Science & math - Books on Google Play

See the animal kingdom in all its glory, from jellyfish to polar bears, with up-close details of their unique features from head to toe.

Filled with magnificent photographs that were specially commissioned for this book and cannot be seen anywhere else. Written in association with the Smithsonian Institution.

This visual reference book starts with the question "what is an animal?" and takes you through the animal kingdom - mammals, reptiles, birds, and sea creatures. It uses a unique head-to-toe approach that showcases in spectacular detail special features like the flight feathers of a parrot, the antenna of a moth, or the tentacles of coral.

This visual encyclopedia is filled with clear and fascinating information on everything about the social lives of animals. Read exciting stories like how animals communicate, defend their territories, and attract mates.

Learn how evolution has helped wildlife to adapt to their unique environments, whether it's the ability to live in difficult habitats, adjust to specific diets, or how they work physically.

Humans have drawn and painted animals for thousands of years. Zoology has included some of these, like early rock art that depicts our awe of the animal kingdom or natural history artworks like those commissioned by the Mughal Courts in the 1600s.

Dramatic Wildlife Photography

Spectacular, never-before-seen photographs that will bring you close to many of the world's most captivating and intriguing inhabitants. This book offers an extraordinary introduction to the animal world by taking you through chapters that details their diversity.

Go from head to toe in Zoology:

- The animal kingdom
- Shape and size
- Skeletons
- Skins, coats, and armor
- Senses
- Mouth and jaws
- Legs, arms, tentacles, and tails
- Fins, flippers, and paddles
- Wings and parachutes
- Eggs and offspring

The Secrets of Alchemy

Lawrence M. Principe

"This elegant, readable book…covers the history of alchemy from its shadowy origins in Hellenistic Egypt to its scholarly recovery in the 20th century” (Anthony Grafton, Science).

In The Secrets of Alchemy, science historian and practicing chemist Lawrence M. Principe dispels commonly held misconceptions about alchemy and sheds light on what it was, how it began, and how it influenced a range of other ideas and pursuits. Principe demonstrates the importance of alchemy during its heyday in early modern Europe, and explores its enduring place in literature, fine art, theater, and religion as well as its recent acceptance as a serious subject of study for historians of science.

Principe also introduces readers to some of the most fascinating alchemists, such as Zosimos and Basil Valentine, whose lives dot alchemy’s long reign from the third century and to the present day. Through his discussion of alchemists and their times, Principe pieces together clues from obscure texts to reveal alchemy’s secrets, and uses them to recreate many of the most famous recipes in his lab, including those for the “glass of antimony” and “philosophers’ tree.”

The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control

Walter Mischel

Renowned psychologist Walter Mischel, designer of the famous Marshmallow Test, explains what self-control is and how to master it.

A child is presented with a marshmallow and given a choice: Eat this one now, or wait and enjoy two later. What will she do? And what are the implications for her behavior later in life?

The world's leading expert on self-control, Walter Mischel has proven that the ability to delay gratification is critical for a successful life, predicting higher SAT scores, better social and cognitive functioning, a healthier lifestyle and a greater sense of self-worth. But is willpower prewired, or can it be taught?

In The Marshmallow Test, Mischel explains how self-control can be mastered and applied to challenges in everyday life -- from weight control to quitting smoking, overcoming heartbreak, making major decisions, and planning for retirement. With profound implications for the choices we make in parenting, education, public policy and self-care, The Marshmallow Test will change the way you think about who we are and what we can be.

The Elements We Live By: How Iron Helps Us Breathe, Potassium Lets Us See, and Other Surprising Superpowers of the Periodic Table

Anja Røyne

This “excellent” popular science book explores just what we—and the things around us—are made of (Aftenposten, Norway).

Some elements get all the attention: glittering gold, radioactive uranium—materials we call “precious” because they are so rare. But what could be more precious than the building blocks of life—from the oxygen in our air to the carbon in all living things?

In The Elements We Live By, physicist and award-winning author Anja Røyne reminds us that we’d be lost without the quiet heroes of the periodic table. Our bodies need phosphorous to hold our DNA together, potassium to power our optic nerves, and many more elements—in just the right amounts—to function. Other fundamental elements keep our technology (and society) running: Our phones contain arsenic, boron, and gallium to control signals and store information; indium and tin for the touch screen; and lithium for the battery.

Everything is made of elements—every galaxy, star, and planet—from the iron in Earth’s core to the silicon in its sand. But that doesn’t mean the elements we rely on will never run out; for example, about half the lithium we need is extracted from rocks in Australia, and the other half is from saltwater in Argentina and Chile. As Røyne travels the world to find where these elements exist (some in ever-shrinking amounts), she shows how vitally urgent it is for us to protect them—the elements of our very existence.

“Not just a discussion of basic chemistry, this is a volume that looks at the human impact on the planet and what we can learn from nature...Useful for science or sociology courses that address the various impacts of natural resource development or for popular science readers.” —School Library Journal

The Social Conquest of Earth

Edward O. Wilson

New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book of the Year
A Kirkus Reviews Book of the Year (Nonfiction)
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence (Nonfiction)

From the most celebrated heir to Darwin comes a groundbreaking book on evolution, the summa work of Edward O. Wilson's legendary career.

Sparking vigorous debate in the sciences, The Social Conquest of Earth upends “the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first” (Discover). Refashioning the story of human evolution, Wilson draws on his remarkable knowledge of biology and social behavior to demonstrate that group selection, not kin selection, is the premier driving force of human evolution. In a work that James D. Watson calls “a monumental exploration of the biological origins of the human condition,” Wilson explains how our innate drive to belong to a group is both a “great blessing and a terrible curse” (Smithsonian). Demonstrating that the sources of morality, religion, and the creative arts are fundamentally biological in nature, the renowned Harvard University biologist presents us with the clearest explanation ever produced as to the origin of the human condition and why it resulted in our domination of the Earth’s biosphere.

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

Randall Munroe

In the New York Times best-selling book from the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd, Randall Munroe gives hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask.

Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last? What if everyone only had one soulmate? What would happen if the moon went away?

In pursuit of answers, Munroe ran computer simulations, pored over stacks of declassified military research memos, solved differential equations, and consulted with nuclear reactor operators. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, complemented by signature xkcd comics. (They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion.)

Far more than a book for geeks, What If? explains the laws of science in operation in a way that every intelligent reader will enjoy and feel much smarter for having read.

Darwin's Armada: Four Voyages and the Battle for the Theory of Evolution

Iain McCalman

"Sparkling…an extraordinary true-adventure story, complete with trials, tribulations and moments of exultation." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Award-winning cultural historian Iain McCalman tells the stories of Charles Darwin and his staunchest supporters: Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley, and Alfred Wallace. Beginning with the somber morning of April 26, 1882—the day of Darwin's funeral—Darwin's Armada steps back and recounts the lives and scientific discoveries of each of these explorers, who campaigned passionately in the war of ideas over evolution and advanced the scope of Darwin's work.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

New York Times Bestseller

A Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg

From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.”

One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us?

Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas.

Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become?

Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem.

God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?

Leon Lederman

A Nobel Prize–winning physicist’s “funny, clever, entertaining” account of the history of particle physics and the hunt for a Higgs boson (Library Journal).

In this extraordinarily accessible and witty book, Leon Lederman—“the most engaging physicist since the late, much-missed Richard Feynman” (San Francisco Examiner)—offers a fascinating tour that takes us from the Greeks’ earliest scientific observations through Einstein and beyond in an inspiring celebration of human curiosity. It ends with the quest for the Higgs boson, nicknamed the God Particle, which scientists hypothesize will help unlock the last secrets of the subatomic universe. This is not only an enlightening journey through baryons and hadrons and leptons and electrons—it also “may be the funniest book about physics ever written” (The Dallas Morning News).

“One of the clearest, most enjoyable new science books in years . . . explains the entire history of physics and cosmology. En route, you’ll laugh so hard you won’t realize how much you are learning.” —San Francisco Examiner

“The story of the search for the ultimate constituents of matter has been told many times before, but never with more verve and wit. . . . His hilarious account of how he helped persuade President Reagan to approve the construction of the Super Collider is itself worth the price of the book.” —Los Angeles Times

The Quantum Rules: How the Laws of Physics Explain Love, Success, and Everyday Life

Kunal K. Das

A New York Times Best Seller!

Here is a book to lead you through the fascinating intersections of life and physics with humor and intelligence.

Find out how the laws of physics define every aspect of our lives and society, from human nature and relationships to geopolitical issues like financial markets, globalization and immigration. The Quantum Rules is a different kind of physics book, as easy to read as a novel and directly relevant for everyday life issues that affect us all. It is not meant to dazzle you with unproven speculations that have no bearing on your life. Rather, The Quantum Rules will familiarize you with the important and established laws at the heart of physics, in a way never done before – by showing how the defining patterns of our lives, our behavior and our society already follow similar rules.

Never took an interest in science before? No problem! you will still understand everything and find plenty to relate to. A scientist or a science junkie? You will find a different perspective on things you may already know. Best of all, you will discover how to have meaningful conversations about physics in a way that won’t make eyes glaze over, and in which all can gladly participate.

The Quantum Rules also does something you would never expect from a book on physics – it makes you laugh, often. Its new and original take on established natural laws injects plenty of dry humor into this serious subject, by using life to explain physics and in turn using physics to understand life.

New Releases

The latest in science + math

BattleTech: Elements of Treason: Duty

Craig A. Reed, Jr.

ABANDONED BY THE ARCHON…

Once the founding capital and a vital planet in the Lyran Commonwealth, Arcturus has been held by the Clans for more than two decades, most recently by the Jade Falcons. But when the Falcons suddenly abandon the planet in early 3151, Arcturus is left to fend for itself, with no support from Archon Trillian Steiner or former-Commonwealth worlds.

For Hauptmann-General Sarah Regis, commander of the Twenty-Sixth Arcturan Guards, returning home means a chance to free Arcturus from Clan control. However, the planet is not the same one she remembers. Instead, she finds a weary population fractured by internal strife, starvation, and the remnants of Jade Falcon cruelty.

To save Arcturus from itself, Sarah must forge a new path forward, one that offers her people something they haven't known in many years: hope. But many wish to see her fail, and the space around Arcturus teems with predators seeking to destroy everything she has fought for. Sarah’s last hope to move Arcturus into a brighter future may actually lie in its past…if she can stay alive long enough to make it happen…

Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist

Frans de Waal

“Every new book by Frans de Waal is a cause for excitement, and this one is no different. A breath of fresh air in the cramped debate about the differences between men and women. Fascinating, nuanced, and very timely.” —Rutger Bregman, author of Humankind: A Hopeful History

In Different, world-renowned primatologist Frans de Waal draws on decades of observation and studies of both human and animal behavior to argue that despite the linkage between gender and biological sex, biology does not automatically support the traditional gender roles in human societies. While humans and other primates do share some behavioral differences, biology offers no justification for existing gender inequalities.

