Summer of STEM Reading List
Alison Whitney
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Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There’s no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson.
But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.
If you like this book, consider these degrees:
Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
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Set amid the civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA’s African American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America’s space program. Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as ‘Human Computers,’ calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these was a coterie of bright, talented African American women.
Segregated from their white counterparts, these ‘colored computers’ used pencil and paper to write the equations that would launch rockets and astronauts into space. Moving from World War II through NASA’s golden age, touching on the civil rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War and the women’s rights movement, Hidden Figures interweaves a rich history of mankind’s greatest adventure with the intimate stories of five courageous women whose work forever changed the world.
If you like this book, consider these degrees:
The Martian by Andy Weir
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Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.
Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.
After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.
But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills — and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit — he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
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The New Guys by Meredith Bagby
The never-before-told story of NASA’s 1978 astronaut class, which included the first American women, the first African Americans, the first Asian American and the first gay person to fly to space. With the exclusive participation of the astronauts who were there, this is the thrilling, behind-the-scenes saga of a new generation that transformed space exploration.
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The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club by Eileen Pollack
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A bracingly honest exploration of why there are still so few women in the hard sciences, mathematics, engineering and computer science.
In the 1970s, Pollack had excelled as one of Yale’s first two women to earn a Bachelor of Science in Physics. But, isolated, lacking in confidence and starved of encouragement, she abandoned her lifelong dream of becoming a theoretical physicist.
Years later, she thought back on her experiences and wondered what had changed in the intervening decades and what challenges remained. Based on six years of interviewing dozens of teachers and students and reviewing studies on gender bias, The Only Woman in the Room is an illuminating exploration of the cultural, social, psychological and institutional barriers confronting women in the STEM disciplines.
If you like this book, consider these degrees:
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
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In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade has devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.
But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.
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What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
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If your cells suddenly lost the power to divide, how long would you survive?
How dangerous is it, really, to be in a swimming pool in a thunderstorm?
If we hooked turbines to people exercising in gyms, how much power could we produce?
What would happen if the moon went away?
Far more than a book for geeks, WHAT IF: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions explains the laws of science in operation in a way that every intelligent reader will enjoy and feel much smarter for having read.
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The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
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On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot.
Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did?
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*All summaries from Goodreads.com.