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Physical Science

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137: Jung, Pauli and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession

By: Miller, Arthur I
$16.95
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Is there a number at the root of the universe? A primal number that everything in the world hinges on? This question exercised many great minds of the twentieth century, among them the groundbreaking physicist Wolfgang Pauli and the famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Their obsession with the power of certain numbers including 137, which describes the atom s fine-structure constant and has great Kabbalistic significance led them to develop an unlikely friendship and to embark on a joint mystical quest reaching deep into medieval alchemy, dream interpretation, and the Chinese Book of Changes. 137 explores the profound intersection of modern science with the occult, but above all it is the tale of an extraordinary, fruitful friendship between two of the greatest thinkers of our times. Originally published in hardcover as Deciphering the Cosmic Number."
A UNIVERSE FROM NOTHING: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing

A UNIVERSE FROM NOTHING: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing

By: Krauss, Lawrence M
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Bestselling author and acclaimed physicist Lawrence Krauss offers a paradigm-shifting view of how everything that exists came to be in the first place.

"Where did the universe come from? What was there before it? What will the future bring? And finally, why is there something rather than nothing?"

One of the few prominent scientists today to have crossed the chasm between science and popular culture, Krauss describes the staggeringly beautiful experimental observations and mind-bending new theories that demonstrate not only can something arise from nothing, something will always arise from nothing. With a new preface about the significance of the discovery of the Higgs particle, A Universe from Nothing uses Krauss's characteristic wry humor and wonderfully clear explanations to take us back to the beginning of the beginning, presenting the most recent evidence for how our universe evolved--and the implications for how it's going to end.

Provocative, challenging, and delightfully readable, this is a game-changing look at the most basic underpinning of existence and a powerful antidote to outmoded philosophical, religious, and scientific thinking.

ABOMINABLE SCIENCE!: ORIGINS OF THE YETI, NESSIE, AND OTHER FAMOUS CRYPTIDS

ABOMINABLE SCIENCE!: ORIGINS OF THE YETI, NESSIE, AND OTHER FAMOUS CRYPTIDS

By: Prothero, Donald R
$19.95
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Throughout our history, humans have been captivated by mythic beasts and legendary creatures. Tales of Bigfoot, the Yeti, and the Loch Ness monster are part of our collective experience. Now comes a book from two dedicated investigators that explores and elucidates the fascinating world of cryptozoology.

Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero have written an entertaining, educational, and definitive text on cryptids, presenting the arguments both for and against their existence and systematically challenging the pseudoscience that perpetuates their myths. After examining the nature of science and pseudoscience and their relation to cryptozoology, Loxton and Prothero take on Bigfoot; the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, and its cross-cultural incarnations; the Loch Ness monster and its highly publicized sightings; the evolution of the Great Sea Serpent; and Mokele Mbembe, or the Congo dinosaur. They conclude with an analysis of the psychology behind the persistent belief in paranormal phenomena, identifying the major players in cryptozoology, discussing the character of its subculture, and considering the challenge it poses to clear and critical thinking in our increasingly complex world.

ADVERSARIES AND AUTHORITIES: Investigations into Ancient Greek and Chinese Science

By: Lloyd, G E R
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Did science and philosophy develop differently in ancient Greece and ancient China? If so, can we say why? This book consists of a series of detailed studies of cosmology, natural philosophy, mathematics and medicine that suggest the answer to the first question is yes. To answer the second, the author relates the science produced in each ancient civilization first to the values of the society in question and then to the institutions within which the scientists and philosophers worked.
AFTER PHYSICS

AFTER PHYSICS

By: Albert, David Z
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After Physics presents ambitious new essays about some of the deepest questions at the foundations of physics, by the physicist and philosopher David Albert. The book's title alludes to the close connections between physics and metaphysics, much in evidence throughout these essays. It also alludes to the work of imagining what it would be like for the project of physical science--considered as an investigation into the fundamental laws of nature--to be complete.

