An exploration of the terrifying threats to our world that fill today's headlines: from global warming epidemic to the threat of nuclear weapons and the risk posed by the leading edge devices like the Large Hadron Collider. Armageddon Science by Brian Clegg is everything you want to know about potential manmade disaster. Climate change. Nuclear devastation. Bio-hazards. The Large Hadron Collider. What do these things have in common? They all have...

"Whenever the people are well informed," Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, "they can be trusted with their own government." But what happens when they are not? The United States provide a good illustration: Politicians pass resolutions denying global warming's existence, that astrology can control the weather, and, in some states, even forbid using the words "Climate Change." In every aspect of our society -- from transport to technology, health care...

"Set in a fictional prairie town in which the two overarching industries are a living history facility and a laboratory for experiments in high-energy particle physics, [this book] tells the intertwined stories of two families." -- Abhijat is a theoretical physicist from India, working at the National Accelerator Research Laboratory in Illinois. His wife, Sarala, home with their daughter, Meena, struggles to assimilate to their new American culture....

"The birth of a world-changing idea, relativity, and how it was shaped by the social upheaval and bloody horror of the First World War"--

"Airships and electric submarines, automatons and mesmerists -- welcome to the wild world of steampunk. It is all speculative -- or is it? Meet the intrepid souls who pushed Victorian technology to its limits and paved the way for our present age ... In the mesmerizing Clockwork Futures, Brandy Schillace reveals the science behind steampunk, which is every bit as extraordinary as what we might find in the work of Jules Verne, and sometimes, just as...

A landmark tour of the new science of "idea flow" outlines revolutionary insights into the mysteries of collective intelligence and social influence, explaining the virtually unlimited data sets of today's digital technologies and the considerable accuracy of information from social networks.

"At the core of Einstein's general theory of relativity are a set of equations that explain the relationship among gravity, space, and time--possibly the most perfect intellectual achievement of modern physics. For over a century, physicists have been exploring, debating, and at times neglecting Einstein's theory in their quest to uncover the history of the universe, the origin of time, and the evolution of solar systems, stars, and galaxies. In this...

"Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes -- good and bad -- are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees argues that humanity's prospects depend on our taking...

"From Galileo and Newton to Thomas Hobbes and Martin Luther King, Jr., thinkers throughout history have consciously employed scientific techniques to better understand the non-physical world. The Age of Reason and the Enlightenment led theorists to apply scientific reasoning to the non-scientific disciplines of politics, economics, and moral philosophy. Instead of relying on the woodcuts of dissected bodies in old medical texts, physicians opened...