He's certainly been thinking about it lately. May, a freshly minted astrophysics Ph.D., joins forces with legendary astronomer Patrick Moore and astrophysicist Chris Lintott in Bang! to consider the history of the universe from the Big Bang to Heat Death.Space, time, and matter were birthed 13.7 billion years ago and will continue on longer than we are able to comprehend. Infinitesimally small at first, the Universe is immense and ever expanding. Bang! explains how it all started, takes you on a tour of what is known about the evolution of the Universe, and posits how the end of time will come about.This fascinating book includes photographs, short biographies of key figures, an at-a-glance timeline, a glossary of terms, and suggested resources for further exploration.Based on the work of history’s most brilliant scientific minds, this amazing story features clear, straightforward discussions of the most perplexing and compelling aspects of existence—from the formation of stars, planets, and other galactic bodies to black holes, quasars, anti-matter, and dark matter to the emergence of life and the possibility that it could exist elsewhere.Pick up a copy of Bang! It will, it will rock you.

    A remarkable pictorial discussion of the curved space-time we call home, it achieves even greater impact through the use of 141 excellent illustrations. This is the first sustained visual account of many important topics in relativity theory that up till now have only been treated separately.Finding a perfect analogy in the situation of the geometrical characters in Flatland, Professor Rucker continues the adventures of the two-dimensional world visited by a three-dimensional being to explain our three-dimensional world in terms of the fourth dimension. Following this adventure into the fourth dimension, the author discusses non-Euclidean geometry, curved space, time as a higher dimension, special relativity, time travel, and the shape of space-time. The mathematics is sound throughout, but the casual reader may skip those few sections that seem too purely mathematical and still follow the line of argument. Readable and interesting in itself, the annotated bibliography is a valuable guide to further study.Professor Rucker teaches mathematics at the State University of New York in Geneseo. Students and laymen will find his discussion to be unusually stimulating. Experienced mathematicians and physicists will find a great deal of original material here and many unexpected novelties. Annotated bibliography. 44 problems.

    From its inception, Margaret Wertheim shows, physics has been an overwhelmingly male-dominated activity; she argues that gender inequity in physics is a result of the religious origins of the enterprise.Pythagoras' Trousers is a highly original history of one of science's most powerful disciplines. It is also a passionate argument for the need to involve both women and men in the process of shaping the technologies from the next generation of physicists.

    Why is the universe expanding at an ever faster rate? What is the nature of the "dark matter" that makes up almost a quarter of the universe? Why does the universe appear fine-tuned for life? Are there others besides our own? Ananthaswamy soon finds himself at the ends of the earth--in remote and sometimes dangerous places. Take the Atacama Desert in the Chilean Andes, one of the coldest, driest places on the planet, where not even a blade of grass can survive. Its spectacularly clear skies and dry atmosphere allow astronomers to gather brilliant images of galaxies billions of light-years away. Ananthaswamy takes us inside the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope on Mount Paranal, where four massive domes open to the sky each night "like dragons waking up."He also takes us deep inside an abandoned iron mine in Minnesota, where half-mile-thick rock shields physicists as they hunt for elusive dark matter particles. And to the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, where engineers are drilling 1.5 miles into the clearest ice on the planet. They're building the world's largest neutrino detector, which could finally help reconcile quantum physics with Einstein's theory of general relativity.The stories of the people who work at these and other dramatic research sites--from Lake Baikal in Siberia to the Indian Astronomical Observatory in the Himalayas to the subterranean lair of the Large Hadron Collider--make for a compelling new portrait of the universe and our quest to understand it. An atmospheric, engaging, and illuminating read, "The Edge of Physics" depicts science as a human process, bringing cosmology back down to earth in the most vivid terms.

    Theories that contain time as a simple quantity form the basis of our understanding of many scientific disciplines, yet the debate rages on: why does there seem to be a direction to time, an arrow of time pointing from past to future?In The Arrow of Time, a major bestseller in England, Dr. Peter Coveney, a research scientist, and award-winning journalist Dr. Roger Highfield, demonstrate that the commonsense view of time agrees with the most advanced scientific theory. Time does in fact move like an arrow, shooting forward into what is genuinely unknown, leaving the past immutably behind. The authors make their case by exploring three centuries of science, offering bold reinterpretations of Newton's mechanics, Einstein's special and general theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, and advancing the insights of James Gleick's Chaos.

