Showing titles in History

Far too often, public discussion of science is carried out by journalists, voters, and politicians who have received their science secondhand. The Story of Western Science shows us the joy and importance of reading groundbreaking science writing for ourselves and guides us back to the masterpieces that have changed the way we think about our world, our cosmos, and ourselves.

Are the ways we look at menopause all wrong? Historian Susan Mattern says yes, and The Slow Moon Climbs reveals just how wrong we have been. Taking listeners from the rainforests of Paraguay to the streets of Tokyo, Mattern draws on historical, scientific, and cultural research to reveal how our perceptions of menopause developed from prehistory to today. For most of human history, people had no word for menopause and did not view it as a medical condition. Rather, in traditional foraging and agrarian societies, it was a transition to another important life stage.

The Pyrocene tells the story of what happened when a fire-wielding species, humanity, met an especially fire-receptive time in Earth's history. Since terrestrial life first appeared, flames have flourished. Over the past two million years, however, one genus gained the ability to manipulate fire, swiftly remaking both itself and eventually the world. We developed small guts and big heads by cooking food; we climbed the food chain by cooking landscapes; and now we have become a geologic force by cooking the planet.

The first full-length biography of George Ingle Finch - maverick Australian mountaineer, scientist, concert pianist and father of actor Peter Finch. George Ingle Finch, mountaineer, soldier, scientist, rebellious spirit, boy from the bush, was in his day one of the most famous men in the world. In 1922 he stood at the highest point on Everest, a feat not bettered for 30 years. He invented the predecessor to the puffer jacket and pioneered the use of oxygen in climbing.

The latest volume in the bestselling series from Edge.org—dubbed “the world’s smartest website” by The Guardian—brings together 206 of the world’s most innovative thinkers to discuss the scientific concepts that everyone should know. As science informs public policy, decision making...

How did life begin? It is perhaps the most important question science has ever asked. Over the centuries, the search for an answer has been entwined with some of science's most revolutionary advances, including van Leeuwenhoek's microscope, Darwin's theory of evolution, and Crick and Watson's unveiling of DNA.

G. Wayne Miller has dramatically and meticulously reconstructed an amazing true story: how a group of renegade Minnesota surgeons, led by Dr. Walt Lillehei, made medical history by becoming the first doctors to operate deep inside the human heart.

We all make mistakes. Nobody’s perfect. Not even some of the greatest geniuses in history, as Mario Livio tells us in this marvelous story of scientific error and breakthrough. Charles Darwin, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and Albert Einstein were all brilliant scientists. Each made groundbreaking contributions to his field - but each also stumbled badly. These five scientists expanded our knowledge of life on Earth, the evolution of the Earth itself, and the evolution of the universe, despite and because of their errors. As Mario Livio luminously explains, the scientific process advances through error.

Werner Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle" challenged centuries of scientific understanding, placed him in direct opposition to Albert Einstein, and put Niels Bohr in the middle of one of the most heated debates in scientific history. Heisenberg's theorem stated that there were physical limits to what we could know about sub-atomic particles; this "uncertainty" would have shocking implications.

Almost daily, headlines announce newly discovered links between cancers and their genetic causes. Science journalist Jessica Wapner vividly relates the backstory behind those headlines, reconstructing the crucial breakthroughs, explaining the science behind them, and giving due to the dozens of researchers, doctors, and patients whose curiosity and determination restored the promise of a future to the more than 50,000 people diagnosed each year with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).

Charles Darwin's foremost biographer, Janet Browne, delivers a vivid and accessible introduction to the book that permanently altered our understanding of what it is to be human. A sensation on its publication in 1859, The Origin of the Species profoundly shocked Victorian readers by calling into question the belief in a Creator with its description of evolution through natural selection. And Darwin's seminal work is nearly as controversial today.

Utterly beautiful. Profoundly disconcerting. Quantum theory is quite simply the most successful account of the physical universe ever devised. Its concepts underpin much of the 21st-century technology that we now take for granted. But at the same time it has completely undermined our ability to make sense of the world at its most fundamental level.

What has quantum physics taught us about consciousness and the nature of reality? Are we living in a simulation? In order for matter to exist, does it need to be observed? Join Dr. Trevor Lohman as he grapples with these questions and others, plunging listeners into a sea of quantum strangeness while simultaneously helping them navigate these incredibly choppy waters.

By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only 24, a young scientist hungry to make his mark. His uncompromisingly honest account of the heady days of their thrilling sprint against other world-class researchers to solve one of science's greatest mysteries gives a dazzlingly clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, very human ambitions, and bitter rivalries.

The Essential Einstein: Public Writings presents a rich selection of Einstein's humanistic writings drawn from a diverse array of materials he sanctioned for publication during his lifetime. Distinct from previous collections, this incisive book presents previously excerpted works in their entirety, including key articles, lectures, and speeches.

Edwin Grosvenor writes of Bell's other extraordinary inventions: the first transmission of sound over light waves, metal detector, first practical phonograph, and early airplanes, including the first to fly in Canada. He also examines Bell's humanitarian efforts, including support for women's suffrage, civil rights, and speeches about what he warned would be a "greenhouse effect" of pollution causing global warming.

A rollicking, myth-busting history of sex that moves from historical attempts at birth control to Hildegard von Bingen’s treatise on the female orgasm, demystifying plenty of urban legends along the way. Roman physicians told female patients they should sneeze out as much semen as possible...

The early history of Earth covers such vast stretches of time that years, centuries, and even millennia become virtually meaningless. Instead, paleontologists and scientists who study geochronology divide time into periods and eras.

Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems compares the Copernican or Heliocentric system with the Ptolemaic or Peripatetic, system of the cosmos. Published in Florence in 1632, it resulted in him being tried before the Inquisition. Using the dialogue form, Galileo masterfully shows the truth of the Copernican system that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The Dialogue is one of the most important treatises ever written. A work of supreme clarity and accessibility, it remains as accessible now as when it was published.

Physics informs our understanding of how the world works - but more than that, key breakthroughs in physics have transformed everyday life. We journey back to 10 separate days in history to understand how particular breakthroughs were achieved, meet the individuals responsible and see how each breakthrough has influenced our lives.