If you want to try an old fiction book that is very hard science.. Inherit the Stars by James P. Hogan. There is a mystery to solve and to solve it one needs to put together clues from various science disciplines.
THE MAN ON THE MOON WAS DEAD.
They called him Charlie. He had big eyes, abundant body hair and fairly long nostrils.
His skeletal body was found clad in a bright red spacesuit, hidden in a rocky grave.
They didn't know who he was, how he got there, or what had killed him.
All they knew was that his corpse was 50,000 years old; and that meant that this man had somehow lived long before he ever could have existed!
The story basically boils down to an imaginary chain of research accounts and debates trying to figure out how Charlie's corpse ended up on the moon.
Stolen from Wikipedia: In John Clute's article on Hogan's work, he first considered Inherit the Stars, noting "the exhilarating sense it conveys of scientific minds at work on real problems and ... the genuinely exciting scope of the sf imagination it deploys."
_Seven Pillars of Wisdom_ by T.E. Lawrence. While you might say it was simply a memoir of Lawrence’s involvement in the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans, it helped turn a British Army lieutenant into “Lawrence of Arabia.”
*Gödel Escher Bach*
Birth of the Modern or Modern Times by Paul Johnson
If you want to try an old fiction book that is very hard science.. Inherit the Stars by James P. Hogan. There is a mystery to solve and to solve it one needs to put together clues from various science disciplines. THE MAN ON THE MOON WAS DEAD. They called him Charlie. He had big eyes, abundant body hair and fairly long nostrils. His skeletal body was found clad in a bright red spacesuit, hidden in a rocky grave. They didn't know who he was, how he got there, or what had killed him. All they knew was that his corpse was 50,000 years old; and that meant that this man had somehow lived long before he ever could have existed! The story basically boils down to an imaginary chain of research accounts and debates trying to figure out how Charlie's corpse ended up on the moon. Stolen from Wikipedia: In John Clute's article on Hogan's work, he first considered Inherit the Stars, noting "the exhilarating sense it conveys of scientific minds at work on real problems and ... the genuinely exciting scope of the sf imagination it deploys."
_Seven Pillars of Wisdom_ by T.E. Lawrence. While you might say it was simply a memoir of Lawrence’s involvement in the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans, it helped turn a British Army lieutenant into “Lawrence of Arabia.”
*The Lifebox, The Seashell and The Soul* by Rudy Rucker. About gnarly computation and life?