Albert argues that the difference between the past and the future--traditionally regarded as a matter for metaphysical or conceptual or linguistic or phenomenological analysis--can be understood as a mechanical phenomenon of nature. In another essay he contends that all versions of quantum mechanics that are compatible with the special theory of relativity make it impossible, even in principle, to present the entirety of what can be said about the world as a narrative sequence of "befores" and "afters." Any sensible and realistic way of solving the quantum-mechanical measurement problem, Albert claims in yet another essay, is ultimately going to force us to think of particles and fields, and even the very space of the standard scientific conception of the world, as approximate and emergent. Novel discussions of the problem of deriving principled limits on what can be known, measured, or communicated from our fundamental physical theories, along with a sweeping critique of the main attempts at making sense of probabilities in many-worlds interpretations of quantum mechanics, round out the collection.

AGE OF LIVING MACHINES: HOW BIOLOGY WILL BUILD THE NEXT TECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION

AGE OF LIVING MACHINES: HOW BIOLOGY WILL BUILD THE NEXT TECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION

By: Hockfield, Susan
$17.95
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A century ago, discoveries in physics came together with engineering to produce an array of astonishing new technologies that radically reshaped the world: radios, televisions, aircraft, computers, and a host of still-evolving digital tools. Today, a new technological convergence--of biology and engineering--promises to create the tools necessary to tackle the threats we now face, including climate change, drought, famine, and disease

World-renowned neuroscientist and academic leader Susan Hockfield describes the most exciting new developments and the scientists and engineers who helped to create them. Virus-built batteries. Cancer-detecting nanoparticles. Computer-engineered crops. Together, they highlight the promise of the technology revolution of the twenty-first century to overcome some of the greatest humanitarian, medical, and environmental challenges of our time.

AIM AND STRUCTURE OF PHYSICAL THEORY

AIM AND STRUCTURE OF PHYSICAL THEORY

By: Duhem, Pierre Maurice Marie
$25.00
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This classic work in the philosophy of physical science is an incisive and readable account of the scientific method. Pierre Duhem was one of the great figures in French science, a devoted teacher, and a distinguished scholar of the history and philosophy of science. This book represents his most mature thought on a wide range of topics.

ALICE AND BOB MEET THE WALL OF FIRE: THE BIGGEST IDEAS IN SCIENCE FROM QUANTA

ALICE AND BOB MEET THE WALL OF FIRE: THE BIGGEST IDEAS IN SCIENCE FROM QUANTA

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Accessible and essential coverage of today's challenging, speculative, cutting-edge science from Quanta Magazine.

If you're a science and data nerd like me, you may be interested in Alice and Bob Meet the Wall of Fire and The Prime Number Conspiracy from Quanta Magazine and Thomas Lin. - Bill Gates

These stories reveal the latest efforts to untangle the mysteries of the universe. Bringing together the best and most interesting science stories appearing in Quanta Magazine over the past five years, Alice and Bob Meet the Wall of Fire reports on some of the greatest scientific minds as they test the limits of human knowledge. Quanta, under editor-in-chief Thomas Lin, is the only popular publication that offers in-depth coverage of today's challenging, speculative, cutting-edge science. It communicates science by taking it seriously, wrestling with difficult concepts and clearly explaining them in a way that speaks to our innate curiosity about our world and ourselves.

In the title story, Alice and Bob--beloved characters of various thought experiments in physics--grapple with gravitational forces, possible spaghettification, and a massive wall of fire as Alice jumps into a black hole. Another story considers whether the universe is impossible, in light of experimental results at the Large Hadron Collider. We learn about quantum reality and the mystery of quantum entanglement; explore the source of time's arrow; and witness a eureka moment when a quantum physicist exclaims: "Finally, we can understand why a cup of coffee equilibrates in a room." We reflect on humans' enormous skulls and the Brain Boom; consider the evolutionary benefits of loneliness; peel back the layers of the newest artificial-intelligence algorithms; follow the "battle for the heart and soul of physics"; and mourn the disappearance of the "diphoton bump," revealed to be a statistical fluctuation rather than a revolutionary new particle. These stories from Quanta give us a front-row seat to scientific discovery.

