First published in 1689, "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" is British philosopher John Locke's important and influential exposition on the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. Arranged into four books, the first book begins by rejecting the notion of innate ideas proposed by Descartes and proposes instead that humans are born as blank slates. Book two argues that all knowledge is derived from experience and reflection. Locke also...

Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell was a notable 20th century British philosopher, mathematician, historian, social critic, and political activist. Considered one of the founders of analytical philosophy, Russell was an iconoclast who helped lead the revolt against British idealism, a prominent philosophy in England at the end of the 19th century. First written in 1912, Bertrand Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy" was an attempt by the author to create...

As we humans have expanded our horizons to see things vastly smaller, faster, larger, and farther than ever before, we have been forced to confront preconceptions born of the human experience and create wholly new ways of looking at the world around us. The theories of relativity and quantum physics were developed out of this need and have provided us with phenomenal, mind-twisting insights into the strange and exciting reality show of our universe.

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First published in 1739 to an unenthusiastic British public, Hume's "A Treatise of Human Nature" has since been referred to as one of the most significant books in the history of philosophy. Hume, a Scottish philosopher, claimed that he was attempting to discuss moral issues with a methodical reasoning, and proceeded to do so in this foundational text. Divided into three large sections, Hume begins his work with a discussion of human understanding,...

Set theory permeates much of contemporary mathematical thought. This text for undergraduates offers a natural introduction, developing the subject through observations of the physical world. Its progressive development leads from concrete finite sets to cardinal numbers, infinite cardinals, and ordinals. Although set theory begins in the intuitive and the concrete, it ascends to a very high degree of abstraction. All that is necessary to its grasp,...

"The bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals examines the critical art of rethinking: learning to question your beliefs and to know what you don't know, which can position you for success at work and happiness at home. The difficulty of rethinking our assumptions is surprisingly common--maybe even fundamentally human. Our ways of thinking become habits that we don't bother to question, and mental laziness leads us to prefer the ease of old...

Before the universe WAS FORMED, before time and space existed, there was...nothing. But then... BANG! Stars caught fire and burned so long that some exploded, flinging stardust everywhere. And the ash of those stars turned into planets. Into our Earth. Into us.

"Theaetetus" is a dialogue by Plato from his middle period, written sometime around 369 BC. It is widely considered to be one of his best works and remains a significant contribution to the philosophy of knowledge. The work is framed as a dialogue between Socrates and a promising, but humble, young geometry student named Theaetetus. In one of the most well-known scenes in Plato's dialogues, Socrates discusses his method for eliciting thoughtful discussion...

An imaginative introduction to number theory, this unique approach employs a pair of fictional characters, Ant and Gnam. Ant leads Gnam through a variety of theories, and together, they put the theories into action-applying linear diophantine equations to football scoring, using a black-magic device to simplify problems in modular structures, and developing intriguing modifications to the rules of chess. Appropriate for anyone familiar with algebra...

"Michio Kaku, renowned theoretical physicist and author of Hyperspace and The Future of Humanity, tells the story of the greatest quest in science. When Newton discovered the laws of motion and gravity, he unified the rules of heaven and earth. From then on, physicists have been discovering new forces and incorporating them into ever-greater theories. But the major breakthroughs of the 20th century- relativity and quantum mechanics- are incompatible,...