Leisure, the Basis of Culture; Josef Pieper. For a long time this has been my favorite book.

Are there any layman introductory books on quantum mechanics and super/string theory?

hardball...elegant universe and fabric of the cosmos by brian greene...

Ty.

BBC's The Secret Life of Chaos
Probably one of the most interesting things I've ever seen.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...4F2AE1160FF884

Any books that offer an introduction to this kind of stuff for someone with no more than high school math?

I've been reading this for the past 2 weeks on recommendation of this thread and I gotta say...its starting to really kick my ass. I'm the type of guy who learns best through illustrative examples and Penrose is stingy with them. Even his examples are a bit esoteric and abstract. I'm really enjoying the book, but I feel like I'm only understanding about 10% of it.

Still havent gotten through the math primer part of it, though, so maybe it gets easier? Thats probably wishful thinking. Maybe this book is just for those with a stronger math background than me.

Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is an unavoidable classic. It explains how all sorts of things, especially scientific inquiry, do not progress steadily, incrementally. Knowledge has periodic revolutions of growth, not smooth evolution. http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Scie...4437403&sr=8-1

The Sacred Depths of Nature is a favorite of mine. It argues that humans are wired to ponder the sublime, and that nature and science are appropriates choices for sacralization if you lack religious faith. http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Depths-...8&sr=1-1-spell

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre takes a shot as sudo-scientific claptrap, such as homeopathy. It's well worth a read.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Science-...4554603&sr=1-1

Yeah, with that book I don't think it's enough to just be an intelligent, patient reader. You prob need detailed experience with the relevant math.

Yeah, I think so. At the very least, I feel like I need a friend or something who is expert so that I can just have him illustrate a few concepts for me. So for now I'm just sort of forcing my way through, still learning and enjoying it.

I paged through that book and read maybe the first eight chapters a while back. I would say my impression of it is that it is written to show logical progression and highlight unity among ideas to those who are already largely familiar with them. I recently acquired the Princeton Companion to Mathematics, and in the introduction there was a comment that in the editor's opinion Road to Reality was the closest analogue he could think of in the physical sciences to his goals for the Companion (which looks like a pretty sweet book but I haven't dipped into it yet.)

Well, from where I'm sitting it hardly seems like an analogue, at least through Ch. 14.

Gotta recommed Snake Oil Science by bausell. It's nominally about alternative medicine, and fairly scathing in it's treatment thereof, but really it's about how one shoul properly do science and the pitfalls o medical research. Guy is brilliant and clear and honest.

Thinking about giving this a go. Anyone read it?

The Web of Life: A new Scientific Understanding of Living Systems by Fritjof Capra

He's author of the popular book Tao of Physics which I haven't read either.

When you say very technical, do you think an undergraduate physics student who has completed both halves of undergraduate QM and E&M courses as well as an undergraduate GR course could meander his way through this book?

Since I'm posting this I will leave a suggestion even though I mostly read fiction.

For those wanting a lighter introduction to Nietzsche then Zarathustra I enjoyed On the Genealogy of Morality. For some truly bizarre (in my opinion of course) philosophy that I nonetheless found thought provoking look no further than Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling.

I also echo many of the above of course.