The Universe. Everything. The human race has always revealed an insatiable hunger to search "to infinity and beyond". In this truly mind-blowing book, partners in science Stuart Lowe and Chris North use cutting edge infographics to illuminate - in a new and unique way - the most amazing places and objects that modern science has laid bare. Featuring innovative, inspirational and original designs by leading authors in their field, COSMOS: THE INFOGRAPHIC BOOK OF SPACE delves into a truly international subject and will appeal to stargazers and space enthusiasts of all ages.Including the Big Bang itself, COSMOS: THE INFOGRAPHIC BOOK OF SPACE:Explores the secret lives of galaxies and starsExamines the thousand new planets now discovered beyond the Solar System, checking out their viability for alien lifeChronicles the incredible instruments and machines that are discovering the hidden secrets of the Universe, from 'telescopes' atop the highest mountains to robotic explorers on distant worlds...Investigates the astounding technology used by human and robotic explorers as they push out beyond the Moon to Mars - and on towards the stars...

    It is within the realm of possibility that their work may usher in a change in global economics as profound as the Industrial Revolution. As may be expected, press reports dealing with asteroid mining have been numerous, ranging in scope from short and breezy to broad and serious, and in quality from accurate to impressionistic to simply uninformed. There is good reason to be curious about what may be the biggest game-changer in human economic history. And there is good reason to look closely at the underlying science and engineering that form the foundation of this work.

    Laughlin transports us two centuries into the future, when we've ceased to use carbon from the ground--either because humans have banned carbon burning or because fuel has simply run out. Boldly, Laughlin predicts no earth-shattering transformations will have taken place. Six generations from now, there will still be soccer moms, shopping malls, and business trips. Firesides will still be snug and warm.How will we do it? Not by discovering a magic bullet to slay our energy problems, but through a slew of fascinating technologies, drawing on wind, water, and fire. Powering the Future is an objective yet optimistic tour through alternative fuel sources, set in a world where we've burned every last drop of petroleum and every last shovelful of coal.The Predictable: Fossil fuels will run out. The present flow of crude oil out of the ground equals in one day the average flow of the Mississippi River past New Orleans in thirteen minutes. If you add the energy equivalents of gas and coal, it's thirty-six minutes. At the present rate of consumption, we'll be out of fossil fuels in two centuries' time. We always choose the cheapest gas. From the nineteenth-century consolidation of the oil business to the California energy crisis of 2000-2001, the energy business has shown, time and again, how low prices dominate market share. Market forces--not green technology--will be the driver of energy innovation in the next 200 years. The laws of physics remain fixed. Energy will still be conserved, degrade entropically with use, and have to be disposed of as waste heat into outer space. How much energy a fuel can pack away in a given space is fixed by quantum mechanics--and if we want to keep flying jet planes, we will need carbon-based fuels. The Potential: Animal waste. If dried and burned, the world's agricultural manure would supply about one-third as much energy as all the coal we presently consume. Trash. The United States disposes of 88 million tons of carbon in its trash per year. While the incineration of waste trash is not enough to contribute meaningfully to the global demand for energy, it will constrain fuel prices by providing a cheap supply of carbon. Solar energy. The power used to light all the cities around the world is only one-millionth of the total power of sunlight pouring down on earth's daytime side. And the amount of hydropump storage required to store the world's daily electrical surge is equal to only eight times the volume of Lake Mead. PRAISE FOR ROBERT B. LAUGHLIN -Perhaps the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Richard Feynman---George Chapline, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory -Powerful but controversial.--- Financial Times -[Laughlin's] company ... is inspirational.- --New Scientist

    But this one is not between rival superpowers but competing entrepreneurs. And these daring pioneers are creating a revolution in spaceflight that promises to transform the near future. Noted astronomical engineer Robert Zubrin spells out the exciting potentials of these new developments in an engrossing narrative that is both visionary and yet grounded by a deep understanding of the practical challenges.Fueled by the combined expertise of the old aerospace industry and the talents of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, spaceflight is becoming cheaper and cheaper. The new generation of space explorers has already achieved a breakthrough in the reusable rocket. Starting with this major achievement, Zubrin foresees rapid innovation, including global travel from any point on Earth to another in an hour or less, orbital hotels, moon-bases with incredible space observatories, and human settlements on other planets of the solar system.Based on decades of research into the technology of space travel, the author shows how projects that sound like science fiction can actually become reality. But beyond the how, he makes an even more compelling case for why we need to do this--to increase our knowledge of the universe, to make unforeseen discoveries on new frontiers, to harness the natural resources of other planets, to safeguard the Earth from stray asteroids, to ensure the future of humanity by expanding beyond its home base, and to protect us from being catastrophically set against each other by the false belief that there isn't enough for all.

