Showing results by narrator "Daniel Nathan Wallace" in All Categories

This book tells the story of that argument and of the man who found it. Anselm of Canterbury was a runaway son from the Alps who became the most beloved teacher of his age, a monk dragged weeping to an archbishopric he did not want, an exile who stood against two kings of England, and the...

What if nobody has to win the argument about how society should be organized? In the nineteenth century, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon shocked the world by declaring that property is theft—and then, rather cheerfully, proposed that people could get along just fine without governments telling them what to do. He was mocked, attacked, imprisoned, and largely misunderstood. He also happened to be onto something.

Why is the fine-structure constant approximately one over one hundred and thirty-seven? Why is the proton exactly 1836 times heavier than the electron? Why is gravity so absurdly weak compared to the other forces? For more than a century, physicists have measured the fundamental constants of nature with exquisite precision—yet no one can explain why they have the values they do. Three answers have been proposed. The constants are brute accidents with no deeper explanation. They will one day be derived from a final theory.

In an era dominated by digital technology, we have long assumed that our devices—smartphones, computers, and networks—operate on the solid ground of classical physics. Yet the truth is far more profound: modern microelectronics has always rested on quantum foundations. Boris Kriger reveals how quantum mechanics quietly shaped the transistor from its inception, how effects like tunneling, interference, and decoherence were not later intrusions but essential enablers of function.