corporate in the 1980s I was very taken with Tom Peters' business books such of In Search of Excellence (with Robert Waterman), which described what made it possible for some companies to thrive and become huge while others failed. (It's interesting to look back to see a balance amongst the companies Peters thought were excellent, with successes such as Walmart and Intel, and failures such as Wang and Kodak.) In a similar way, Hidalgo uses case studies of successes and failures for both businesses and countries in making effective use of knowledge to drive economic success. When I read a Tom Peters book I was inspired and fired up...

    The War on Science - Lawrence Krauss (Ed.) ****

    At first glance this might appear to be yet another book on how to deal with climate change deniers and the like, such as How to Talk to a Science Denier.   It is, however, a much more significant book because it addresses the way that universities, government and pressure groups have attempted to undermine the scientific process. Conceptually I would give it five stars, but it's quite heavy going because it's a collection of around 18 essays by different academics, with many going over the same ground, so there is a lot of repetition. Even so, it's an important book. There are a few well-known names here - editor Lawrence Krauss, Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker - but also a range of scientists (with a few philosophers) explaining how science is being damaged in academia by unscientific ideas. Many of the issues apply to other disciplines as well, but this is specifically about the impact on science, and particularly important there because of the damage it has been doing...