Promised the Moon: The Untold Story of the First Women in the Space Race


Stephanie Nolen - 2002
    His testing of 25 top female pilots for reactions to isolation, centrifuge, and weightlessness proved him right, and 13 exceptional candidates were identified. Despite countless personal and professional sacrifices, these women joined NASA's clandestine new program -- which, after two intensive years, was suddenly, and mysteriously, canceled. Promised the Moon chronicles the dramatic story of the rise and fall of these pioneering female astronauts, patriots betrayed by men like John Glenn, who opposed women astronauts, and by someone from their own ranks. The first writer to track down the surviving Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees, Stephanie Nolen vividly brings this fascinating and timely tale to life. Historical photographs are included in this riveting account.

The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began


Stuart Clark - 2007
    Around the world, telegraph systems crashed, machines burst into flames, and electric shocks rendered operators unconscious. Compasses and other sensitive instruments reeled as if struck by a massive magnetic fist. For the first time, people began to suspect that the Earth was not isolated from the rest of the universe. However, nobody knew what could have released such strange forces upon the Earth--nobody, that is, except the amateur English astronomer Richard Carrington.In this riveting account, Stuart Clark tells for the first time the full story behind Carrington's observations of a mysterious explosion on the surface of the Sun and how his brilliant insight--that the Sun's magnetism directly influences the Earth--helped to usher in the modern era of astronomy. Clark vividly brings to life the scientists who roundly rejected the significance of Carrington's discovery of solar flares, as well as those who took up his struggle to prove the notion that the Earth could be touched by influences from space. Clark also reveals new details about the sordid scandal that destroyed Carrington's reputation and led him from the highest echelons of science to the very lowest reaches of love, villainy, and revenge. The Sun Kings transports us back to Victorian England, into the very heart of the great nineteenth-century scientific controversy about the Sun's hidden influence over our planet.

The Neptune File: A Story of Astronomical Rivalry and the Pioneers of Planet Hunting


Tom Standage - 2000
    Now in paperback, The Neptune File is the first account of the dramatic events surrounding the discovery of the solar system's eighth planet, and the story of two men who were able to see on paper what astronomers looking through telescopes for 200 years did not.

Albert Einstein: The Life of a Genius


Jack Steinberg - 2015
    Students around the world are taught about his theories and equations with E=mc2 undoubtedly being the most famous.However, there was more to this man than simply being a genius or the original prototype of the mad professor. Instead, this was a man that was dedicated to not only his profession, but also the concept of pacifism, something that most people are unaware of.Albert Einstein went from a late developing child to running away from school to almost failing university and instead turned himself into one of the greatest minds that the world has ever seen. This is his story, a story of how a child taught himself calculus and geometry and was then not afraid to challenge concepts of how the world worked that had been unchanged for centuries. This was a man who stood up for what he believed in even when the world appeared to be against him.The story of Albert Einstein is about more than just mathematical equations. The story is about a man who beat the odds and became world famous in the unlikely world of physics and the universe.

The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th-Century Science, Including the Original Papers


Alan Lightman - 2005
    Here are Einstein, Fleming, Bohr, McClintock, Paul ing, Watson and Crick, Heisenberg and many others. With remarkable insight, Lightman charts the intellectual and emotional landscape of the time, portrays the human drama of discovery, and explains the significance and impact of the work. Finally he includes a fascinating and unique guided tour through the original papers in which the discoveries were revealed. Here is science writing at its best–beautiful, lyrical and completely accessible. It brings the process of discovery to life before our very eyes.

Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein


Abraham Pais - 1982
    In this new major work Abraham Pais, himself an eminent physicist who worked alongside Einstein in the post-war years, traces the development of Einstein's entire oeuvre. This is the first book which deal comprehensively and in depth with Einstein's science, both the successes and the failures.Running through the book is a completely non-scientific biography (identified in the table of contents by italic type) including many letters which appear in English for the first time, as well as other information not published before.Throughout the preparation of this book, Pais has had complete access to the Einstein Archives (now in the possession of the Hebrew University) and the invaluable guidance of the late Helen Dukas--formerly Einstein's private secretary.

Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe


Simon Singh - 2004
    In this amazingly comprehensible history of the universe, Simon Singh decodes the mystery behind the Big Bang theory, lading us through the development of one of the most extraordinary, important, and awe-inspiring theories in science.

Eleanor Roosevelt's Life of Soul Searching and Self Discovery: From Depression and Betrayal to First Lady of the World


Ann Atkins - 2011
    Refusing to cave in to society's rules, Eleanor's exuberant style, wavering voice and lack of Hollywood beauty are fodder for the media.First Lady for thirteen years, Eleanor redefines and exploits this role to a position ofpower. Using her influence she champions for Jews, African Americans and women. Living through two world wars Eleanor witnesses thousands of graves, broken bodies and grieving families. After visiting troops in the Pacific she says:"If we don't make this a more decent world to live in I don't see how we can look these boys in the eyes."She defies a post-war return to status quo and establishes the Universal Declarationof Human Rights within the U.N. She earns her way to being named "First Lady of the World." The audacity of this woman to live out her own destiny challenges us to do the same. After all, it's not about Eleanor. Her story is history.  It's about us.

