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The acronym STEM stands for "Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics". This has sometimes been extended as "STEAM", or "Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics". However, though assuredly important, art sits rather uneasily among the other disciplines here. A more logical association is found among the disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Philosophy - or "STEMP". This is because philosophy provides the conceptual foundation for both science and mathematics - and also because these five disciplines taken together provide the key elements of rationalism.
In the view we advance at this web site, universal STEMP literacy is pre-requisite to both the survival and the flourishing of the human species. That being the case, our objective here is to provide tools for the (relatively) rapid acquisition of STEMP literacy, initially at a high level. However, we also provide break-out pages for each individual discipline for those who want to drill down deeper.
We recommend that mathematical literacy be acquired as soon as possible, because this will assist greatly with acquiring greater scientific, technological, and engineering literacy.
Although the material here can be learned relatively quickly, if the student will persist to the end, he or she will develop an unusually advanced understanding of the world, an understanding rarely achieved even by most college graduates.
The many urgent problems we currently face have made the need for STEMP literacy apparent for some time now; but the mismanagement and political exploitation of the COVID-19 pandemic in particular has made it inarguable for all but the most obdurant that the human race can no longer afford to accommodate the whims of "leaders" who are incapable of comprehending the elements of STEMP, let alone acting responsibly in light of them.
The crises mentioned above have their roots in three related factors.
First, the average individual today remains largely scientifically illiterate, and is thus easily led astray when it comes to issues like climate vandalism, energy policy, and the rational management of pandemics. Second, there exists a type of individual who is not only STEMP illiterate himself, but who is also actually actively opposed to the propagation of such literacy, sometimes from the twin motives of greed and power hunger. Thirdly, scientific and mathematical literacy are only two facets of a more robust rationalism, which should ideally also include technology, engineering, and philosophical literacy, particularly including the discipline of ethics.
Although we like to think of ourselves as being civilized, at present the cultivation of the full range of STEMP disciplines is nowhere on Earth an explicit part of the educational curriculum and is very rarely attained even by the most educated adults.
Technology and engineering are, of course, essentially tools derived from rationalistic foundations. While not as fundamental conceptually as the "big three", they are nevertheless themselves of enormous importance, and comprise essential elements of true literacy and enlightenment.
The successful functioning of democracy demands a populace fully literate in all aspects of rationalism. Now more than ever, steering ourselves into the future requires good judgment - and good judgment requires both clear reasoning and a foundation in the accurate understanding of the facts. Thus, there is a sense in which democracy, and even human survival itself demands that we much more rapidly acquire literacy in the principles of STEMP.
For example, not only would greater public understanding of science and technology make for better policy in the area of energy production and distribution, it would also, indirectly, make for better medical policy.
More abstractly, basic physical principles do much to shape our understanding of the nature of reality itself, including many aspects of human reality. Thus, even physics and chemistry provide part of the comprehensive orientation to reality that human beings have long, and rightly, sought so as to better order their affairs.
While STEMP disciplines have a reputation for being abstruse and difficult, few are more relevant to our everyday concerns.
Mathematics is the language of both science and engineering. If you can't speak it fluently, then you can't be scientifically or technologically literate in a sufficiently robust way. Unfortunately, mathematics is often taught poorly, and many students become "math phobic" or "math bored" as a result. How to get past this initial, dangerous hurdle in the most painless way?
To get started well, we recommend Super Simple Math, from the publisher Dorling Kindersley (DK), written in cooperation with the Smithsonian (the world's largest museum and research complex). This one volume covers all of the mathematical essentials, short of calculus, and is very well illustrated.
DK is famous for presenting knowledge visually. This is especially important in mathematics:
The dorsal visual pathway is the main brain region for representing quantity. This may seem surprising, as so many of us have sat through hundreds of hours of mathematics classes working with numbers, while barely ever engaging visually with mathematics.
Boaler, Munson & Williams
Mindset Mathematics: Visualizing and Investigating Ideas
Another basic stumbling block to achieving mathematical literacy is that mathematics is typically taught in a vacuum, unrelated to any other subject, often until late in high school. But we know that all subjects are better taught when their relevance and significance is apparent to the student from the outset. There are very few math books that provide any sort of meaningful context at all for learning the subject.
The only one-volume mathematical resource that tries to do so is the now slightly dated Mathematics for the Million by Lancelot Hogben. If you've worked your way through Super Simple Math, you shouldn't find too many hurdles to overcome in Hogben, and, unlike SSM, he does take you through the elements of calculus.
A good graphing calculator should be purchased and used along with Hogben's book, to help you to better visualize mathematics. (The Texas Instruments Nspire calculators are particularly good for this purpose. Find and use a good companion book with it, too, because there's a bit of a learning curve to using calculators of this kind.
With this achieved, you'll have mastered the fundamentals for tackling just about any topic in science or engineering!
For more in-depth recommendations concerning the various branches of mathematics, please see our Mathematics literacy resource.
When studying any subject, it is desirable to begin with a high-level overview of it in its entirety. This sort of overview need not be highly technical, but it should ideally be interesting. With regard to science, such an overview is very capably provided by the publisher Dorling Kindersley in cooperation with the Smithsonian Institution in the volume Science! We very strongly commend this to our readers as their starting point.
