Showing titles in Physics

The Idea of the World offers a grounded alternative to the frenzy of unrestrained abstractions and unexamined assumptions in philosophy and science today. This book examines what can be learned about the nature of reality based on conceptual parsimony, straightforward logic, and empirical evidence from fields as diverse as physics and neuroscience. It compiles an overarching case for idealism - the notion that reality is essentially mental - from 10 original articles the author has previously published in leading academic journals. 

In This Explains Everything, John Brockman, founder and publisher of Edge.org, asked experts in numerous fields and disciplines to come up with their favorite explanations for everyday occurrences. Why do we recognize patterns? Is there such a thing as positive stress? Are we genetically programmed to be in conflict with each other? Those are just some of the 150 questions that the world's best scientific minds answer with elegant simplicity.

We all know that without water we couldn't survive, and that sometimes a cup of coffee or a glass of wine feels just as vital. But do we really understand how much we rely on liquids, or the destructive power they hold? Set over the course of a flight from London to San Francisco, Liquid Rules offers listeners a fascinating tour of these formless substances, told through the language of molecules, droplets, heartbeats, and ocean waves.

Is time an illusion? Is time travel possible? Could time end? In this audiobook, A Question of Time, we take an interdisciplinary look at the fourth dimension, exploring the latest thinking on the nature of time and the ways it dominates our physical and mental worlds.

For decades after the structure of DNA was identified, scientists focused purely on genes, the regions of the genome that contain codes for the production of proteins. Other regions - 98 percent of the human genome - were dismissed as ‘junk’. But in recent years researchers have discovered that variations in this ‘junk’ DNA underlie many previously intractable diseases, and they can now generate new approaches to tackling them. 

First proposed more than 200 years ago, Schopenhauer's extraordinarily prescient metaphysics - if understood along the lines thoroughly elucidated and substantiated in this volume - offer powerful answers not only to the paradoxes of quantum mechanics, but also to modern philosophical dilemmas such as the hard problem of consciousness - which plagues mainstream physicalism - and the subject combination problem - which plagues constitutive panpsychism 

No subject is bigger than reality itself, and nothing is more challenging to understand, since what counts as reality is undergoing continual revision and has been for centuries. The quest to pin down what's real and what's illusory is both philosophical and scientific, a metaphysical search for ultimate reality that goes back to the ancient Greeks. For the last 400 years, this search has been increasingly guided by scientists, who create theories and test them in order to define and redefine reality.

How would Saturn’s rings look from a spaceship sailing just above them? If you were falling into a black hole, what’s the last thing you’d see before your spaghettification? What would it be like to visit the faraway places we currently experience only through high-powered telescopes and robotic emissaries? Faster-than-light travel may never be invented, but we can still take the scenic route through the universe with renowned astronomer and science communicator Philip Plait.

Delve into the mesmerizing realm of Einstein's groundbreaking theory of Relativity, articulated by the genius himself. Both the Special and General facets of relativity unveil the intricate fabric of spacetime and proffer a sophisticated theory of gravitation. These pioneering theories, with their avant-garde implications, jolted the scientific community, leading to the radical dissolution of the concept of absolute time. In this tome, Einstein endeavors to distill his profound comprehension of this vast subject into an accessible format for the intellectually curious, yet non-mathematical ...

Science and technology are, without a doubt, two forces that will change the way you live your life in the coming months, years, and decades. And in recent decades, these forces have evolved and developed at a lightning-fast pace. Explore the many possibilities of what your future may look like with these 24 lectures: a scientifically accurate and enlightening survey of today's most advanced research in fields such as engineering, biology, chemistry, and theoretical physics.

Have you ever wondered why ice floats and water is such a freaky liquid? Or why chilis and mustard are both hot but in different ways? Or why microwaves don't cook from the inside out? In this fascinating scientific tour of household objects, The One Show presenter and all-round science bloke Marty Jopson has the answer to all of these and many more baffling questions about the chemistry and physics of the everyday stuff we use every day.

These are the extraordinary realities of the NHS frontline. From the historic junior doctor strikes to the 'humanitarian crisis' declared by the Red Cross, the overstretched health service is on the precipice. This is a powerful polemic on its systematic degradation, and a letter of optimism to that same health service and those who support it. It captures with tenderness, a new doctor's experiences of an NHS at breaking point.

‘If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.’ - Carl Sagan Inspired by Sagan’s famous line, How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch is a brilliantly accessible introduction to today’s physics by academic and educator Harry Cliff. ‘A fascinating...

Einstein's theory of gravity, as beautiful as it is, seems to be in direct contradiction with another theory he helped create: quantum mechanics. From the explosions of neutron stars and the collisions of black holes to the modern scientific process as a means to seek truth and understanding in the cosmos, this audiobook takes the listener on a journey of learning and discovery that has been 100 years in the making.

How would you like to experience your life? It's an intriguing question, and yet we've been conditioned to believe our life visions and goals are often unattainable - until now. With The Possibility Principle, psychotherapist Mel Schwartz offers a revolutionary approach to living the life we choose. Though science has vastly expanded our knowledge, it has also led us to adopt a worldview where we see ourselves as insignificant specks living in a mechanical universe.

Brian Cox and Robin Ince present a witty, irreverent look at the world according to science. The Infinite Monkey Cage has become one of BBC Radio 4’s most popular science-based programmes. In each episode physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince delve into a particular field of science...

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.

The cells in our bodies consist of molecules, made up of the same carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms found in air and rocks. But molecules, such as water and sugar, are not alive. So how do our cells - assemblies of otherwise "dead" molecules - come to life, and together constitute a living being? In Life’s Ratchet, physicist Peter M. Hoffmann locates the answer to this age-old question at the nanoscale.

Light of the Stars is science at the grandest of scales, and it tells a radically new story about what we are: one world in a universe awash in planets. Building on his widely discussed scientific papers and New York Times op-eds, astrophysicist Adam Frank shows that not only is it likely that alien civilizations have existed many times before, but also that many of them have driven their own worlds into dangerous eras of change.

By the star physicist and author of multiple #1 Sunday Times bestsellers, a major and definitive narrative work on black holes and how they can help us understand the universe. At the heart of our galaxy lies a monster so deadly it can bend space, throwing vast jets of radiation millions of...