Engineering Physics

Janna Levin takes us on an evocative exploration of black holes, provoking us to imagine the visceral experience of a black hole encounter. She reveals the influence of black holes as they populate the universe, sculpt galaxies, and even infuse the whole expanse of reality that we inhabit. Lively, engaging, and utterly unique, Black Hole Survival Guide is not just informative - it is, as well, a wonderful listen from first to last.

How many people achieve a cult following because of their writing in mathematics? Only a handful, and Martin Gardner is among the most well-known and well-loved. Not only did he present a notoriously difficult subject in an engaging and accessible way, but in doing so, he attracted an incredibly broad readership. His “Mathematical Games” column in Scientific American ran nearly every month for 26 years and was one of the most popular in the magazine’s history.

Our intuition about how things should behave is usually right in the everyday world. We see the baseball soar in the air, arc, drop, and lie stationary on the ground. Through data gathered by our senses and basic knowledge of the laws of classical mechanics, the motion of a ball makes perfect sense. But enter the world of the tiniest particles on earth—the motion of electrons, the shapes of molecules—and everything we think we know about the world radically changes.

In these brilliant essays, Lightman explores the emotional life of science, the power of imagination, the creative moment, and the alternate ways in which scientists and humanists think about the world. Along the way, he provides in-depth portraits of some of the great geniuses of our time, including Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Edward Teller, and astronomer Vera Rubin. Thoughtful, beautifully written, and wonderfully original, A Sense of the Mysterious confirms Alan Lightman's unique position at the crossroads of science and art.

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.

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But what about relativity? Physics professor Chad Orzel and his inquisitive canine companion, Emmy, tackle the concepts of general relativity in this irresistible introduction to Einstein's physics. Through armchair- and sometimes passenger-seat-conversations with Emmy about the relative speeds of dog and cat motion or the logistics of squirrel-chasing, Orzel translates complex Einsteinian ideas into examples simple enough for a dog to understand.

Throughout history, arguments for and against the existence of God have been largely confined to philosophy and theology, while science has sat on the sidelines. Despite the fact that science has revolutionized every aspect of human life and greatly clarified our understanding of the world, somehow the notion has arisen that it has nothing to say about the possibility of a supreme being, which much of humanity worships as the source of all reality.

No time to listen? Get the main key insights from Summary of David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity in 23 minutes or less.

The story begins on a windswept beach in Barbados, from where we follow the ascent of a weather balloon that will travel along the jet stream all around the world. From this viewpoint we observe the effect of the jet in influencing human life around the hemisphere, and witness startling changes emerging. What is the jet stream and how well do we understand it? How does it affect our weather and is it changing? These are the main questions tackled in this book.

This 10-part history of mathematics reveals the personalities behind the calculations: the passions and rivalries of mathematicians struggling to get their ideas heard. Professor Marcus du Sautoy shows how these masters of abstraction find a role in the real world and proves that mathematics is the driving force behind modern science.

Einstein and the Quantum reveals for the first time the full significance of Albert Einstein's contributions to quantum theory. Einstein famously rejected quantum mechanics, observing that God does not play dice. But, in fact, he thought more about the nature of atoms, molecules, and the emission and absorption of light - the core of what we now know as quantum theory - than he did about relativity.

Quantum Psychology holistically approaches challenges and basic conceptions about the way reality reveals itself that we take for granted, re-thinking them from a new prism. It questions the very same foundations of our existence and what "being" truly encompasses. This is a journey to interpret our reality and your role in its unfolding as never imagined before. You might love it or disagree with it, but you will not be left indifferent.

The question of how falling cats land on their feet has intrigued humans since at least the middle of the 19th century. In this playful and eye-opening history, physicist, and cat parent Gregory Gbur explores how attempts to understand the cat-righting reflex have provided crucial insights into puzzles in mathematics, geophysics, neuroscience, and human space exploration....

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.

We all know about magnetism right? But hold the phone! Where does this force come from in the first place? Did magnetism play a role in the creation of the universe? Why is this force important in everything from atomic structure to the way solar flares form?

A unique blend of literary experimentation and science popularization, this delightful book is a perfect gift for any aspiring astronomer. The Edge of the Sky tells the story of the universe on a human scale, and the result is out of this world.

As you read this, billions of neutrinos from the sun are passing through your body, antimatter is sprouting from your dinner and the core of your being is a chaotic mess of particles known only as quarks and gluons. If the recent discovery of the Higgs boson piqued your interest, then Why the Universe Exists will take you deeper into the world of particle physics, with leading physicists and New Scientist exploring how the universe functions at the smallest scales.

Roberts' model, called quantum space theory, has been praised for how it offers an intuitively accessible picture of 11 dimensions and for powerfully extending the insight of general relativity, eloquently translating the four forces into unique kinds of geometric distortions while offering us access to the underlying deterministic dynamics that give rise to quantum mechanics. That remarkably simple picture explains the mysteries of modern physics in a way that's fully commensurate with Einstein's Intuition.

E=mc2: It may be Einstein’s most well-known contribution to modern science, but how many people understand the thought process or physics behind this famous equation? In this collection of his seven most important essays on physics, Einstein guides the listener step-by-step through the many layers of scientific theory that formed a starting point for his discoveries.

Since 2001, James Kakalios has taught "Everything I Needed to Know About Physics I Learned from Reading Comic Books", a hugely popular university course that generated coast-to-coast media attention for its unique method of explaining complex physics concepts through comics. With The Physics of Superheroes, named one of the best science books of 2005 by Discover, he introduced his colorful approach to an even wider audience. Now Kakalios presents a totally updated, expanded edition that features even more superheroes and findings from the cutting edge of science.