Have to add The Mathematical Experience, by (Morris?) Kline. I don’t know if this is earlier or later than the one mentioned by partly_warmer, but it’s a great read.
And I can’t resist voting for GEB. One of my all-time favorite pop science books.
[symbol]paradoxa[/symbol], according to Bauer is: “Contrary to opinion or expectation, strange, wonderful, remarkable.”
But that was a long time ago in the etymology of the English word. Webster’s has quite an interesting range of senses, including “2b (1) : a statement that is actually self-contradictory and hence false even though its true character is not immediately apparent (2) : an argument that apparent derives self-contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable premises”.
FriendRob, “The Mathematical Experience” has a similar line of thinking to that of “Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty”. I’ve read several of his books and the latter seems to wrap up most of his important insights in a relatively short form. He’s the sort of guy, like Newton, one wishes could just go on writing forever.
I suppose I meant something to the effect of unusual science (if there is anything unusual). Something like strangelets (sp?) or other oddities…