    The universe is all about extremes, and in this engaging and thought-provoking book, astronomer Bryan Gaensler gives a whirlwind tour of the galaxies, with an emphasis on its fastest, hottest, heaviest, brightest, oldest, densest, and even loudest elements. From supernova explosions a billion times brighter than the sun to an asteroid the size of a beach ball, Extreme Cosmos offers a fascinating, fresh, and informed perspective of the remarkable richness of the universe, and the incredible physics that modern astronomy has revealed.

    What hope do we have against superintelligent machines? But we aren't really on the path to developing intelligent machines. In fact, we don't even know where that path might be.A tech entrepreneur and pioneering research scientist working at the forefront of natural language processing, Erik Larson takes us on a tour of the landscape of AI to show how far we are from superintelligence, and what it would take to get there. Ever since Alan Turing, AI enthusiasts have equated artificial intelligence with human intelligence. This is a profound mistake. AI works on inductive reasoning, crunching data sets to predict outcomes. But humans don't correlate data sets: we make conjectures informed by context and experience. Human intelligence is a web of best guesses, given what we know about the world. We haven't a clue how to program this kind of intuitive reasoning, known as abduction. Yet it is the heart of common sense. That's why Alexa can't understand what you are asking, and why AI can only take us so far.Larson argues that AI hype is both bad science and bad for science. A culture of invention thrives on exploring unknowns, not overselling existing methods. Inductive AI will continue to improve at narrow tasks, but if we want to make real progress, we will need to start by more fully appreciating the only true intelligence we know--our own.

    Along the way Stephen Baxter looks at our place in the universe, considers the possibility that we are in fact alone, and wonders whether that fact gives us the right to inherit everything. He also looks at how we might strive to overcome the limitations of the physical universe and win the deepest future. Stephen Baxter has brought his trademark narrative flair and imaginative brilliance to the latest ideas in physics and cosmology and produced a breathtaking guide to our possible futures.

    "Everyone has talked about science and religion . . . but Mitchell has really dug into the main paradoxical issues and comes up with a resolving viewpoint".--Harold E. Puthoff, Ph.D.

    In this disturbing new book, Lovelock guides us toward a hard reality: soon, we may not be able to alter the oncoming climate crisis. Lovelock’s influential Gaia theory, one of the building blocks of modern climate science, conceives of the Earth, including the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere and upper layers of rock, as a single living super-organism, regulating its internal environment much as an animal regulates its body temperature and chemical balance. But now, says Lovelock, that organism is sick. It is running a fever born of the combination of a sun whose intensity is slowly growing over millions of years, and an atmosphere whose greenhouse gases have recently spiked due to human activity. Earth will adjust to these stresses, but on time scales measured in the hundreds of millennia. It is already too late, Lovelock says, to prevent the global climate from “flipping” into an entirely new equilibrium state that will leave the tropics uninhabitable, and force migration to the poles. The Revenge of Gaia explains the stress the planetary system is under and how humans are contributing to it, what the consequences will be, and what humanity must do to rescue itself.

    . . full of intellectual treats and tricks, of whimsy and deep scientific philosophy. It is highbrow entertainment at its best, a teasing challenge to all who aspire to think about the universe." — New York Herald TribuneOne of the world's foremost nuclear physicists (celebrated for his theory of radioactive decay, among other accomplishments), George Gamow possessed the unique ability of making the world of science accessible to the general reader.He brings that ability to bear in this delightful expedition through the problems, pleasures, and puzzles of modern science. Among the topics scrutinized with the author's celebrated good humor and pedagogical prowess are the macrocosm and the microcosm, theory of numbers, relativity of space and time, entropy, genes, atomic structure, nuclear fission, and the origin of the solar system.In the pages of this book readers grapple with such crucial matters as whether it is possible to bend space, why a rocket shrinks, the "end of the world problem," excursions into the fourth dimension, and a host of other tantalizing topics for the scientifically curious. Brimming with amusing anecdotes and provocative problems, One Two Three . . . Infinity also includes over 120 delightful pen-and-ink illustrations by the author, adding another dimension of good-natured charm to these wide-ranging explorations.Whatever your level of scientific expertise, chances are you'll derive a great deal of pleasure, stimulation, and information from this unusual and imaginative book. It belongs in the library of anyone curious about the wonders of the scientific universe. "In One Two Three . . . Infinity, as in his other books, George Gamow succeeds where others fail because of his remarkable ability to combine technical accuracy, choice of material, dignity of expression, and readability." — Saturday Review of Literature

