Engineering Physics

In this Very Short Introduction, William Lowrie describes the internal and external processes that affect the planet, as well as the principles and methods of geophysics used to investigate them. From analyses of Earth's deepest interior to measurements made from Earth-orbiting satellites, Lowrie shows how geophysical exploration is vitally important in the search for mineral resources and emphasizes our need to understand the history of our planet and the processes that govern its continuing evolution.

Black holes are the most extreme objects in the universe, and yet they are ubiquitous. Frighteningly enigmatic, these dark giants continue to astound even the scientists who spend their careers studying them. Einstein’s Monsters reveals how our comprehension of black holes is intrinsically linked to how we make sense of the universe and our place within it. From the small questions to the big ones - from the tiniest particles to the nature of space-time itself - black holes might be the key to a deeper understanding of the cosmos.

To his admirers, Luis W. Alvarez was the most accomplished, inventive, and versatile experimental physicist of his generation.

In Zoom, Bob Berman explores how motion shapes every aspect of the universe, literally from the ground up. With an informative and entertaining style and a knack for distilling the wondrous, Berman spans astronomy, geology, biology, meteorology, and the history of science, uncovering how clouds stay aloft, how the earth's rotation curves a home run's flight, and why a mosquito's familiar whine resembles a telephone's dial tone.

How we ultimately gained the American Customary System, the last traditional system in the world, and how Gunter's chain indelibly imprinted its dimensions on the land, on cities, and on our culture from coast to coast is both an exciting human and intellectual drama and one of the great untold stories in American history. Sagely argued and beautifully written, Measuring America offers readers nothing less than the opportunity to see America's history, and our democracy, in a brilliant new light.

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.

Our universe has multiple origin stories, from religious creation myths to the Big Bang of scientists. But if we leave those behind and start from nothing—no matter, no cosmos, not even empty space—could we create a universe using only math? Irreverent and boundlessly creative, The Big Bang of Numbers invites us to try.

Science starts to get interesting when things don't make sense. Science's best-kept secret is that there are experimental results and reliable data that the most brilliant scientists can neither explain nor dismiss. If history is any precedent, we should look to today's inexplicable results to forecast the future of science. Michael Brooks heads to the scientific frontier to meet 13 modern-day anomalies and discover tomorrow's breakthroughs.

Inesperado best seller en Italia, con traducciones a más de veinte idiomas, Siete breves lecciones de física se ha convertido en un éxito bien sencillo de explicar por algo muy difícil de conseguir: con pasión, fluidez y una encomiable voluntad de presentar de un modo diáfano temas complejos, Carlo Rovelli, científico de estirpe humanista, nos propone un breve pero muy completo recorrido por los hitos de la física de los últimos cien años en siete lecciones magistrales.

In this fascinating and illuminating work, Leonard Mlodinow guides us through the critical eras and events in the development of science, all of which, he demonstrates, were propelled forward by humankind's collective struggle to know. From the birth of reasoning and culture to the formation of the studies of physics, chemistry, biology, and modern-day quantum physics, we come to see that much of our progress can be attributed to simple questions - why? how? - bravely asked.

Quantum computing is advancing fast—and when it arrives, today’s encryption may fail. This practical guide by cybersecurity expert Taimur Ijlal helps you understand and prepare for the quantum threat before it hits.

In Infinite Potential, physical chemist Lothar Schäfer presents a stunning view of the universe as interconnected, nonmaterial, composed of a field of infinite potential, and conscious. With his own research as well as that of some of the most distinguished scientists of our time, Schäfer moves us from a reality of Darwinian competition to cooperation, a meaningless universe to a meaningful one, and a disconnected, isolated existence to an interconnected one.

In this 1972 treatise, Isaac Asimov takes the listener on an historic journey through the development of man's understanding of electricity, chemistry, and - ultimately - nuclear energy. Asimov's incomparable ability to simplify the complex is apparent as he guides you through the milestones of scientific thought that connected ideas about electricity and magnetism to the nature of matter, and led to the advances in discovery through the first half of the 20th century that resulted in the harnessing of previously unknown energy directly from the heart of the atom.

The latest developments in physics have the potential to radically revise our understanding of the world: its makeup, its evolution, and the fundamental forces that drive its operation. Knocking on Heaven's Door is an exhilarating and accessible overview of these developments and an impassioned argument for the significance of science. There could be no better guide than Lisa Randall.

Most of us don't actually understand quantum physics, and if we understood it we'd probably be rich and beautiful and happy, right? After all, there are plenty of people out there trying to sell you quantum crystals to align your quantum energy with your quantum destiny. Luckily, as pseudo-science takes over the internet and it's getting harder and harder to separate alternative facts from real science, Chris Ferrie (an actual quantum physicist!) is here to explain quantum physics in a way that makes sense, so you can see the hucksters and bullsh*tters coming from a mile away.

In the late 1940s, a handful of visionaries were working to steer Europe toward a more peaceful future through science, and CERN, the European particle physics laboratory, was duly born. James Gillies tells the gripping story of particle physics, from the original atomists of ancient Greece through the people who made the crucial breakthroughs to CERN itself, one of the most ambitious scientific undertakings of our time, and its eventual confirmation of the Higgs boson.

Think you could be a theoretical physicist, but you need to brush up on your knowledge of relativity first? Want to carry a book on the subway that will make your fellow passengers think you’re totally sophisticated? Great! Then Quantum Physics for Beginners is the book for you.

When leading Princeton physicist Paul Steinhardt began working in the 1980s, scientists thought they knew all the conceivable forms of matter. The Second Kind of Impossible is the story of Steinhardt’s 35-year-long quest to challenge conventional wisdom. It begins with a curious geometric pattern that inspires two theoretical physicists to propose a radically new type of matter - one that raises the possibility of new materials with never-before-seen properties but that violates laws set in stone for centuries.

Big History, the field that studies the entire known past of our universe to give context to human existence, has so far been the domain of historians. Geologist Walter Alvarez - best known for his Impact Theory explaining dinosaur extinction - makes a compelling case for a new, science-first approach to Big History.

Time and time again, great thinkers like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have credited their success to mental models: simple representations of how the world works that can be applied in a wide array of contexts. Mastering a small number of these concepts enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others don’t, and better anticipate outcomes.