The 34 Most Practical STEM Books

Ian Greer -

“The real source of our theories is conjecture [guessing], and the real source of our knowledge is conjecture alternating with criticism. We create theories by rearranging, combining, altering and adding to existing ideas with the intention of improving upon them.” – David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity

Multidisciplinary

  1. The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch
  2. The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch
  3. The Science of Can and Can't by Chiara Marletto
  4. The Evolution of Everything by Matt Ridley
  5. The Great Mental Models by Shane Parrish

Mathematics

  1. The Princeton Companion to Mathematics by Timothy Gowers, et al.

Physics

  1. The Laws of Thermodynamics by Peter Atkins

Artificial Intelligence

  1. Deep Learning by Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, and Aaron Courville (Technical textbook)
  2. Competing in the Age of AI by Marco Iansiti
  3. AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee

Computer Science

  1. Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold
  2. The Book of Satoshi by Phil Champagne
  3. Hackers & Painters by Paul Graham
  4. The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous
  5. The Fiat Standard by Saifedean Ammous
  6. The Truth Machine by Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna

Biology

  1. Behave by Robert Sapolsky
  2. Evolutionary Psychology (6th Edition) by David M. Buss

Chemistry

  1. Chemistry (9th Edition) by Steven Zumdahl and Susan Zumdahl

Biography

  1. Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
  2. A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman
  3. The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution by Gregory Zuckerman
  4. A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Edward O. Thorp
  5. The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
  6. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou
  7. Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos
  8. Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance
  9. Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century by Tim Higgins

The Future of Technology

  1. The Future is Faster Than You Think by Peter Diamandis
  2. Bold by Peter Diamandis
  3. Rethinking Humanity by Tony Seba

Lectures

  1. Human Behavioral Biology (2010) by Robert Sapolsky
  2. ToK Cast by Brett Hall
  3. Chemistry Lessons by Martin Shkreli