From the emergence of life at deep-sea vents to solar-powered starships sailing through the galaxy, from the Big Bang to the intricacies of intelligence in many life forms, acclaimed author Ann Druyan documents where humanity has been and where it is going, using her unique gift of bringing complex scientific concepts to life. With evocative photographs and vivid illustrations, she recounts momentous discoveries, from the Voyager missions in which she and her husband, Carl Sagan, participated to Cassini-Huygens's recent insights into Saturn's moons. This breathtaking sequel to Sagan's masterpiece explains how we humans can glean a new understanding of consciousness here on Earth and out in the cosmos--again reminding us that our planet is a pale blue dot in an immense universe of possibility.

    Readers take an extraordinary trip, starting in the 1600s with an alchemist's air conditioning of Westminster Abbey and scientists' creation of thermometers. Later, while entrepreneurs sold Walden Pond ice to tropical countries -- packed in "high-tech" sawdust -- researchers pursued absolute zero and interpreted their work as romantically as did adventurers to remote regions. Today, playing with ultracold temperatures is one of the hottest frontiers in physics, with scientists creating useful particles Einstein only dreamed of. Tom Shachtman shares a great scientific adventure story and its characters' rich lives in a book that has won a grant from the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Absolute Zero is for everyone who loves history and science history stories, who's eager to explore Nobel Prize-winning physics today, or who has ever sighed with pleasure on encountering air conditioning.

    Murder on a royal train. Divers dead of heatstroke at the bottom of an icy sea. An epidemic of insanity among the world's top scientists. This is the story of the great paradigm shifts of science, told as never before: in Sherlock Holmes adventures set amid the grandeur and squalor of Victorian London. Holmes, Watson, and other beloved characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle are challenged by mysteries, each of which hinges on a scientific paradox or principle. Colin Bruce has recreated the atmosphere of the original Sherlock Holmes stories to give a truly compulsive read. You won't even realize you've learned something until it's too late!

    But ask what it means, and the result will be a brawl. For a century, most physicists have followed Niels Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation and dismissed questions about the reality underlying quantum physics as meaningless. A mishmash of solipsism and poor reasoning, Copenhagen endured, as Bohr's students vigorously protected his legacy, and the physics community favored practical experiments over philosophical arguments. As a result, questioning the status quo long meant professional ruin. And yet, from the 1920s to today, physicists like John Bell, David Bohm, and Hugh Everett persisted in seeking the true meaning of quantum mechanics. What Is Real? is the gripping story of this battle of ideas and of the courageous scientists who dared to stand up for truth.

    Nor do you need to be a great scientist to appreciate the exciting discoveries and intriguing mysteries of our universe. Dr. Robert piccioni brings the excitement of modern scientific discoveries to general audiences. He makes the key facts and concepts understandable without "dumbing" them down. He presents them in a friendly, conversational manner and includes many personal anecdotes about the people behind the science. With 33 images and over 100 graphics, this book explains the real science behind the headlines and sound bites. Learn all about:our universe: how big? how old? what came before?the big bang, black holes and supernovaequantum mechanics and uncertaintyhow the immense and the minute are connectedwhat is special about general relativityhow mankind can become earth's best friend

    Bernard Haisch contends that there is a purpose and an underlying intelligence behind the Universe, one that is consistent with modern science, especially the Big Bang and evolution. It is based on recent discoveries that there are numerous coincidences and fine-tunings of the laws of nature that seem extraordinarily unlikely.A more rational concept of God is called for. As astrophysicist Sir James Jeans wrote, "the Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine."Despite bestsellers by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris that have denounced the evils of religion and proclaimed that science has shown that there is no God, The Purpose-Guided Universe shows how one can believe in God and science.

    In Peter Woit's view, superstring theory is just such an idea. In Not Even Wrong , he shows that what many physicists call superstring "theory" is not a theory at all. It makes no predictions, even wrong ones, and this very lack of falsifiability is what has allowed the subject to survive and flourish. Not Even Wrong explains why the mathematical conditions for progress in physics are entirely absent from superstring theory today and shows that judgments about scientific statements, which should be based on the logical consistency of argument and experimental evidence, are instead based on the eminence of those claiming to know the truth. In the face of many books from enthusiasts for string theory, this book presents the other side of the story.