Using chimpanzees and bonobos to illustrate this point—two ape relatives that are genetically equally close to humans—de Waal challenges widely held beliefs about masculinity and femininity, and common assumptions about authority, leadership, cooperation, competition, filial bonds, and sexual behavior. Chimpanzees are male-dominated and violent, while bonobos are female-dominated and peaceful. In both species, political power needs to be distinguished from physical dominance. Power is not limited to the males, and both sexes show true leadership capacities.

Different is a fresh and thought-provoking approach to the long-running debate about the balance between nature and nurture, and where sex and gender roles fit in. De Waal peppers his discussion with details from his own life—a Dutch childhood in a family of six boys, his marriage to a French woman with a different orientation toward gender, and decades of academic turf wars over outdated scientific theories that have proven hard to dislodge from public discourse. He discusses sexual orientation, gender identity, and the limitations of the gender binary, exceptions to which are also found in other primates.

With humor, clarity, and compassion, Different seeks to broaden the conversation about human gender dynamics by promoting an inclusive model that embraces differences, rather than negating them.

Easy Beauty: A Memoir

Chloé Cooper Jones

“Soul-stretching, breathtaking…A game-changing gift to readers.” —Booklist (starred review)

From Chloé Cooper Jones—Pulitzer Prize finalist, philosophy professor, Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant recipient—a groundbreaking memoir about disability, motherhood, and a journey to far-flung places in search of a new way of seeing and being seen.

“I am in a bar in Brooklyn, listening to two men, my friends, discuss whether my life is worth living.”

So begins Chloé Cooper Jones’s bold, revealing account of moving through the world in a body that looks different than most. Jones learned early on to factor “pain calculations” into every plan, every situation. Born with a rare congenital condition called sacral agenesis which affects both her stature and gait, her pain is physical. But there is also the pain of being judged and pitied for her appearance, of being dismissed as “less than.” The way she has been seen—or not seen—has informed her lens on the world her entire life. She resisted this reality by excelling academically and retreating to “the neutral room in her mind” until it passed. But after unexpectedly becoming a mother (in violation of unspoken social taboos about the disabled body), something in her shifts, and Jones sets off on a journey across the globe, reclaiming the spaces she’d been denied, and denied herself.

From the bars and domestic spaces of her life in Brooklyn to sculpture gardens in Rome; from film festivals in Utah to a Beyoncé concert in Milan; from a tennis tournament in California to the Killing Fields of Phnom Penh, Jones weaves memory, observation, experience, and aesthetic philosophy to probe the myths underlying our standards of beauty and desirability, and interrogates her own complicity in upholding those myths.

With its emotional depth, its prodigious, spiky intelligence, its passion and humor, Easy Beauty is the rare memoir that has the power to make you see the world, and your place in it, with new eyes.

Is Science Enough?: Forty Critical Questions About Climate Justice

Aviva Chomsky

Why social, racial, and economic justice are just as crucial as science in determining how humans can reverse climate catastrophe

We are facing a climate catastrophe. A plethora of studies describe the damage we’ve already done, the droughts, the wildfires, the super-storms, the melting glaciers, the heat waves, and the displaced people fleeing lands that are becoming uninhabitable. Many people understand that we are facing a climate emergency, but may be fuzzy on technical, policy, and social justice aspects. In Is Science Enough?, Aviva Chomsky breaks down the concepts, terminology, and debates for activists, students, and anyone concerned about climate change. She argues that science is not enough to change course: we need put social, racial, and economic justice front and center and overhaul the global growth economy.

Chomsky’s accessible primer focuses on 5 key issues:

1.) Technical questions: What exactly are “clean,” “renewable,” and “zero-emission” energy sources? How much do different sectors (power generation, transportation, agriculture, industry, etc.) contribute to climate change? Can forests serve as a carbon sink?

2.) Policy questions: What is the Green New Deal? How does a cap-and-trade system work? How does the United States subsidize the fossil fuel industry?

3.) What can I do as an individual?: Do we need to consume less? What kinds of individual actions can make the most difference? Should we all be vegetarians?

4.) Social, racial, and economic justice: What’s the relationship of inequality to climate change? What do race and racism have to do with climate change? How are pandemics related to climate change?

5.) Broadening the lens: What is economic growth? How important is it, and how does it affect the environment? What is degrowth?

Math Games with Bad Drawings: 75 1/4 Simple, Challenging, Go-Anywhere Games—And Why They Matter

Ben Orlin

Bestselling author and worst-drawing artist Ben Orlin expands his oeuvre with this interactive collection of mathematical games. With 70-plus games, each taking a minute to learn and a lifetime to master, this treasure trove will delight, educate, and entertain.

From beloved math popularizer Ben Orlin comes a masterfully compiled collection of dozens of playable mathematical games.This ultimate game chest draws on mathematical curios, childhood classics, and soon-to-be classics, each hand-chosen to be (1) fun, (2) thought-provoking, and (3) easy to play. With just paper, pens, and the occasional handful of coins, you and a partner can enjoy hours of fun—and hours of challenge.

Orlin’s sly humor, expansive knowledge, and so-bad-they’re-good drawings show us how simple rules summon our best thinking.

Games include:

Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe
Sprouts
Battleship
Quantum Go Fish
Dots and Boxes
Black Hole
Order and Chaos
Sequencium
Paper Boxing
Prophecies
Arpeggios
Banker
Francoprussian Labyrinth
Cats and Dogs
And many more.

Bird: The Definitive Visual Guide

Bring the diversity and drama of the bird world to life with this encyclopedic new edition.

A must-have for every avian enthusiast, this catalogue showcases thousands of bird species pictured in their native environment.

Shot by photographers around the globe, the vivid images are accompanied by in-depth introductions to all 40 of the world's newly reclassified bird orders. Compiled by a team of experts and revised by BirdLife International, Bird provides the most up to date and comprehensive photographic tour of the wondrous world of birds. Dive in and you will find:

-A bird by bird catalogue of more than 1,280 species, each with a description, data file, and distribution map
-An introduction describing bird biology in beautiful visual detail.
-Feature spreads showcasing the planet's most impressive sites for birdwatching
-Photographic essays that display the best in bird photography

Discover the world of the skies!

Unrivaled in scope for a single-volume reference work, Bird's photographic catalogue features species from hummingbirds to monkey-eating eagles, organised in taxonomic order.

Immerse yourself in the life of birds; read about their migrations, anatomy, feeding and breeding. All this, and special features on the world's most sought after bird watching locations, make this "A must-have reference for every bird enthusiast" - BBC Wildlife Magazine.

Whether you're an avian expert who knows your Accipitriformes (birds of prey) from your Falconiformes (falcons and caracaras), or are simply a nature lover wanting to learn more, you won't find a more detailed or comprehensive photographic bird book than this.

What's new?

After a major reclassification of all birds, this new edition is the only guide currently in print covering the new system of 40 bird orders and 140+ families, including an updated catalogue with newly discovered species. Reviewed by the experts at BirdLife International, you can be sure that you are getting the latest knowledge of bird biology and classification.

Witness to Roswell, 75th Anniversary Edition: Unmasking the Government's Biggest Cover-up

Thomas J. Carey

“When I finished Witness to Roswell, I said to myself, ‘Case closed!’ for the very wealth and sheer weight of eyewitness testimony.”—George Noory, host, Coast to Coast AM

This classic in the field of UFOology is filled with hard-hitting eyewitness testimony of one of the most important events of all time: the actual recovery of a UFO outside of Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. For more than 70 years, government authorities have led us to believe the wreckage was merely a very conventional weather balloon—but the witnesses who were there continue to tell a different story.

Witness to Roswell once again provides a "can't put down" written account of what really transpired in Roswell decades ago. It pries loose the truth the government doesn't want us to know including the revelations of Walter Haut. This edition includes:

A growing litany of deathbed confessions describing the "little people" recovered at the crash site.
The most comprehensive time line of events ever published on this seminal event.
The identity of the Boeing engineer called in to examine the exotic wreckage from the crash.
What really took place at the Roswell base hospital and what nurse actually ordered the children’s caskets.
The story of the soldier who wore gloves at the dinner table after guarding the "bodies."

Clearly, the implications of this information are foreboding. One need only look at the fact that officials now have four explanations for this historic event—but to which one do all the witnesses testify on their deathbeds?

Witness to Roswell once again demonstrates to the world that no statute of limitation applies to the truth: We are not alone.

This anniversary edition includes a new introduction by the authors and additional material.

How to Save the World for Just a Trillion Dollars: The Ten Biggest Problems We Can Actually Fix

Rowan Hooper

What would you do with a trillion dollars? The ultimate thought experiment opens our eyes to ten world-changing ideas within our grasp

If we can come up with a trillion dollars to bail out banks, imagine what else we could do. Science journalist Rowan Hooper decided to find out, speaking with experts of all kinds about ten incredibly ambitious projects that— if realized—would secure profound, enduring benefits: trying to end global poverty, reverse climate change, extend our lifespans, refreeze the Arctic, save all endangered species, and more. Then, he dives into strategies and costs to see: How far would $1 trillion really go? You’ll have to read on to learn which project he concludes would do the most good . . . but the biggest surprise is how many astonishing advances are actually within our grasp—if we dare to reach for them.

Hurricane in a Teacup: The Relentless Myth of Man-made Climate Change

James M. Wright

“The world is ending because of climate change!” Every day we are bombarded with apocalyptic warnings telling us that if we do not change our ways and dismantle our economies, we will destroy the planet. But what if it is all a cynical hoax perpetrated by power-hungry activists and politicians for their own purposes? In this book, James Wright asks that question, joining a multitude of skeptics who challenge the increasingly hysterical claims of “climate fanatics” and the science that supposedly underpins them.

Chasing the Ghost Bear: On the Trail of America's Lost Super Beast

Mike Stark

No animal shakes the human consciousness quite like a bear, and few compare to the giant short-faced bears that stalked North America during the Pleistocene. Even among the mammoths and saber-toothed cats, they were a staggering sight: on all fours, the biggest would stare a six-foot person in the face and weigh close to a ton. On hind legs they towered more than ten feet, with jaws powerful enough to crush skulls and snap bones like twigs.

The bears weren’t invincible, however. Despite their size, they were swept off the planet in a mysterious wave of Ice Age extinctions more than ten thousand years ago, then mostly forgotten. Chasing the Ghost Bear is Mike Stark’s journey into the bear’s enigmatic story—its life, disappearance, and rediscovery—and those trying to piece it together today. An engaging guide through his intrepid search, Stark’s story leads us from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles to a cornfield in Indiana, the far ends of the Arctic, the plains of Texas, and the swamps of Florida.

Part natural history, part travelogue, and part meditation on extinction and loss, Chasing the Ghost Bear returns these magnificent beasts to their rightful place in our understanding of the world just an epoch past.

The Science Behind Sci-Fi

Facts can be weirder than fiction

Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space

Janna Levin

The authoritative story of the headline-making discovery of gravitational waves—by an eminent theoretical astrophysicist and award-winning writer.

From the author of How the Universe Got Its Spots and A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, the epic story of the scientific campaign to record the soundtrack of our universe.

