I enjoy a fairly broad interest in science - but also (not being a scientist) require a bit of lay explanation. For years I've subscribed to Discover and Scientific American, and enjoyed several articles per issue of each.

Since finding this board, I've discovered New Scientist - but also read considerable criticism of its articles.

Thus I've often wondered at boardmembers' general opinions of these three publications.

I'd appreciate your thoughts - and, if you don't mind, a ranking of them (in any terms you find relevant*).


TIA


*Your definition of relevant terms by which you rank the publications would be as informative as your ranking, thus I leave the criteria up to each responder.

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Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
- Goethe

Jump in with both feet!
- Me, indulging my inner eight-year-old

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"Are you a mad-hatter that just types what he wishes, or have you actually any physics training?"
Occam's Ghost to Grant Hutchison.

Scientific American used to be much better--still some good stuff in it, but it's been dumbed down a little from "the day". Discover tries to be more a popular magazine (and SciAm is heading that way)--again good stuff in it, though some articles are questionable (I'm sad they ended Eric Haseltine's (formerly a boss just a couple levels above me, by the way) mind column, with optical illusions and other mental tricks exploiting idiosyncrasies of the human mind--those were always good--he's a cognitive scientist by training). New Scientist has good stuff, and some real trash, all mixed together, so you have to sort it out. The order I presented the magazines is my personal ranking.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

A fourth, but rather different option, is Science News. It is a weekly magazine that has very up-to-date synopses of the latest science research, written for the informed lay person. It also has one or two more in depth articles in each issue. I love it and have read it for years.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

I second swift's endorsement of Science News. I've been a subscriber for 40 years, since back when it was Science News Letter.

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

Pour la Science, the francophone sister of Scientific American, once used an image I'd made for their front page, so for that alone I'd put Scientific American on top.

On a more serious basis I can't really compare then, as I grew up with Scientific American, subscribed to New Scientist for half a year and haven't read Discover.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

I'll third the endorsement for Science News. I have been a subscriber for 15+ years. But to be honest even that mag does not match up to a college physics textbook. After diving into one of those one can see direct application to flights of rockets, designs of expressway ramps, propellers, GPS systems, etc. I only feel as though I am going for a ride when I read a mag or go to a museum. I wish to feel like a participant and be able to make calculated predictions. That is where I do the most learning.

No kidding Scientific American used to be much better!!!!!!! I used to subscribe and I loved it. I learned more from that magazine than I can even begin to explain. But now it's pop science mush. I feel like America must have grown much more stupid in the past ten to fifteen years for it to have taken such a nose-dive. That magazine has been around forever and they destroyed it... by comparison to what it was, that is... I still read it from time to time but my disappointment over the change is profound.

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The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

The Brain Science Podcast

I'll fourth the recommendation of Science News, though I've only been a subscriber for a mere 39 years.

New Scientist has some really good stuff, but they also like to stir the pot a bit and print material that's out there on the fringe without indicating that it is in fact out there on the fringe.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Read it in Science News. Read it six months later in Scientific American, slightly more detailed, or bloated if you prefer.

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0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

I don't have need for much of that stuff anymore now that Wikipedia is born. The only thing Wikipedia lacks is awesome graphics, and when they get that problem solved, print will be, in Egon Spengler's famous words, dead.

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The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

The Brain Science Podcast

I'm seriously inclined to doubt that. For one, you can't lie in the bath with Wikipedia.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Or read in the loo, in the car, on a plane, in bed with it..

And if print will be dead, what are those funy shapes on the computer screen?

Jon

If you have enough soapsuds, like they usually have in movies, you
can even lie in the bath and get away with it.

There are probably people who have brackets set up over their tubs to
hold a laptop, with some kind of move-around-in-the-air pointing device,
and wireless Internet connection.

I'm pretty sure I've never taken reading material of any kind into the tub.

I haven't seen either of them recently, but I generally liked the in-depth
articles in Scientific American much more than the newsier articles in
Science News. But I never had any problem with Science News. I only
subscribed for four years. I realized that I couldn't possibly remember
all that much stuff.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

You're missing a very decadent experience. Especially if you have a nice, hot bath and a nice, cold beverage. And you just lie there for an hour or so, reading and soaking.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Quoted for truth!

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Andre

"They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!"
Mark Twain

I learned to be very careful with wiki. It sometimes very clearly mixes science and technology with opinion and is also unprecise if you look for special things. If you speak another language, you should compare how the deal with teh same issue in the different langusges.

Answer to the OT: I have subsscribed to the SciAm (German: "Spektrum der Wissenschaft") about 25 years ago. At least in Germany it is the only mag I know of which is not focused on a special discipline (like astrononomy only, physics only) and is understandable for the non specialist.
And they do not have title storys like "(Quantum) Teleportation prooven- will we be able to beam as in Star Trek soon?".

Unfortunaley I can't comment on the others, because I have never read them.

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Andre

"They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!"
Mark Twain

I'm always a little bit skeptical when someone says a popular science mag has gone downhill. I used to think that way of Scientific American and the Swedish Illustrerad Vetenskap, but after reading some old issues from the "golden age" I was forced to conclude it was my understanding and expectations that had gone uphill.

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Science is like sex. Sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.
-- Richard Feynman

You will when the waterproof version of electronic books are on the market. You'll probably wonder why you ever bothered with those floppy inconvenient magazines or those heavy books when you can look at a rigid polymer sheet and see it no different in appearance than a book or magazine. In fact, the resolution will probably be better at some point.

You could drop the thing in the tub, kick it around, and it wouldn't be fazed in the slightest. If it gets dirty a quick swipe with a damp sponge or a little windex and a paper towel will clear things right up.

Print will be dead as soon as polymeric electronics are perfected. Why even bother holding a book when your wallpaper can display a television show or the latest article on hostile alien hackers. Visual displays could be on any surface and I have little doubt that people will choose to decorate their homes with interesting ultra high definition scenes of rainforests, martian landscapes, Hawaiian beaches, and so on. At that point windows will probably become far less important because far more interesting scenery could be displayed on something that looked like a window. And since the resolution would be so high you couldn't tell the difference, the only thing you'd miss is sunshine streaming in.

A "book" will probably be a millimeter thick sheet of plastic with height and width similar to books we have today. There would be no moving parts, it would sense your touch and you would control it by moving your fingers over its surface or by speaking to it.

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The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

The Brain Science Podcast