    With sixteen pages of photographs, and vivid vignettes of scientists and their inventions, Crump guides readers through early attempts to measure time and space—from astronomical charts and calendars to Arabic numerals and algebraic notation—before he examines the birth of an essentially modern technology in the 1600s. With Galileo's telescopic exploration of the skies at the beginning of the seventeenth century and Newton's experiments with the prism and light at its end, the optical instruments fundamental to all scientific research had been invented. Crump then proceeds to electromagnets, cathode tubes, thermometers, vacuum pumps, X rays, accelerators, semiconductors, microprocessors, and instruments currently being designed to operate in subzero temperatures. Here, then, in an accessible, succinctly narrated volume, is the enduring human quest for knowledge through technology. Here, too, is the proof that what is knowable is, and has always been, far more compelling than what is known. "[Crump] provides lively summaries of the progress in different fields, and succeeds in breathing new life into familiar stories."—The Economist "Fascinating reading."—Publishers Weekly

    His support of Copernican cosmology, against the Church's strong opposition, his development of a telescope, and his unorthodox opinions as a philosopher of science were the central concerns of his career and the subjects of four of his most important writings. Drake's introductory essay place them in their biographical and historical context.

    Hardy, in the years before World War I. Through their eyes the reader is taken on a journey through numbers theory. Ramanujan would regularly telescope 12 steps of logic into two - the effect is said to be like Dr Watson in the train of some argument by Sherlock Holmes. The language of symbols and infinitely large (and small) regions of mathematics should be rendered with clarity for the general reader.

    Approaching science with a freshness unbound by convention or previous expectations, he produced some of the most original scientific thinking of the nineteenth century - and his discoveries went on to shape the twentieth century.

    Even after more than three centuries and the revolutions of Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics, Newtonian physics continues to account for many of the phenomena of the observed world, and Newtonian celestial dynamics is used to determine the orbits of our space vehicles.This completely new translation, the first in 270 years, is based on the third (1726) edition, the final revised version approved by Newton; it includes extracts from the earlier editions, corrects errors found in earlier versions, and replaces archaic English with contemporary prose and up-to-date mathematical forms. Newton's principles describe acceleration, deceleration, and inertial movement; fluid dynamics; and the motions of the earth, moon, planets, and comets. A great work in itself, the Principia also revolutionized the methods of scientific investigation. It set forth the fundamental three laws of motion and the law of universal gravity, the physical principles that account for the Copernican system of the world as emended by Kepler, thus effectively ending controversy concerning the Copernican planetary system.The illuminating Guide to the Principia by I. Bernard Cohen, along with his and Anne Whitman's translation, will make this preeminent work truly accessible for today's scientists, scholars, and students.

    Relive key moments in the monumental Hubble story, from launch through major new instrumentation to the promise of discoveries to come. With more than 150 photographs including Hubble All-Stars—the most famous of all the noteworthy images—The Hubble Cosmos shows how this telescope is revolutionizing our understanding of the universe.

    If these galaxies had always been travelling, he reasoned, then they must, at some point, have been on top of one another. This discovery transformed the debate about one of the most fundamental questions of human existence - how did the universe begin?Every society has stories about the origin of the cosmos and its inhabitants, but now, with the power to peer into the early universe and deploy the knowledge gleaned from archaeology, geology, evolutionary biology and cosmology, we are closer than ever to understanding where it all came from. In The Origin of (almost) Everything, New Scientist explores the modern origin stories of everything from the Big Bang, meteorites and dark energy, to dinosaurs, civilisation, timekeeping, belly-button fluff and beyond.From how complex life evolved on Earth, to the first written language, to how humans conquered space, The Origin of (almost) Everything offers a unique history of the past, present and future of our universe.span

    Shouting Pog mo thin ("Kiss my ass" in Gaelic) he grinned electricity shot through his system. When the current was switched off his body slumped against the leather restraints, and Gleeson, who had strangled two fellow inmates to ensure his execution was not postponed, was dead. The execution had gone flawlessly—not a guaranteed result with the electric chair, which has gone horrifically wrong on many occasions.Old Sparky covers the history of capital punishment in America and the “current wars” between Edison and Westinghouse which led to the development of the electric chair. It examines how the electric chair became the most popular method of execution in America, before being superseded by lethal injection. Famous executions are explored, alongside quirky last meals and poignant last words.The death penalty remains a hot topic of debate in America, and Old Sparky does not shy away from that controversy. Executions have gone spectacularly wrong, with convicts being set alight, and needing up to five jolts of electricity before dying. There have been terrible miscarriages of justice, and the death penalty has not been applied even-handedly. Historically, African-Americans, the mentally challenged, and poor defendants have been likely to get the chair, an anomaly which led the Supreme Court to briefly suspend the death penalty. Since the resumption of capital punishment in 1976 Texas alone has executed more than 500 prisoners, and death row is full.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.