How the Universe Got Its Spots

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Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 069123227X
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis How the Universe Got Its Spots by : Janna Levin

Download or read book How the Universe Got Its Spots written by Janna Levin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mixing memoir and visionary science, a leading astrophysicist’s groundbreaking personal account of her life and ideas Is the universe infinite or just really big? With this question, cosmologist Janna Levin announces the central theme of this book, which established her as one of the most direct, unorthodox, and creative voices in contemporary science. As Levin sets out to determine how big “really big” may be, she offers a rare intimate look at the daily life of an innovative physicist, complete with jet lag and the tensions between personal relationships and the extreme demands of scientific exploration. Nimbly explaining geometry, topology, chaos, and string theory, Levin shows how the pattern of hot and cold spots left over from the big bang may one day reveal the size of the cosmos. The result is a thrilling story of cosmology by one of its leading thinkers.

Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space

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Author :
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0307958205
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (79 download)

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Book Synopsis Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space by : Janna Levin

Download or read book Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space written by Janna Levin and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authoritative story of the headline-making discovery of gravitational waves—by an eminent theoretical astrophysicist and award-winning writer. From the author of How the Universe Got Its Spots and A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, the epic story of the scientific campaign to record the soundtrack of our universe. Black holes are dark. That is their essence. When black holes collide, they will do so unilluminated. Yet the black hole collision is an event more powerful than any since the origin of the universe. The profusion of energy will emanate as waves in the shape of spacetime: gravitational waves. No telescope will ever record the event; instead, the only evidence would be the sound of spacetime ringing. In 1916, Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, his top priority after he proposed his theory of curved spacetime. One century later, we are recording the first sounds from space, the soundtrack to accompany astronomy’s silent movie. In Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space, Janna Levin recounts the fascinating story of the obsessions, the aspirations, and the trials of the scientists who embarked on an arduous, fifty-year endeavor to capture these elusive waves. An experimental ambition that began as an amusing thought experiment, a mad idea, became the object of fixation for the original architects—Rai Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Ron Drever. Striving to make the ambition a reality, the original three gradually accumulated an international team of hundreds. As this book was written, two massive instruments of remarkably delicate sensitivity were brought to advanced capability. As the book draws to a close, five decades after the experimental ambition began, the team races to intercept a wisp of a sound with two colossal machines, hoping to succeed in time for the centenary of Einstein’s most radical idea. Janna Levin’s absorbing account of the surprises, disappointments, achievements, and risks in this unfolding story offers a portrait of modern science that is unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Black Hole Survival Guide

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Author :
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 1984899791
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (848 download)

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Book Synopsis Black Hole Survival Guide by : Janna Levin

Download or read book Black Hole Survival Guide written by Janna Levin and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space—an authoritative and accessible guide to the most alluring and challenging phenomena of contemporary science. "[Levin will] take you on a safe black hole trip, an exciting travel story enjoyed from your chair’s event horizon.” —Boston Globe Through her writing, astrophysicist Janna Levin has focused on making the science she studies not just comprehensible but also, and perhaps more important, intriguing to the nonscientist. In this book, she helps us to understand and find delight in the black hole—perhaps the most opaque theoretical construct ever imagined by physicists—illustrated with original artwork by American painter and photographer Lia Halloran. 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 read from first to last.

A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines

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Author :
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0307538036
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (75 download)

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Book Synopsis A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines by : Janna Levin

Download or read book A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines written by Janna Levin and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2009-02-19 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kurt Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems sent shivers through Vienna’s intellectual circles and directly challenged Ludwig Wittgenstein’s dominant philosophy. Alan Turing’s mathematical genius helped him break the Nazi Enigma Code during WWII. Though they never met, their lives strangely mirrored one another—both were brilliant, and both met with tragic ends. Here, a mysterious narrator intertwines these parallel lives into a double helix of genius and anguish, wonderfully capturing not only two radiant, fragile minds but also the zeitgeist of the era.

