Best Physics Books

Calling the updated and expanded edition of Stephen Hawking's The Illustrated Brief History of Time brilliant would be quite an understatement. Though there are many talented authors, there's no one who can break down these mathematically formidable subjects with such vivid clarity.

Sure, people with no physics/STEM background might find still the book difficult to digest. But what can you do, these are demanding subjects.

At the same time, featuring more than 240 full-color illustrations, including incredible satellite images, photographs made via the Hubble Space Telescope, and the most vivid computer-generated images displaying three and four-dimensional realities.

These illustrations, images, and photographs are accompanied by detailed captions clarifying them, letting the uninitiated readers experience the mind-boggling vastness of intergalactic space, as well as black holes' nature, and the microcosmic world of particle physics where matters and antimatter are constantly colliding.

In short, the updated and expanded edition of The Illustrated Brief History of Time is easily one of the best physics books ever written. No one besides Stephen Hawking could break down the cosmological physics' complexities with such clarity and wit.

Karl F. Kuhn's Basic Physics: A Self-Teaching Guide makes physics accessible to readers with no science backgrounds.

Some have even gone as far as to call the book's 1st edition the most complete and easy-to-use guide available for understanding physics. We can get where these reviewers were coming from.

The book makes learning key concepts more of a pleasure than a chore. You'll be able to quickly figure out the basics behind energy, light, sound, electricity, and color.

First and foremost, the book's easily digestible because it requires pretty much no math. Sure, there are mathematical treatments/applications included in the optional sections, so you'll also be able to mathematical approach. You won't be forced to do so though.

At the same time, the book provides readers with frequent questions and offers problems to respond to, increasing the readers' learning speed and retention. The chapters cover Newton's Laws of Motion, Atoms and Molecules, Gravity, The Conservation of Momentum and Energy, and The Quantum Nature of Light.

There are tests at the end of these chapters, so you'll be able to find out whether you've been able to figure out the chapter's subject or not. There are also objectives lists for each chapter, so you can always skip ahead or find help when necessary.

Despite his Twitter antics (or maybe even partially thanks to them), Neil deGrasse Tyson has been able to become the most beloved and celebrated modern-day astrophysicist. Of course, his countless TV appearance helped but it is the author's books that allowed him to make a name for himself to begin with.

The man excels at streamlining and simplifying difficult ideas, taking these mind-bogglingly complicated/complex concepts, stripping these ideas down to the nuts and bolts, padding these proverbial nuts and bolts with the most colorful allegories and the dorkiest jokes, and making these intricate subjects more than accessible to the layman.

Tyson's explanations are succinct yet dynamic, so you'll be able to follow and grasp various astronomical topics that would be practically impossible to comprehend without his help and/or physics background.

Riffing on subjects like gravity, dark matter, light (including its speed and makeup), and the shape of space, the beloved astrophysicist is able to maintain this chatty tone that makes these complex principles relatively comprehensible to most people.

Although the book's been written for people in a hurry, we urge you to consider taking your time. The author's sparkling wit makes the chapters almost too consumable, so you'll finish the book in a few days and will want to reread as soon as possible.

Carlo Rovelli's Seven Brief Lessons on Physics is short. The book's not even 100 pages long. At the same time, the book has been described as this whirlwind tour into the biggest physics ideas and the author has already been compared to Stephen Hawking on multiple occasions.

The book offers the most playful and entertaining introduction to modern physics, briefly yet briskly touching upon Einstein's general relativity, tackling quantum mechanics, explaining elementary particles, pointing out gravity's peculiarities, confronting black holes, approaching the universe's complex architecture, and even flirting with the role that humans have, are, and will play in this bizarre play, this weird yet exciting and wonderful world.

The author's delightfully poetic. His guide is scientific yet philosophical at the same time. In less than 100 pages, the man manages to take us to our knowledge frontiers, approaching the space's fabric, the cosmos' origins, and going back to our mind's working.

In other words, the book is excellent at celebrating the joy of discovery. Rovelli's prose is elegant yet clear. Somehow, the author is able to explain the biggest ideas in physics sometimes within 2-3 pages.

Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe is no joke. Initially, the book's able to introduce the string/superstring theory and provide a relatively comprehensive yet non-technical assessment of that theory. The later chapters become pretty hard to understand though.

The man's brilliant, there's no doubt about that. A brilliant string theorist but, at the same time, a surprisingly brilliant author too. The man might even be able to do for string theory pretty much what Stephen Hawking did for black holes.

The book's a thrilling ride that takes you through the most captivating landscape, making the reading experience exciting yet rewarding.

Peeling away mystery layers, Greene's able to reveal the universe that comprises eleven dimensions, dimensions where the space fabric proceeds tearing and repairing itself, while all matter - from the tiniest quarks to the most enormous supernovas - is generated by these vibrations that are essentially microscopically tiny energy loops.

Sounds quite complicated, right? Nevertheless, Greene's book works wonders making these sophisticated concepts accessible and even entertaining. Though the book's topics are quite abstract, you'll definitely come out from this experience understanding the universe and theoretical physics better than ever before.