Contributors
Philip Ball, K. C. Cole, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Dan Falk, Courtney Humphries, Ferris Jabr, Katia Moskvitch, George Musser, Michael Nielsen, Jennifer Ouellette, John Pavlus, Emily Singer, Andreas von Bubnoff, Frank Wilczek, Natalie Wolchover, Carl Zimmer

AMAZING STORY OF QUANTUM MECHANICS: A Math-Free Exploration of the Science That made Our World

AMAZING STORY OF QUANTUM MECHANICS: A Math-Free Exploration of the Science That made Our World

By: Kakalios, James
$17.00
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A highly entertaining exploration of the complicated science of quantum mechanics made easy to understand by way of pop culture.

As a young science fiction fan, physicist James Kakalios marveled at the future predicted in the pulp magazines, comics, and films of the '50s and '60s. By 2010, he was sure we'd have flying cars and jetpacks. But what we ended up with-laptop computers, MRI machines, Blu-ray players, and dozens of other real-life marvels-are even more fantastic. In The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics, he explains why the development of quantum mechanics enabled our amazing present day.

In his trademark style, Kakalios uses pop culture examples- everything from the graphic novel Watchmen to schlock horror movies of the '50s-to elucidate some of the most complex science there is. And he brings to life the groundbreaking scientists whose discoveries made our present life possible. Along the way, he dispels the misconception that quantum mechanics is unknowable by mere mortals. It's not magic; it's science!

ANCIENT ASTRONOMY AND CELESTIAL DIVINATION

ANCIENT ASTRONOMY AND CELESTIAL DIVINATION

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This volume presents recent work on Babylonian celestialdivination and on the Greek inheritors of the Babyloniantradition.In the ancient world, the collection and study of celestial phenomena and the intepretation of their prophetic significance, especially as applied to kings and nations, were closely related sciences carried out by the same scholars. Both ancient sources and modern research agree that astronomy and celestial divination arose in Babylon. Only in the late nineteenth century, however, did scholars begin to identify and decipher the original Babylonian sources, and the process of understanding those sources has been long and difficult. This volume presents recent work on Babylonian celestial divination and on the Greek inheritors of the Babylonian tradition. Both philological and mathematical work are included. The essays shed new light on all of the known textual sources, including the omen series Enuma Anu Enlil, which contains omens from as far back as the early second or even third millennium, and the earliest personal horoscopes, from about 400 B.C., as well as the Astronomical Diaries, ephemerides, and other observational and mathematical texts. One essay concerns astronomical papyri that confirm the extensive transmission of Babylonian methods into Greek; a study of Ptolemy's lunar theory suggests that Ptolemy relied more on his own observations than previously thought; and an analysis of Theon's commentary on Ptolemy's Handy Tables shows that Theon explicated their meaning both conscientiously and competently.ContributorsAsger Aaboe, Alan C. Bowen, Lis Brack-Bernsen, John P. Britton, Bernard R. Goldstein, Gerd Graßhoff, Hermann Hunger, Alexander Jones, Erica Reiner, F. Rochberg, N. M. Swerdlow, Anne Tihon, C. B. F. Walker
AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity

AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity

By: Kauffman, Stuart
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A major scientific revolution has begun, a new paradigm that rivals Darwin's theory in importance. At its heart is the discovery of the order that lies deep within the most complex of systems, from the origin of life, to the workings of giant corporations, to the rise and fall of great civilizations. And more than anyone else, this revolution is the work of one man, Stuart Kauffman, a MacArthur Fellow and visionary pioneer of the new science of complexity. Now, in At Home in the Universe, Kauffman brilliantly weaves together the excitement of intellectual discovery and a fertile mix of insights to give the general reader a fascinating look at this new science - and at the forces for order that lie at the edge of chaos.
ATTRACTION, LOVE, SEX

ATTRACTION, LOVE, SEX

By: LeVay, Simon
$32.00
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"To find out why people have sex, Curt Lively trawls a New Zealand lake for mud snails. Mayte Parada puts volunteers in an MRI scanner and turns on the porn. Andrea Ganna searches the genomes of half a million Brits. Almond-scented rats, Genghis Khan's family tree, Pornhub statistics-it's all in a day's work for sex researchers. This book introduces readers to sex researchers and explains the questions they are asking and the methods they are using to discover the answers. Renowned sex researcher Simon LeVay asks: Why do humans have sex? What happens in the brain when we're getting it on? How do 'kinks' develop? What is love? And many other topics-some frivolous, some tragically serious-all studied by fearless but fallible researchers. Sex, they have shown, is as worthy of scientific inquiry as any other facet of human nature"--
BACK TO THE MOON

