Letters to a young scientist
by Edward Osborne Wilson · first published 2013
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Advice to talented and ambitious young people of what they need to know to succeed in science.
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…the Dark by Carl Sagan. The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski are not essays, but it is one of the finest writings on science I've read. The Art of Doing Science and Engineering by Richard W. Hamming Letters to a Young Scientist by Edward O. Wilson I can't not help mention The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson, which is fiction, but hear me out - it melds natural philosophy, alchemy, maths, history, Newton, Leibniz, The Sun King,…
on “Great Essays and Essayists” ↗…of essays about (rationality,intelligence,quantum physics,bayesian probability,philosophy...) that can be read on lesswrong.com) -Intuition Pumps and other Thinking Tools -Sapiens -Edward.O Wilson Letters to a young scientist -Cédric Villani Birth of a Theorem -Emanuel Derman Models Behaving Badly -Letters From A Stoic by Seneca -Mathematics it's contents methods 3 Volumes (Aleksandrov et al.) -Nick Bostrom Superinteligence…
on “Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?” ↗His book, Letters to a Young Scientist, is a great read even if you're not a scientist. It's one of those books you wish you had read when you were a teenager.
on “E. O. Wilson Still Thrives on Being a Scientific Provocateur” ↗If you're a scientist, his 'Letters to a Young Scientist' makes insightful reading. https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Scientist-Edward-Wilson...
on “E.O. Wilson saw the world in a new way” ↗…with other time devoted to actual research, gives that balance of peturbing your own thinking and exposure to new ideas, and focusing on your own work. E.O. Wilson addresses that in his recent book, Letters to a Young Scientist (along with advice to avoid as much teaching and administrative responsibilities as possible).
on “Just shut up and let your devs concentrate, advises Joel Spolsky” ↗I'm reading E.O. Wilson's "Letters to a young scientist" right now. He's a thoughtful man who really knows his stuff when it comes to biology. If he suggests anything at all, the world should listen. We owe him a greater debt than most people will ever…
on “Biologist E.O. Wilson suggests ‘moon shot’ conservation effort” ↗Biologist Edward O. Wilson makes a case for a similar, though not identical view, in his Letters to a Young Scientist. 2nd essay is "Mathematics". Distilled: * A strong mathematical background does not guarantee success in science. * There's a large amount of foundational theory and work which involves thinking in…
on “The Math Myth” ↗…As models of effective, and yet elegant design, I think they're worth studying. The general concept of messaging and how various systems for it work is a quite general one. E.O. Wilson in his book Letters to a Young Scientist talks of his own work with ants, and in determining that danger signals were small, light, volatile molecules -- they spread quickly and dispersed relatively quickly (no use in spreading alarm after the…
on “Stark, Spare, Beautiful Midcentury British Safety Posters” ↗Letters to a Young Scientist [1] was written in 2014. E. O. Wilson [2] has written five more books since then. Deborah Gordon’s [3] work on red harvester ants may also be of interest to the HN community: > In 2012, she found that…
on “E.O. Wilson on Becoming a Great Scientist” ↗This is about old pre-plague book "Letters to a Young Scientist," article from 2015.
on “E.O. Wilson on Becoming a Great Scientist” ↗