    Along the tidal rivers of Malaysia, thousands of fireflies congregate and flash in unison; the moon spins in perfect resonance with its orbit around the earth; our hearts depend on the synchronous firing of ten thousand pacemaker cells. While the forces that synchronize the flashing of fireflies may seem to have nothing to do with our heart cells, there is in fact a deep connection. Synchrony is a science in its infancy, and Strogatz is a pioneer in this new frontier in which mathematicians and physicists attempt to pinpoint just how spontaneous order emerges from chaos. From underground caves in Texas where a French scientist spent six months alone tracking his sleep-wake cycle, to the home of a Dutch physicist who in 1665 discovered two of his pendulum clocks swinging in perfect time, this fascinating book spans disciplines, continents, and centuries. Engagingly written for readers of books such as Chaos and The Elegant Universe, Sync is a tour-de-force of nonfiction writing.

    Today, these paradoxes remain on the cutting edge of our investigations into the fabric of space and time. Zeno's Paradox uses the motion paradox as a jumping-off point for an exploration of the twenty-five-hundred-year quest to uncover the true nature of the universe. From Galileo to Einstein to Stephen Hawking, some of the greatest minds in history have tackled the problem and made spectacular breakthroughs, but through it all, the paradox of motion remains.

    In this book, Dr. Humphreys explains this phenomenon with his new cosmology including an easy-to-read popular summary and two technical papers.

    Although the laws of physics create a powerful impression that time is flowing, in fact there are only timeless `nows'. In The End of Time, the British theoretical physicist Julian Barbour describes the coming revolution in our understanding of the world: a quantum theory of the universe that brings together Einstein's general theory of relativity - which denies the existence of a unique time - and quantum mechanics - which demands one. Barbour believes that only the most radical of ideas can resolve the conflict between these two theories: that there is, quite literally, no time at all. The End of Time is the first full-length account of the crisis in our understanding that has enveloped quantum cosmology. Unifying thinking that has never been brought together before in a book for the general reader, Barbour reveals the true architecture of the universe and demonstrates how physics is coming up sharp against the extraordinary possibility that the sense of time passing emerges from a universe that is timeless. The heart of the book is the author's lucid description of how a world of stillness can appear to be teeming with motion: in this timeless world where all possible instants coexist, complex mathematical rules of quantum mechanics bind together a special selection of these instants in a coherent order that consciousness perceives as the flow of time. Finally, in a lucid and eloquent epilogue, the author speculates on the philosophical implications of his theory: Does free will exist? Is time travel possible? How did the universe begin? Where is heaven? Does the denial of time make life meaningless? Written with exceptional clarity and elegance, this profound and original work presents a dazzlingly powerful argument that all will be able to follow, but no-one with an interest in the workings of the universe will be able to ignore.

    He maintains at the outset that the importance of a physical law isn't "how clever we are to have found it out, but...how clever nature is to pay attention to it" & tends his discussions toward a final exposition of the elegance & simplicity of all scientific laws. Rather than an essay on the most significant achievements in modern science, The Character of Physical Law is a statement of what is most remarkable in nature. His enlightened approach, wit & enthusiasm make this a memorable exposition of the scientist's craft. The Law of Gravitation is the principal example. Relating the details of its discovery & stressing its mathematical character, he uses it to demonstrate the essential interaction of mathematics & physics. He views mathematics as the key to any system of scientific laws, suggesting that if it were possible to fill out the structure of scientific theory completely, the result would be an integrated set of axioms. The principles of conservation, symmetry & time-irreversibility are then considered in relation to developments in classical & modern physics. In his final lecture he develops his own analysis of the process & future of scientific discovery. Like any set of oral reflections, The Character of Physical Law has value as a demonstration of a mind in action. The reader is particularly lucky in Feynman. One of the most eminent & imaginative modern physicists, he was Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology until his death in 1988. He's best known for work on the quantum theory of the electromagnetic field, as well as for later research in the field of low-temperature physics. In 1954 he received the Albert Einstein Award for an "outstanding contribution to knowledge in mathematical & physical sciences"; in 1965 he was appointed to Foreign Membership in the Royal Society & was awarded the Nobel Prize.

    40 illustrations throughout.

    Extraterrestrials ... Our genetic destiny ... The roots of language and learning ... Quantum physics and the shape of the universe ... Artificial intelligence .. In a masterful "trial by reason," author John L. Casti presents all sides of the most important and vital scientific debates raging in the world today -- scrutinizing six perplexing "great questions" in the most engaging, astonishing and accessible amalgam of science and literature since "A Brief History of Time.

    From the first time mankind had an inkling of the vast space that surrounds us, those who study the universe have had to struggle against political and religious preconceptions. They have included some of the most charismatic, courageous, and idiosyncratic thinkers of all time. In Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Timothy Ferris uses his unique blend of rigorous research and captivating narrative skill to draw us into the lives and minds of these extraordinary figures, creating a landmark work of scientific history.

    Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.

    Their quest: to be the first to detect gravitational waves, infinitesimal quakes that stretch and compress space-time and could add a brand-new dimension to our universal knowledge-allowing us to hear a sun going supernova, black holes colliding, and perhaps one day, the remnant rumble of the Big Bang itself...