Showing titles in History & Philosophy

Taking us on an incredible journey across centuries and galaxies, accompanied by his characteristic wit, Professor Luke O’Neill explains how it all began, how it will all end and everything in between. Listeners will benefit from Luke’s insatiable curiosity for life when they dive into this ultimate journey through life and death. Among other fascinating facts, you’ll discover the science behind how we got to be so smart, why sex with a caveman was a good idea, the science of finding love, why we follow religions and how robots will become part of everyday life.

The Los Angeles Times headline screamed: Rocket Scientist Killed in Pasadena Explosion. The man known as Jack Parsons, a maverick rocketeer who helped transform a derided sci-fi plotline into actuality, was at first mourned as a scientific prodigy. But reporters soon uncovered a more shocking story: Parsons had been a devotee of the city’s occult scene.

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Elephant's on Acid comes a collection of the wackiest theories from science and history. What if we’re living inside a black hole? What if we’ve already found extraterrestrial life? What if the dinosaurs died in a nuclear war? What if Jesus Christ...

The world is shaped by complexity. In this enlightening book, Nobel Prize winner Giorgio Parisi guides us through his unorthodox yet exhilarating work to show us how. It all starts with investigating the principles of physics by observing the sophisticated flight patterns of starlings. Studying the movements of these birds, he has realized, proves an illuminating way into understanding complex systems of all kinds - collections of everything from atoms to planets to other animals like ourselves.

Atomic weaponry is widely understood as a story of American scientific achievement—but scientists working in Britain played a vital role in its development. Including Nobel Prize winners and Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, these scientists have long since been forgotten. But without their expertise, Robert Oppenheimer's research at Los Alamos would never have succeeded. Gareth Williams unearths the true story of the top-secret British atomic program, codenamed "Tube Alloys," established in 1940.

Bloomsbury presents Breaking the Chains of Gravity written and read by Amy Shira Teitel. The incredible story of spaceflight before the establishment of NASA. NASA’s history is a familiar story, one that typically peaks with Neil Armstrong taking his small step on the Moon in 1969. But...

Ambassadors from Earth relates the story of the first unmanned space probes and planetary explorers - from the Sputnik and Explorer satellites launched in the late 1950's to the thrilling interstellar Voyager missions of the '70's - that yielded some of the most celebrated successes and spectacular failures of the space age. Jay Gallentine delivers a quirky and unforgettable look at the lives and legacy of the Americans and Soviets who conceived, built, and guided those unmanned missions to the planets and beyond.

The search to find medicines is as old as disease, which is to say as old as the human race. Through serendipity - by chewing, brewing, and snorting - some Neolithic souls discovered opium, alcohol, snakeroot, juniper, frankincense, and other helpful substances. Ötzi the Iceman, the 5,000-year-old hunter frozen in the Italian Alps, was found to have whipworms in his intestines and Bronze Age medicine, a worm-killing birch fungus, knotted to his leggings.

Throughout history, thinkers from mathematicians to theologians have pondered the mysterious relationship between numbers and the nature of reality. In this fascinating book, Mario Livio tells the tale of a number at the heart of that mystery: phi, or 1.6180339887.... This curious mathematical relationship, widely known as "The Golden Ratio", was discovered by Euclid more than 2,000 years ago. Since then it has shown a propensity to appear in the most astonishing variety of places.

Griffins, cyclopes, monsters, and giants - these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? Through careful research and meticulous documentation, Adrienne Mayor convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact - in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans.

Brought to you by Penguin. Embark on a captivating journey beyond Earth, from the dawn of human space exploration, through the untold story of the Mercury and Gemini missions When we think of the history of space exploration, we can’t help but think of the Apollo missions and Neil...

In this unscripted recording, renowned astrophysicist Dr. Richard Berendzen takes you on a journey through space and time that is captivating from the moment he begins to speak. Enjoy the best of both worlds: an expert's knowledge in a user-friendly format!

In this technology-driven age, it's tempting to believe that science can solve every mystery. After all, science has cured countless diseases and even sent humans into space. But as Jonah Lehrer argues in this sparkling debut, science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact, when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first.

This revised edition of Human Nature begins a new phase in the most important intellectual controversy of this generation: Is human behavior controlled by the species' biological heritage? Does this heritage limit human destiny?

With characteristic pungency and simplicity of style, the author of Sociobiology challenges old prejudices and current misconceptions about the nature-nurture debate.

Drawing on 40 years of research and a treasure trove of new information, Tesla: Wizard at War provides a comprehensive view of Tesla's discoveries, which continue to influence today's military technology and diplomatic strategies. One of the world's leading Tesla experts, Marc J. Seifer, offers new insight into the brilliant scientist's particle beam weapon (aka the "Death Ray") and explores his military negotiations with pivotal historical figures - including his links to Joseph Stalin, Vannevar Bush, General Andrew McNaughton, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 

For the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion, Sam Harris’s latest New York Times bestseller is a guide to meditation as a rational practice informed by neuroscience and psychology. From Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author of numerous New York Times bestselling books...

More than 50 years ago, John Coltrane drew the 12 musical notes in a circle and connected them with straight lines, forming a five-pointed star. Inspired by Einstein, Coltrane had put physics and geometry at the core of his music. Physicist and jazz musician Stephon Alexander returns the favor, using jazz to answer physics' most vexing questions about the past and future of the universe.

What is time, really—and why does it seem to flow? In this short essay, Stephen Wolfram explores time not as a coordinate or backdrop but as something generated by the ongoing computation of the universe itself. Drawing on ideas from his Physics Project, he explains how the passage of time—our experience of one moment giving way to the next—arises from the limits of what observers like us can compute. We can't see the future all at once; we have to compute it step by step.

Tomasello assembles nearly three decades of experimental work with chimpanzees, bonobos, and human children to propose a new framework for psychological growth between birth and seven years of age. Becoming Human places human sociocultural activity within the framework of modern evolutionary theory and shows how biology creates the conditions under which culture does its work.

Blood carries life, yet the sight of it makes people faint. It is a life-saver, and can transmit deadly infections. It is medicine, and a commodity dearer than oil. Each of us has nine to 12 pints of it, yet many don’t know their own blood type. For all its ubiqutousness, menstruation is perhaps the single most demonized biological event. In Nine Pints, Rose George takes us from ancient practices of bloodletting to a cutting-edge trauma ward.