Book picks similar to
The A-Z of Astronomy by Patrick Moore
science
astronomy
encyclopaedia
factual
The Movement of Stars
Amy Brill - 2013
It is 1845, and Hannah Gardner Price has lived all twenty-four years of her life according to the principles of the Nantucket Quaker community in which she was raised, where simplicity and restraint are valued above all, and a woman’s path is expected to lead to marriage and motherhood. But up on the rooftop each night, Hannah pursues a very different—and elusive—goal: discovering a comet and thereby winning a gold medal awarded by the King of Denmark, something unheard of for a woman. And then she meets Isaac Martin, a young, dark-skinned whaler from the Azores who, like herself, has ambitions beyond his expected station in life. Drawn to his intellectual curiosity and honest manner, Hannah agrees to take Isaac on as a student. but when their shared interest in the stars develops into something deeper, Hannah’s standing in the community begins to unravel, challenging her most fundamental beliefs about work and love, and ultimately changing the course of her life forever. Inspired by the work of Maria Mitchell, the first professional female astronomer in America, The Movement of Stars is a richly drawn portrait of desire and ambition in the face of adversity.
The Last British Dambuster: One Man's Extraordinary Life and the Raid that Changed History
George Johnny Johnson - 2014
Johnny Johnson is 92 years old and one of very few men who can recall first-hand the most daring and ingenious air raid of all time. He can also vividly remember his childhood spent working on a farm with his controlling father, the series of events that led him to the RAF and the rigorous training that followed. But it was his decision to join 617 Squadron, and the consequences, that have truly stayed etched in his mind. On May 16, 1943, Johnny, alongside 132 specially selected comrades, took off from Scampton airbase in Lincolnshire. For six weeks they had been trained to fulfil one mission that was near impossible: to destroy three dams deep within Germany's Ruhr Valley. It was a daring task but, against the odds, Johnny and his crew survived. Sadly, 53 comrades did not. For the first time, Johnny relives every moment of that fatal night -- and the devastating aftermath. He recalls with unique wit and insight the difficult training conducted in secrecy, the race against time to release the bombs, and the sheer strength and bravery shown by a small unit faced with great adversity and uncertainty. Embodying a whole squadron, and leaving a lasting legacy for generations to come, Johnny's story is like no other.
Night Shift: Short Stories from the Life of an ER Doc
Mark Plaster - 2014
Mark Plaster takes readers beyond the ambulance bay doors into the stranger-than-fiction world of the Emergency Department. By turns heart-warming and gut-wrenching, "Night Shift" chronicles the ebb and flow of human life, in all of its unvarnished glory, as it passes through the doors of the ED.
The Planets
Dava Sobel - 2005
Now Sobel brings her full talents to bear on what is perhaps her most ambitious topic to date-the planets of our solar system. Sobel explores the origins and oddities of the planets through the lens of popular culture, from astrology, mythology, and science fiction to art, music, poetry, biography, and history. Written in her characteristically graceful prose, The Planets is a stunningly original celebration of our solar system and offers a distinctive view of our place in the universe. * A New York Times extended bestseller * A Featured Alternate of the Book-of-the-Month Club, History Book Club, Scientific American Book Club, and Natural Science Book Club * Includes 11 full-color illustrations by artist Lynette R. Cook BACKCOVER: "[The Planets] lets us fall in love with the heavens all over again." -The New York Times Book Review "Playful . . . lyrical . . . a guided tour so imaginative that we forget we're being educated as we're being entertained." -Newsweek " [Sobel] has outdone her extraordinary talent for keeping readers enthralled. . . . Longitude and Galileo's Daughter were exciting enough, but The Planets has a charm of its own . . . . A splendid and enticing book." -San Francisco Chronicle "A sublime journey. [Sobel's] writing . . . is as bright as the sun and its thinking as star-studded as the cosmos." -The Atlanta Journal-Constitution "An incantatory serenade to the Solar System. Grade A-" -Entertainment Weekly "Like Sobel's [Longitude and Galileo's Daughter] . . . [The Planets] combines masterful storytelling with clear, engaging explanations of the essential scientific facts." -Physics World
More Letters From The Pit: Stories of a Physician’S Odyssey in Emergency Medicine
Patrick J. Crocker - 2020
The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe[s] Report
Timothy Ferris - 1997
Timothy Ferris provides a clear, elegantly written overview of current research and a forecast of where cosmological theory is likely to go in the twenty-first century. He explores the questions that have occurred to even casual readers -- who are curious about nature on the largest scales: What does it mean to say that the universe is "expanding," or that space is "curved"? -- and sheds light on the possibility that our universe is only one among many universes, each with its own physical laws and prospects for the emergence of life.
