Miscellaneous

Here are some of the inspirational talks, books, and websites that I like.
Not in any specific order.

Talks that I like:

1. Noam Chomsky – The Purpose of Education, Presented at the Learning Without Frontiers Conference – Jan 25th 2012- London (LWF 12).
2. Jaron Lanier, How we need to remake the internet, TED2018. You should also check his 1993 interview: Jaron Lanier discusses new developments in virtual reality.
3. Sustainable manufacturing, development talks.
4. Diana Nyad, Never, ever give up, TED, 2009, one of my favorites.
5. William Kamkwamba, How I harnessed the wind, TED, 2009, one of my favorites.
6. To watch a collection of talks about EDUCATION-curated by TED-please click. 
7. To watch a collection of talks about SUSTAINABILITY-curated by TED-please click.
8. John Seely Brown, Tinkering as a Mode of Knowledge Production, at Stanford, CA, Oct. 23-25, 2008; He simply says “I am what I create.” So, do as much as you can do, go as far as you can go.
9. Tony Wagner, Play, passion, purpose, TEDxNYED, 2012. 
10. Sara Goering, Philosophy for Kids: Sparking a Love of Learning, TEDxOverlake, 2011.
11. Paola Antonelli, Design and the Elastic Mind, TED, 2007; We will see more arts in science and more science in arts.
12. Richard W. Hamming, You and Your Research, Transcription of the Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar, 7 March 1986; it is an excellent talk.
13. Ken Robinson, Schools kill creativity, TED, 2006; a joyful and inspiring talk about education.
14. Education Nation 2.0: Redefining K-12 Education in America, 2011, Round table hosted by Stanford University.
15. Waiting for ‘Superman‘, Directed by Davis Guggenheim, 2010; This is a documentary about the American public education system. The way we educate people has to completely change all around the world so that more people realize their potential and explore. 
16. Ken Robinson, The World We Explore, Zeitgeist Americas, 2012; The traditional education might not be the way for sustainable creativity.
17. Daphne Bavelier, Your brain on video games, TED, 2012; Is an insidious change in learning possible through engineered games? Definitely. 
18. Alan Alda, Helping the Public Get Beyond a Blind Date with Science, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2012; Alan Alda emphisizes the importance of communicating research more effectively and intelligible with non-scientists.
19. Sheryl Sandberg, Why we have too few women leaders, TED, 2010; More women are needed in the workforce to make a better world. We know what men are capable of.
20. George Whitesides, Toward a science of simplicity, TED, 2010; Dr. Whitesides explains the power of simple building blocks that can be used to create extreme complexity.
21. Henry Markram, A brain in a supercomputer, TED, 2009; Dr. Markram explores the power of supercomputing to understand how brain works. 
22. Stephen Wolfram, Computing a theory of everything, TED, 2010; Dr. Wolfram demonstrates the extend of scientific computing together with the complexity that can be achieved by using simple building blocks.
23. Angela Belcher, Using nature to grow batteries, TED, 2011; I call this talk ”mastering nature”. Dr. Belcher will expand your horizons.
24. Donald Sadoway, The missing link to renewable energy, TED, 2012; Dr. Sadoway talks about one of the biggest technological challenges–battery. Also, he is a very good teacher; please check his solid state chemistry class at MIT OCW.
25. Mitchell Joachim, Don’t build your home, grow it!, TED, 2010; I hope we will have something as good as this in the future; we do not look very sustainable.
26. Bang Wong, Keynote on Communicating Science Visually, VIZBI, 2010; A widespread lack of effective scientific communication still persists today. In this talk, Mr. Wong stresses the importance of data visualization and gives medical illustration examples.
27. Marco Rolandi and Karen Cheng, Designing Scientific Figures, Materials View webinar, 2012; Here you can find tips and references on how to generate visually striking figures that improve your data representation.