Black holes are dark. That is their essence. When black holes collide, they will do so unilluminated. Yet the black hole collision is an event more powerful than any since the origin of the universe. The profusion of energy will emanate as waves in the shape of spacetime: gravitational waves. No telescope will ever record the event; instead, the only evidence would be the sound of spacetime ringing. In 1916, Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, his top priority after he proposed his theory of curved spacetime. One century later, we are recording the first sounds from space, the soundtrack to accompany astronomy’s silent movie.

In Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space, Janna Levin recounts the fascinating story of the obsessions, the aspirations, and the trials of the scientists who embarked on an arduous, fifty-year endeavor to capture these elusive waves. An experimental ambition that began as an amusing thought experiment, a mad idea, became the object of fixation for the original architects—Rai Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Ron Drever. Striving to make the ambition a reality, the original three gradually accumulated an international team of hundreds. As this book was written, two massive instruments of remarkably delicate sensitivity were brought to advanced capability. As the book draws to a close, five decades after the experimental ambition began, the team races to intercept a wisp of a sound with two colossal machines, hoping to succeed in time for the centenary of Einstein’s most radical idea. Janna Levin’s absorbing account of the surprises, disappointments, achievements, and risks in this unfolding story offers a portrait of modern science that is unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel

Michio Kaku

Teleportation, time machines, force fields, and interstellar space ships—the stuff of science fiction or potentially attainable future technologies? Inspired by the fantastic worlds of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Back to the Future, renowned theoretical physicist and bestselling author Michio Kaku takes an informed, serious, and often surprising look at what our current understanding of the universe's physical laws may permit in the near and distant future.Entertaining, informative, and imaginative, Physics of the Impossible probes the very limits of human ingenuity and scientific possibility.

Time Travel and Warp Drives: A Scientific Guide to Shortcuts through Time and Space

Allen Everett

To see video demonstrations of key concepts from the book, please visit this website: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/sites/timewarp/

Sci-fi makes it look so easy. Receive a distress call from Alpha Centauri? No problem: punch the warp drive and you're there in minutes. Facing a catastrophe that can't be averted? Just pop back in the timestream and stop it before it starts. But for those of us not lucky enough to live in a science-fictional universe, are these ideas merely flights of fancy—or could it really be possible to travel through time or take shortcuts between stars?

Cutting-edge physics may not be able to answer those questions yet, but it does offer up some tantalizing possibilities. In Time Travel and Warp Drives, Allen Everett and Thomas A. Roman take readers on a clear, concise tour of our current understanding of the nature of time and space—and whether or not we might be able to bend them to our will. Using no math beyond high school algebra, the authors lay out an approachable explanation of Einstein's special relativity, then move through the fundamental differences between traveling forward and backward in time and the surprising theoretical connection between going back in time and traveling faster than the speed of light. They survey a variety of possible time machines and warp drives, including wormholes and warp bubbles, and, in a dizzyingly creative chapter, imagine the paradoxes that could plague a world where time travel was possible—killing your own grandfather is only one of them!

Written with a light touch and an irrepressible love of the fun of sci-fi scenarios—but firmly rooted in the most up-to-date science, Time Travel and Warp Drives will be a delightful discovery for any science buff or armchair chrononaut.

Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension

Michio Kaku

Are there other dimensions beyond our own? Is time travel possible? Can we change the past? Are there gateways to parallel universes? All of us have pondered such questions, but there was a time when scientists dismissed these notions as outlandish speculations. Not any more. Today, they are the focus of the most intense scientific activity in recent memory. In Hyperspace, Michio Kaku, author of the widely acclaimed Beyond Einstein and a leading theoretical physicist, offers the first book-length tour of the most exciting (and perhaps most bizarre) work in modern physics, work which includes research on the tenth dimension, time warps, black holes, and multiple universes. The theory of hyperspace (or higher dimensional space)--and its newest wrinkle, superstring theory--stand at the center of this revolution, with adherents in every major research laboratory in the world, including several Nobel laureates. Beginning where Hawking's Brief History of Time left off, Kaku paints a vivid portrayal of the breakthroughs now rocking the physics establishment. Why all the excitement? As the author points out, for over half a century, scientists have puzzled over why the basic forces of the cosmos--gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces--require markedly different mathematical descriptions. But if we see these forces as vibrations in a higher dimensional space, their field equations suddenly fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, perfectly snug, in an elegant, astonishingly simple form. This may thus be our leading candidate for the Theory of Everything. If so, it would be the crowning achievement of 2,000 years of scientific investigation into matter and its forces. Already, the theory has inspired several thousand research papers, and has been the focus of over 200 international conferences. Michio Kaku is one of the leading pioneers in superstring theory and has been at the forefront of this revolution in modern physics. With Hyperspace, he has produced a book for general readers which conveys the vitality of the field and the excitement as scientists grapple with the meaning of space and time. It is an exhilarating look at physics today and an eye-opening glimpse into the ultimate nature of the universe.

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality

Brian Greene

From Brian Greene, one of the world’s leading physicists and author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Elegant Universe, comes a grand tour of the universe that makes us look at reality in a completely different way.

Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience. From Newton’s unchanging realm in which space and time are absolute, to Einstein’s fluid conception of spacetime, to quantum mechanics’ entangled arena where vastly distant objects can instantaneously coordinate their behavior, Greene takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on an irresistible and revelatory journey to the new layers of reality that modern physics has discovered lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.

The Universe: Leading Scientists Explore the Origin, Mysteries, and Future of the Cosmos

John Brockman

John Brockman brings together the world's best-known physicists and science writers—including Brian Greene, Walter Isaacson, Nobel Prize-winner Frank Wilczek, Benoit Mandelbrot, and Martin Rees—to explain the universe in all wondrous splendor.

In The Universe, today's most influential science writers explain the science behind our evolving understanding of the universe and everything in it, including the cutting edge research and discoveries that are shaping our knowledge.

Lee Smolin reveals how math and cosmology are helping us create a theory of the whole universe. Benoit Mandelbrot looks back on a career devoted to fractal geometry. Neil Turok analyzes the fundamental laws of nature, what came before the big bang, and the possibility of a unified theory.

Seth Lloyd investigates the impact of computational revolutions and the informational revolution. Lawrence Krauss provides fresh insight into gravity, dark matter, and the energy of empty space. Brian Greene and Walter Isaacson illuminate the genius who revolutionized modern science: Albert Einstein. And much more.

Explore the universe with some of today's greatest minds: what it is, how it came into being, and what may happen next.

Cosmos

Carl Sagan

RETURNING TO TELEVISION AS AN ALL-NEW MINISERIES ON FOX

Cosmos is one of the bestselling science books of all time. In clear-eyed prose, Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space. Cosmos retraces the fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution that have transformed matter into consciousness, exploring such topics as the origin of life, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, spacecraft missions, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies, and the forces and individuals who helped to shape modern science.

Praise for Cosmos

“Magnificent . . . With a lyrical literary style, and a range that touches almost all aspects of human knowledge, Cosmos often seems too good to be true.”—The Plain Dealer

“Sagan is an astronomer with one eye on the stars, another on history, and a third—his mind’s—on the human condition.”—Newsday

“Brilliant in its scope and provocative in its suggestions . . . shimmers with a sense of wonder.”—The Miami Herald

“Sagan dazzles the mind with the miracle of our survival, framed by the stately galaxies of space.”—Cosmopolitan

“Enticing . . . iridescent . . . imaginatively illustrated.”—The New York Times Book Review

NOTE: This edition does not include images.

The Theory of Relativity: And Other Essays

Albert Einstein

E=mc2 is the world’s most famous equation. Discover the thought process and physics behind general relativity and Einstein’s contribution to science, in this authorized edition.

In this collection of his seven most important essays on physics, Einstein guides his reader step-by-step through the many layers of scientific theory that formed a starting point for his discoveries. By both supporting and refuting the theories and scientific efforts of his predecessors, Einstein reveals in a clear voice the origins and meaning of such significant topics as physics and reality, the fundamentals of theoretical physics, the common language of science, the laws of science and of ethics, and an elementary derivation of the equivalence of mass and energy.

This remarkable collection allows the general reader to understand not only the significance of Einstein’s masterpiece, but also the brilliant mind behind it.

This authorized ebook features a new introduction by Neil Berger and an illustrated biography of Albert Einstein, which includes rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence

Paul Davies

One of the world’s leading scientists explains why—and how—the search for intelligent life beyond Earth should be expanded.

Fifty years ago, a young astronomer named Frank Drake first pointed a radio telescope at nearby stars in the hope of picking up a signal from an alien civilization. Thus began one of the boldest scientific projects in history, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). After a half-century of scanning the skies, however, astronomers have little to report but an eerie silence—eerie because many scientists are convinced that the universe is teeming with life. Physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davies has been closely involved with SETI for three decades and chairs the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup, charged with deciding what to do if we’re suddenly confronted with evidence of alien intelligence. He believes the search so far has fallen into an anthropocentric trap—assuming that an alien species will look, think, and behave much like us. In this provocative book Davies refocuses the search, challenging existing ideas of what form an alien intelligence might take, how it might try to communicate with us, and how we should respond if it does.

Silent Spring

Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson’s passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. It is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century.

The Future

Can we please get jetpacks?

How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth's Climate

Jeff Goodell

“Thoughtful, informative, and darkly entertaining. It’s the best treatment of this important (and scary) topic you can find.” —Elizabeth Kolbert

Right now, a group of scientists is working on ways to minimize the catastrophic impact of global warming. But they’re not designing hybrids or fuel cells or wind turbines. They’re trying to lower the temperature of the entire planet. And they’re doing it with huge contraptions that suck CO2 from the air, machines that brighten clouds and deflect sunlight away from the earth, even artificial volcanoes that spray heat-reflecting particles into the atmosphere.

This is the radical and controversial world of geoengineering, which only five years ago was considered to be “fringe.” But as Jeff Goodell points out, the economic crisis, combined with global political realities, is making these ideas look sane, even inspired.

Goodell himself started out as a skeptic, concerned about tinkering with the planet’s thermostat. We can’t even predict next week’s weather, so how are we going to change the temperature of whole regions? What if a wealthy entrepreneur shoots particles into the stratosphere on his own? Who gets blamed if something goes terribly wrong? And perhaps most disturbing, what about wars waged with climate control as the primary weapon? There are certainly risks, but Goodell believes the alternatives could be worse. In the end, he persuades us that geoengineering may just be our last best hope—a Plan B for the environment. His compelling tale of scientific hubris and technical daring is sure to jump-start the next big debate about the future of life on earth.