13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time
Michael Brooks - 2008
The effects of homeopathy don’t go away under rigorous scientific conditions. The laws of nature aren’t what they used to be. Thirty years on, no one has an explanation for a seemingly intelligent signal received from outer space. The US Department of Energy is re-examining cold fusion because the experimental evidence seems too solid to ignore. The placebo effect is put to work in medicine while doctors can’t agree whether it even exists.In an age when science is supposed to be king, scientists are beset by experimental results they simply can’t explain. But, if the past is anything to go by, these anomalies contain the seeds of future revolutions. While taking readers on an entertaining tour d’horizon of the strangest of scientific findings – involving everything from our lack of free will to Martian methane that offers new evidence of life on the planet – Michael Brooks argues that the things we don’t understand are the key to what we are about to discover.This mind-boggling but entirely accessible survey of the outer limits of human knowledge is based on a short article by Michael Brooks for New Scientist magazine. It became the sixth most circulated story on the internet in 2005, and provoked widespread comment and compliments (Google “13 things that do not make sense” to see).Michael Brooks has now dug deeply into those mysteries, with extraordinary results.
Stargazing for Dummies
Steve Owens - 2012
Stars and other night sky objects can be seen with the naked eye, or seen in greater numbers and in more detail with binoculars or a telescope.Stargazing For Dummies offers you the chance to explore the night sky, providing a detailed guide to the main constellations and also offering advice on viewing other night sky objects such as planets and nebulae. It's a great introduction to a fun new hobby, and even provides a fun way to get the kids outside while doing something educational!Gives you an introduction to looking at the sky with binoculars or a telescope Offers advice on photographing the night sky Without needing to get your head around mind-bending theories, you can take part in some practical physics If you're looking for easy-to-follow guidance on getting to know the night sky, Stargazing For Dummies has you covered.
The Practical Astronomer
Will Gater - 2010
Illustrated throughout with detailed photographs and illustrations, and using clear, easy-to-follow text, The Practical Astronomer takes you on a step-by-step journey from the basics of what can be seen with the naked eye, to how you can view more distant objects such as the planets of the solar system, and even galaxies far, far away-all in your own backyard.
The Human Cosmos: A Secret History of the Stars
Jo Marchant - 2020
Jo Marchant's book can begin to heal it. For at least 20,000 years, we have led not just an earthly existence but a cosmic one. Celestial cycles drove every aspect of our daily lives. Our innate relationship with the stars shaped who we are--our art, religious beliefs, social status, scientific advances, and even our biology. But over the last few centuries we have separated ourselves from the universe that surrounds us. It's a disconnect with a dire cost.Our relationship to the stars and planets has moved from one of awe, wonder and superstition to one where technology is king--the cosmos is now explored through data on our screens, not by the naked eye observing the natural world. Indeed, in most countries modern light pollution obscures much of the night sky from view. Jo Marchant's spellbinding parade of the ways different cultures celebrated the majesty and mysteries of the night sky is a journey to the most awe inspiring view you can ever see--looking up on a clear dark night. That experience and the thoughts it has engendered have radically shaped human civilization across millennia. The cosmos is the source of our greatest creativity in art, in science, in life.To show us how, Jo Marchant takes us to the Hall of the Bulls in the caves at Lascaux in France, and to the summer solstice at a 5,000-year-old tomb at New Grange in England. We discover Chumash cosmology and visit medieval monks grappling with the nature of time and Tahitian sailors navigating by the stars. We discover how light reveals the chemical composition of the sun, and we are with Einstein as he works out that space and time are one and the same. A four-billion-year-old meteor inspires a search for extraterrestrial life. The cosmically liberating, summary revelation is that star-gazing made us human.
The World According to Physics
Jim Al-Khalili - 2020
Using wonderful examples and thought-provoking analogies, Al-Khalili illuminates the physics of the extreme cosmic and quantum scales, the speculative frontiers of the field, and the physics that underpins our everyday experiences and technologies, bringing the reader up to speed with the biggest ideas in physics in just a few sittings. Physics is revealed as an intrepid human quest for ever more foundational principles that accurately explain the natural world we see around us, an undertaking guided by core values such as honesty and doubt. The knowledge discovered by physics both empowers and humbles us, and still, physics continues to delve valiantly into the unknown.Making even the most enigmatic scientific ideas accessible and captivating, this deeply insightful book illuminates why physics matters to everyone and calls one and all to share in the profound adventure of seeking truth in the world around us.