28. Tristram Stuart, The global food waste scandal, TED, 2012; Who wants to save the world? Obviously not the majority. Check his book, too.
29. Amy Cuddy, Your body language shapes who you are, TED, 2012; Alter your chances by changing your posture.
30. Brené Brown, The power of vulnerability, TED, 2010; Looking for happy life? Good luck, but you might find some clues in this talk.
31. Eric Whitacre, A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong, TED, 2011; This piece reveals peace. Click for more. I wonder what would happen if everyone pitched in one dollar to create a research institute aiming a reform in the way we live.
32. Aimee Mullins, It’s not fair having 12 pairs of legs, TED, 2009; We all have disabilities. Science, arts, and imagination hold solutions to every known and unknown problems.
33. Larry Smith, Why you will fail to have a great career, TED, 2011; The education system has to be more patient and tolerant to failure. Learning by failing imprints the most into our brains. A brighter future waits for the people that has failed early and kept going for their dreams.
34. Edward O. Wilson, Advice to young scientists, TED, 2012; Go as far as you can.
35. Aubrey de Grey Interview by the The Science Network, 2012; We should free our minds. The question “How are our words seen by other scientists and non-scientists?” blocks imagination thereby creativity and innovation. Each time I propose something new–a bigger size of a graph in a journal article–I get the answer “I haven’t seen anyone doing it.” I don’t think Tesla ever said that. Here are already asked 50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind.
36. Filiz Garip, Inflection Points, TurkishWIN Talks, 2013; Dr. Garip talks about the power of optimism and the possible outcomes.
37. Ann Woodworth, Acting for Your Life, TEDxEducationCity, 2012, “Who we are? What do we want? What can we do?” Her words are the summary of this nice talk.
38. Marcus du Sautoy, Symmetry, reality’s riddle, TEDGlobal, 2009, Can we teach mathematics in a better way through symmetry? Can we learn crystallography better through art of symmetry? I think so. 
39. Britta Riley, A garden in my apartment, TEDxManhattan, 2011.
40. David Mccandleuss, The beauty of data visualization, TEDGlobal, 2010. Nice talk about data visualization. 
41. James B. Glattfelder, Who controls the world?, TEDxZurich, 2012. Nice talk about complex systems and economy.  
42. Adam Savage, How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries, TED-Ed, 2011. 
43. Julian Treasure, Why architects need to use their ears, TEDGlobal, 2012.
44. Barbara Oakley, Learning how to learn, TEDxOaklandUniversity, 2014.
45. Josh Kaufman, The first 20 hours — how to learn anything, TEDxCSU, 2013.
46. Filipe Castro Matos, How waking up every day at 4.30am can change your life, TEDxAUBG, 2015. 
47. Sal Khan, Let’s teach for mastery — not test scores, TED, 2015.
48. Kandice Sumner, How America’s public schools keep kids in poverty, TEDxBeaconStreet, 2015.
49. Hans and Ola Rosling, How not to be ignorant about the world, TED, 2014. Hans is great!
50. Marisa Peer, To reach beyond your limits by training your mind, TEDxKCS, 2015.
51. Robert Grant, Beautiful minds are free from fear, TEDxOrangeCoast, 2013.
52. Matt Walker, Sleep is your superpower, TED, 2019.
53. Stephen Duneier, How to Achieve Your Most Ambitious Goals, TEDxTucson, 2017.
54. Angela Lee Duckworth, Grit: the power of passion and perseverance, TED, 2013. Check her book too.
55. Wendy Suzuki, The brain-changing benefits of exercise, TED, 2018.
56. Murat Dalkilinç, Why sitting is bad for you, TED-Ed, 2015.
57. Laura Schmidt, Why we can’t stop eating unhealthy foods, TEDMED, 2016.
58. Ruben Meerman, How breathing and metabolism are interconnected, TEDxBundaberg, 2019.
59. Rahaf Harfoush, How burnout makes us less creative | The Way We Work, a TED series, 2020
60. Howard Gardner, What Does It Mean to Be Intelligent? – with Howard Gardner, The Royal Institution, 2020.
61. Michael Shellenberger, Why renewables can’t save the planet, TEDxDanubia, 2019.
62. David Epstein, How Falling Behind Can Get You Ahead, TEDxManchester, 2020.