“Goodell explores with infectious curiosity and thoughtful narration this strange, promising, and untested suite of climate fixes.” —BusinessWeek

“A quick, enjoyable read through a complex, timely topic. And after you read it, you’ll never look at the sky or the ocean—or Earth, really—in quite the same way again.” —The Christian Science Monitor

Final Jeopardy: The Story of Watson, the Computer That Will Transform Our World

Stephen Baker

The “charming and terrifying” story of IBM’s breakthrough in artificial intelligence, from the Business Week technology writer and author of The Numerati (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

For centuries, people have dreamed of creating a machine that thinks like a human. Scientists have made progress: computers can now beat chess grandmasters and help prevent terrorist attacks. Yet we still await a machine that exhibits the rich complexity of human thought—one that doesn’t just crunch numbers, or take us to a relevant web page, but understands and communicates with us. With the creation of Watson, IBM’s Jeopardy!-playing computer, we are one step closer to that goal.

In Final Jeopardy, Stephen Baker traces the arc of Watson’s “life,” from its birth in the IBM labs to its big night on the podium. We meet Hollywood moguls and Jeopardy! masters, genius computer programmers and ambitious scientists, including Watson’s eccentric creator, David Ferrucci. We see how Watson’s breakthroughs and the future of artificial intelligence could transform medicine, law, marketing, and even science itself, as machines process huge amounts of data at lightning speed, answer our questions, and possibly come up with new hypotheses. As fast and fun as the game itself, Final Jeopardy shows how smart machines will fit into our world—and how they’ll disrupt it.

“The place to go if you’re really interested in this version of the quest for creating Artificial Intelligence.” —The Seattle Times

“Like Tracy Kidder’s Soul of a New Machine, Baker’s book finds us at the dawn of a singularity. It’s an excellent case study, and does good double duty as a Philip K. Dick scenario, too.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Like a cross between Born Yesterday and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Baker’s narrative is both . . . an entertaining romp through the field of artificial intelligence—and a sobering glimpse of things to come.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next

Lee Smolin

“A splendid, edifying report from the front lines of theorectical physics” (San Francisco Chronicle).

In this illuminating book, renowned physicist Lee Smolin argues that fundamental physics—the search for the laws of nature—is losing its way.

Ambitious ideas about extra dimensions, exotic particles, multiple universes, and strings have captured the public’s imagination—and the imagination of experts. But these ideas have not been tested experimentally, and some, like string theory, seem to offer no possibility of being tested. Even still, these speculations dominate the field, attracting the best talent and much of the funding, while creating a climate in which emerging physicists are often penalized for pursuing other avenues. The situation threatens to impede the very progress of science.

With clarity, passion, and authority, Smolin offers an unblinking assessment of the troubles that face modern physics, and an encouraging view of where the search for the next big idea may lead.

“The best book about contemporary science written for the layman that I have ever read.” —The Times (London)

Merchants of Immortality: Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension

Stephen S. Hall

A Discover Best Science Book of the Year: “A fascinating, accurate and accessible account of some of [the] contemporary efforts to combat aging” (The New York Times).

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist

Named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times, San Jose Mercury News, and Library Journal

An award-winning writer explores science’s boldest frontier—extension of the human life span—interviewing dozens of people involved in the quest to allow us to live longer, better lives.

Delving into topics from cancer to stem cells to cloning, Merchants of Immortality looks at humankind’s quest for longevity and tackles profound questions about our hopes for defeating health problems like heart attacks, Parkinson’s disease, and diabetes. The story follows a close-knit but fractious band of scientists as well as entrepreneurs who work in the shadowy area between profit and the public good. The author tracks the science of aging back to the iconoclastic Leonard Hayflick—who was the first to show that cells age, and whose epic legal battles with the federal government cleared the path for today’s biotech visionaries.

Among those is the charismatic Michael West, a former creationist who founded the first biotech company devoted to aging research. West has won both ardent admirers and committed foes in his relentless quest to promote stem cells, therapeutic cloning, and other technologies of “practical immortality.” Merchants of Immortality breathes scintillating life into the most momentous science of our day, assesses the political and bioethical controversies it has spawned, and explores its potentially dramatic effect on the length and quality of our lives.

“Timely and engrossing . . . This is top-drawer journalism.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A carefully documented examination of how society deals with life-and-death matters.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“An important survey of the entire landscape of the science aimed at extending human life.” —Newsday

“[This] highly readable and important book . . . provide[s] new insights into the intersection of science and politics.” —The Washington Post

Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future

Jeff Goodell

Long dismissed as a relic of a bygone era, coal is back -- with a vengeance. Coal is one of the nation's biggest and most influential industries -- Big Coal provides more than half the electricity consumed by Americans today -- and its dominance is growing, driven by rising oil prices and calls for energy independence. Is coal the solution to America's energy problems?

On close examination, the glowing promise of coal quickly turns to ash. Coal mining remains a deadly and environmentally destructive industry. Nearly forty percent of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year comes from coal-fired power plants. In the last two decades, air pollution from coal plants has killed more than half a million Americans. In this eye-opening call to action, Goodell explains the costs and consequences of America's addiction to coal and discusses how we can kick the habit.

The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality

Richard Panek

The epic, behind-the-scenes story of an astounding gap in our scientific knowledge of the cosmos.

In the past few years, a handful of scientists have been in a race to explain a disturbing aspect of our universe: only 4 percent of it consists of the matter that makes up you, me, our books, and every planet, star, and galaxy. The rest—96 percent of the universe—is completely unknown.

Richard Panek tells the dramatic story of how scientists reached this conclusion, and what they’re doing to find this "dark" matter and an even more bizarre substance called dark energy. Based on in-depth, on-site reporting and hundreds of interviews—with everyone from Berkeley’s feisty Saul Perlmutter and Johns Hopkins’s meticulous Adam Riess to the quietly revolutionary Vera Rubin—the book offers an intimate portrait of the bitter rivalries and fruitful collaborations, the eureka moments and blind alleys, that have fueled their search, redefined science, and reinvented the universe.

Rebuilt: My Journey Back to the Hearing World

Michael Chorost

After Michael Chorost suddenly lost what was left of his hearing, he took the radical step of having a cochlear implant -- a tiny computer -- installed in his head. A technological marvel, the device not only restored to him the world of sound but also could be routinely upgraded with new software. Despite his intitial fear of the technology's potentially dehumanizing effects, Chorost's implant allowed him to connect with others in surprising ways: as a cyborg, he learned about love, joined a writing group, and formed deeper friendships. More profoundly, his perception of the world around him was dramatically altered.

Brimming with insight and written with charm and self-deprecating humor, Rebuilt unveils, in personal terms, the astounding possibilities of a new technological age.

Clean Tech Nation: How the U.S. Can Lead in the New Global Economy

Ron Pernick

From Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder, the authors of Clean Tech Revolution, comes the next definitive book on the Clean Tech industry. In Clean Tech Nation, they shine a light on the leaders at the forefront of the growing movement. USA Today called Pernick and Wilder’s groundbreaking first book, “one of the few instances in this genre that shows the green movement not in heartstring terms but as economically profitable.” Clean Tech Nation expands on their original idea to provide concrete analysis on the efforts of the U.S. and other countries in this area, and provides a clear way forward for the U.S. so that it can lead the pack as it competes with the rest of the world.

Why Has America Stopped Inventing?

Darin Gibby

A thoughtful look at our history of innovation, the problems with the patent system, and the prospects for America’s future.

America loves innovation and the can-do spirit that made this country what it is—a world leader in self-government, industry and technology, and pop culture. Everything about America has at one point or another been an experiment and a leap of faith. And one such experiment—upon which all others depend for success—is the US Patent System.

Why Has America Stopped Inventing? takes a close look at why this experiment appears to be failing, and why America has all but stopped inventing. Our belief that we are the most innovative people on earth is mistaken. Statistics show that today we invent less than half of what our counterparts did a hundred and fifty years ago.

Where are the groundbreaking inventions comparable to those from the Industrial Revolution? Why have we been using the same mode of transportation for over a century? Why are we giving trillions to hostile foreign nations for imported oil when we have the talent to solve the nation’s energy crisis? We don’t have these desperately needed technologies because regular Americans have given up on inventing.

This book explains why, comparing the experiences of America’s most successful nineteenth-century inventors with those of today and sharing fascinating historical anecdotes: Jefferson refusing to waste any more weekends examining patent applications; Whitney being robbed of his fortune while the South’s wealth exploded; the patent models that kept British soldiers from burning Washington’s last-standing federal building; the formation of Lincoln’s cabinet; and Selden crippling the entire US auto industry. It also tells the story of the Wright brothers’ airplane monopoly, the Colt revolver’s role in the Mexican American War, the Sewing Machine wars, the last six months of Daniel Webster’s life, and the fraudulently created Bell Empire.

City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles

Mike Davis

This new edition of the visionary social history of Los Angeles is “as central to the L.A. canon as anything that . . . Joan Didion wrote in the seventies” (New Yorker)

No metropolis has been more loved or more hated. To its official boosters, “Los Angeles brings it all together.” To detractors, L.A. is a sunlit mortuary where “you can rot without feeling it.” To Mike Davis, the author of this fiercely elegant and wide- ranging work of social history, Los Angeles is both utopia and dystopia, a place where the last Joshua trees are being plowed under to make room for model communities in the desert, where the rich have hired their own police to fend off street gangs, as well as armed Beirut militias.

In City of Quartz, Davis reconstructs L.A.’s shadow history and dissects its ethereal economy. He tells us who has the power and how they hold on to it. He gives us a city of Dickensian extremes, Pynchonesque conspiracies, and a desperation straight out of Nathaniel West—a city in which we may glimpse our own future mirrored with terrifying clarity. In this new edition, Davis provides a dazzling update on the city’s current status.

Top ebooks in science & math

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

Randall Munroe

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

New York Times Bestseller

A Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg

One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us?

Eclipse Day - 2024 and More!: How to enjoy, observe, and photograph a total solar eclipse.

Gordon Telepun, MD

This solar eclipse preparation book is unlike any other solar eclipse book you will find! I am honored to have the foreword written by Bill Kramer, a world-renowned eclipse chaser and eclipse educator.

I write the specific techniques for eclipse observation and photography that I use. This is a "how to do it" book; it is a conversation with the reader. It is not a book of generic recommendations. If you are an eclipse novice and follow my examples, you should be wildly successful.

I am a serious amateur astronomer as a hobby and a compulsive plastic surgeon by profession. After the experience of preparing for five successful eclipse expeditions of my own and thoughtful analysis of the entire eclipse experience, I felt the need to write the ultimate solar eclipse preparation book. I am also the developer of the Solar Eclipse Timer mobile app that became the number one eclipse guide app for the 2017 U.S. solar eclipse. It was also used during the 2019 and 2020 eclipses.

In the first section, the book's chapters are organized in the order of the progression of events that happen on eclipse day, from arriving at your observing site to leaving at the end of the eclipse. I have divided eclipse day into 28 stages, each of which is a chapter. Each chapter then covers everything you need to know about that stage of the eclipse: preparation, observation, photography, videography, astronomy, and science. This is a unique organization for an eclipse book.

Over 100 of my actual eclipse photos are in the book, and the exposure settings accompany every eclipse photo so you can figure out how to use your gear to reproduce the exposure. I teach you how to assess the performance of your equipment for eclipse photography. In addition, there are over 140 other photos that support eclipse education.