BACK TO THE MOON

By: Silk, Joseph
$29.95
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A scientist's inspiring vision of our return to the Moon as humanity's next thrilling step in space exploration

Just over half a century since Neil Armstrong first stepped foot on the lunar surface, a new space race to the Moon is well underway and rapidly gaining momentum. Laying out a vision for the next fifty years, Back to the Moon is astrophysicist Joseph Silk's persuasive and impassioned case for putting scientific discovery at the forefront of lunar exploration.

The Moon offers opportunities beyond our wildest imaginings, and plans to return are rapidly gaining momentum around the world. NASA aims to build a habitable orbiting space station to coordinate lunar development and exploration, while European and Chinese space agencies are planning lunar villages and the mining of precious resources dwindling here on Earth. Powerful international and commercial interests are driving the race to revisit the Moon, but lunar infrastructures could also open breathtaking vistas onto the cosmos. Silk describes how the colonization of the Moon could usher in a thrilling new age of scientific exploration, and lays out what the next fifty years of lunar science might look like. With lunar telescopes of unprecedented size situated in permanently dark polar craters and on the far side of the Moon, we could finally be poised to answer some of the most profound questions confronting humankind, including whether we are alone in the Universe and what our cosmic origins are.

Addressing both the daunting challenges and the immense promise of lunar exploration and exploitation, Back to the Moon reveals how prioritizing science, and in particular lunar astronomy, will enable us to address the deepest cosmic mysteries.

BALANCE

BALANCE

By: Thagard, Paul
$32.00
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"People take balance for granted until they start to lose it. This book explains how the brain balances the body and why failures sometimes result in vertigo, nausea, and falls. Paul Thagard breaks new ground by explaining how balance and imbalance generate conscious experiences. Moreover, balance metaphors illuminate all areas of human life, from work/life balance to tipping points in climate change. Economists debate whether budgets should be balanced, and politicians worry about the balance of powers. The traditional visual symbol for the law is the balance scale. People fret over whether they are eating a balanced diet and managing an appropriate work-life balance. Reflective equilibrium is an influential concept in philosophy. What unites the literal and metaphorical uses of balance is that they enable people to make sense of perception and action. Unlike physiological balance, metaphorical balance can be toxic because it obstructs medicine, science, and social understanding."--
BEDEVILED

BEDEVILED

By: Canales, Jimena
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How scientists through the ages have conducted thought experiments using imaginary entities--demons--to test the laws of nature and push the frontiers of what is possible

Science may be known for banishing the demons of superstition from the modern world. Yet just as the demon-haunted world was being exorcized by the enlightening power of reason, a new kind of demon mischievously materialized in the scientific imagination itself. Scientists began to employ hypothetical beings to perform certain roles in thought experiments--experiments that can only be done in the imagination--and these impish assistants helped scientists achieve major breakthroughs that pushed forward the frontiers of science and technology.

Spanning four centuries of discovery--from René Descartes, whose demon could hijack sensorial reality, to James Clerk Maxwell, whose molecular-sized demon deftly broke the second law of thermodynamics, to Darwin, Einstein, Feynman, and beyond--Jimena Canales tells a shadow history of science and the demons that bedevil it. She reveals how the greatest scientific thinkers used demons to explore problems, test the limits of what is possible, and better understand nature. Their imaginary familiars helped unlock the secrets of entropy, heredity, relativity, quantum mechanics, and other scientific wonders--and continue to inspire breakthroughs in the realms of computer science, artificial intelligence, and economics today.

The world may no longer be haunted as it once was, but the demons of the scientific imagination are alive and well, continuing to play a vital role in scientists' efforts to explore the unknown and make the impossible real.

