Showing results by publisher "----RM Alexander" in Physics

A Russian dissident, a Jesuit priest, and an American mule skinner are but a few of the bold visionaries who crafted the scientific story of cosmic origins. The collective insights of these and numerous creative thinkers advanced human understanding from mythology to mathematics, yielding falsifiable alternatives to ancient folklore and campfire tales. Listening to the Big Bang tells the dramatic human story—filled with colorful characters, unsung catalysts, and glorified heroes—which made the Big Bang the leading cosmological theory.

Stephen Fry travels into the most remarkable place we know - our brain. The organ of knowledge and the one we know least about. Over 12 episodes Stephen explores just how much we’ve learned about this mysterious structure in recent years and tries to answer some of the most difficult questions that remain. To do this, we relay the discoveries and stories of neuroscientists, psychologists, anthropologists and even philosophers, to add illumination and perspective as we travel. Each episode will be full of brainy stories: some shocking, some thrilling, some scarcely believable.

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization. He takes subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry, and particle physics, and aims to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. In the company of some extraordinary scientists, Bill Bryson reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

Mercury, a lifeless victim of the Sun’s expanding power. Venus, once thought to be lush and fertile, now known to be trapped within a toxic and boiling atmosphere. Mars, the red planet, doomed by the loss of its atmosphere. Jupiter, twice the size of all the other planets combined, but insubstantial. Saturn, a stunning celestial beauty, the jewel of our Solar System. Uranus, the sideways planet and the first ice giant. Neptune, dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds. Pluto, the dwarf planet, a frozen rock.

With a foreword from Professor Brian Cox and access to all the latest NASA mission information, Andrew Cohen takes listeners on a voyage of discovery via the probes and telescopes exploring the outer reaches of our galaxy, revealing how it was formed and how it will inevitably be destroyed by the enigmatic black hole at its heart. And beyond our galaxy, the expanding universe, which holds clues to the biggest mystery of all - how did it all begin?

"It doesn't take an Einstein to understand modern physics," says Professor Wolfson at the outset of these 24 lectures on what may be the most important subjects in the universe: relativity and quantum physics. Both have reputations for complexity. But the basic ideas behind them are, in fact, simple and comprehensible by anyone. These dynamic and illuminating lectures begin with a brief overview of theories of physical reality starting with Aristotle and culminating in Newtonian or "classical" physics.

In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks listeners through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries and the million years after the impact, tracking the sweeping disruptions that overtook this one spot, and imagining what might have been happening elsewhere on the globe. Picture yourself in the Cretaceous period. It's a sunny afternoon in the Hell Creek of ancient Montana 66 million years ago. In a matter of hours, everything here will be wiped away.

A bold and all-embracing exploration of the nature and progress of knowledge from one of today's great thinkers. Throughout history, mankind has struggled to understand life's mysteries, from the mundane to the seemingly miraculous. In this important new book, David Deutsch, an award-winning pioneer in the field of quantum computation, argues that explanations have a fundamental place in the universe.

From the discovery of entirely new kinds of galaxies to a window into cosmic ‘prehistory’, Bothwell shows us the universe as we’ve never seen it before - literally. Since the dawn of our species, people all over the world have gazed in awe at the night sky. But for all the beauty and wonder of the stars, when we look with just our eyes we are seeing and appreciating only a tiny fraction of the universe. What does the cosmos have in store for us beyond the phenomena we can see, from black holes to supernovas?

Want to know how AT&T's Bell Labs developed semiconductor technology - and how its leading scientists almost came to blows in the process? Want to understand how radio and television work - and why RCA drove their inventors to financial ruin and early graves? Conquering the Electron offers these stories and more, presenting each revolutionary technological advance right alongside blow-by-blow personal battles that all too often took place.

In a time when our political and cultural perspectives feel more divisive than ever, Tyson provides a much-needed antidote to so much of what divides us, while making a passionate case for the twin engines of enlightenment—a cosmic perspective and the rationality of science. After thinking deeply about how a scientist views the world and about what Earth looks like from space, Tyson has found that terrestrial thoughts change as our brain resets and recalibrates life's priorities, along with the actions we might take in response.

In The Quantum Universe, Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw approach the world of quantum mechanics in the same way they did in Why Does E=mc2? and make fundamental scientific principles accessible - and fascinating - to everyone.The subatomic realm has a reputation for weirdness, spawning any number of profound misunderstandings, journeys into Eastern mysticism, and woolly pronouncements on the interconnectedness of all things. Cox and Forshaw's contention? There is no need for quantum mechanics to be viewed this way.

In one of the most exciting and accessible explanations of The Theory of Relativity in recent years, Professors Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw go on a journey to the frontier of 21st century science to consider the real meaning behind the iconic sequence of symbols that make up Einstein's most famous equation, exploring the principles of physics through everyday life.

Gene Kranz was present at the creation of America's manned space program and was a key player in it for three decades. As a flight director in NASA's Mission Control, Kranz witnessed firsthand the making of history. He participated in the space program from the early days of the Mercury program to the last Apollo mission, and beyond. He endured the disastrous first years when rockets blew up and the United States seemed to fall further behind the Soviet Union in the space race.

Time rules our lives, woven into the very fabric of the universe-from the rising and setting of the sun to the cycles of nature, the thought processes in our brains, and the biorhythms in our day. Nothing so pervades our existence and yet is so difficult to explain. But now, in a series of 24 riveting lectures, you can grasp exactly why - as you take a mind-expanding journey through the past, present, and future, guided by a noted author and scientist.

In June 1925, 23-year-old Werner Heisenberg, suffering from hay fever, retreated to a small, treeless island in the North Sea called Helgoland. It was there that he came up with one of the most transformative scientific concepts: quantum theory. Almost a century later, quantum physics has given us many startling ideas: ghost waves, distant objects that seem magically connected to each other, cats that are both dead and alive. Today our understanding of the world around us is based on this theory. And yet it is still profoundly mysterious.

Apollo is the behind-the-scenes story of an epic achievement. Based on exhaustive research that included many exclusive interviews, Apollo tells how America went from a standing start to a landing on the moon at a speed that now seems impossible. It describes the unprecedented engineering challenges that had to be overcome to create the mammoth Saturn V and the facilities to launch it. It takes you into the tragedy of the fire on Apollo 1, the first descent to the lunar surface, and the rescue of Apollo 13.

What is it really like to be a brain surgeon, to hold someone's life in your hands, to drill down into the stuff that creates thought, feeling and reason? In this brutally honest account, one of the country's top neurosurgeons reveals what it is to play god in life-and-death situations. Henry Marsh gives us a rare insight into the intense drama of the operating theatre and the exquisite complexity of the human brain.

Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on the Higgs boson and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions. Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void?

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson’s quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. His challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us and see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. It's not so much about what we know, as about how we know what we know.