More than 225 Illustrations in the book, including detailed explanations of how to use the interactive internet maps for planning, will guide you through planning your "eclipse day" and give clarity to all of the unique science and phenomena that embody the eclipse experience.

Photography, videography, and observation tips are emphasized throughout the book, with over 175 concise, single statement, color-coded dialogue boxes.

A list of “Important Take Away Points" is found at the end of the 28 chapters of the book's first section.

This book is a multimedia experience, providing 10 embedded videos, 12 image galleries, and 18 audio files. Where relevant, there are hyperlinks to my YouTube videos on eclipse subjects and hyperlinks to other important eclipse videos and resources.

I've written four helpful PDF documents, and links to them are provided. Print these out for your convenience: Eclipse Day Check List, Partial Phase Image Sequence Worksheet, Photographer's Master Stop Chart, and Travel Eclipse Decision Matrix Worksheet.

There is no other book available that explains, in such detail, the wonderful phenomena that occur during the partial phases of the eclipse, including simple experiments that students can perform. Links to my detailed YouYube videos about these phenomena are provided

The second section of the book is more like a standard eclipse book, with chapters on basic eclipse astronomy, photography, and videography. The eclipse photography chapter outlines a "6 Step" process to succeed at your first eclipse. Data for using different types of solar filters are included.

A unique chapter called "Mistakes I Have Made” briefly outlines every photography error I have made at eclipses so you can learn from my mistakes and not repeat them.

The ebook format will allow me to add chapters to the second section of the book as we prepare for the 2024 eclipse in the United States.

Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

Dr. Anna Lembke

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES and LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER
“Brilliant… riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued.”—Beth Macy, author of Dopesick
As heard on Fresh Air

This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting… The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we’ve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.

In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain…and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery.

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

Matthew Walker

“Why We Sleep is an important and fascinating book…Walker taught me a lot about this basic activity that every person on Earth needs. I suspect his book will do the same for you.” —Bill Gates

A New York Times bestseller and international sensation, this “stimulating and important book” (Financial Times) is a fascinating dive into the purpose and power of slumber.

With two appearances on CBS This Morning and Fresh Air's most popular interview of 2017, Matthew Walker has made abundantly clear that sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when it is absent. Compared to the other basic drives in life—eating, drinking, and reproducing—the purpose of sleep remains more elusive.

Within the brain, sleep enriches a diversity of functions, including our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge, inspiring creativity.

In this “compelling and utterly convincing” (The Sunday Times) book, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker provides a revolutionary exploration of sleep, examining how it affects every aspect of our physical and mental well-being. Charting the most cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and marshalling his decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood and energy levels, regulate hormones, prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes, slow the effects of aging, and increase longevity. He also provides actionable steps towards getting a better night’s sleep every night.

Clear-eyed, fascinating, and accessible, Why We Sleep is a crucial and illuminating book. Written with the precision of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Sherwin Nuland, it is “recommended for night-table reading in the most pragmatic sense” (The New York Times Book Review).

Zoology: The Secret World of Animals

The Body: A Guide for Occupants

Bill Bryson

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Bill Bryson, bestselling author of A Short History of Nearly Everything, takes us on a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body—with a new afterword for this edition.

Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body—how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Brysonesque anecdotes, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular.

As Bill Bryson writes, “We pass our existence within this wobble of flesh and yet take it almost entirely for granted.” The Body will cure that indifference with generous doses of wondrous, compulsively readable facts and information. As addictive as it is comprehensive, this is Bryson at his very best, a must-read owner’s manual for every body.

The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control

Walter Mischel

The Blood of Emmett Till

Timothy B. Tyson

* Longlisted for the National Book Award * Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award * A New York Times Notable Book * A Washington Post Notable Book * An NPR Best Book of 2017 * A Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2017 * An Atlanta Journal-Constitution Best Southern Book of 2017 *

This extraordinary New York Times bestseller reexamines a pivotal event of the civil rights movement—the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till—“and demands that we do the one vital thing we aren’t often enough asked to do with history: learn from it” (The Atlantic).

In 1955, white men in the Mississippi Delta lynched a fourteen-year-old from Chicago named Emmett Till. His murder was part of a wave of white terrorism in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared public school segregation unconstitutional. Only weeks later, Rosa Parks thought about young Emmett as she refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Five years later, Black students who called themselves “the Emmett Till generation” launched sit-in campaigns that turned the struggle for civil rights into a mass movement. Till’s lynching became the most notorious hate crime in American history.

But what actually happened to Emmett Till—not the icon of injustice, but the flesh-and-blood boy? Part detective story, part political history, The Blood of Emmett Till “unfolds like a movie” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), drawing on a wealth of new evidence, including a shocking admission of Till’s innocence from the woman in whose name he was killed. “Jolting and powerful” (The Washington Post), the book “provides fresh insight into the way race has informed and deformed our democratic institutions” (Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Carry Me Home) and “calls us to the cause of justice today” (Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, president of the North Carolina NAACP).

Regional Geography of the United States and Canada: Fifth Edition

Daniel R. Montello

The fifth and thoroughly revised edition of Regional Geography of the United States and Canada provides a rich and comprehensive overview of both the physical and human geography of these two countries, and in the true spirit of geography, the interactions and interrelations of the physical and human. Following long traditions of the discipline of geography, this text incorporates words, maps, drawings, photographs, and numerical data to present its information in an engaging way.

After covering beneficial precursor topics—such as the basics of physical and human geography—the text explores fifteen regions of the US and Canada. The authors observe and describe our planet’s geography in thorough and accessible detail, while laying out the spatial basics of the location, shape, and size of the different regions, and summarizes their most distinctive thematic qualities. Physical topics covered include the region’s topography and landforms, soils, climate, hydrography, vegetation, and wildlife. The human topics include the region’s population; the ethnicities and settlement history of its people; economic activities, including agriculture, forestry, mining, fishing, manufacturing, and service industries; cities; and transportation. In-depth essays expand on specific topics of interest and importance, while outlook sections prognosticate about the near future of the regions. Each chapter concludes with a bibliography of books, articles, and reports that provide further sources for the interested reader.

Pop Psychology

Big ideas, easy reading

Hallucinations

Oliver Sacks

“Illuminate[s] the complexities of the human brain and the mysteries of the human mind.” —The New York Times

To many people, hallucinations imply madness, but in fact they are a common part of the human experience. These sensory distortions range from the shimmering zigzags of a visual migraine to powerful visions brought on by fever, injuries, drugs, sensory deprivation, exhaustion, or even grief. Hallucinations doubtless lie behind many mythological traditions, literary inventions, and religious epiphanies.

Drawing on his own experiences, a wealth of clinical cases from among his patients, and famous historical examples ranging from Dostoevsky to Lewis Carroll, the legendary neurologist Oliver Sacks investigates the mystery of these sensory deceptions: what they say about the working of our brains, how they have influenced our folklore and culture, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all.

An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales

Oliver Sacks

To these seven narratives of neurological disorder Dr. Sacks brings the same humanity, poetic observation, and infectious sense of wonder that are apparent in his bestsellers Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. These men, women, and one extraordinary child emerge as brilliantly adaptive personalities, whose conditions have not so much debilitated them as ushered them into another reality.

Awakenings

Oliver Sacks

Awakenings--which inspired the major motion picture--is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, "awakening" effect. Dr. Sacks recounts the moving case histories of his patients, their lives, and the extraordinary transformations which went with their reintroduction to a changed world.

Seeing Voices

Oliver Sacks

Like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, this is a fascinating voyage into a strange and wonderful land, a provocative meditation on communication, biology, adaptation, and culture. In Seeing Voices, Oliver Sacks turns his attention to the subject of deafness, and the result is a deeply felt portrait of a minority struggling for recognition and respect--a minority with its own rich, sometimes astonishing, culture and unique visual language, an extraordinary mode of communication that tells us much about the basis of language in hearing people as well. Seeing Voices is, as Studs Terkel has written, "an exquisite, as well as revelatory, work."

Greatness and Limitations of Freud's Thought

Erich Fromm

Renowned social psychologist Erich Fromm’s classic study of Freud’s most important—and controversial—ideas
Bestselling philosopher and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm contends that the principle behind Freud’s work—the wellspring from which psychoanalysis flows—boils down to one well-known belief: “And the truth shall set you free.” The healing power of truth is what Freud used to cure depression and anxiety, cutting through repression and rationalizations, and it provided the foundation for modern psychology. Freud’s work, however, was not without its flaws. Though he pioneered many of the practices still in use today, Freud’s perspective was imperfect. In Greatness and Limitation of Freud’s Thought, Fromm deepens the understanding of Freud by highlighting not just his remarkable insights, but also his flaws, on topics ranging from dreams to sexuality. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erich Fromm including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

The Revision of Psychoanalysis

Erich Fromm

Bestselling author Erich Fromm revisits Sigmund Freud’s work, ushering psychoanalysis into the modern age
In The Revision of Psychoanalysis, renowned psychoanalyst and social psychologist Erich Fromm applies his innovative, humanist approach to Freud’s often contradictory ideas. Fromm pays special attention to the fact that human beings’ main problem has been the way they are related to the outer world, to others, and to themselves. Human passions and their effects have to be explained differently than Freud did, and psychoanalysis must be revised to accommodate this—a fact Fromm explains in his typically brilliant way. The result is a comprehensive, updated look at psychoanalysis and humanistic thinking that is as relevant today as when it was first written. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erich Fromm including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

Psychoanalysis and Religion

Erich Fromm

An exploration of what religion and spirituality mean to us as humans, by the New York Times–bestselling author and social psychologist.

In 1950, Erich Fromm attempted to free religion from its social function and to develop a new understanding of religious phenomena. Rather than analyzing what people believe in—whether they’re monotheistic, polytheistic, or atheistic—Fromm presents an idea of what religion means in secular terms. In his timeless and straightforward style, Fromm unmasks the alienating effects of any authoritarian religion. He reveals how a humanistic religion is conducive to one’s own humanity, and explains why psychoanalysis does not threaten religion. Whether you’re a believer or a long-time atheist, Fromm’s erudite analysis of religion is sure to reshape your concept of spirituality. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erich Fromm including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

The Forgotten Language: An Introduction to the Understanding of Dreams, Fairy Tales, and Myths

Erich Fromm

Renowned psychoanalyst Erich Fromm investigates the universal language of symbols, expressed through dream and myths, and how it illuminates our humanity.
In this study, Erich Fromm opens up the world of symbolic language, “the one foreign language that each of us must learn.” Understanding symbols, he posits, helps us reach the hidden layers of our individual personalities, as well as connect with our common human experiences. By grasping the symbolic language of dreams, Fromm explains, we can then also understand the deeper wisdom of myths, art, and literature. This also gives us access to what we, and our society, usually repress. Fromm shares the history of dream interpretations, and demonstrates his analysis of many types of dreams. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erich Fromm including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

Sigmund Freud's Mission: An Analysis of his Personality and Influence

Erich Fromm

Renowned psychoanalyst Erich Fromm examines the creator of psychoanalysis and his followers
With his creation of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud redefined how people relate to themselves and to the larger world. In Sigmund Freud’s Mission, Freud scholar and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm demonstrates how Freud’s life experiences shaped his creation and practice of psychoanalysis. Fromm also revises parts of Freud’s theories, especially Freud’s libido theory. In his thorough and comprehensive analysis, Fromm looks deep into the personality of Freud, and the followers who tried to dogmatize Freud’s theory rather than support the further stages of psychoanalysis.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erich Fromm including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

Beyond the Chains of Illusion: My Encounter with Marx and Freud

Erich Fromm

Profound insights into Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud from the “prolific and eclectic” social theorist and bestselling author of Escape from Freedom (The Washington Post).
According to renowned psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, three people shaped the essential character of the twentieth century: Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud. While the first two figures had a great physical and political impact on the world, Fromm believes that Freud had an even deeper impact, because he changed how we think about ourselves. Beyond the Chains of Illusion is one of Fromm’s most autobiographical works, as Fromm not only comments on the ideas of Freud and Marx, but also crystallizes his own theories on social character and unconscious values. The book brilliantly summarizes Fromm’s ideas on how culture and society shape our behavior. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erich Fromm including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

Mathematics

The beauty of numbers

Whatever Happened to the Metric System?: How America Kept Its Feet

John Bemelmans Marciano

The intriguing tale of why the United States has never adopted the metric system, and what that says about us.