    Quantum) is, as Deepak Chopra states, "one of the most important pioneers in the field of consciousness." Featured in the wordofmouth indie hit, What the Bleep Do We Know?!, Dr. Wolf is a physicist who knows how to put complex sciencebased ideas into terms that even sciencephobes can understand. With clarity and a sense of humor, Dr. Quantum presents Big Ideas in the form of both short quotes and longer excerpts and covers topics ranging from the construction of our everyday reality to our relationship to one another. Dr. Quantum's Little Book of Big Ideas is a perfect gift for anyone interested in the realm where science meets spirit.

    US President Nixon called it the greatest week since creation. In the most authoritative book ever written about Apollo, David Whitehouse reveals the true drama behind the mission, telling the story in the words of those who took part – based around exclusive interviews with the key players. This enthralling book takes us from the early rocket pioneers to the shock America received from the Soviets’ launch of the first satellite, Sputnik; from the race to put the first person into space, through President Kennedy’s enthusiasm and later doubts, to the astronauts’ intense competition to leave the first footprint.In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the moon landing, here is the story as told by the crew of Apollo 11 and the many other astronauts who paved the way or followed themselves after the first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong, alongside Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Astronauts, engineers, politicians, NASA officials, Soviet rivals – all tell their own story of a great moment of human achievement.

    Anticipation of the rare celestial event sparked a worldwide competition among aspiring global superpowers, each sending their own scientific expeditions to far-flung destinations to time the planet’s trek. These pioneers used the “Venus Transit” to discover the physical dimensions of the solar system and refine the methods of discovering longitude at sea. In this fast-paced narrative, Mark Anderson reveals the stories of three Venus Transit voyages--to the heart of the Arctic, the New World, and the Pacific—that risked every mortal peril of a candlelit age. With time running out, each expedition struggles to reach its destination—a quest that races to an unforgettable climax on a momentous summer day when the universe suddenly became much larger than anyone had dared to imagine.The Day the World Discovered the Sun tells an epic story of the enduring human desire to understand our place in the universe.

    Putting people into places and situations unprecedented in history is stirred the imagination while the human experience was expanding and redefining. Yet, space exploration compels humans to confront a hostile environment of cosmic radiations, radical changes in the gravity and magnetic fields, as well as social isolation. Therefore, any space traveller is submitted to relevant health-related threats. In the twenty-first century, human space flight is poised to continue, but it will enjoy the ongoing developments in science and technology. It will become more networked, more global, and more oriented toward primary goals. A novel international human space flight policy could help achieve these objectives by clarifying the rationale, the ethics of acceptable risk, the role of remote presence, and the need for balance between funding and ambition to justify the risk of human lives. In order to address such a challenge, a preliminary careful survey of the available scientific data is mandatory to set forth adequate countermeasures. Envisaged solutions should provide a sound and technically feasible approach for counteracting microgravity and cosmic rays effects, which represent the main health risk for space crews. This objective must necessarily be sustained by national/international space agencies, which would coordinate their common efforts into a defined international spaceflight program.

    Large format diagrams show these objects exactly as they appear in a small telescope and for each object there is information on the current state of our astronomical knowledge. Revised and updated, this new edition contains a chapter with ten new spreads describing spectacular deep sky objects visible from the southern hemisphere, and tips on observing the upcoming transits of Venus. It also discusses Dobsonian telescopes, with hints on using personal computers and the Internet as aids for planning an observing session. Also new to this edition are redrawn Guidepost figures at the beginning of each season chapter that allow readers to visualize a three-dimensional view of the sky's dome; redesigned seasonal object layouts that provide more space for the naked-eye charts; a new spread on double stars near Bo�tes has been added to Spring, replacing the Shrinking Double spread; and a unique When and Where to Look table has been added to the last page, among other new features. Unlike many guides to the night sky, this book is specifically written for observers using small telescopes. Clear and easy to use, this fascinating book will appeal to skywatchers of all ages and backgrounds. No previous knowledge of astronomy is needed.