Probable Impossibilities

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Author :
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0593081323
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Probable Impossibilities by : Alan Lightman

Download or read book Probable Impossibilities written by Alan Lightman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed author of Einstein’s Dreams tackles "big questions like the origin of the universe and the nature of consciousness ... in an entertaining and easily digestible way” (Wall Street Journal) with a collection of meditative essays on the possibilities—and impossibilities—of nothingness and infinity, and how our place in the cosmos falls somewhere in between. Can space be divided into smaller and smaller units, ad infinitum? Does space extend to larger and larger regions, on and on to infinity? Is consciousness reducible to the material brain and its neurons? What was the origin of life, and can biologists create life from scratch in the lab? Physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, whom The Washington Post has called “the poet laureate of science writers,” explores these questions and more—from the anatomy of a smile to the capriciousness of memory to the specialness of life in the universe to what came before the Big Bang. Probable Impossibilities is a deeply engaged consideration of what we know of the universe, of life and the mind, and of things vastly larger and smaller than ourselves.

How the Leopard Changed Its Spots

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691217807
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis How the Leopard Changed Its Spots by : Brian Goodwin

Download or read book How the Leopard Changed Its Spots written by Brian Goodwin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do genes explain life? Can advances in evolutionary and molecular biology account for what we look like, how we behave, and why we die? In this powerful intervention into current biological thinking, Brian Goodwin argues that such genetic reductionism has important limits. Drawing on the sciences of complexity, the author shows how an understanding of the self-organizing patterns of networks is necessary for making sense of nature. Genes are important, but only as part of a process constrained by environment, physical laws, and the universal tendencies of complex adaptive systems. In a new preface for this edition, Goodwin reflects on the advances in both genetics and the sciences of complexity since the book's original publication.

Many Worlds in One

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Publisher : Hill and Wang
ISBN 13 : 9780374707149
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Many Worlds in One by : Alex Vilenkin

Download or read book Many Worlds in One written by Alex Vilenkin and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2007-07-10 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Leading Figure in the Development of the New Cosmology Explains What It All Means Among his peers, Alex Vilenkin is regarded as one of the most imaginative and creative cosmologists of our time. His contributions to our current understanding of the universe include a number of novel ideas, two of which—eternal cosmic inflation and the quantum creation of the universe from nothing—have provided a scientific foundation for the possible existence of multiple universes. With this book—his first for the general reader—Vilenkin joins another select group: the handful of first-rank scientists who are equally adept at explaining their work to nonspecialists. With engaging, well-paced storytelling, a droll sense of humor, and a generous sprinkling of helpful cartoons, he conjures up a bizarre and fascinating new worldview that—to paraphrase Niels Bohr—just might be crazy enough to be true.

Magnificent Universe

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0684845946
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (848 download)

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Book Synopsis Magnificent Universe by : Ken Croswell

Download or read book Magnificent Universe written by Ken Croswell and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1999-10-12 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty years after Isaac Asimov praised Timothy Ferris's GALAXIES as the most beautiful book ever published, MAGNIFICENT UNIVERSE establishes a new standard of excellence in depicting space. No other book even comes close. Ken Croswell takes us across the known universe - from the planets of the Sun to the stars of the Galaxy to the galaxies of the Cosmos. This is, simply, the most beautiful astronomy book in existance. The exploration of space by telescope and space probe continues at an exhilarating pace. While many think that only the Hubble telescope has new photographs of the heavens to offer, MAGNIFICENT UNIVERSE draws not only on Hubble but on fifty different sources. With the latest, stunning astronomical vistas, this lavish book allows us to experience the universe as never before.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Enhanced Edition)

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Author :
Publisher : Knopf
ISBN 13 : 0307379884
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Enhanced Edition) by : Charles Yu

Download or read book How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Enhanced Edition) written by Charles Yu and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2010-09-07 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This enhanced eBook includes video, audio, photographic, and linked content, as well as a bonus short story. Hear TAMMY talk. Learn the origins of Minor Universe 31. See the TM-31. Take a trip in it. Photos and illustrations appear as hyperlinked endnotes. Video and audio are embedded directly in text. *Video and audio may not play on all readers. Check your user manual for details. National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award winner Charles Yu delivers his debut novel, a razor-sharp, ridiculously funny, and utterly touching story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space–time. Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician—part counselor, part gadget repair man—steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he’s the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him—in fact it may even save his life. Wildly new and adventurous, Yu’s debut is certain to send shock waves of wonder through literary space–time.