The American standard system of measurement is a unique and odd thing to behold with its esoteric, inconsistent standards: twelve inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, sixteen ounces in a pound, one hundred pennies to the dollar. For something as elemental as counting and estimating the world around us, it seems like a confusing tool to use. So how did we end up with it?

Most of the rest of the world is on the metric system, and for a time in the 1970s America appeared ready to make the switch. Yet it never happened, and the reasons for that get to the root of who we think we are, just as the measurements are woven into the ways we think. John Marciano chronicles the origins of measurement systems, the kaleidoscopic array of standards throughout Europe and the thirteen American colonies, the combination of intellect and circumstance that resulted in the metric system's creation in France in the wake of the French Revolution, and America's stubborn adherence to the hybrid United States Customary System ever since. As much as it is a tale of quarters and tenths, it is a human drama, replete with great inventors, visionary presidents, obsessive activists, and science-loving technocrats.

Anyone who reads this inquisitive, engaging story will never read Robert Frost's line “miles to go before I sleep” or eat a foot-long sub again without wondering, Whatever happened to the metric system?

The Norm Chronicles: Stories and Numbers About Danger and Death

Michael Blastland

Is it safer to fly or take the train? How dangerous is skydiving? And is eating that extra sausage going to kill you? We've all heard the statistics for risky activities, but what do they mean in the real world? In The Norm Chronicles, journalist Michael Blastland and risk expert David Spiegelhalter explore these questions through the stories of average Norm and an ingenious measurement called the MicroMort-a one in a million chance of dying. They reveal why general anesthesia is as dangerous as a parachute jump, giving birth in the US is nearly twice as risky as in the UK, and that the radiation from eating a banana shaves 3 seconds off your life. An entertaining guide to the statistics of personal risk, The Norm Chronicles will enlighten anyone who has ever worried about the dangers we encounter in our daily lives.

The Man Who Knew Infinity

Robert Kanigel

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JEREMY IRONS AND DEV PATEL!

A moving and enlightening look at the unbelievable true story of how gifted prodigy Ramanujan stunned the scholars of Cambridge University and revolutionized mathematics.

In 1913, a young unschooled Indian clerk wrote a letter to G H Hardy, begging the preeminent English mathematician's opinion on several ideas he had about numbers. Realizing the letter was the work of a genius, Hardy arranged for Srinivasa Ramanujan to come to England.

Thus began one of the most improbable and productive collaborations ever chronicled. With a passion for rich and evocative detail, Robert Kanigel takes us from the temples and slums of Madras to the courts and chapels of Cambridge University, where the devout Hindu Ramanujan, "the Prince of Intuition," tested his brilliant theories alongside the sophisticated and eccentric Hardy, "the Apostle of Proof."

In time, Ramanujan's creative intensity took its toll: he died at the age of thirty-two, but left behind a magical and inspired legacy that is still being plumbed for its secrets today.

Flatterland: Like Flatland Only More So

Ian Stewart

In 1884, Edwin A. Abbott published a brilliant novel about mathematics and philosophy that charmed and fascinated all of England. As both a witty satire of Victorian society and a means by which to explore the fourth dimension, Flatland remains a tour de force. Now, British mathematician and accomplished science writer Ian Stewart has written a fascinating, modern sequel to Abbott's book. Through larger-than-life characters and an inspired story line, Flatterland explores our present understanding of the shape and origins of the universe, the nature of space, time, and matter, as well as modern geometries and their applications. The journey begins when our heroine, Victoria Line, comes upon her great-great-grandfather A. Square's diary, hidden in the attic. The writings help her to contact the Space Hopper, who becomes her guide and mentor through eleven dimensions. Along the way, we meet Schröger's Cat, The Charming Construction Entity, The Mandelblot (who lives in Fractalia), and Moobius the one-sided cow. In the tradition of Alice in Wonder-land and The Phantom Toll Booth, this magnificent investigation into the nature of reality is destined to become a modern classic.

Why Beauty Is Truth: The History of Symmetry

Ian Stewart

At the heart of relativity theory, quantum mechanics, string theory, and much of modern cosmology lies one concept: symmetry. In Why Beauty Is Truth, world-famous mathematician Ian Stewart narrates the history of the emergence of this remarkable area of study. Stewart introduces us to such characters as the Renaissance Italian genius, rogue, scholar, and gambler Girolamo Cardano, who stole the modern method of solving cubic equations and published it in the first important book on algebra, and the young revolutionary Evariste Galois, who refashioned the whole of mathematics and founded the field of group theory only to die in a pointless duel over a woman before his work was published. Stewart also explores the strange numerology of real mathematics, in which particular numbers have unique and unpredictable properties related to symmetry. He shows how Wilhelm Killing discovered "Lie groups" with 14, 52, 78, 133, and 248 dimensions-groups whose very existence is a profound puzzle. Finally, Stewart describes the world beyond superstrings: the "octonionic" symmetries that may explain the very existence of the universe.

How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog

Chad Orzel

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But what about relativity?

Physics professor Chad Orzel and his inquisitive canine companion, Emmy, tackle the concepts of general relativity in this irresistible introduction to Einstein's physics. Through armchair- and sometimes passenger-seat-conversations with Emmy about the relative speeds of dog and cat motion or the logistics of squirrel-chasing, Orzel translates complex Einsteinian ideas -- the slowing of time for a moving observer, the shrinking of moving objects, the effects of gravity on light and time, black holes, the Big Bang, and of course, E=mc2 -- into examples simple enough for a dog to understand.
A lively romp through one of the great theories of modern physics, How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog will teach you everything you ever wanted to know about space, time, and anything else you might have slept through in high school physics class.

The Mathematics of Life

Ian Stewart

Biologists have long dismissed mathematics as being unable to meaningfully contribute to our understanding of living beings. Within the past ten years, however, mathematicians have proven that they hold the key to unlocking the mysteries of our world -- and ourselves.

In The Mathematics of Life, Ian Stewart provides a fascinating overview of the vital but little-recognized role mathematics has played in pulling back the curtain on the hidden complexities of the natural world -- and how its contribution will be even more vital in the years ahead. In his characteristically clear and entertaining fashion, Stewart explains how mathematicians and biologists have come to work together on some of the most difficult scientific problems that the human race has ever tackled, including the nature and origin of life itself.

In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World

Ian Stewart

The seventeen equations that form the basis for life as we know it.

Most people are familiar with history's great equations: Newton's Law of Gravity, for instance, or Einstein's theory of relativity. But the way these mathematical breakthroughs have contributed to human progress is seldom appreciated. In In Pursuit of the Unknown, celebrated mathematician Ian Stewart untangles the roots of our most important mathematical statements to show that equations have long been a driving force behind nearly every aspect of our lives.

Using seventeen of our most crucial equations -- including the Wave Equation that allowed engineers to measure a building's response to earthquakes, saving countless lives, and the Black-Scholes model, used by bankers to track the price of financial derivatives over time -- Stewart illustrates that many of the advances we now take for granted were made possible by mathematical discoveries.

An approachable, lively, and informative guide to the mathematical building blocks of modern life, In Pursuit of the Unknown is a penetrating exploration of how we have also used equations to make sense of, and in turn influence, our world.

Math on Trial: How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom

Leila Schneps

In the wrong hands, math can be deadly. Even the simplest numbers can become powerful forces when manipulated by politicians or the media, but in the case of the law, your liberty -- and your life -- can depend on the right calculation.

In Math on Trial, mathematicians Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez describe ten trials spanning from the nineteenth century to today, in which mathematical arguments were used -- and disastrously misused -- as evidence. They tell the stories of Sally Clark, who was accused of murdering her children by a doctor with a faulty sense of calculation; of nineteenth-century tycoon Hetty Green, whose dispute over her aunt's will became a signal case in the forensic use of mathematics; and of the case of Amanda Knox, in which a judge's misunderstanding of probability led him to discount critical evidence -- which might have kept her in jail. Offering a fresh angle on cases from the nineteenth-century Dreyfus affair to the murder trial of Dutch nurse Lucia de Berk, Schneps and Colmez show how the improper application of mathematical concepts can mean the difference between walking free and life in prison.

A colorful narrative of mathematical abuse, Math on Trial blends courtroom drama, history, and math to show that legal expertise isn't't always enough to prove a person innocent.

Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality

Edward Frenkel

An awesome, globe-spanning, and New York Times bestselling journey through the beauty and power of mathematics

What if you had to take an art class in which you were only taught how to paint a fence? What if you were never shown the paintings of van Gogh and Picasso, weren't even told they existed? Alas, this is how math is taught, and so for most of us it becomes the intellectual equivalent of watching paint dry.

In Love and Math, renowned mathematician Edward Frenkel reveals a side of math we've never seen, suffused with all the beauty and elegance of a work of art. In this heartfelt and passionate book, Frenkel shows that mathematics, far from occupying a specialist niche, goes to the heart of all matter, uniting us across cultures, time, and space.

Love and Math tells two intertwined stories: of the wonders of mathematics and of one young man's journey learning and living it. Having braved a discriminatory educational system to become one of the twenty-first century's leading mathematicians, Frenkel now works on one of the biggest ideas to come out of math in the last 50 years: the Langlands Program. Considered by many to be a Grand Unified Theory of mathematics, the Langlands Program enables researchers to translate findings from one field to another so that they can solve problems, such as Fermat's last theorem, that had seemed intractable before.

At its core, Love and Math is a story about accessing a new way of thinking, which can enrich our lives and empower us to better understand the world and our place in it. It is an invitation to discover the magic hidden universe of mathematics.

