When temperatures drop below 56°F, tin crumbles into powder. Were the soldiers of the Grande Armée acutee fatally weakened by cold because the buttons of their uniforms fell apart? How different our world might be if tin did not disintegrate at low temperatures and the French had continued their eastward expansion! This fascinating book tells the stories of seventeen molecules that, like the tin of those buttons, greatly influenced the course of history. These molecules provided the impetus for early exploration and made possible the ensuing voyages of discovery. They resulted in grand feats of engineering and spurred advances in medicine; lie behind changes in gender roles, in law, and in the environment; and have determined what we today eat, drink, and wear. Showing how a change as small as the position of an atom can lead to enormous differences in the properties of a substance, the authors reveal the astonishing chemical connections among seemingly unrelated events. Napoleon's Buttons offers a novel way to understand how our contemporary world works and how our civilization has been shaped over time.

    They found him a dreamy child without an especially promising future. But some time in his early years he developed what he called wonder about the world. Later in life, he remembered two instances from his childhood--his fascination at age five with a compass and his introduction to the lucidity and certainty of geometry--that may have been the first signs of what was to come. From these ordinary beginnings, Einstein became one of the greatest scientific thinkers of all time. This illuminating biography describes in understandable language the experiments and revolutionary theories that flowed from Einstein's imagination and intellect--from his theory of relativity, which changed our conception of the universe and our place in it, to his search for a unified field theory that would explain all of the forces in the universe.

    Why is the sky dark at night? Is it possible to build a shrink-ray gun? If there is antimatter, can there be antipeople? Why are past, present, and future our only options? Are time and space like a butterfly's wings?No one but Dave Goldberg, the coolest nerd physicist on the planet, could give a hyper drive tour of the universe like this one. Not only does he answer the questions your stoner friends came up with in college, but he also reveals the most profound discoveries of physics with infectious, Carl Sagan–like enthusiasm and accessibility.Goldberg’s narrative is populated with giants from the history of physics, and the biggest turns out to be an unsung genius and Nazi holocaust escapee named Emmy Noether—the other Einstein. She was unrecognized, even unpaid, throughout most of her career simply because she was a woman. Nevertheless, her theorem relating conservation laws to symmetries is widely regarded to be as important as Einstein’s notion of the speed of light. Einstein himself said she was “the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began.”Symmetry is the unsung great idea behind all the big physics of the last one hundred years—and what lies ahead. In this book, Goldberg makes mindbending science not just comprehensible but gripping. Fasten your seat belt.

    Our Big Bang, our distant future, parallel worlds, the sub-atomic and intergalactic - none of them are what they seem. But there is a way to understand this immense strangeness - mathematics. Seeking an answer to the fundamental puzzle of why our universe seems so mathematical, Tegmark proposes a radical idea: that our physical world not only is described by mathematics, but that it is mathematics. This may offer answers to our deepest questions: How large is reality? What is everything made of? Why is our universe the way it is?Table of ContentsPreface 1 What Is Reality? Not What It Seems • What’s the Ultimate Question? • The Journey Begins Part One: Zooming Out 2 Our Place in Space Cosmic Questions • How Big Is Space? • The Size of Earth • Distance to the Moon • Distance to the Sun and the Planets • Distance to the Stars • Distance to the Galaxies • What Is Space? 3 Our Place in TimeWhere Did Our Solar System Come From? • Where Did theGalaxies Come From? • Where Did the Mysterious MicrowavesCome From? • Where Did the Atoms Come From? 4 Our Universe by NumbersWanted: Precision Cosmology • Precision Microwave-Background Fluctuations • Precision Galaxy Clustering • The Ultimate Map of Our Universe • Where Did Our Big Bang Come From? 5 Our Cosmic Origins What’s Wrong with Our Big Bang? • How Inflation Works • The Gift That Keeps on Giving • Eternal Inflation 6 Welcome to the Multiverse The Level I Multiverse • The Level II Multiverse • Multiverse Halftime Roundup Part Two: Zooming In 7 Cosmic Legos Atomic Legos • Nuclear Legos • Particle-Physics Legos • Mathematical Legos • Photon Legos • Above the Law? • Quanta and Rainbows • Making Waves • Quantum Weirdness • The Collapse of Consensus • The Weirdness Can’t Be Confined • Quantum Confusion 8 The Level III Multiverse The Level III Multiverse • The Illusion of Randomness • Quantum Censorship • The Joys of Getting Scooped • Why Your Brain Isn’t a Quantum Computer • Subject, Object and Environment • Quantum Suicide • Quantum Immortality? • Multiverses Unified • Shifting Views: Many Worlds or Many Words? Part Three: Stepping Back 9 Internal Reality, External Reality and Consensus Reality External Reality and Internal Reality • The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth • Consensus Reality • Physics: Linking External to Consensus Reality 10 Physical Reality and Mathematical Reality Math, Math Everywhere! • The Mathematical Universe Hypothesis • What Is a Mathematical Structure? 11 Is Time an Illusion? How Can Physical Reality Be Mathematical? • What Are You? • Where Are You? (And What Do You Perceive?) • When Are You? 12 The Level IV Multiverse Why I Believe in the Level IV Multiverse • Exploring the Level IV Multiverse: What’s Out There? • Implications of the Level IV Multiverse • Are We Living in a Simulation? • Relation Between the MUH, the Level IV Multiverse and Other Hypotheses •Testing the Level IV Multiverse 13 Life, Our Universe and Everything How Big Is Our Physical Reality? • The Future of Physics • The Future of Our Universe—How Will It End? • The Future of Life •The Future of You—Are You Insignificant? Acknowledgments Suggestions for Further Reading Index

