John Gribbin
Author
Language
English
Description
The authors of Ice Age "present a well-documented argument that [Newton] owed more to the ideas of others than he admitted" (Kirkus Reviews).
Robert Hooke and Edmond Halley, whose place in history has been overshadowed by the giant figure of Newton, were pioneering scientists within their own right, and instrumental in establishing the Royal Society.
Although Newton is widely regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time and the father...
Author
Language
English
Description
In 1915, Albert Einstein presented his masterwork to the Prussian Academy of Sciences, a theory of gravity, matter, space, and time: the General Theory of Relativity. Einstein himself said it was "the most valuable theory of my life," and "of incomparable beauty." It describes the evolution of the universe, black holes, the behavior of orbiting neutron stars, and why clocks run slower on the surface of the earth than in space. It even suggests the...
Author
Language
English
Description
A lively, fascinating biography of the father of quantum mechanics by the bestselling author of the science classic, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat.
Erwin Schrödinger, best known for his famous "Schrödinger's Cat" paradox, is one of the most famous physicists of the early twentieth century and a member of a new generation of quantum physicists, including Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, and Niels Bohr. Yet Schrödinger's scientific discoveries only...
Author
Language
English
Description
Stephen Hawking is no ordinary scientist. Perhaps more than any other scientist, he has broadened our basic understanding of the universe. His theoretical work on black holes and the origins and nature of the cosmos have been groundbreaking-if not downright revolutionary. He has also spent much of his adult life confined to a wheelchair, a victim of ALS. But his physical limitations have done nothing to confine him intellectually or hinder his scientific...
Author
Language
English
Description
The quantum computer is no longer the stuff of science fiction. Pioneering physicists are on the brink of unlocking a new quantum universe which provides a better representation of reality than our everyday experiences and common sense ever could. The birth of quantum computers - which, like Schrödinger's famous "dead and alive" cat, rely on entities like electrons, photons, or atoms existing in two states at the same time - is set to turn the computing...
Author
Language
English
Description
The acclaimed author of In Search of Schrödinger's Cat searches for life on other planets
Are we alone in the universe? Surely amidst the immensity of the cosmos there must be other intelligent life out there. Don't be so sure, says John Gribbin, one of today's best popular science writers. In this fascinating and intriguing new book, Gribbin argues that the very existence of intelligent life anywhere in the cosmos is, from an astrophysicist's point...
Author
Language
English
Description
"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2009" John Gribbin is the author of In Search of Schrödinger's Cat (Bantam) and Deep Simplicity (Random House), among other books. He is a visiting fellow in astronomy at the University of Sussex. Mary Gribbin has written many books with John Gribbin, including The Science of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" (Knopf) and Richard Feynman: A Life in Science (Dutton).
In 1972, when James Lovelock...
Author
Language
English
Description
Quantum physics is strange. It tells us that a particle can be in two places at once. Indeed, that particle is also a wave, and everything in the quantum world can be described entirely in terms of waves, or entirely in terms of particles, whichever you prefer.
All of this was clear by the end of the 1920s. But to the great distress of many physicists, let alone ordinary mortals, nobody has ever been able to come up with a common sense explanation...
Author
Language
English
Description
Born in Vienna, Austria, Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961) was the only child of a Catholic father and an Austrian-English Lutheran mother. He attended the University of Vienna, receiving his doctorate in 1910. For the next 45 years, he held positions at many different universities in Europe, the U.K., and the U.S., a result both of his antipathy to Nazism, as well as his unconventional lifestyle, which often involved living with multiple women at a...
