Following up on the weekend’s reading suggestions, I should point to John Horgan’s list of the Ten Worst Science Books. These aren’t obscure self-published tracts on the Theory of Everything, either– Stephen Jay Gould, Malcolm Gladwell and E. O. Wilson make the list, and there are more best-selling suggestions in the comments.
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Yipes. He lists Brian Greene’s Elegant Universe in there. Clearly he has an ax to grind.
Whathever you think about String Theory, Greene’s book contains one of the best popular-level introductions to General Relativity that I’ve seen, and it contains a pretty good popular level to Quantum Mechanics (although I’m less satisfied with that part). Even if you only read the first third/half of the book, it’s a good one.
Re: worst books : anything by Fred Alan Wolfe. Talk about connecting Quantum Mechanics to New Age BS…. He comes across as if he has credentials, too, which makes everything all the worse.
I suspect if you asked any first or second year Physics graduate student, they would list “Classical Electrodynamics” by J.D. Jackson….
-Rob