The phone rings. A grandfather he never knew is dying. He rushes to the old man's bedside and finds himself promising to find the Ark of the Covenant, missing for over 2,500 years. In Israel Alex picks up a partner in his quest—archeologist Rivka Golan. Within days they are targeted by a sniper, chased through the streets of Jersualem by a bulldozer, interrogated by Israeli intelligence, and trapped in a tunnel under the world's most sacred site—the Temple Mount.

    This book reveals how anyone can begin to visualize the enigmatic 'imaginary numbers' that first baffled mathematicians in the 16th century.

    What is the meaning of life? What was Hitler's religion? What's the deal with the Flying Spaghetti Monster? And what was Mother Teresa's dark secret? This book is highly recommended for everyone curious about America's most misunderstood minority, as well as for those who wish to better understand their atheist friends, neighbors or coworkers.

    . . Algebra's importance lies in the student's future. . . as essential preparation for the serious study of science, engineering, economics, or for more advanced types of mathematics. . . The primary importance of trigonometry is not in its applications to surveying and navigation, or in making computations about triangles, but rather in the mathematical description of vibrations, rotations, and periodic phenomena of all kinds, including light, sound, alternating currents, and the orbits of the planets around the sun. In this brief, clearly written book, the essentials of geometry, algebra, and trigonometry are pulled together into three complementary and convenient small packages, providing an excellent preview and review for anyone who wishes to prepare to master calculus with a minimum of misunderstanding and wasted time and effort. Students and other readers will find here all they need to pull them through.

    Everything. Yet, in recent years discoveries in physics and cosmology have led a number of scientists to conclude that our universe may be one among many. With crystal-clear prose and inspired use of analogy, Brian Greene shows how a range of different “multiverse” proposals emerges from theories developed to explain the most refined observations of both subatomic particles and the dark depths of space: a multiverse in which you have an infinite number of doppelgängers, each reading this sentence in a distant universe; a multiverse comprising a vast ocean of bubble universes, of which ours is but one; a multiverse that endlessly cycles through time, or one that might be hovering millimeters away yet remains invisible; another in which every possibility allowed by quantum physics is brought to life. Or, perhaps strangest of all, a multiverse made purely of math.Greene, one of our foremost physicists and science writers, takes us on a captivating exploration of these parallel worlds and reveals how much of reality’s true nature may be deeply hidden within them. And, with his unrivaled ability to make the most challenging of material accessible and entertaining, Greene tackles the core question: How can fundamental science progress if great swaths of reality lie beyond our reach?Sparked by Greene’s trademark wit and precision, The Hidden Reality is at once a far-reaching survey of cutting-edge physics and a remarkable journey to the very edge of reality—a journey grounded firmly in science and limited only by our imagination.

    Young Lucille Marker experiences survival during the Depression, one of the worst dust storms in history, and finally the disintegration of the close-knit community in which she grows up.Readers who like the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder or Willa Cather will enjoy Farm Girl. Set in the locale of Willa Cather's Nebraska novels, it includes a chapter about the Marker/Cather family connections. Richly photographed throughout with over sixty authentic photos documenting the people and places of the story, this historical, easy-to-read small book is suitable for use in the classroom.

    The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself. And then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading.

    We are introduced to the known particles of the world we live in. An elegant explanation of quantum mechanics and relativity paves the way for an understanding of the laws that govern particle physics. These laws are put into action in the world of accelerators, colliders and detectors found at institutions such as CERN and Fermilab that are in the forefront of technical innovation. Real world and theory meet using Feynman diagrams to solve the problems of infinities and deduce the need for the Higgs boson.Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics offers an incredible insight from an eyewitness and participant in some of the greatest discoveries in 20th century science. From Einstein's theory of relativity to the elusive Higgs particle, this book will fascinate and educate anyone interested in the world of quarks, leptons and gauge theories.This book also contains many thumbnail sketches of particle physics personalities, including contemporaries as seen through the eyes of the author. Illustrated with pictures, these candid sketches present rare, perceptive views of the characters that populate the field.The Chapter on Particle Theory, in a pre-publication, was termed “superbly lucid” by David Miller in Nature (Vol. 396, 17 Dec. 1998, p. 642).

    Veil Kendry, an ex-CIA agent with a strange gift of vision, volunteers to undergo tests at the Institute for Human Studies, but unknown enemies seem determined to kill him and stop the tests

    Here is an altogether new, refreshing, alternative history of math revealing how simple questions anyone might ask about space -- in the living room or in some other galaxy -- have been the hidden engine of the highest achievements in science and technology. Based on Mlodinow's extensive historical research; his studies alongside colleagues such as Richard Feynman and Kip Thorne; and interviews with leading physicists and mathematicians such as Murray Gell-Mann, Edward Witten, and Brian Greene, Euclid's Window is an extraordinary blend of rigorous, authoritative investigation and accessible, good-humored storytelling that makes a stunningly original argument asserting the primacy of geometry. For those who have looked through Euclid's Window, no space, no thing, and no time will ever be quite the same.

    Linear Equations; Vector Spaces; Linear Transformations; Polynomials; Determinants; Elementary canonical Forms; Rational and Jordan Forms; Inner Product Spaces; Operators on Inner Product Spaces; Bilinear Forms For all readers interested in linear algebra.

    Through the allegory of Alice's adventures and encounters, Gilmore makes the essential features of the quantum world clear and accessible. It is a thrilling introduction to some essential, often difficult-to-grasp concepts about the world we inhabit.

    Infinite games are more mysterious -- and ultimately more rewarding. They are unscripted and unpredictable; they are the source of true freedom.In this elegant and compelling work, James Carse explores what these games mean, and what they can mean to you. He offers stunning new insights into the nature of property and power, of culture and community, of sexuality and self-discovery, opening the door to a world of infinite delight and possibility."An extraordinary little book . . . a wise and intimate companion, an elegant reminder of the real."-- Brain/Mind Bulletin

    His Incompleteness Theorem turned not only mathematics but also the whole world of science and philosophy on its head. Equally legendary were Gö's eccentricities, his close friendship with Albert Einstein, and his paranoid fear of germs that eventually led to his death from self-starvation. Now, in the first popular biography of this strange and brilliant thinker, John Casti and Werner DePauli bring the legend to life. After describing his childhood in the Moravian capital of Brno, the authors trace the arc of Gö's remarkable career, from the famed Vienna Circle, where philosophers and scientists debated notions of truth, to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he lived and worked until his death in 1978. In the process, they shed light on Gö's contributions to mathematics, philosophy, computer science, artificial intelligence -- even cosmology -- in an entertaining and accessible way.

    If the idea of a computer science book without computers upsets you, please close your eyes until you’ve finished reading the rest of this page.The truth is that computer science is not really about the computer. It is just a tool to help you see ideas more clearly. You can see the moon and stars without a telescope, smell the flowers without a fluoroscope, have fun without a funoscope, and be silly sans oscilloscope.You can also play with computer science without... you-know-what. Ideas are the real stuff of computer science. This book is about those ideas, and how to find them.