Comment by jebarker

20 hours ago

My top reads this year:

- How to Tame a Fox - great popsci history of a genetics experiment

- "The Sixth Extinction" and "Not the end of the world" - compelling but contrasting takes on climate change

- Through Two Doors at Once - posci history of the double slit experiment

- Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist - Luis Alvarez should get just as much attention as Feynman does IMO!

- A Matter of Death and Life - the last book I read this year that was touching and made me remember what’s really important in life

I read Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist a few years ago, and I was impressed by the breadth and depth of the great physicist. Later in life, he became a geologist, working with his son.

Those physicists worked hard: he writes in the book that 60 hours of work per week — and there were no phones back in the day to blur the lines between work and non-work — were routine in Berkeley. Those were dedicated people.