This book offers the opportunity to truly comprehend the workings of one of humanity's greatest minds. Acclaimed by Einstein himself, it is among the clearest, most readable expositions of relativity theory. It explains the problems Einstein faced, the experiments that led to his theories, and what his findings reveal about the forces that govern the universe. The concepts of relativity and the fourth dimension unfold with all the vivid excitement of research into the unknown, in language anyone can readily understand.

    But as an adult, when he most needs the irrefutable order and precision of science itself, Benito will learn that, despite its expansive beauty and power, it is no match for the unfathomable desires and pains of the human heart. Lightman is the acclaimed author of Einstein's Dreams.

    Sci-fi makes it look so easy. Receive a distress call from Alpha Centauri? No problem: punch the warp drive and you're there in minutes. Facing a catastrophe that can't be averted? Just pop back in the timestream and stop it before it starts. But for those of us not lucky enough to live in a science-fictional universe, are these ideas merely flights of fancy—or could it really be possible to travel through time or take shortcuts between stars? Cutting-edge physics may not be able to answer those questions yet, but it does offer up some tantalizing possibilities. In Time Travel and Warp Drives, Allen Everett and Thomas A. Roman take readers on a clear, concise tour of our current understanding of the nature of time and space—and whether or not we might be able to bend them to our will. Using no math beyond high school algebra, the authors lay out an approachable explanation of Einstein's special relativity, then move through the fundamental differences between traveling forward and backward in time and the surprising theoretical connection between going back in time and traveling faster than the speed of light. They survey a variety of possible time machines and warp drives, including wormholes and warp bubbles, and, in a dizzyingly creative chapter, imagine the paradoxes that could plague a world where time travel was possible—killing your own grandfather is only one of them! Written with a light touch and an irrepressible love of the fun of sci-fi scenarios—but firmly rooted in the most up-to-date science, Time Travel and Warp Drives will be a delightful discovery for any science buff or armchair chrononaut.

    Crease in this engaging exploration of history’s most beautiful experiments. The result is an engrossing journey through nearly 2,500 years of scientific innovation. Along the way, we encounter glimpses into the personalities and creative thinking of some of the field’s most interesting figures.We see the first measurement of the earth’s circumference, accomplished in the third century B.C. by Eratosthenes using sticks, shadows, and simple geometry. We visit Foucault’s mesmerizing pendulum, a cannonball suspended from the dome of the Panthéon in Paris that allows us to see the rotation of the earth on its axis. We meet Galileo—the only scientist with two experiments in the top ten—brilliantly drawing on his musical training to measure the speed of falling bodies. And we travel to the quantum world, in the most beautiful experiment of all.We also learn why these ten experiments exert such a powerful hold on our imaginations. From the ancient world to cutting-edge physics, these ten exhilarating moments reveal something fundamental about the world, pulling us out of confusion and revealing nature’s elegance. The Prism and the Pendulum brings us face-to-face with the wonder of science.From the Hardcover edition.

    Gerard 't Hooft was closely involved in many of the advances in modern theoretical physics that led to improved understanding of elementary particles, and this is a first-hand account of one of the most creative and exciting periods of discovery in the history of physics. Using language a layperson can understand, this narrative touches on many central topics and ideas, such as quarks and quantum physics; supergravity, superstrings and superconductivity; the Standard Model and grand unification; eleven-dimensional space time and black holes. This fascinating personal account of the past thirty years in one of the most dramatic areas in twentieth-century physics will be of interest to professional physicists and physics students, as well as the educated general reader with an interest in one of the most exciting scientific detective stories ever.