BEGINNING TO END THE CLIMATE CRISIS

BEGINNING TO END THE CLIMATE CRISIS

By: Repenning, Alexander
$24.95
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There is no planet B. Activists share how we must inform and organize ourselves to save the future.

"Act as though your house is on fire. Because it is." Following Greta Thunberg, millions of young climate activists have been taking to the streets around the globe as part of the Fridays For Future movement. They demand that we "unite behind the science," as, for too long, climate scientists have been ringing the alarm bells about rising temperatures, tipping points, and the devastating consequences of extreme weather--but politicians do nothing.

So how do you begin to end the climate crisis? Luisa Neubauer and Alexander Repenning begin by telling stories. Neubauer cofounded the youth climate activist group in Germany and has become its most prominent voice. In this book she and Repenning weave in personal accounts of their evolution as climate activists with a thorough analysis of how climate change impacts their generation, and what every one of us can and must do about it. The young and old in the United States and around the world can learn valuable lessons from their European counterparts.

BELIEF IN GOD IN AN AGE OF SCIENCE

BELIEF IN GOD IN AN AGE OF SCIENCE

By: Polkinghorne, John C
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John Polkinghorne brings unique qualifications to his exploration of the possibilities of believing in God in an age of science: he is internationally known as a theoretical physicist and as a theologian. In this thought-provoking book, Polkinghorne focuses on the collegiality between science and theology, contending that the inquiries of these "intellectual cousins" are parallel.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S SCIENCE:

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S SCIENCE:

By: Cohen, I Bernard
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Benjamin Franklin is well known to most of us, yet his fundamental and wide-ranging contributions to science are still not adequately understood. Until now he has usually been incorrectly regarded as a practical inventor and tinkerer rather than a scientific thinker. He was elected to membership in the elite Royal Society because his experiments and original theory of electricity had made a science of that new subject. His popular fame came from his two lightning experiments--the sentry-box experiment and the later and more famous experiment of the kite--which confirmed his theoretical speculations about the identity of electricity and provided a basis for the practical invention of the lightning rod. Franklin advanced the eighteenth-century understanding of all phenomena of electricity and provided a model for experimental science in general.

I. Bernard Cohen, an eminent historian of science and the principal elucidator of Franklin's scientific work, examines his activities in fields ranging from heat to astronomy. He provides masterful accounts of the theoretical background of Franklin's science (especially his study of Newton), the experiments he performed, and their influence throughout Europe as well as the United States. Cohen emphasizes that Franklin's political and diplomatic career cannot be understood apart from his scientific activities, which established his reputation and brought him into contact with leaders of British and European society. A supplement by Samuel J. Edgerton considers Franklin's attempts to improve the design of heating stoves, another practical application that arose from theoretical interests.

This volume will be valuable to all readers wanting to learn more about Franklin and to gain a deeper appreciation of the development of science in America.

BETWEEN COPERNICUS AND GALILEO: Christoph Clavius and the Collapse of Ptolemaic Cosmology

BETWEEN COPERNICUS AND GALILEO: Christoph Clavius and the Collapse of Ptolemaic Cosmology

By: Lattis, James M
$23.95
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Between Copernicus and Galileo is the story of Christoph Clavius, the Jesuit astronomer who played a central role in integrating traditional Ptolemaic astronomy and Aristotelian world views into the Church's accepted teachings. When Galileo first collided with the Church over his own work, he was in effect combatting a cosmological and intellectual agenda Clavius had worked to create, and a coterie of Church intellectuals Clavius had helped to educate. By tracing Clavius's views from their medieval origins into the seventeenth century, Lattis illuminates the conceptual shift from Ptolemaic to Copernican astronomy and the social, intellectual, and theological impact of the Scientific Revolution.
BEYOND UNCERTAINTY: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb

BEYOND UNCERTAINTY: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb

By: Cassidy, David C
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Now in paperback: Heisenberg's life reconsidered for the twenty-first century by the world's leading English-language authority.
BIRTH OF TIME: How Astronomers Measured the Age of the Universe