    People of all ages frequently ask, “How did you find that so quickly?” Well, this book will explain just that! The planets in our solar system, the International Space Station, sunspots, birds, nebula, airplanes, and comets are just some of the items that his book will help you find!If you have been having difficulties enjoying your small telescope, this book is for you. There is something interesting about pretty much everything in outer space and it is exciting how many pop-culture references are derived from things in the night sky! Viewing the stars referenced in Star Trek, or talking about a character in Harry Potter named after a constellation, is just another way to make stargazing that much more fun! I am very excited to share my knowledge of astronomy and I am sure you will enjoy this book for years to come. By working through the 50 items in this book you will achieve a well-rounded understanding of amateur astronomy.

    Written by one of the world's leading experimental cosmologists, this short but deeply insightful book describes what scientists are revealing through precise measurements of the faint thermal afterglow of the Big Bang--known as the cosmic microwave background, or CMB--and how their findings are transforming our view of the cosmos.Blending the latest findings in cosmology with essential concepts from physics, Lyman Page first helps readers to grasp the sheer enormity of the universe, explaining how to understand the history of its formation and evolution in space and time. Then he sheds light on how spatial variations in the CMB formed, how they reveal the age, size, and geometry of the universe, and how they offer a blueprint for the formation of cosmic structure.Not only does Page explain current observations and measurements, he describes how they can be woven together into a unified picture to form the Standard Model of Cosmology. Yet much remains unknown, and this incisive book also describes the search for ever deeper knowledge at the field's frontiers--from quests to understand the nature of neutrinos and dark energy to investigations into the physics of the very early universe.

    The answers to the big questions: Are the laws of physics fine-tuned for life? Are we alone in the universe? Why is gravity so weak? How can I predict the winner of every horse race?

    And yet for many years it was equally baffling for scientists themselves. Manjit Kumar gives a dramatic and superbly-written history of this fundamental scientific revolution, and the divisive debate at its heart.For 60 years most physicists believed that quantum theory denied the very existence of reality itself. Yet Kumar shows how the golden age of physics ignited the greatest intellectual debate of the twentieth century.Quantum sets the science in the context of the great upheavals of the modern age. In 1925 the quantum pioneers nearly all hailed from upper-middle-class academic families; most were German; and their average age was 24. But it was their irrational, romantic spirit, formed in reaction to the mechanised slaughter of the First World War that inspired their will to test science to its limits.The essential read for anyone fascinated by this complex and thrilling story and by the band of young men at its heart.

