3 ms·
> Must one go study to become an astronomer as the first step? Ideally yes, but failing that you learn from textbooks. Popsci books, at their best, get people
by consilient 3y ago
> Must one go study to become an astronomer as the first step?
Ideally yes, but failing that you learn from textbooks. Popsci books, at their best, get people interested and maybe manage to convey a few only moderately distorted factoids. They don't teach anything of substance.
- mananaysiempre 3y agoPerhaps the “Best textbooks on every subject” thread[1] at Less Wrong will be more to your liking? (I have found good popsci books to sometimes be better at conveying historical context, though, simply because textbooks may consider that context to be out of scope, and in a formal settings your professor’s asides would compensate for that. Then, of course, there are textbooks disguised as popsci ones, like Aaronson’s quantum computing one.) [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xg3hXCYQPJkwHyik2/the-best-textbooks-on-every-subject https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xg3hXCYQPJkwHyik2/the-best-t...