Showing titles in Astronomy & Space Science

A little over a century ago, a young Albert Einstein presented his general theory of relativity to the world and utterly transformed our understanding of the universe. His theory changed the way we think about space and time, revealed how our universe has been expanding from a hot, dense state called the big bang and predicted black holes. Where the Universe Came From is a 13.8 billiion-year journey through the cosmos.

Michael Schneider leads us on a spectacular journey along the numbers one through 10 to explore the mathematical principles made visible in flowers, shells, crystals, plants, and the human body, expressed in the symbolic language of folk sayings and fairy tales, myth and religion, art and architecture. This is a new view of mathematics, not the one we learned at school but a comprehensive guide to the patterns that recur through the universe and underlie human affairs.

With the ongoing advancement of AI and other technologies, our world is becoming increasingly intelligent. From chatbots to innovations in brain-computer interfaces to the possibility of superintelligences leading to the Singularity later this century, our reality is being transformed before our eyes. This is commonly seen as the natural result of progress, but what if there's more to it than that? What if intelligence is an inevitability, an underlying property of the universe?

It was a time of bold new technology, historic moments, and international jousting on the final frontier. But it was also a time of human drama, of moments less public but no less dramatic in the lives of those who made the golden age of space flight happen. These are the moments and the lives that Into That Silent Sea captures, a book that tells the intimate stories of the men and women, American and Russian, who made the space race their own and gave the era its compelling character.

For many, the moon landing was the defining event of the twentieth century. So it seems only fitting that Norman Mailer - the literary provocateur who altered the landscape of American nonfiction - wrote the most wide-ranging, far-seeing chronicle of the Apollo 11 mission. A classic chronicle of America's reach for greatness in the midst of the Cold War, Of a Fire on the Moon compiles the reportage Mailer published between 1969 and 1970 in Life magazine

The European Space Agency released a map of the afterglow of the big bang map, which contains anomalies that challenge our understanding of the universe. This is the first book to address what will be an epoch-defining scientific paradigm shift. Will we ever know what happened before the big bang? What's at the bottom of a black hole? Are there universes beyond our own? Does time exist? Are the once immutable laws of physics changing?

Are you curious about UFOs and aliens? Have you been wondering why UFOs come and where they come from? Do you believe that time travel is possible? Could aliens simply be humans from the future, visiting their old home, using UFO as a time machine? And why do I think so? Well, get the book, listen on, and find out more....

Explore the secrets of the universe with selections from the works of three of the greatest scientific minds of our lifetime. Widely regarded as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein, Stephen W. Hawking has delved into today's most important scientific ideas about the cosmos, expanded upon the rich history of scientific thought, and reveled in the complexities of the universe in which we live.

Humans have long sought to comprehend the enormities of cosmic space and time. Here, best selling science writer Timothy Ferris tells the story of that quest. He interweaves the majestic themes of astronomy, physics, religion, and philosophy with fresh and lasting portraits of the men and women who created what has been called our society's most precious treasure - its conception of the universe at large.

Some see dust as dull stuff, useless at best, and sneeze-inducing at worst. But in the hands of writer Hannah Holmes, dust becomes a dazzling and mysterious force. As Holmes says, dust is a messenger, and air is its medium. And by the end of this fascinating journey through The Secret Life of Dust, we cannot help but agree.

“Cosmos” comes from a Greek word for an orderly and systematic universe. In this book, we present the most riveting discoveries and mind-bending ideas about our cosmic home, from what we know of the origins of the universe and the cartography of space to the most bizarre phenomena and the search for life. Discussions include the possibility that the big bang was the consequence of a black hole in a fourth spatial dimension, that cosmic ripples created infinite universes, that entangled black holes could act as wormhole-like passageways through space, and much more.

Astrobiology is an exciting new subject, and one, arguably, more interdisciplinary than any other. Astrobiologists seek to understand the origin and evolution of life on Earth in order to illuminate and guide the search for life on other planets. In this Very Short Introduction, David C. Catling introduces the subject through our understanding of the factors that allowed life to arise and persist on our own planet, and for the signs we are looking for in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Until recently, scientists could only guess at what lay past the edge of spacetime. But as pioneering theoretical physicist Laura Mersini-Houghton explains, today new scientific tools are giving us the ability to peer beyond the limits of our universe and test our theories about what is there. Her groundbreaking research suggests that we sit in a quantum landscape whose peaks and valleys hide a multitude of other universes, and whose topography holds the secret to the origins of existence itself.

After the Apollo program put 12 men on the moon and safely brought them home, anything seemed possible. In this spirit, the team at NASA set about developing the space shuttle, arguably the most complex piece of machinery ever created.

In the beginning was the Big Bang: an unimaginably hot fire almost fourteen billion years ago in which the first elements were forged. The physical theory of the hot nascent universe—the Big Bang—was one of the most consequential developments in twentieth-century science. And yet it leaves many questions unanswered: Why is the universe so big? Why is it so old? What is the origin of structure in the cosmos? In An Infinity of Worlds, physicist Will Kinney explains a more recent theory that may hold the answers to these questions and even explain the ultimate origins of the universe.

This audiobook begins with the question "Who am I?" and immediately sets off in an astonishingly original direction. Why didn't anyone before Harding think of responding to this question like this? It's so obvious, once you see it. Harding presents a new vision of our place in the universe that uses the scientific method of looking to see what is true. It turns out that the truth about ourselves is not only true but also very good, and breathtakingly beautiful. We live in a sacred, many-layered, living universe - or rather it lives in us.

What does it mean to be human, to live on planet Earth, in the universe as it is now understood? Best-selling author and mathematical cosmologist Brain Swimme takes us on a journey through the cosmos in search of the “new story” that is developing in answer to this age-old question.

The Scientific Revolution of the 17th century has often been called a decisive turning point in human history. It represents, for good or ill, the birth of modern science and modern ways of viewing the world. In What Galileo Saw, Lawrence Lipking offers a new perspective on how to understand what happened then, arguing that artistic imagination and creativity as much as rational thought played a critical role in creating new visions of science and in shaping stories about eye-opening discoveries.

One of the most elusive and controversial figures in NASA's history, George W. S. Abbey was called "the Dark Lord", "the Godfather", and "UNO" (unidentified NASA official) by those within NASA. Yet Abbey had more influence on human spaceflight than almost anyone in history. From young pilot and wannabe astronaut to engineer, bureaucrat, and finally director of the Johnson Space Center, Abbey's story has never been fully told - until now. The Astronaut Maker takes listeners inside NASA to learn the real story of how Abbey rose to power and wielded it out of the spotlight.

The product of research around the globe and interviews with dozens of prominent scientists, God's Equation tells us it is almost as though Einstein were God's mouthpiece, revealing the most fundamental truths about our larger environment, truths scientists are just now confirming.