Explaining the Universe

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Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691187002
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Explaining the Universe by : John M. Charap

Download or read book Explaining the Universe written by John M. Charap and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating book, John Charap offers a panoramic view of the physicist's world as the twenty-first century opens--a view that is entirely different from the one that greeted the twentieth century. We have learned that the universe is billions of galaxies larger than we imagined--and billions of years older. We know more about how it came to be and what it is. Because of physics, we live in a world of greater danger and more convenience, smaller particles and bigger ideas. Charap introduces these ideas but spares us the math behind them. After a review of the twentieth century's thorough transformation of physics, he checks in on the latest findings from particle physics, astrophysics, chaos theory, and cosmology. His tour includes ongoing efforts to find the universe's missing matter and to account for the first moments after the big bang. Taking readers right to the field's speculative edge, he explains how superstring theory may finally unite quantum mechanics with general relativity to produce a consistent quantum theory of gravity. Along the way, Charap poses the questions that continue to inspire research. Why is the universe flat? Why can't we forecast weather better? Can Schrodinger's cat really be simultaneously dead and alive? Why does fractal geometry keep showing up in strange places? Might spacetime have eleven dimensions? What does quantum mechanics mean about the nature of our world? In this book's pages, the nonphysicist will accept as commonsensical Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and physicists can meet across specialties. Students can access physics' critical concepts, and poets can learn a new language to describe the universe's many wonders. Taking us from the ultraviolet catastrophe that undid the Newtonian world to tomorrow's Theory of Everything, Charap brings today's most fascinating science down to Earth, where we can all enjoy it.

The Perfect Theory

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Author :
Publisher : HMH
ISBN 13 : 0547554907
Total Pages : 309 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (475 download)

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Book Synopsis The Perfect Theory by : Pedro G. Ferreira

Download or read book The Perfect Theory written by Pedro G. Ferreira and published by HMH. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One of the best popular accounts of how Einstein and his followers have been trying to explain the universe for decades” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Physicists have been exploring, debating, and questioning the general theory of relativity ever since Albert Einstein first presented it in 1915. This has driven their work to unveil the universe’s surprising secrets even further, and many believe more wonders remain hidden within the theory’s tangle of equations, waiting to be exposed. In this sweeping narrative of science and culture, an astrophysicist brings general relativity to life through the story of the brilliant physicists, mathematicians, and astronomers who have taken up its challenge. For these scientists, the theory has been both a treasure trove and an enigma. Einstein’s theory, which explains the relationships among gravity, space, and time, is possibly the most perfect intellectual achievement of modern physics—yet studying it has always been a controversial endeavor. Relativists were the target of persecution in Hitler’s Germany, hounded in Stalin’s Russia, and disdained in 1950s America. Even today, PhD students are warned that specializing in general relativity will make them unemployable. Still, general relativity has flourished, delivering key insights into our understanding of the origin of time and the evolution of all the stars and galaxies in the cosmos. Its adherents have revealed what lies at the farthest reaches of the universe, shed light on the smallest scales of existence, and explained how the fabric of reality emerges. Dark matter, dark energy, black holes, and string theory are all progeny of Einstein’s theory. In the midst of a momentous transformation in modern physics, as scientists look farther and more clearly into space than ever before, The Perfect Theory exposes the greater relevance of general relativity, showing us where it started, where it has led—and where it can still take us.

Turning the World Inside Out and 174 Other Simple Physics Demonstrations

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Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780691023953
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (239 download)

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Book Synopsis Turning the World Inside Out and 174 Other Simple Physics Demonstrations by : Robert Ehrlich

Download or read book Turning the World Inside Out and 174 Other Simple Physics Demonstrations written by Robert Ehrlich and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1990-02-07 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PRESENTS A COLLECTION OF PHYSICS DEMONSTRATIONS THAT ILLUSTRATE KEY CONCEPTS USING EASILY ACCESSIBLE MATERIALS, WITH INFORMATION PROVIDING A THEORETICAL BACKGROUND FOR EACH DEMONSTRATION.