Books that I like:
Please scroll down for scientific writing and career oriented books.

1. Judith S. Zawojewski, Heidi Diefes-Dux and Keith J. Bowman (Eds.), Models and Modeling in Engineering Education: Designing Experiences for All Students, Sense Publishers, 2008.
2. Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown, A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change, CreateSpace, 2011.
3. Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Penguin Books, 1979.
4. Philip Ball, The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature, Oxford University Press, 1999.
5. Philip Ball, Shapes: Nature’s patterns: a tapestry in three parts, Oxford University Press, 2009.
6. Philip Ball, Flow: Nature’s patterns: a tapestry in three parts, Oxford University Press, 2009.
7. Philip Ball, Branches: Nature’s patterns: a tapestry in three parts, Oxford University Press, 2009.
8. Michael S. Gazzaniga, The Social Brain: Discovering the Networks of the Mind, 1987.
9. Felice Frankel and Angela H. DePace, Visual Strategies: A Practical Guide to Graphics for Scientists & Engineers, Yale University Press, 2012.
10. Felice Frankel and George M. Whitesides, On the surface of things: images of the extraordinary in science, Harvard University Press, 2007. 
11. Felice Frankel and George M. Whitesides, No Small Matter: Science on the Nanoscale, Harvard University Press, 2009.
12. Edward Tufte, The visual display of quantitative information, Graphics Press, 1983.
13. Ergun Türkcan, Dünya’da ve Türkiye’de bilim, teknoloji ve politika, 2009.
14. Emre Kongar, 21.Yüzyılda Türkiye, 1999.
15. Al Seckel, Masters of Deception: Escher, Dali & the Artists of Optical Illusion, Sterling Publishing, 2004.
16. William H. Cropper, Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking, Oxford University Press, 2004; a good source to learn thermodynamics. 
17. Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, 1999.
18. Edward O. Wilson, Letters to a Young Scientist, W. W. Norton & Company, 2013.
19. Stefano Lelio D’Anna, The School of Gods, University Of Buckingham Press, 2009.
20. Timothy Gowers, June Barrow-Green and Imre Leader (Eds.), The Princeton Companion to Mathematics, Princeton University Press, 2008.
21. Hermann Hesse, Demian, Dover Publications, 2000 (First published in 1919).
22. Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf, Algora Publishing, 2010 (First published in 1927).
23. Richard Dawkins, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, Oxford University Press, 2008.
24. E. Haeckel, O. Breidbach, I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, R.P. Hartmann, M. Schons, M. Ashdown, Art Forms in Nature: The Prints of Ernst Haeckel, Prestel Publishing, 1998.
25. Tuncay Deniz, Türk Uçak Üretimi-Turkish Aircraft Production, 2004.
26. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The University of Chicago Press, 1962.
27. Maura Cullen, 35 Dumb Things Well-Intended People Say: Surprising Things We Say That Widen the Diversity Gap, Morgan James Publishing, 2008.
28. Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life, Basic Books, 2002.
29. John L. Heilbron, The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science, Oxford University Press, 2003.
30. Özer Ozankaya, Dünya Düşünürleri Gözüyle Atatürk ve Cumhuriyeti, İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2000.
31. Taylan Özbay, Susulacak Zaman mı?, İlkim Ozan Yayınları, 2011.
32. Taylan Özbay, Atatürkçülüğün Kurtuluş Savaşı, İlkim Ozan Yayınları, 2012.
33. Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Artist Within, Simon and Schuster, 1986.
34. Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Penguin, 2012 (First published  in 1979).
35. Colin Beavan, No Impact Man, Macmillan, 2009.
36. Tristram Stuart, Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal, W. W. Norton & Company, 2009.
37. Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
38. Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, Penguin, 2009.
39. Ken Robinson, The Arts in Schools: Principles, Practice and Provision, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1982. PDF link.
40. John Hagel, III, John Seely Brown, Lang Daviso, The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion, Basic Books, 2010. One of my favorites.
41. György Doczi, The power of limits: proportional harmonies in nature, art, and architecture, Shambhala, 2005.
42. Steven Vogel, Cats’ paws and catapults, W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.
43. Richard A. Muller, Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines, W. W. Norton & Company, 2008.
44. Richard Pascale, Jerry Sterni, and Monique Sternin, The Power Of Positive Deviance, Harvard Business Press, 2010.
45. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, Harper Collins, 2008. One of my favorites.
46. Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Penguin Group, 2009.
47. Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Ballantine Books, 2008.
48. Tony Wagner, The Global Achievement Gap, Basic Books, 2010.
49. Angela Duckworth, Grit: The power of passion and perseverance, Simon and Schuster, 2016.
50. Olson, Jeff. The slight edge. Greenleaf Book Group, 2013.
51. Liebowitz, Harold, ed. Fracture: An Advanced Treatise. Academic Press, All Volumes, ~1969.
52. Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Harvard University Press, 2017.
53. Howard E. Gardner, Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons in Theory and Practice, Basic Books, 2008.
54. Abraham H. Maslow, Motivation and Personality, Harper and Row, 1987. 
55. John J. Medina, Brain Rules12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work Home and School, Pear Press, 2008.
56. more to come..

