Popular Science Literature written in German
This list is merely a selection and should not be interpreted as a recommendation by the Department of Physics at Münster University.
Title: Schrödingers Kätzchen und die Suche nach der Wirklichkeit
Author: John Gribbin
Publisher: Fischer
ISBN: 978-3596141517
Price: 9.95 €
Number of pages: 368
In this book, John Gribbin continues what he began with his so successful presentation of the paradox of Schrödinger's cat: Explained simply for the non-expert, he shows the world of elementary particles with all its paradoxes and asks questions about their consequence for our reality. At the centre is the riddle about the nature of light.
Title: Die Hosen des Pythagoras – Physik, Gott und die Frauen
Author: Margaret Wertheim
Publisher: Serie Piper
ISBN: 978-3250103820
Price: 9,90 €
Number of pages: 386
Margaret Wertheim draws an intelligent and unconventional history of physics from its beginnings to the present day, with an eye on the arduous work of women to assert themselves.
"An engaging, sometimes polemically exaggerated book that leaves no one cold, neither man nor woman." Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Title: Das Universum in der Nussschale
Author: Stephen Hawking
Publisher: dtv Verlagsgesellschaft
ISBN: 978-3423340892
Price: 18,90 €
Number of pages: 264
"The behaviour of the immensely large universe," writes Stephen Hawking, "can be understood through its history in imaginary time, which is a tiny, flattened sphere. In this respect it bears a strong resemblance to Hamlet's nutshell. So Hamlet is absolutely right: we can be locked in a nutshell and still think we are kings of immeasurable territory." Stephen Hawking's second major popular science work with over 200 colour illustrations.
Title: Im Hyperraum: Eine Reise durch Zeittunnel und Paralleluniversen
Author: Michio Kaku
Publisher: rororo
ISBN: 978-3499603600
Price: 24,99 €
Number of pages: 432
Michio Kaku takes the reader into the crazy world of hyperspace, which has not four but ten dimensions and contains not particles but oscillating superstrings. What reads like "Alice in Wonderland" from the 21st century is actually the currently most hotly debated contribution to the creation of a unified theory of the universe.
Title: Am Sonntag küss‘ ich dich mündlich: Die Liebesbriefe 1897-1903
Author: Albert Einstein und Mileva Maric
Publisher: Serie Piper
IBAN: 978-3492226523
Number of pages: 224
A touching insight into Einstein's soul life as a young man in love is provided by the love letters between Albert Einstein and the physics student Mileva Maric about exam nerves, the search in vain for a permanent position, conflicts with professors, exchanges about scientific questions and, finally, love - a truly readable collection about the intellectual and emotional development of the genius before the publication of his theory.
Title: Aristoteles, Einstein & Co.: Eine kleine Geschichte der Wissenschaft in Porträts
Author: Ernst Peter Fischer
Publisher: Serie Piper
IBAN: 978-3492243216
Number of pages: 448
In twenty-six portraits that are easy and enjoyable to read, Ernst Peter Fischer introduces the greats of science from antiquity through medieval and modern Europe to our century. Among others, he tells of Bacon, Galileo, Kepler and Descartes, the many scientists who made the turn to modernity possible four hundred years ago, of Newton, Marie Curie and Albert Einstein.
Title: Einstein sagt
Author: Albert Einstein, Alice Calaprice
Publisher: Serie Piper
IBAN: 978-3492250894
Price: 12,00 €
Number of pages: 320
"Why is it that no one understands me and everyone likes me?"
This book offers Albert Einstein in the original tone and a wealth of "winged words" and shock sighs, bon mots and intellectual impulses from the pen and lips of the genius of the century.
Title: Die Physiker
Author: Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Publisher: Diogenes
ISBN: 978-3257230475
Price: 9,00 €
Number of pages: 93
A classic about knowledge as a common good and its dangers. The physicist Möbius' forceful confrontation with the devastating consequences of his formula leads to a drama about escape from reality, masquerade and madness.
Title: Der Zahlenteufel: Ein Kopfkissenbuch für alle, die Angst vor der Mathematik haben
Author: Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Rotraut Susanne Berner
Publisher: dtv Verlagsgesellschaft
ISBN: 978-3423625937
Price: 12,95€
Number of pages: 264
A book that presents small number puzzles in a "dreamy" story and arouses interest in different areas of mathematics in twelve chapters about radishes and imaginary numbers. The mathematical themes are lovingly embedded in the plot.
Title: Sie belieben wohl zu scherzen, Mr. Feynman!: Abenteuer eines neugierigen Physikers
Author: Richard P. Feynman, Edward Hutchings
Publisher: Serie Piper
ISBN: 978-3492313193
Price: 14,00 €
Number of pages: 465
This witty book by the American physicist and Nobel laureate revolves around Feynman the man, with anecdotes and stories from his school days, his time at the Alamo and finally as a professor, presenting him as the " joker" of the physics elite. A book about curiosity and fun in science.
Title: Lise Meitner
Author: Lore Sexl, Anne Hardy
Publisher: rororo
ISBN: 978-3499504396
Price: 10,00 €
Number of pages: 160
Lise Meitner researched and taught alongside Otto Hahn for over 30 years. The modest physicist was the first to grasp the full significance of an apparently failed research project on which she had worked until her forced escape in 1938. She interpreted the result as nuclear fission. She did not take part in the race to release nuclear energy that this triggered.
Title: Nobel-Frauen: Naturwissenschaftlerinnen im Porträt
Author: Ulla Fölsing
Publisher: C.H.Beck
ISBN: 978-3406340185
Price: 9.90 €
Number of pages: 214
Ulla Fölsing portrays ten women scientists who received the Nobel Prize for their scientific achievements in very different disciplines, as well as five other women scientists who were left empty-handed in the awarding of the coveted science trophy in favour of their male colleagues. This makes the book an important contribution to the topic of "Women and Science".
Title: Der Besuch aus Anderswo: Wer rettet die Welt in 1001 Nacht?
Author: Russell Stannard
Publisher: Fischer
ISBN: 978-3596850129
Number of pages: 176
Stannard's novel takes the scenario of the imminent destruction of the Earth beings of "Elsewhere" as an opportunity to launch an ingenious diversionary strategy for destroyer and reader in the character of the teacher "Physis". With exciting physical phenomena of the earth and the whole universe, villain and reader are equally captivated.
Title: Die geheimnisvollen Visionen des Herrn S.: Ein physikalisches Märchen nach Charles Dickens
Author: Robert Gilmore
Publisher: Springer Basel AG
ISBN: 978-3034860130
Price: 44,99 €
Number of pages: 264