Showing titles in History & Philosophy

Carl Sagan, writer and scientist, returns from the frontier to tell us about how the world works. In his delightfully down-to-earth style, he explores and explains a mind-boggling future of intelligent robots, extraterrestrial life and its consequences, and other provocative, fascinating quandaries of the future that we want to see today.

In this brilliant exploration of our cosmic environment, the renowned particle physicist and New York Times best-selling author of Warped Passages and Knocking on Heaven's Door uses her research into dark matter to illuminate the startling connections between the farthest reaches of space and life here on Earth.

Who are we, and how did we get here? These are two of the most fundamental and far-reaching questions facing scientists and cosmologists alike and have rested at the center of human intellectual endeavor since its beginning. They are questions that stretch across numerous disciplines. Philosophy, theology, evolutionary biology, and mathematics are just some of the fields looking to explain the emergence of human life.

Predicting society’s present addiction to technology, our challenges with data privacy, and the dramatic increase in drug overdoses and depression that have accompanied a technology-induced lack of purpose, The Unabomber’s vision of the future has become our reality. Of course, his means were disgusting and condemnable. But his message is more important than ever. If we want to thrive in an age where automation and artificial intelligence and rapidly making humans obsolete, it is our responsibility to understand and prepare for the technological machine we are up against.

THE INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLER FEATURING INTERVIEWS WITH DR ANTHONY FAUCI, DAME SALLY DAVIES AND DR JIM DOWN For every doctor there is that one patient, whose story touches them in a way they didn’t expect, changing their entire outlook on life. This inspiring and deeply moving book is the...

Brought to you by Penguin. In this exhilarating and sometimes mind-bending book, renowned scientist and author Paul Davies tells the gripping story of how, beginning with an iconic mathematical equation in the 1920s, a radical new theory of nature – quantum mechanics – burst upon the modern...

Penguin Audio presents Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark, read by Rob Shapiro. We stand at the beginning of a new era. What was once science fiction is fast becoming reality, as AI transforms war, crime, justice, jobs and society-and, even, our very sense of what it means to be human. More than any other...

Brought to you by Penguin. Antibiotics: one of humanity’s greatest achievements – but invented by microbes. An epic narrative of discovery and innovation – but also of extraction and exploitation. This is the spellbinding story of how we have burned through the fossil fuels of medicine...

Max Tegmark leads us on an astonishing journey through past, present and future, and through the physics, astronomy and mathematics that are the foundation of his work, most particularly his hypothesis that our physical reality is a mathematical structure and his theory of the ultimate...

How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions.

Brought to you by Penguin. In very recent times humanity has learnt a vast amount about the universe, the past, and itself. But through our remarkable successes in acquiring knowledge we have learned how much we have yet to learn: the science we have, for example, addresses just 5% of the...

The Voyager Space Missions: From the Grand Tour to Interstellar Space is the definitive story of humanity’s most daring leap into the unknown. When NASA launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in 1977, the world had never seen the outer planets up close, and interstellar space was only a theory. What began as an ambitious plan to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime planetary alignment soon became one of the greatest scientific adventures in history.

This audiobook describes people allowing the full pain of our predicament to liberate them into living more courageously and creatively. They demonstrate we can be breaking together, not apart, in this era of collapse. Jem Bendell argues that reclaiming our freedoms is essential to soften the fall and regenerate the natural world. Escaping the efforts of panicking elites, we can advance an ecolibertarian agenda for both politics and practical action in a broken world.

The Top Ten Bestseller Black holes. DNA. The Large Hadron Collider. Ever had that sneaking feeling that you are missing out on some truly spectacular science? You do? Well, fear not, for help is at hand. Ben Miller was working on his Physics PhD at Cambridge when he accidentally became a...

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But this "witty and clear thinking" (New York Times) book wonders, what about relativity? Physicist Chad Orzel and his inquisitive canine companion, Emmy, tackle the concepts of general relativity in this irresistible introduction to Einstein’s...

Written for those with no physics background, Paul Levy's latest book, The Quantum Revelation: A Radical Synthesis of Science and Spirituality, is for those who have heard that quantum physics is a fascinating subject but don't quite understand how or why.  

Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Thomas Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.

One of the great mysteries of science is that its fundamental laws are written in the language of mathematics. Graham Farmelo's thrilling new book shows how modern maths has helped physicists to rethink gravity, space, and time. The Universe Speaks in Numbers takes us on an adventure from the Enlightenment to the present with a vibrant cast of characters, illuminating the most exciting and controversial developments in contemporary thought.

The American public's introduction to nuclear technology was manifested in destruction and death. With Hiroshima and the Cold War still ringing in our ears, our perception of all things nuclear is seen through the lens of weapons development. Nuclear power is full of mind-bending theories, deep secrets, and the misdirection of public consciousness - some deliberate, some accidental. The result of this fixation on bombs and fallout is that the development of a non-polluting, renewable energy source stands frozen in time.

Read by the author, Agnes Arnold-Forster. ‘Arnold-Forster belongs to that valuable non-jargon-spouting breed of academic who is capable of explaining complex ideas in simple language.’ – The Times In Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion, Agnes Arnold-Forster blends neuroscience and...