BIRTH OF TIME: How Astronomers Measured the Age of the Universe

By: Gribbin, John
$11.95
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The age of the universe has been one of the great scientific mysteries of our time. This engrossing book tells the story of how the mystery was recently solved. Written by a brilliant science writer who was involved, as a research astronomer, in the final breakthrough, the book provides details of the ongoing controversies among scientists as they groped their way to the truth--that the universe is between 13 and 16 billion years old, older by at least one billion years than the star systems it contains.
In clear, engaging language, Gribbin takes us through the history of cosmological discoveries, focusing in particular on the seventy years since the Big Bang model of the origin of the universe. He explains how conflicting views of the age of the universe and stars converged in the 1990s because scientists (including Gribbin) were able to use data from the Hubble Space Telescope that measured distances across the universe.

BONE ROOMS

By: Redman, Samuel J
$22.95
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A Smithsonian Book of the Year
A Nature Book of the Year

"Provides much-needed foundation of the relationship between museums and Native Americans."
--Smithsonian

In 1864 a US Army doctor dug up the remains of a Dakota man who had been killed in Minnesota and sent the skeleton to a museum in Washington that was collecting human remains for research. In the "bone rooms" of the Smithsonian, a scientific revolution was unfolding that would change our understanding of the human body, race, and prehistory.

Seeking evidence to support new theories of racial classification, collectors embarked on a global competition to recover the best specimens of skeletons, mummies, and fossils. As the study of these discoveries discredited racial theory, new ideas emerging in the budding field of anthropology displaced race as the main motive for building bone rooms. Today, as a new generation seeks to learn about the indigenous past, momentum is building to return objects of spiritual significance to native peoples.

"A beautifully written, meticulously documented analysis of [this] little-known history."
--Brian Fagan, Current World Archeology

"How did our museums become great storehouses of human remains? Bone Rooms chases answers...through shifting ideas about race, anatomy, anthropology, and archaeology and helps explain recent ethical standards for the collection and display of human dead."
--Ann Fabian, author of The Skull Collectors

"Details the nascent views of racial science that evolved in U.S. natural history, anthropological, and medical museums...Redman effectively portrays the remarkable personalities behind [these debates]...pitting the prickly Ales Hrdlička at the Smithsonian...against ally-turned-rival Franz Boas at the American Museum of Natural History."
--David Hurst Thomas, Nature

BONK: The Curious Coupling of Science & Sex

BONK: The Curious Coupling of Science & Sex

By: Roach, Mary
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In ?Bonk, ?the best-selling author of Stiff turns her outrageous curiosity and insight on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Why doesn't Viagra help women-or, for that matter, pandas? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Mary Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm-two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth-can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to make the bedroom a more satisfying place
BOOK OF NOTHING: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas About the Origins of the Universe

BOOK OF NOTHING: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas About the Origins of the Universe

By: Barrow, John D
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What conceptual blind spot kept the ancient Greeks (unlike the Indians and Maya) from developing a concept of zero? Why did St. Augustine equate nothingness with the Devil? What tortuous means did 17th-century scientists employ in their attempts to create a vacuum? And why do contemporary quantum physicists believe that the void is actually seething with subatomic activity? You'll find the answers in this dizzyingly erudite and elegantly explained book by the English cosmologist John D. Barrow.

Ranging through mathematics, theology, philosophy, literature, particle physics, and cosmology, The Book of Nothing explores the enduring hold that vacuity has exercised on the human imagination. Combining high-wire speculation with a wealth of reference that takes in Freddy Mercury and Shakespeare alongside Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking, the result is a fascinating excursion to the vanishing point of our knowledge.

BURNHAM'S CELESTIAL HANDBOOK 2: An Observer's Guide to the Universe Beyond the Solar Sphere

BURNHAM'S CELESTIAL HANDBOOK 2: An Observer's Guide to the Universe Beyond the Solar Sphere

By: Burnham, Robert
$14.95
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While there are many books on stars there is only one "Celestial Handbook." Now completely revised through 1977, this unique and necessary reference is available once again to guide amateur and advanced astronomers in their knowledge and enjoyment of the stars.
BURNHAM'S CELESTIAL HANDBOOK 3: An Observer's Guide to the Universe Beyond the Solar Sphere

