The Disordered Cosmos

"The early chapters of this book lay out the author’s interest in physics with a palpable enthusiasm, while the later chapters discuss the ways that the dominant culture manifests in academia and the physics "community" that work to dim that enthusiasm. I hadn't really considered the ways that science as a discipline and idea are socially constructed so there's lots to think about.<br/><br/>(I did dock a star because I found the chapter on gender a bit reductive - I hate the narrative that nonbinary people exist because they are the only ones who object to traditional gender roles and this chapter skirts pretty close to that. Overall though a great read.)"

"This book does not add anything to the knowledge of human civilization, except bitterness towards the world, our existence, and where the human civilization currently stands. I went through the entire book (painful as it was) because I wanted to make sure to read the whole book and give author the chance to redeem themselves before giving it a review. This book has some cliched claims and statements that are like whatever everyone knows this is true and pretty much agrees to this. And the author doesn't really provide any new insights or enforcement to these cliched statements either except just to recite them with different sentence structure and vocabulary. The most disturbing part of the book is the racist undertone that the author sticks to that seems to guide her philosophy in life. This undertone is so strong that this book ends up basically being a racist rant that should have been a blogpost in some seedy tabloid. The author would probably be curious to know my race and gender after reading this review to determine how to interpret it, however I for one don't care to live in a world where my gender or race or ethnicity is what matters rather than my ideas and statements."