Excellent series for the STEM enthusiast

This excellently produced series of books, branded under the Sterling Milestones banner follows a consistent format. Each book contains 250 individual ideas encapsulated in a picture and a page of text. Organised in roughly time order each book expands the core ideas and discoveries in a STEMM related field.  

My personal favourite is The Space Book which starts with the big bang, rolling through early discoveries of the planets and calendars towards current activities in space and onwards to how the universe will end. Full of facts and contextual pictures this book really brings alive that unique combination of engineering and exploration which is the discovery and exploration of outer space.

Each book starts with an introduction to the field and finishes with a comprehensive index, Notes and further reading followed by photos credits. Most are offered by Chris Pickover but other authors have some of the titles.

For more details Sterling milestones books 

Is available via Amazon or ABEbooks as usual.

Easy Philosophy for the business school generation

Sometimes ideas just strike a cord. Often those ideas are things you kind of know and understand but the way they are described makes the concept resonate and appear as if for the first time.  It's quite a gift to be able to present ideas in this way with clarity, precision without resorting to greeting card schmaltz.

One person currently blogging for Forbes that seems to capture this style is Jesica Hagy. She uses a simple business graph or diagram to really capture the essence of a philosophical idea. Here is one such graphic that completely captures the idea of how much burning passion is welcome on any subject you choose. Known as the "Goldilocks factor" you can apply this to religion, politics, recycling or even expressing keenness for the wonderful taste of Marmite.

She has lots more concepts collected in series such as "Nine Dangerous things you we taught at school" and "Six enemies of greatness (and happiness)". Really worth a read and maybe even a close study.