BURNHAM'S CELESTIAL HANDBOOK 3: An Observer's Guide to the Universe Beyond the Solar Sphere

By: Burnham, Robert
$13.95
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While there are many books on stars there is only one "Celestial Handbook." Now completely revised through 1977, this unique and necessary reference is available once again to guide amateur and advanced astronomers in their knowledge and enjoyment of the stars.
CHAOS BOUND: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science

CHAOS BOUND: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science

By: Hayles, N Katherine
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N. Katherine Hayles here investigates parallels between contemporary literature and critical theory and the science of chaos. She finds in both scientific and literary discourse new interpretations of chaos, which is seen no longer as disorder but as a locus of maximum information and complexity. She examines structures and themes of disorder in The Education of Henry Adams, Doris Lessing's Golden Notebook, and works by Stanislaw Lem. Hayles shows how the writings of poststructuralist theorists including Barthes, Lyotard, Derrida, Serres, and de Man incorporate central features of chaos theory.

CHAOS: Making A New Science

CHAOS: Making A New Science

By: Gleick, James
$20.00
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The million-copy bestseller by National Book Award nominee and Pulitzer Prize finalist James Gleick--the author of Time Travel: A History--that reveals the science behind chaos theory

A work of popular science in the tradition of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, this 20th-anniversary edition of James Gleick's groundbreaking bestseller Chaos introduces a whole new readership to chaos theory, one of the most significant waves of scientific knowledge in our time. From Edward Lorenz's discovery of the Butterfly Effect, to Mitchell Feigenbaum's calculation of a universal constant, to Benoit Mandelbrot's concept of fractals, which created a new geometry of nature, Gleick's engaging narrative focuses on the key figures whose genius converged to chart an innovative direction for science. In Chaos, Gleick makes the story of chaos theory not only fascinating but also accessible to beginners, and opens our eyes to a surprising new view of the universe.

CLIMATE CHANGE: A WICKED PROBLEM

CLIMATE CHANGE: A WICKED PROBLEM

By: Incropera, Frank P
$28.00
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Under one cover, Frank Incropera provides a comprehensive, objective and critical assessment of all issues germane to the climate change debate: science, technology options, economic ramifications, cultural and behavioural issues, the influence of special interests and public policy, geopolitics, and ethical dimensions. The underlying science is treated in depth, but in an approachable and accessible manner. A strong case is made for the reality of anthropogenic climate change, while confronting the range of issues that remain uncertain and deconstructing opposing views. Incropera assesses the strengths and weaknesses of technology options for mitigating the effects of climate change, analyzes nontechnical factors - economic, cultural and political - and provides an in-depth treatment of ethical implications. This book is intended for those wishing to become fully informed about climate change and is designed to provide the reader with a firm foundation for drawing his or her own conclusions.
CLIMATE TRAVELS

CLIMATE TRAVELS

By: Gunter, Michael M
$30.00
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Many accounts of climate change depict disasters striking faraway places: melting ice caps, fearsome hurricanes, all-consuming fires. How can seeing the consequences of human impacts up close help us grasp how global warming affects us and our neighbors? This book is a travelogue that spotlights what a changing climate looks like on the local level-for wherever local happens to be.


Michael M. Gunter, Jr. takes readers around the United States to bear witness to the many faces of the climate crisis. He argues that conscientious travel broadens understanding of climate change and makes its dangers concrete and immediate. Vivid vignettes explore the consequences for people and communities: sea level rise in Virginia, floods sweeping inland in Tennessee, Maine lobsters migrating away from American territorial waters, and imperiled ecosystems in national parks, from Alaskan permafrost to the Florida Keys. But Gunter finds inspiring initiatives to mitigate and adapt to these threats, including wind turbines in a tiny Texas town, green building construction in Kansas, and walkable urbanism in Portland, Oregon. These projects are already making a difference-and they underscore the importance of local action.


Drawing on interviews with government officials, industry leaders, and alternative energy activists, Climate Travels emphasizes direct personal experience and the centrality of environmental justice. Showing how travel can help bring the reality of climate change home, it offers readers a hopeful message about how to take action on the local level themselves.