It is as if in some post-apocalyptic future, scholars would learn about the work of Newton and Einstein from surviving articles in Scientific American or New Scientist.
Yes. Lucio Russo in The Forgotten Revolution made the same point and tried to figure out what got lost in that game of telephone. (A lot!)
Here's a book not exactly for the general reader but that I think is underappreciated: James Clerk Maxwell's Matter and Motion. https://archive.org/details/mattermotion00maxwiala It's a textbook on mechanics assuming a high-school math background.
Thank your for the link to Matter and Motion. I had never heard of it, and I'm enjoying what I've read thus far. It reminds me in a way of the Feynman Lectures. The greats often seem to have a way of explaining concepts in the most clear, concise way possible.
The Making of the Atomic Bomb is one of the best books I have ever read. It's one of the few history of science books that I feel didn't get dragged down in details or gloss over things to be superficial.
The follow-up Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb is also good, but not as well done as the former.
I was blown away after reading this book. It is by far the best book on general physics I have read. I recommend it to all parents to give their children the opportunity to read this book. I think it will change their lives and channel them to a love of physics (if they are so inclined). It is an example of how so few could influence so many.
Personal anecdote. I met Robert Oppenheimer's grandson a few years back and he mentioned that this book is one of the few books that treated his grandfather fairly.
Glad to see The Character of Physical Law on there. One of my all time favorites. The emphasis on symmetry and conservation principles was a real eye opener when I read it.
It's sad to see that James Gleick did not make the list, but you must draw the line somewhere. For anyone who sees this, may I suggest Chaos: Making A New Science.
FWIW, I preferred Gleick's Feynman biography over Chaos, but that's ss much due to the topic as the writing. I've read, I think all of his works and they're all worth a read. I'm glad to see Tim Ferris on the list as well. Both good choices for popular science and how it interacts with the world.
Others will mention Sagan, and I recommend the Halley chapter in Comet as he's quite the individual.
edit: While they might be old, Asimov or Martin Gardner are also good reads.
It's somewhat dated now, but I picked up Isaac Asimov's The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science years ago at an Elk's Club booksale, and it was a fantastic overview of physics and biology, of course from the 1960s perspective in which it was published.
I am reading "The Science of Discworld" and I like it a lot.
It is accessible, engaging, and makes you really think and question why things are the way they are.
"Pratchett provides a very funny 30,000-word novella about Discworld science, beginning in the High Energy Magic faculty of Unseen University and leading his eccentric wizards to investigate an alien cosmos where there's no magic to keep things going. This is the Roundworld universe--ours. The key point: much that's true only on Discworld (eg that suns orbit planets and not vice-versa) was once believed on Earth and the wizards' comic misunderstandings echo the history of real science...Unusually, Pratchett's story is split into chapters and in between his chapters Stewart and Cohen wittily discuss the concepts underlying the fiction, from the Big Bang through stellar formation to life and evolution.
Much of the science we know, they cheerfully insist, is "lies-to-children": good stories that are mostly untrue, like thinking of atoms as tiny solar systems.
I suppose that George Gamow is a bit dated now, but half a century ago he was an inspiration to me and I read everything of his I could get my hands on. Lisa Randall's Warped Passages was also a lot of fun.
It's a shame more people don't know his name. He postulated that the primordial universe was hot (mostly energy/radiation), described how that radiation condensed into matter, and gave us stellar nucleosynthesis - the science behind, "we're made of star stuff," in a paper attributed to Alpher, Bethe and Gamow.
Who doesn't love a cosmologist with a sense of humor?
If there are biomedical scientists reading this, you might (as I have) confused Mr. S. Weinberg, the Nobel Laureate and Physicist, with Mr. R. Weinberg, the prolific cancer scientist.
I didn't find The Elegant Universe all that mind blowing, but it was interesting enough since it included some modern physics (though some of it was speculative).
On the other hand, Origins by Donald Goldsmith and Neil deGrasse Tyson was excellent, in case you're interested in hearing about the formation of the universe after the big bang.
The Elegant Universe contains the best introduction to special relativity and quantum mechanics for a non-specialist audience that I've ever come across. Not modern but hard to see what could be more mind-blowing if it's new to you.
I am so happy that A Brief History of Time did not make the list. I tried to read it several times and never made it through, because he glosses over so many things, never providing sufficient reasoning.
I highly recommend The Age of Entanglement, one of the best general audience books on quantum physics! Quite a page turner!
I read A Brief History of Time during high school, and I thought it was great. Perhaps if I had been more knowledgeable in the topic (I was only familiar with classic physics at that point) when I read it, I might have felt otherwise. But I would say it serves the general audience superbly.
I highly recommend,
Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science by Lindley, David
Great read about the beginning of quantum mechanics. I really liked how Lindley depicted thoughts and reactions of great minds to one of controversial topics in physics, quantum mechanics.
Yes. Lucio Russo in The Forgotten Revolution made the same point and tried to figure out what got lost in that game of telephone. (A lot!)
Here's a book not exactly for the general reader but that I think is underappreciated: James Clerk Maxwell's Matter and Motion. https://archive.org/details/mattermotion00maxwiala It's a textbook on mechanics assuming a high-school math background.