Young Einstein: From the Doxerl Affair to the Miracle Year
L. Randles Lagerstrom - 2013
In 1905 an unknown 26-year-old clerk at the Swiss Patent Office, who had supposedly failed math in school, burst on to the scientific scene and swept away the hidebound theories of the day. The clerk, Albert Einstein, introduced a new and unexpected understanding of the universe and launched the two great revolutions of twentieth-century physics, relativity and quantum mechanics. The obscure origin and wide-ranging brilliance of the work recalled Isaac Newton’s “annus mirabilis” (miracle year) of 1666, when as a 23-year-old seeking safety at his family manor from an outbreak of the plague, he invented calculus and laid the foundations for his theory of gravity. Like Newton, Einstein quickly became a scientific icon--the image of genius and, according to Time magazine, the Person of the Century.The actual story is much more interesting. Einstein himself once remarked that “science as something coming into being ... is just as subjectively, psychologically conditioned as are all other human endeavors.” In this profile, the historian of science L. Randles Lagerstrom takes you behind the myth and into the very human life of the young Einstein. From family rifts and girlfriend troubles to financial hardships and jobless anxieties, Einstein’s early years were typical of many young persons. And yet in the midst of it all, he also saw his way through to profound scientific insights. Drawing upon correspondence from Einstein, his family, and his friends, Lagerstrom brings to life the young Einstein and enables the reader to come away with a fuller and more appreciative understanding of Einstein the person and the origins of his revolutionary ideas.About the cover image: While walking to work six days a week as a patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, Einstein would pass by the famous "Zytglogge" tower and its astronomical clocks. The daily juxtaposition was fitting, as the relative nature of time and clock synchronization would be one of his revolutionary discoveries in the miracle year of 1905.
The Einstein Theory of Relativity
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz - 2004
The books published on the subject are so technical that only a person trained in pure physics and higher mathematics is able to fully understand them. In order to make a popular explanation of this far-reaching theory available, the present book is published.
The Gospel in the Stars
Joseph A. Seiss - 1972
the common and accepted doctrine of antiquity that the constellations were divine in origin and sacred in character. They are woven in with all the old ethnic religions. Much as heathenism has perverted them to false worship, it has ever held to the belief that they are from God... -from "Primeval Man" Did God arrange the stars in the sky to spell out his ultimate plans for the human race? Such is the conclusion of this curious book, first published in 1882 as an attempt to reconcile Christianity with the public fascination with astrology... a fascination that endures today. In this profusely illustrated volume, discover the connections between the signs of the Zodiac and Christian symbolism-Leo the lion represents Jesus, for instance; the Gemini twins signify both the relationship of Adam and Eve as well as God's relationship with his church. Building upon this language of the stars, the author demonstrates the truth of God's "one plan and purpose of Redemption for fallen man." American Lutheran pastor JOSEPH AUGUST SEISS (1823-1904) was born in Maryland and served congregations in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. In addition to numerous translations of hymns from the original German, he also authored numerous books, including The Apocalypse.
Reincarnation: Exceptional Cases of Past Life Memories
Eirik Leivsson - 2016
“Exceptional Cases of Past Life Memories” gathers bits of information from a plethora of different sources, including: scientific papers and journals, old documentaries and news articles, as well as numerous radio and TV interviews — and distills it all into a number of coherent, easy-to-read stories of past life memory. During the course of this book, we will explore 13 cases where people remembered moments from another time, another life, another them. Whatever your beliefs may or may not be, one thing is certain: At the end of it all, the idea of many lives will appear more real than ever before. We will take a look at:
An Indian boy who claims he got shot, and whose birthmarks match the bullet wounds of his previous body.
An English boy who is haunted by the echoes of his 1940s German past.
A woman whose sexual anxiety is explained through her past life memories.
A little Finnish girl who swears she used to be a grown man, before she was ran over by a bus.
A young girl from Myanmar who claims she’s actually her own grandmother.
And much more! Download now, and be fascinated by exceptional stories of past life memories! Tags: reincarnation, past lives, past life memory, past life memories, past life, spirituality, paranormal, supernatural, many lives, reincarnation cases, past life cases, past life stories, reincarnation stories, spiritual