With a broad, if superficial, grasp of science in hand, the next step would be to dig in a little more deeply. The most fundamental of the sciences is physics. We therefore suggest that readers interested in further advancing their scientific literacy continue with two books.
Again we suggest that you start with a DK book: Super Simple Physics. Physics is inherently a math-intensive topic, but if you've completed the math prep above, there won't be anything you can't handle here. In fact, even if you skip that prep, there won't be anything that you can't handle here - and that's not because math is eliminated, but rather because it is here stripped to what is essential to learning the subject.
With Super Simple Physics under your belt, we suggest that you continue with a rather old introduction to physics, which has, however, dated remarkably well: The Elements and Structure of the Physical Sciences, by Julien A. Ripley, Jr.
Why this book, even in the face of many, more recent competitors? Well, primarily because of its orientation (and, beside, the elements of the physical sciences haven't changed all that much in the intervening years). Here's what Julien himself had to say about that: "[The book] is primarily an exposition of the major concepts and theories of physical science, covering both their logical structure and the empirical evidence validating that structure. It is, additionally, an attempt to set these ideas into a broad historical and philosophical context. The understanding of science and its relation to our culture requires much more than the mastery of scattered principles, a few theories, an assortment of facts, and a handful of formulas into which the facts are fitted."
We couldn't have said it better, and we do not know of another introduction of physics that brings these indispensable concerns (or the prerequisite knowledge base) to the table.
As impressive as this may be, Ripley also brings the same grace and historical perspective to the development and utilization of the mathematics he presents. As we noted above, taught purely in the abstract, mathematics can be a rather dry discipline. In Ripley's book, however, the relevance of mathematics, and especially its relevance to science, is brought forward in a truly enlightening way - and the treatment here is neither too superficial, nor too demanding.
Additional recommendations, including the other main branches of science, may be found in our Science literacy resource. Chemistry would be the most logical subject to continue to. (Yes, DK has a great Super Simple Chemistry book available! And, no, we don't have any financial relationship with DK!)
Technology is the application of the principles of science to the solution of human problems.
The now-classic compendium of technological literacy is Roger Jean Segalat's How Things Work, in four volumes. It is probably the single most comprehensive technology reference book ever assembled, but it has dated, in the sense of not including technologies developed in the most recent decades. This is not necessarily an entirely bad thing: the older technologies are both easier to understand and easier to replicate and experiment with in a home workshop. However, it is, perhaps, more of a reference collection than a high-level introduction.
David Macaulet took up Segalat's mantle with humor and an interesting narrative approach in a one volume How Things Work. And Dorling Kindersley (DK) brought forward a 2019 compendium How Technology Works featuring their typical visually appealing, if somewhat superficial, approach (that often leaves one wondering how one component or another of a given piece of technology itself works).
Less superficial than the DK volume, less outdated than Segalat, but also wonderfully illustrated and also providing more historical context is How Things Work, 2nd Edition (2019) by Chartwell books.
A variety of additional recommendations may be found in our Technology literacy resource.
Our resource for these especially interesting and important technology topics is available at this link.
Engineering is concerned with the development of technologies in order to meet human needs. The four main branches are: chemical, electrical, mechanical, and civil. To the best of our knowlege, a one-volume introduction to all four branches does not exist; but electrical and mechanical engineering are introduced very capably in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering: Everything You Need to Master the Subject - in One Book!, by David Baker. For all its real merits, however, it should be said that this book does not supply everything needed to master these subjects.
The oldest of the engineering professions is mechanical engineering. A fun, hands-on introduction is provided in Make: Mechanical Engineering for Makers by Brian Bunnell and Samer Naja.
More in-depth works pertaining to civil and chemical engineering, as well as other resources, may be found in our Engineering literacy resource.
The ideal introduction to philosophy has yet to be written. Sometimes recommended is Bertrand Russell's The History of Western Philosophy. We would have suggested a somewhat more modest title, perhaps "A History of Some Aspects of Western Philosophy". Russell is erudite, his approach is historical, which has merit, and his book is witty in places; but Russell's main expertise had to do with the philosophy of mathematics, and he knew far more about Anglo-American philosophy than European philosophy. Moreover, one comes away from his book without even a vague sense of how philosophizing is actually done, and without having learned anything about critical thinking. Worst of all, he was especially weak, to the point of being actually clueless, concerning the subject of ethics.
John Chaffee's The Thinker's Way suffers from its own shortcomings, but it does provide a starting point of some merit that avoids many of the flaws of Russell's introduction. However, it also completely lacks Russell's historical perspective. The best compromise starting point at present is The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant. Durant was both a historian and a philosopher, and although he was not equally conversant with all areas of philosophy, the philosophical novice will come away from Durant far more enlightened than he or she had been.
In short: both Chaffee's book and Durant's book are needed in order to make a reasonably good start.
Additional, more in-depth resources may be found on our Philosophy literacy resource.
The Editor / Everything Progressive
Physical principles underlie everything from the aging process to economics, to the politics of energy.
