Showing titles in Physics

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.

There are deep connections between stars and atoms, between the cosmos and the microworld. Just six numbers, imprinted in the "Big Bang", determine the essential features of our entire physical world. Moreover, cosmic evolution is astonishingly sensitive to the values of these numbers. If any one of them were "untuned", there could be no stars and no life. This realization offers a radically new perspective on our universe, our place in it, and the nature of physical laws.

Harvard geometer and Fields medalist Shing-Tung Yau has provided a mathematical foundation for string theory, offered new insights into black holes, and mathematically demonstrated the stability of our universe. In this autobiography, Yau reflects on his improbable journey to becoming one of the world’s most distinguished mathematicians. With complicated ideas explained for a broad audience, listeners not only get insights into the life of an eminent mathematician, but also an accessible way to understand advanced and highly abstract concepts in mathematics and theoretical physics.

If you move at high speed, time slows down, space squashes up, and you get heavier. Travel fast enough and you could weigh as much as a jumbo jet, be flattened thinner than a CD without feeling a thing - and live forever! As for the angles of a triangle, they do not always have to add up to 180 degrees. And then, of course, there are black holes. These are but a few of the extraordinary consequences of Einstein's theory of relativity.

In Signposts to God, particle physicist Peter Bussey introduces listeners to the mysteries of modern physics and astronomy. Authored in clear, accessible prose, Bussey provides a primer on topics such as the laws of nature, quantum physics, fine-tuning, and current cosmological models. Bussey argues that, far from ruling out a divine creator, modern physics and astronomy present us with compelling signposts to God. The more we know about the cosmos and our presence in it, the more plausible belief in God becomes.

Rising from the depths of the North Pacific lies a fabled island, now submerged just 15 feet below the surface of the ocean. Rumors and warnings about Cortes Bank abound, but among big wave surfers, this legendary rock is famous for one simple (and massive) reason: this is the home of the biggest rideable wave on the face of the earth.

Did you know that you could fit the whole human race in the volume of a sugar cube? Or that the electrical energy in a single mosquito is enough to cause a global mass extinction? Or that we are all, in fact, living in a giant hologram? Or perhaps, most importantly of all, out there in the universe there are an infinite number of copies of you reading an infinite number of copies of this?

Science journalist Lydia Denworth takes us in search of the biological, psychological and evolutionary foundations of this important bond. She finds that the human capacity for friendship is as old as humanity itself, when tribes of people on the African savanna grew large enough for individuals to seek meaningful connection with those outside their immediate families. Lydia meets scientists at the frontiers of brain and genetics research and discovers that friendship is reflected in our brain waves, our genomes and our cardiovascular and immune systems.

The discovery of the quantum - the idea, born in the early 1900s in a remote corner of physics, that energy comes in finite packets instead of infinitely divisible quantities - planted a rich set of metaphors in the popular imagination. Quantum imagery and language now bombard us like an endless stream of photons. Phrases such as multiverse, quantum leap, alternate universe, the uncertainty principle, and Schrödinger's cat get reinvented continually in cartoons and movies, coffee mugs and T-shirts, and fiction and philosophy.

This book will appeal to foodies and those who are deprived of cookbooks in audio format. Molecular Gastronomy documents the sensory phenomena of eating and uses basic physics to put to bed many culinary myths. This audiobook presents pieces of conventional wisdom - such as whether it is better to make a stock by placing meat in already boiling water, or water before it is boiled - and gives its history before making scientific pronouncements.

You're no idiot, of course. You know Heisenburg's uncertainty principle has nothing to do with where you put your car keys. But modern cosmology is relatively complicated. The mystery of the universe definitely isn't one we can flip to the end to see whodunit. That hasn't stopped physicists, astronomers and philosophers from searching for clues! The topic is infinite (literally), but once you've listened to this audiobook you'll have a solid idea of our place in the universe and even where the cosmos itself might be headed.

What is time? What does it mean for time to pass? Is it possible to travel in time? What is the difference between the past and future? Until the work of Newton, these questions were purely topics of philosophical speculation. Since then we've learned a great deal about time, and its study has moved from a subject of philosophical reflection to instead became part of the subject matter of physics.

Could there be a civilisation on a mote of dust? How much of your fate have you made? Who cleans the universe? Through more than 50 Koans - pleasingly paradoxical vignettes following the ancient Zen tradition - leading physicist Anthony Aguirre takes the listener across the world from Japan to Italy, and through ideas spanning the age, breadth and depth of the Universe. Using these beguiling Koans and a flair for explaining complex science, Aguirre covers cosmic questions that scientific giants from Aristotle to Galileo to Heisenberg have grappled with. 

Our brains evolved to solve the survival problems of our Stone Age ancestors, so when faced with modern-day situations that are less extreme, they often encounter a mismatch. Our primitive brains put us on the wrong foot by responding to stimuli that - in prehistoric times - would have prompted behaviour that was beneficial. If you've ever felt an anxious fight-or-flight response to a presenting at a board meeting, equivalent to facing imminent death by sabre-toothed tiger, then you have experienced a mismatch.

In this stunning new volume, Jim Baggott argues that there is no observational or experimental evidence for many of the ideas of modern theoretical physics: Super-symmetric particles, super strings, the multiverse, the holographic principle, or the anthropic cosmological principle. These theories are not only untrue; they are not even science. They are fairy-tale physics: Fantastical, bizarre and often outrageous, perhaps even confidence-trickery. This book provides a much-needed antidote.

Einstein's special theory of relativity made time travel to the future a possibility, and later his general theory of relativity showed us that loops in spacetime could exist, meaning that we might be able to bend time backwards, too. But what are the practicalities of making time travel possible? What do we still need to know? How do we deal with any paradoxical twists in time - and could quantum physics hold the answer?

In the summer of 1921, Philo T. Farnsworth was not all that different from any other farmer's son in rural Idaho, until he came up with an idea that would change the world–and thrust him into a titanic struggle with one of the most monolithic monopolies in the world. Farnsworth's story of divine inspiration facing off against corporate avarice is a compelling–though seldom told–saga from the 20th century that is still relevant in the 21st.

Jimena Canales introduces listeners to the revolutionary ideas of Einstein and Bergson, describes how they dramatically collided in Paris, and traces how this clash of worldviews reverberated across the twentieth century. She shows how it provoked responses from figures such as Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger and carried repercussions for American pragmatism, logical positivism, phenomenology, and quantum mechanics.

An inspiring collection of essays, in which Albert Einstein addresses the topics that fascinated him as a scientist, philosopher, and humanitarian. Divided by subject matter - “Science,” “Convictions and Beliefs,” “Public Affairs,” etc. - these essays consider everything from the need for a “supranational” governing body to control war in the atomic age, to freedom in research and education, to Jewish history and Zionism, to explanations of the physics and scientific thought that brought him world recognition.

Asked to name a great physicist, most people would mention Newton or Einstein, Feynman or Hawking. But ask a physicist and there’s no doubt that James Clerk Maxwell will be near the top of the list. Maxwell, an unassuming Victorian Scotsman, explained how we perceive color. He uncovered the way gases behave. And, most significantly, he transformed the way physics was undertaken in his explanation of the interaction of electricity and magnetism, revealing the nature of light and laying the groundwork for everything from Einstein’s special relativity to modern electronics.