GatesNotes.com
Bill Gates enjoys his summers just like the rest of us, but that doesn't mean he thinks our brains should take a vacation.
The Microsoft founder and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation head recently announced on his Gates Notes blog five recommendations for summer reading. They cover topics ranging from business to math to the origins of humanity itself.
Here are the titles to keep an eye on.
After a science-fiction dry spell of more than a decade, Gates picked up "Seveneves" on a friend's recommendation, and he says he's grateful for it. "The plot gets going in the first sentence, when the moon blows up," he writes.
But that's only the beginning. The world soon learns the entire species is doomed: In two years' time, a cataclysmic meteor shower will destroy all life on the pale blue dot. It's up to humanity to send as many spacecraft into orbit as possible with the hope of escaping the apocalypse.
"You might lose patience with all the information you'll get about space flight," Gates writes, "but I loved the technical details."
Nick Lane might not be a household name, but Gates want to change that.
"Nick is one of those original thinkers who makes you say: More people should know about this guy's work," he says. "He is trying to right a scientific wrong by getting people to fully appreciate the role that energy plays in all living things."
The book seeks to resolve unanswered questions about how life formed on earth, and raises thoughtful questions about where solutions for disease may come from.
"Even if the details of Nick's work turn out to be wrong," Gates says, "I suspect his focus on energy will be seen as an important contribution to our understanding of where we come from."
What "Freakonomics" has done for economics, Ellenberg's book does for math: It applies it to our daily lives in counterintuitive ways.
The author starts with a straightforward concept such as the electoral college or state lottery, "and then uses it as a jumping-off point to talk about the math involved."
Readers learn how early they really need to get to the airport, what their chances of getting cancer could be, and why tall parents may yield short children. Ellenberg ends up finding the mathematical thread through dozens of topics, including the Italian Renaissance art scene and Facebook.
According to Gates, "The book's larger point is that, as Ellenberg writes, 'to do mathematics is to be, at once, touched by fire and bound by reason' — and that there are ways in which we’re all doing math, all the time."
