How does the fact that it gets dark at night prove the Universe must have started with a big bang? Where are all the aliens? And why does the length of a piece of string vary depending on how fast it is moving? This title deals with these questions?
The author recasts the widely accepted view of the tension between scientific understanding and use and builds a convincing case that by recognizing the importance of use-inspired basic research, we can frame a new contract between science and government.
For over 700 years the international language of science was Arabic. Surveying the golden age of Arabic science, the author reintroduces such figures as the Iraqi physicist Ibn al-Haytham, who practised the modern scientific method over half a century before Bacon.
Using items in the NASA archive together with expert narrative guidance, this history of how Americans got to space begins with Wernher von Braun's vision for voyaging to Mars and ends with Elon Musk's contemporary plan to get there. It covers the founding of NASA, the first American astronauts in space, the moon landings, the Challenger disaster, and the Hubble Telescope repairs--
This is the story of our search for life on other planets, from 16th-century heretic Giordano Bruno to the Kepler Space Telescope today. Astronomer Lucas Ellerbroek interviews the leading figures in the field, to give first-hand accounts of the modern history of exo-planet hunting.
The Antikythera Mechanism, now 82 small fragments of corroded bronze, was an ancient Greek machine simulating the cosmos as the Greeks understood it. Reflecting the most recent researches, A Portable Cosmos presents it as a gateway to Greek astronomy and technology and their place in Greco-Roman society and thought.
In The Theoretical Minimum, the author provided a first course in classical mechanics, offering readers everything they need to start doing physics. In this book, he returns with the next challenge that every aspiring physics buff must tackle: quantum mechanics. It combines explanations, helpful dialogues, and basic exercises.
Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful of scientific theories, but what does it actually mean? From Schrodinger's Cat to Many Worlds, Jim Baggott guides us through the many attempts to determine its meaning. Richard Feynman once declared that 'nobody understands quantum mechanics'. This book will tell you why.
Winner of The Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction in 2011 and the Authors' Foundation Roger Deakin Award in 2011 A stunning debut in the tradition of Robert Macfarlane and Helen Macdonald