The Philosopher in the Valley
Michael Steinberger
2018
Profile exploring philosophy's influence on Silicon Valley thought and computation.
21st Century
Research Canon
Foundational and contemporary works in philosophy, science, and thought
A collection of books that inform the da Vinci research program and contemporary intellectual inquiry.
Philosophy
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences
Eugene Wigner
1960
Philosophical inquiry into why mathematics describes physical reality so precisely.
20th Century
The Problems of Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
1912
Accessible introduction to fundamental philosophical problems and analytical method.
20th Century
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus & Philosophical Investigations
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1953
Wittgenstein's two masterpieces: early logical atomism and later language games philosophy.
20th Century
Philosophical Fragments & Concluding Unscientific Postscript
Søren Kierkegaard
1846
Monumental texts examining existential dialectics, subjective truth, and the limits of human reason.
19th Century
Physics
The Theoretical Minimum
Leonard Susskind
2013
Essential introduction to the minimal mathematical framework needed to understand modern physics.
21st Century
Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
Neil deGrasse Tyson
2007
Astrophysical essays on extreme phenomena and the cosmos from a master science communicator.
21st Century
Wormholes, Black Holes, and Spacetime
Jill Khalil
2015
Accessible treatment of general relativity and exotic spacetime geometries.
21st Century
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
Isaac Newton
1687
Foundation of classical mechanics, gravity, and the mathematical method in natural philosophy.
Early Modern
Relativity: The Special and General Theory
Albert Einstein
1920
Einstein's own exposition of special and general relativity for the educated reader.
20th Century
On the Gravitational Field of a Mass Point According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity
Karl Schwarzschild
1916
Landmark solution to Einstein's field equations describing black hole spacetime geometry.
20th Century
An Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
1939
Foundational text on stellar physics and the limits of stellar collapse.
20th Century
Selected Papers on String Theory and M-theory
Edward Witten
2010
Collected foundational works on string theory, supersymmetry, and modern theoretical physics.
21st Century
The Feynman Lectures on Physics
Richard Feynman
1963
Legendary three-volume set reimagining physics instruction with insight and clarity.
20th Century
Quantum Computation and Quantum Information
Michael A. Nielsen and Isaac L. Chuang
2010
Standard reference text for quantum computing: qubits, algorithms, quantum error correction, quantum complexity.
21st Century
Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell
A. Zee
2003
Extraordinarily intuitive guide to QFT, path integrals, Feynman diagrams, and quantum field machinery.
21st Century
Gravitation
Charles W. Misner, Kip S. Thorne, and John Archibald Wheeler
1973
Definitive comprehensive treatise on general relativity, spacetime geometry, and gravitational physics.
20th Century
Mathematics
The Works of Archimedes
Archimedes
-250
Mathematical and mechanical treatises laying foundations for calculus and physics.
Ancient Greece
The Elements
Euclid
-300
Systematic treatise on geometry and number theory—the definitive text for 2000 years.
Ancient Greece
A Mathematical Theory of Communication
Claude Shannon
1948
Foundational paper establishing information theory and the concept of entropy.
20th Century
Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces
Manfredo P. do Carmo
1976
Essential mathematical foundation for smooth manifolds, curvature, geodesics, and geometric analysis.
20th Century
Artificial Intelligence
The Thinking Machine
Stephen Witt
2021
History of artificial intelligence, neural networks, and the race toward machine learning.
21st Century
Computing Machinery and Intelligence & On Computable Numbers
Alan Turing
1950
Twin papers founding computational theory and artificial intelligence as formal disciplines.
20th Century
Literature
String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis
David Foster Wallace
1996
Collection of essays exploring excellence, form, and complexity in athletic performance and life.
20th Century
History
What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence
Stephen A. Schwarzman
2019
Memoir and philosophy of risk, decision-making, and building institutions at scale.
21st Century
In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
Steven Levy
2011
Inside story of Google's culture, algorithms, and philosophy of information.
21st Century
Science
The Road Ahead
Bill Gates
1995
Vision of technology's impact on society, commerce, and human connection in the information age.
20th Century
Focus: The ASML Way
Marc Hijink
2018
Strategic vision of extreme ultraviolet lithography and technological convergence.
21st Century
Complete this collection
This is a living collection of research materials. If you know of books that belong here, or have additions to suggest for the da Vinci research canon, please reach out.