Spotlight: Richard Feynman

Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman

James Gleick

New York Times Bestseller: This life story of the quirky physicist is “a thorough and masterful portrait of one of the great minds of the century” (The New York Review of Books). Raised in Depression-era Rockaway Beach, physicist Richard Feynman was irreverent, eccentric, and childishly enthusiastic—a new kind of scientist in a field that was in its infancy. His quick mastery of quantum mechanics earned him a place at Los Alamos working on the Manhattan Project under J. Robert Oppenheimer, where the giddy young man held his own among the nation’s greatest minds. There, Feynman turned theory into practice, culminating in the Trinity test, on July 16, 1945, when the Atomic Age was born. He was only twenty-seven. And he was just getting started. In this sweeping biography, James Gleick captures the forceful personality of a great man, integrating Feynman’s work and life in a way that is accessible to laymen and fascinating for the scientists who follow in his footsteps.

Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman

"I'm an explorer, OK? I like to find out!" -- One of the towering figures of twentieth-century science, Richard Feynman possessed a curiosity that was the stuff of legend. Even before he won the Nobel Prize in 1965, his unorthodox and spellbinding lectures on physics secured his reputation amongst students and seekers around the world. It was his outsized love for life, however, that earned him the status of an American cultural icon-here was an extraordinary intellect devoted to the proposition that the thrill of discovery was matched only by the joy of communicating it to others. In this career-spanning collection of letters, many published here for the first time, we are able to see this side of Feynman like never before. Beginning with a short note home in his first days as a graduate student, and ending with a letter to a stranger seeking his advice decades later, Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track covers a dazzling array of topics and themes, scientific developments and personal histories. With missives to and from scientific luminaries, as well as letters to and from fans, family, students, crackpots, as well as everyday people eager for Feynman's wisdom and counsel, the result is a wonderful de facto guide to life, and eloquent testimony to the human quest for knowledge at all levels. Feynman once mused that "people are entertained' enormously by being allowed to understand a little bit of something they never understood before." As edited and annotated by his daughter, Michelle, these letters not only allow us to better grasp the how and why of Feynman's enduring appeal, but also to see the virtues of an inquiring eye in spectacular fashion. Whether discussing the Manhattan Project or developments in quantum physics, the Challenger investigation or grade-school textbooks, the love of his wife or the best way to approach a problem, his dedication to clarity, grace, humor, and optimism is everywhere evident..

Six Not-So-Easy Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time

Richard P. Feynman

Learn about Einstein's theory of relativity from a physics Nobel laureate and "one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century" (New York Review of Books) in six memorable lessons It was Richard Feynman's outrageous and scintillating method of teaching that earned him legendary status among students and professors of physics. From 1961 to 1963, Feynman delivered a series of lectures at the California Institute of Technology that revolutionized the teaching of physics. In Six Not-So-Easy Pieces, taken from these famous Lectures on Physics, Feynman delves into one of the most revolutionary discoveries in twentieth-century physics: Einstein's theory of relativity. The idea that the flow of time is not a constant, that the mass of an object depends on its velocity, and that the speed of light is a constant no matter what the motion of the observer, at first seemed shocking to scientists and laymen alike. But as Feynman shows, these tricky ideas are not merely dry principles of physics, but things of beauty and elegance.

No one — not even Einstein himself — explained these difficult, anti-intuitive concepts more clearly, or with more verve and gusto, than Feynman. Filled with wonderful examples and clever illustrations, Six Not-So-Easy Pieces is the ideal introduction to the fundamentals of physics by one of the most admired and accessible physicists of all time.

“There is no better explanation for the scientifically literate layman.” –Washington Post Book World

Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher, Edition 4

Richard P. Feynman

Learn how to think like a physicist from a Nobel laureate and "one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century" (New York Review of Books) with these six classic and beloved lessons
It was Richard Feynman's outrageous and scintillating method of teaching that earned him legendary status among students and professors of physics. From 1961 to 1963, Feynman delivered a series of lectures at the California Institute of Technology that revolutionized the teaching of physics around the world. Six Easy Pieces, taken from these famous Lectures on Physics, represent the most accessible material from the series. In these classic lessons, Feynman introduces the general reader to the following topics: atoms, basic physics, energy, gravitation, quantum mechanics, and the relationship of physics to other topics. With his dazzling and inimitable wit, Feynman presents each discussion with a minimum of jargon. Filled with wonderful examples and clever illustrations, Six Easy Pieces is the ideal introduction to the fundamentals of physics by one of the most admired and accessible physicists of modern times. "If one book was all that could be passed on to the next generation of scientists it would undoubtedly have to be Six Easy Pieces."- John Gribbin, New Scientist

Feynman's Tips on Physics: Reflections, Advice, Insights, Practice

Richard P. Feynman

Feynman's Tips on Physics is a delightful collection of Richard P. Feynman's insights and an essential companion to his legendary Feynman Lectures on Physics

With characteristic flair, insight, and humor, Feynman discusses topics physics students often struggle with and offers valuable tips on addressing them. Included here are three lectures on problem-solving and a lecture on inertial guidance omitted from The Feynman Lectures on Physics. An enlightening memoir by Matthew Sands and oral history interviews with Feynman and his Caltech colleagues provide firsthand accounts of the origins of Feynman's landmark lecture series. Also included are incisive and illuminating exercises originally developed to supplement The Feynman Lectures on Physics, by Robert B. Leighton and Rochus E. Vogt.

Feynman's Tips on Physics was co-authored by Michael A. Gottlieb and Ralph Leighton to provide students, teachers, and enthusiasts alike an opportunity to learn physics from some of its greatest teachers, the creators of The Feynman Lectures on Physics.

The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist

Richard P. Feynman

Many appreciate Richard P. Feynman's contributions to twentieth-century physics, but few realize how engaged he was with the world around him -- how deeply and thoughtfully he considered the religious, political, and social issues of his day. Now, a wonderful book -- based on a previously unpublished, three-part public lecture he gave at the University of Washington in 1963 -- shows us this other side of Feynman, as he expounds on the inherent conflict between science and religion, people's distrust of politicians, and our universal fascination with flying saucers, faith healing, and mental telepathy. Here we see Feynman in top form: nearly bursting into a Navajo war chant, then pressing for an overhaul of the English language (if you want to know why Johnny can't read, just look at the spelling of "friend"); and, finally, ruminating on the death of his first wife from tuberculosis. This is quintessential Feynman -- reflective, amusing, and ever enlightening.

Food for Thought

The science of what we eat

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World

Michael Pollan

The book that helped make Michael Pollan, the New York Times bestselling author of Cooked and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, one of the most trusted food experts in America

In 1637, one Dutchman paid as much for a single tulip bulb as the going price of a town house in Amsterdam. Three and a half centuries later, Amsterdam is once again the mecca for people who care passionately about one particular plant—though this time the obsessions revolves around the intoxicating effects of marijuana rather than the visual beauty of the tulip. How could flowers, of all things, become such objects of desire that they can drive men to financial ruin?

In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan argues that the answer lies at the heart of the intimately reciprocal relationship between people and plants. In telling the stories of four familiar plant species that are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives, Pollan illustrates how they evolved to satisfy humankinds’s most basic yearnings—and by doing so made themselves indispensable. For, just as we’ve benefited from these plants, the plants, in the grand co-evolutionary scheme that Pollan evokes so brilliantly, have done well by us. The sweetness of apples, for example, induced the early Americans to spread the species, giving the tree a whole new continent in which to blossom. So who is really domesticating whom?

Weaving fascinating anecdotes and accessible science into gorgeous prose, Pollan takes us on an absorbing journey that will change the way we think about our place in nature.

The Way Kitchens Work: The Science Behind the Microwave, Teflon Pan, Garbage Disposal, and More

Ed Sobey

If you've ever wondered how a microwave heats food, or why aluminum foil is shiny on one side and dull on the other, or whether it is better to use cold or hot water in a garbage disposal, you should read The Way Kitchens Work. Modern kitchens are hi-tech marvels, with more machinery than any other room in the house. Each of the 50+ entries includes its history, interesting trivia, and a discussion of the technology involved.

Readers will also enjoy reviewing the utensils' and appliances' original patent blueprints, as well as photos of the &“guts&” of these culinary tools. The author even includes odd side stories, such as how the waffle iron played a role in the founding of Nike, how you can reset a turkey timer, and why socialite Josephine Cochran really invented the dishwasher in 1886--it wasn't because she wanted to ease the burden of her servants, but because she wanted a device that would avoid the unsightly chips associated with hand washing.

And finally, for those whose stovetop skills are still in development, Sobey provides information on the invention and use of the smoke detector and hand-held fire extinguisher.

The Perfect Protein: The Fish Lover's Guide to Saving the Oceans and Feeding the World

Andy Sharpless

The planet will be home to more than 9 billion people by 2050, and we're already seeing critical levels of famine around the world mirrored by growing obesity in developed nations. In The Perfect Protein, Andy Sharpless maintains that protecting wild seafood can help combat both issues, because seafood is the healthiest, cheapest, most environmentally friendly source of protein on earth. While the conservation community has taken a simplistic, save-the-whales approach when it comes to oceans, Sharpless contends that we must save the world's seafood not just to protect marine life and biodiversity but to stave off the coming humanitarian crisis.

With high demand for predator species like tuna and salmon, wealthy nations like the U.S. convert "reduction" species such as anchovies, mackerel, and sardines into feed for salmon and other farmed animals—even though these overlooked fish are packed with health-boosting Omega-3 fatty acids and could feed millions. By establishing science-based quotas, protecting wild habitats, and reducing bycatch (and treating anchovies and their like as food, not feed), Sharpless believes that effective ocean stewardship can put healthy, sustainable seafood on the table forever. To that end, Oceana has tapped 20-plus chefs, including Mario Batali, Eric Ripert, and Jose Andres for recipes that give us all a role to play in this revolutionary mission: to save the fish so that we can eat more fish.

High Tech Harvest: Understanding Genetically Modified Food Plants

Paul Lurquin

Genetically engineered plant products line the shelves of our grocery stores but we don't know which ones they are because no label identifies them. Should we be concerned? Biotech companies claim that engineered corn and canola are safe, but are they telling the truth? Should we, like the Europeans, be engaging in violent protests against biotechnology? In High Tech Harvest , Paul Lurquin answers these questions and more, believing that the public has a right to know and understand how its food is manipulated at the most basic level, that of the DNA itself. With the goal to inform, and a mission to reinforce the importance of the scientific method, Paul Lurquin writes a comprehensive and user-friendly description of the scientific origins, the development, and the applications of genetically modified plants throughout the world today.

The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet

Kristin Ohlson

Journalist and bestselling author Kristin Ohlson makes an elegantly argued, passionate case for "our great green hope"—a way in which we can not only heal the land but also turn atmospheric carbon into beneficial soil carbon—and potentially reverse global warming.

Thousands of years of poor farming and ranching practices—and, especially, modern industrial agriculture—have led to the loss of up to 80 percent of carbon from the world's soils. That carbon is now floating in the atmosphere, and even if we stopped using fossil fuels today, it would continue warming the planet.