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void


Mary Roach - 2010
    From the Space Shuttle training toilet to a crash test of NASA’s new space capsule, Mary Roach takes us on the surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on Earth.

What a Wonderful World: One Man's Attempt to Explain the Big Stuff


Marcus Chown - 2013
    Lucid, witty and hugely entertaining, it explains the basics of our essential existence, stopping along the way to show us why the Atlantic is widening by a thumbs' length each year, how money permits trade to time travel why the crucial advantage humans had over Neanderthals was sewing and why we are all living in a giant hologram.

Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy


Kip S. Thorne - 1994
    In this masterfully written and brilliantly informed work of scientific history and explanation, Dr. Thorne, the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, leads his readers through an elegant, always human, tapestry of interlocking themes, coming finally to a uniquely informed answer to the great question: what principles control our universe and why do physicists think they know the things they think they know? Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time has been one of the greatest best-sellers in publishing history. Anyone who struggled with that book will find here a more slowly paced but equally mind-stretching experience, with the added fascination of a rich historical and human component.

Einstein's Shadow: A Black Hole, a Band of Astronomers, and the Quest to See the Unseeable


Seth Fletcher - 2018
    But Shep Doeleman and a global coalition of scientists are on the cusp of doing just that.With exclusive access to the team, journalist Seth Fletcher spent five years following Shep and an extraordinary cast of characters as they assembled the Event Horizon Telescope, a virtual radio observatory the size of the Earth. He witnessed their struggles, setbacks, and breakthroughs, and along the way, he explored the latest thinking on the most profound questions about black holes. Do they represent a limit to our ability to understand reality? Or will they reveal the clues that lead to the long-sought Theory of Everything?Fletcher transforms astrophysics into something exciting, accessible, and immediate, taking us on an incredible adventure to better understand the complexity of our galaxy, the boundaries of human perception and knowledge, and how the messy human endeavor of science really works.Weaving a compelling narrative account of human ingenuity with excursions into cutting-edge science, Einstein’s Shadow is a tale of great minds on a mission to change the way we understand our universe—and our place in it.

Measuring the Universe: Our Historic Quest to Chart the horizons of Space and Time


Kitty Ferguson - 1900
    Today, scientists are attempting to measure the entire universe and to determine its origin. Although the methods have changed, the quest to chart the horizons of space and time continues to be one of the great adventures of science.Measuring the Universe is an eloquent chronicle of the men and women– from Aristarchus to Cassini, Sir Isaac Newton to Henrietta Leavitt and Stephen Hawking–who have gradually unlocked the mysteries of "how far" and in so doing have changed our ideas about the size and nature of the universe and our place in it. Kitty Ferguson reveals their methods to have been as inventive as their results were–and are–eye-opening. Advances such as Copernicus's revolutionary insights about the arrangement of the solar system, William Herschel's meticulous creation of the first three-dimensional map of the universe, and Edwin Hubble's astonishing discovery that the universe is expanding have by turns revolutionized our concept of the universe. Connecting centuries of breakthroughs with the political and cultural events surrounding them, Ferguson makes astronomy part of the sweep of history.To measure the seemingly immeasurable, scientists have always pushed the boundaries of the imagination–today, for example, facing the paradox of an ever-expanding universe that doesn't appear to expand into anything. In Kitty Fergeson's skillfill hands, the unimaginable becomes accessible and the splendid quest something we all can share.

Men of Mathematics


Eric Temple Bell - 1937
    Bell, a leading figure in mathematics in America for half a century. Men of Mathematics accessibly explains the major mathematics, from the geometry of the Greeks through Newton's calculus and on to the laws of probability, symbolic logic, and the fourth dimension. In addition, the book goes beyond pure mathematics to present a series of engrossing biographies of the great mathematicians -- an extraordinary number of whom lived bizarre or unusual lives. Finally, Men of Mathematics is also a history of ideas, tracing the majestic development of mathematical thought from ancient times to the twentieth century. This enduring work's clear, often humorous way of dealing with complex ideas makes it an ideal book for the non-mathematician.

Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe


Peter D. Ward - 2000
    In doing so, the authors synthesize information from astronomy, biology, and paleontology, and apply it to what we know about the rise of life on Earth and to what could possibly happen elsewhere in the universe. Everyone who has been thrilled by the recent discoveries of extrasolar planets and the indications of life on Mars and the Jovian moon Europa will be fascinated by Rare Earth, and its implications for those who look to the heavens for companionship.