Books on Scientific Writing:

1. William Strunk and Elwyn B. White, The Elements of Style, Any edition-also available online. This is a must have book. 
2. William Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, HarperCollins Publishers, 2006. This is also a must have book.
3. George M. Whitesides, Whitesides’ Group: Writing a Paper, Advanced Materials 2004;16:1375-1377. If you want a very clean and fast introduction to academic paper writing, there you go. 
4. Marco Rolandi, Karen Cheng, Sarah Pérez-Kriz, A Brief Guide to Designing Effective Figures for the Scientific Paper, Advanced Materials 2011;23:4343-4346. This one talks about figures.
5. Michael F. Ashby, How to Write a Paper, 2004. Just google Ashby, then you decide to read or not to read. 
6. Guide to Scientific Writing-a paper series-by Clinical Chemistry provides an A to Z approach to scientific paper writing. I really like this paper series. You will learn many tips and techniques for writing from these short papers.  
7. Angelika H. Hofmann, Scientific Writing and Communication: Papers, Proposals, and Presentations, Oxford University Press, 2010. This is my favorite. It is broad and explains every aspect of paper writing, including basics, review process, even posters and presentations. 

Books on Career Success?:)

1. Philip E. Agre, Networking on the Network: A Guide to Professional Skills for PhD Students, 2004, online. Awesome stuff just read.
2. Peter J. Feibelman, A PhD Is Not Enough: A Guide To Survival In Science, Basic Books, 2011 (First published in 1993). You have to read this short book to understand what you are in (assuming you are doing Ph.D.).
3. Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Free Press, 2004. (Take only the good stuff.)
4. Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Random House, 2012
5. Peter S. Fiske, Put Your Science to Work: The Take-Charge Career Guide for Scientists, American Geophysical Union, 2001.
6. Richard M. Reis, Tomorrow’s Professor: Preparing for Careers in Science and Engineering, Wiley, 1997.
7. Julia M. Vick and Jennifer S. Furlong, The Academic Job Search Handbook, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
8. Peg B. Single, Demystifying Dissertation Writing, Stylus publishing, 2009.
9. Steven M. Cahn, From Student to Scholar: A Candid Guide to Becoming a Professor, Columbia University Press, 2008.