We Have No Idea

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0735211523
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (352 download)

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Book Synopsis We Have No Idea by : Jorge Cham

Download or read book We Have No Idea written by Jorge Cham and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prepare to learn everything we still don’t know about our strange and mysterious universe Humanity's understanding of the physical world is full of gaps. Not tiny little gaps you can safely ignore —there are huge yawning voids in our basic notions of how the world works. PHD Comics creator Jorge Cham and particle physicist Daniel Whiteson have teamed up to explore everything we don't know about the universe: the enormous holes in our knowledge of the cosmos. Armed with their popular infographics, cartoons, and unusually entertaining and lucid explanations of science, they give us the best answers currently available for a lot of questions that are still perplexing scientists, including: * Why does the universe have a speed limit? * Why aren't we all made of antimatter? * What (or who) is attacking Earth with tiny, superfast particles? * What is dark matter, and why does it keep ignoring us? It turns out the universe is full of weird things that don't make any sense. But Cham and Whiteson make a compelling case that the questions we can't answer are as interesting as the ones we can. This fully illustrated introduction to the biggest mysteries in physics also helpfully demystifies many complicated things we do know about, from quarks and neutrinos to gravitational waves and exploding black holes. With equal doses of humor and delight, Cham and Whiteson invite us to see the universe as a possibly boundless expanse of uncharted territory that's still ours to explore.

Cosmology’s Century

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691234477
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Cosmology’s Century by : P. J. E. Peebles

Download or read book Cosmology’s Century written by P. J. E. Peebles and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Nobel Prize–winning physicist P. J. E. Peebles, the story of cosmology from Einstein to today Modern cosmology began a century ago with Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity and his notion of a homogenous, philosophically satisfying cosmos. Cosmology's Century is the story of how generations of scientists built on these thoughts and many new measurements to arrive at a well-tested physical theory of the structure and evolution of our expanding universe. In this landmark book, one of the world's most esteemed theoretical cosmologists offers an unparalleled personal perspective on how the field developed. P. J. E. Peebles was at the forefront of many of the greatest discoveries of the past century, making fundamental contributions to our understanding of the presence of helium and microwave radiation from the hot big bang, the measures of the distribution and motion of ordinary matter, and the new kind of dark matter that allows us to make sense of these results. Taking readers from the field's beginnings, Peebles describes how scientists working in independent directions found themselves converging on a theory of cosmic evolution interesting enough to warrant the rigorous testing it passes so well. He explores the major advances—some inspired by remarkable insights or perhaps just lucky guesses—as well as the wrong turns taken and the roads not explored. He shares recollections from major players in this story and provides a rare, inside look at how science is really done. A monumental work, Cosmology's Century also emphasizes where the present theory is incomplete, suggesting exciting directions for continuing research.

The Mystery of the Missing Antimatter

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400835712
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mystery of the Missing Antimatter by : Helen R. Quinn

Download or read book The Mystery of the Missing Antimatter written by Helen R. Quinn and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang lingers a question at the heart of our very existence: why does the universe contain matter but almost no antimatter? The laws of physics tell us that equal amounts of matter and antimatter were produced in the early universe—but then something odd happened. Matter won out over antimatter; had it not, the universe today would be dark and barren. But how and when did this occur? In The Mystery of the Missing Antimatter, Helen Quinn and Yossi Nir guide readers into the very heart of this mystery—and along the way offer an exhilarating grand tour of cutting-edge physics.

Blindsight

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Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1429955198
Total Pages : 388 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

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Book Synopsis Blindsight by : Peter Watts

Download or read book Blindsight written by Peter Watts and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2006-10-03 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hugo and Shirley Jackson award-winning Peter Watts stands on the cutting edge of hard SF with his acclaimed novel, Blindsight Two months since the stars fell... Two months of silence, while a world held its breath. Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever's out there isn't talking to us. It's talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route. So who do you send to force introductions with unknown and unknowable alien intellect that doesn't wish to be met? You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there. Pray they can be trusted with the fate of a world. They may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Inside Relativity

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780691025209
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (252 download)

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Book Synopsis Inside Relativity by : Delo E. Mook

Download or read book Inside Relativity written by Delo E. Mook and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here a physicist and a professor of literature guide general readers through the ideas that revolutionized our conception of the physical universe.