As the granddaughter of farmers and the daughter of avid gardeners, Ohlson has long had an appreciation for the soil. A chance conversation with a local chef led her to the crossroads of science, farming, food, and environmentalism and the discovery of the only significant way to remove carbon dioxide from the air—an ecological approach that tends not only to plants and animals but also to the vast population of underground microorganisms that fix carbon in the soil. Ohlson introduces the visionaries—scientists, farmers, ranchers, and landscapers—who are figuring out in the lab and on the ground how to build healthy soil, which solves myriad problems: drought, erosion, air and water pollution, and food quality, as well as climate change. Her discoveries and vivid storytelling will revolutionize the way we think about our food, our landscapes, our plants, and our relationship to Earth.

Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking

Hervé This

“This’s molecular gastronomy is garnished with [his] own rich philosophy of food and flavor” in a book that reveals the science behind everyday cooking (Nature).

In Kitchen Mysteries, Hervé This—international celebrity and founder of molecular gastronomy—offers a second helping of his world-renowned insight into the science of cooking, answering such fundamental questions as what causes vegetables to change color when cooked and how to keep a soufflé from falling. He illuminates abstract concepts with practical advice and concrete examples—for instance, how sautéing in butter chemically alters the molecules of mushrooms—so that cooks of every stripe can thoroughly comprehend the scientific principles of food.

By sharing the empirical principles chefs have valued for generations, Hervé This adds another dimension to the suggestions of cookbook authors. He shows how to adapt recipes to available ingredients and how to modify proposed methods to the utensils at hand. His revelations make difficult recipes easier to attempt and allow for even more creativity and experimentation. Promising to answer your most compelling kitchen questions, Hervé This continues to make the complex science of food digestible to the cook.

“Cooks who want to learn more about the chemistry and physics that make their efforts possible will discover useful things here.”—Booklist

“This has made invisible processes visible, revealed the mysteries, and the bread has risen, baked, and been enjoyed.”—Appetite for Books

“[An] eye-opening book.”—Portsmouth Herald

“Kitchen Mysteries is another tour de force for the French scientific chef . . . Highly Recommended.”—Choice

The Science of the Oven

Hervé This

Mayonnaise "takes" when a series of liquids form a semisolid consistency. Eggs, a liquid, become solid as they are heated, whereas, under the same conditions, solids melt. When meat is roasted, its surface browns and it acquires taste and texture. What accounts for these extraordinary transformations?

The answer: chemistry and physics. With his trademark eloquence and wit, Hervé This launches a wry investigation into the chemical art of cooking. Unraveling the science behind common culinary technique and practice, Hervé This breaks food down to its molecular components and matches them to cooking's chemical reactions. He translates the complex processes of the oven into everyday knowledge for professional chefs and casual cooks, and he demystifies the meaning of taste and the making of flavor. He describes the properties of liquids, salts, sugars, oils, and fats and defines the principles of culinary practice, which endow food with sensual as well as nutritional value.

For fans of Hervé This's popular volumes and for those new to his celebrated approach, The Science of the Oven expertly expands the possibilities of the kitchen, fusing the physiology of taste with the molecular structure of bodies and food.

The Kitchen as Laboratory: Reflections on the Science of Food and Cooking

César Vega

“Provides good perspective on the scientific approach to cooking while reflecting the interests and passions of each essay’s author.”—Peter Barham, author of The Science of Cooking

In this global collaboration of essays, chefs and scientists advance culinary knowledge by testing hypotheses rooted in the physical and chemical properties of food. Using traditional and cutting-edge tools, ingredients, and techniques, these pioneers create, and sometimes revamp, dishes that respond to specific desires and serve up an original encounter with gastronomic practice.

From the seemingly mundane to the food fantastic—from grilled cheese sandwiches, pizzas, and soft-boiled eggs to Turkish ice cream, sugar glasses, and jellified beads—the essays in The Kitchen as Laboratory cover a range of creations and their history and culture. This collection will delight experts and amateurs alike, especially as restaurants rely more on science-based cooking and recreational cooks increasingly explore the physics and chemistry behind their art. Contributors end each essay with their personal thoughts on food, cooking, and science, offering rare insight into a professional’s passion for playing with food.

“Where else can one have fun pondering the acoustics of crunchy foods or the texture of an ice cream that stretches like a rubber band?”—Robert Wolke, author of What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained

“Not only an in-depth study of many areas of food science, but also an entertaining read. For someone like me, who relishes understanding more about cooking from the inside out, it’s heartening to see this area of literature expanded.”—Chef Wylie Dufresne, wd~50

Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor

Hervé This

“Taking kitchen science to a whole new (molecular) level, Hervé This is changing the way France---and the world—cooks.”—Gourmet

Bringing the instruments and experimental techniques of the laboratory into the kitchen, Hervé This—international celebrity and founder of molecular gastronomy—uses recent research in the chemistry, physics, and biology of food to challenge traditional ideas about cooking and eating. What he discovers will entertain, instruct, and intrigue cooks, gourmets, and scientists alike.

Molecular Gastronomy is filled with practical tips, provocative suggestions, and penetrating insights. This begins by reexamining and debunking a variety of time-honored rules and dictums about cooking and presents new and improved ways of preparing a variety of dishes from quiches and quenelles to steak and hard-boiled eggs. Looking to the future, This imagines new cooking methods and proposes novel dishes. A chocolate mousse without eggs? A flourless chocolate cake baked in the microwave? Molecular Gastronomy explains how to make them. This also shows us how to cook perfect French fries, why a soufflé rises and falls, how long to cool champagne, when to season a steak, the right way to cook pasta, how the shape of a wine glass affects the taste of wine, why chocolate turns white, and how salt modifies tastes.

“A captivating little book.”—Economist

“This book, praiseworthy for its scientific rigor, will hold a special appeal for anyone who relishes the debunking of culinary myths.”—Saveur

“Will broaden the way you think about food.”—The New York Sun

“A wonderful book . . . it will appeal to anyone with an interest in the science of cooking.”—O Chef

Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition

T. Colin Campbell

New York Times Bestseller

What happens when you eat an apple? The answer is vastly more complex than you imagine.

Every apple contains thousands of antioxidants whose names, beyond a few like vitamin C, are unfamiliar to us, and each of these powerful chemicals has the potential to play an important role in supporting our health. They impact thousands upon thousands of metabolic reactions inside the human body. But calculating the specific influence of each of these chemicals isn't nearly sufficient to explain the effect of the apple as a whole. Because almost every chemical can affect every other chemical, there is an almost infinite number of possible biological consequences.

And that's just from an apple.

Nutritional science, long stuck in a reductionist mindset, is at the cusp of a revolution. The traditional “gold standard" of nutrition research has been to study one chemical at a time in an attempt to determine its particular impact on the human body. These sorts of studies are helpful to food companies trying to prove there is a chemical in milk or pre-packaged dinners that is “good" for us, but they provide little insight into the complexity of what actually happens in our bodies or how those chemicals contribute to our health.

In The China Study, T. Colin Campbell (alongside his son, Thomas M. Campbell) revolutionized the way we think about our food with the evidence that a whole food, plant-based diet is the healthiest way to eat. Now, in Whole, he explains the science behind that evidence, the ways our current scientific paradigm ignores the fascinating complexity of the human body, and why, if we have such overwhelming evidence that everything we think we know about nutrition is wrong, our eating habits haven't changed.

Whole is an eye-opening, paradigm-changing journey through cutting-edge thinking on nutrition, a scientific tour de force with powerful implications for our health and for our world.

Ground Control to Major Tom

Tales of the Moon

Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Apollo Moon Landings

Alan Shepard

New York Times bestseller for fans of First Man: A “breathtaking” insider history of NASA’s space program—from astronauts Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton (Entertainment Weekly).
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, and the space race was born. Desperate to beat the Russians into space, NASA put together a crew of the nation’s most daring test pilots: the seven men who were to lead America to the moon. The first into space was Alan Shepard; the last was Deke Slayton, whose irregular heartbeat kept him grounded until 1975. They spent the 1960s at the forefront of NASA’s effort to conquer space, and Moon Shot is their inside account of what many call the twentieth century’s greatest feat—landing humans on another world. Collaborating with NBC’s veteran space reporter Jay Barbree, Shepard and Slayton narrate in gripping detail the story of America’s space exploration from the time of Shepard’s first flight until he and eleven others had walked on the moon.

Thirteen: The Apollo Flight That Failed

Henry S. F. Cooper

An “exciting” minute-by-minute account of the Apollo 13 flight based on mission control transcripts from Houston (The New York Times).

On the evening of April 13, 1970, the three astronauts aboard Apollo 13 were just hours from the third lunar landing in history. But as they soared through space, two hundred thousand miles from Earth, an explosion badly damaged their spacecraft. With compromised engines and failing life-support systems, the crew was in incomparably grave danger. Faced with below-freezing temperatures, a seriously ill crewmember, and a dwindling water supply, a safe return seemed unlikely.

Thirteen is the shocking and miraculous true story of how the astronauts and ground crew guided Apollo 13 back to Earth. Expanding on dispatches written for the New Yorker, Henry S. F. Cooper Jr. brings readers unparalleled detail on the moment-by-moment developments of one of NASA’s most dramatic missions.

Challenger: An American Tragedy: The Inside Story from Launch Control

Hugh Harris

The former launch commentator “offers a personal—and sometimes painful—look back at one of the darkest chapters in US human spaceflight” (Space.com).

On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Seventy-three seconds after launch, the fiery breach of a solid motor joint caused a rupture of the propellant tanks, and a stunned nation watched as flames engulfed the craft, killing all seven crew members on board. It was Hugh Harris, “the voice of launch control,” whom audiences across the country heard counting down to lift-off on that fateful day.
With over fifty years of experience with NASA’s missions, Harris presents the story of the Challenger tragedy as only an insider can. With by-the-second accounts of the spacecraft’s launch and a comprehensive overview of the ensuing investigation, Harris gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the devastating accident that grounded the shuttle fleet for over two years. This book tells the whole story of the Challenger’s tragic legacy.

Women in Space: 23 Stories of First Flights, Scientific Missions, and Gravity-Breaking Adventures

Karen Bush Gibson

When Valentina Tereshkova blasted off aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963, she became the first woman to rocket into space. It would be 19 years before another woman got a chance—cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982—followed by American astronaut Sally Ride a year later. By breaking the stratospheric ceiling, these women forged a path for many female astronauts, cosmonauts, and mission specialists to follow.

Women in Space profiles 23 pioneers, including Eileen Collins, the first woman to command the space shuttle; Peggy Whitson, who logged more than a year in orbit aboard the International Space Station; and Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space; as well as astronauts from Japan, Canada, Italy, South Korea, France, and more. Readers will also learn about the Mercury 13, American women selected by NASA in the late 1950s to train for spaceflight. Though they matched and sometimes surpassed their male counterparts in performance, they were ultimately denied the opportunity to head out to the launching pad. Their story, and the stories of the pilots, physicists, and doctors who followed them, demonstrate the vital role women have played in the quest for scientific understanding.