    From Egyptian wall paintings to the Venetian Renaissance, impressionism to digital images, Philip Ball tells the fascinating story of how art, chemistry, and technology have interacted throughout the ages to render the gorgeous hues we admire on our walls and in our museums.Finalist for the 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award.

    In the paper, Wigner observed that the mathematical structure of a physical theory often points the way to further advances in that theory and even to empirical predictions.

    The experience of an apiary slows our sense of time, heightens our awareness, and inspires awe. Bee Time" presents Winston s reflections on three decades spent studying these creatures, and on the lessons they can teach about how humans might better interact with one another and the natural world.Like us, honeybees represent a pinnacle of animal sociality. How they submerge individual needs into the colony collective provides a lens through which to ponder human societies. Winston explains how bees process information, structure work, and communicate, and examines how corporate boardrooms are using bee societies as a model to improve collaboration. He investigates how bees have altered our understanding of agricultural ecosystems and how urban planners are looking to bees in designing more nature-friendly cities.The relationship between bees and people has not always been benign. Bee populations are diminishing due to human impact, and we cannot afford to ignore what the demise of bees tells us about our own tenuous affiliation with nature. Toxic interactions between pesticides and bee diseases have been particularly harmful, foreshadowing similar effects of pesticides on human health. There is much to learn from bees in how they respond to these challenges. In sustaining their societies, bees teach us ways to sustain our own."

    Yet in The Science of Interstellar, Kip Thorne, the physicist who assisted Nolan on the scientific aspects of Interstellar, shows us that the movie’s jaw-dropping events and stunning, never-before-attempted visuals are grounded in real science. Thorne shares his experiences working as the science adviser on the film and then moves on to the science itself. In chapters on wormholes, black holes, interstellar travel, and much more, Thorne’s scientific insights—many of them triggered during the actual scripting and shooting of Interstellar—describe the physical laws that govern our universe and the truly astounding phenomena that those laws make possible.Interstellar and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (s14).

    What happens to them is beyond your most terrifying nightmares.You’re History: The discovery of a human skull panics a killer into a confession. Perhaps he should have waited for the coroner’s report.Cold-Blooded: Karen was the former wife of an American icon. But celebrity is no shield against a determined psychopath.The Janitor: When a preteen girl goes missing from a school, suspicion falls on the one person all of the female students are wary of – the creepy janitor.A Bullet for Your Broken Heart: Roy Joe had been dealt many tribulations in his life. None of them, though, was as bad as Carolyn.The Other Ripper: For years, Joan was thought to be a victim of Britain’s most notorious slayer. Her killer turned out to be a different psychopath entirely.Young Blood: Two teenagers meet up for a moonlight tryst in an abandoned building. One of them won’t make it out alive.Neighborhood Monster: It was a simple errand, a quick run to the store in a safe neighborhood. It should not have cost a little girl her life.Plus 10 more horrific true murder cases. Scroll up to grab a copy of Cold Cases: Solved Volume 1.

    Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Astronomy; History / General; Juvenile Nonfiction / Science

    It pours from our taps and falls from the sky. We drink it, wash with it, and couldn't live without it. Yet, on closer examination it is also a very strange substance (it is one of only a very small number of molecules which expand when cooled). Look closer again and water reveals itself as a key to a scientific story on the biggest of canvases.Water is crucial to our survival - life depends on it - but it was also fundamental in the origins of life on Earth. The millions of gallons of water which make up our rivers, lakes and oceans, originated in outer space. How it arrived here and how those molecules of water were formed, is a story which takes us back to the beginning of the universe. Indeed, we know more about the depths of space than we do about the furthest reaches of the oceans.Water has also shaped the world we live in. Whether it is by gently carving the Grand Canyon over millennia, or in shaping how civilisations were built; we have settled our cities along rivers and coasts. Scientific studies show how we feel calmer and more relaxed when next to water. We holiday by the seas and lakes. Yet one day soon wars may be fought over access to water.The Water Book will change the way you look at water. After reading it you will be able to hold a glass of water up to the light and see within it a strange molecule that connects you to the origins of life, the birth (and death) of the universe, and to everyone who ever lived.