Writers' Gallery by Topic

Space & the Universe

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Einstein's Dreams Review

Einstein's Dreams takes the reader on a journey through different conceptions of time. What if time stood still? What if time slowed down on the highest mountain peaks? Find out why this modern classic is a must-read for those looking to dabble in physics, philosophy, or psychology.


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How to Teach Physics to Your Dog

See how Emmy the dog formulates the existence of cheesy bunnies in the backyard. She will teach you how to predict the existence of your wildest fantasies and bring them to the yard.
Warning: you might also learn some quantum physics too.


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The Fifth Postulate

Many mathematicians since the time of Euclid attempted to solve a seemingly simple problem about parallel lines without success. Yet the success of their failures would reveal a whole new geometry and description of space and time.


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The Manga Guide to Physics

In The Manga Guide to Physics, you'll follow alongside Megumi as she learns about the physics of everyday objects like roller skates, slingshots, braking cars, and tennis serves!


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Death From the Skies

Philip Plait

"The Universe is trying to kill you. It's nothing personal. It's trying to kill me too" Astronomer, Phil Plait, describes how everything from asteroids to gamma ray burst would end impact the Earth.


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Physics for Future Presidents --the Science Behind the Headlines

Richard A. Muller

What does the president need to know about Physics? As president you will need to make decisions that require thinking like a physicist.


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The Cosmic Zoom

Robert L. Park

Most of the scientists and inventors we met started out believing that they had made a great discovery overlooked by everyone else. It never pays to underestimate the human capacity for self-deception.


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The Beginning…

Leon M. Lederman

This story is about the universe, and unfortunately there are no data for the Very Beginning. None, zero.


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Spaceship Neutrino

Christine Sutton

Solar neutrinos stream through us constantly, raining down on us by day and up through the Earth by night.


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Into the Future

Gino Segrè

If we are fortunate and wise enough to go on as a species for many millennia, I am tempted to think the twentieth century will be remembered as something special in science, the century in which many of the mysteries of Earth, life, and the cosmos were understood for the first time.


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How the Universe Got Its Spots

Janna Levin

The story of Dr. Levin's research in the form of letters to her mother. They contain an intriguing blend of science and personal anecdote.


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Hidden Symmetry

Bruce A. Schumm

Most of us who are unfortunate enough to remember what life was like when we were thirteen years old will recall that one of the predominant influences that shaped our lives at that age was the unrelenting coercion of peer pressure.


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Einstein's Relativity and Everyday Life

Clifford M. Will

What good is fundamental physics to the person on the street? This is the perennial question posed to physicists by their non-science friends, by students in the humanities and social sciences, and by politicians looking to justify spending tax dollars on basic science.


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Einstein's Legacy

John S. Rigden

Would the world now be different if Albert Einstein had never lived? Could we ask the same question with regard to Claude Monet or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?


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Celebrating the Poetry of Imagination Without Boundaries

Lawrence M. Krauss

There is poetry in physics discoveries that is worth celebrating, even if one is not a cosmologist.


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ATOM: An Odyssey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth...and Beyond

Lawrence M. Krauss

It is difficult today to fully appreciate how recent is the notion that atoms are real physical entities, and not mere mathematical or philosophical constructs.


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Cosmic Evolution

Eric J. Chaisson

Simply defined, cosmic evolution is the study of change--the vast number of developmental and generative changes that have accumulated during all time and across all space, from big bang to humankind.


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Beauty of Trajectory

Hans Christian von Baeyer

"Ignoring air resistance, cannon balls move along parabolas," we learn in school, but the truth is more intriguing.


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A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down

Robert B. Laughlin

A few years ago I had occasion to engage my father-in-law, a retired academician, on the subject of the collective nature of physical law.


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String Training

Lisa Randall

String theory’s view of the fundamental nature of matter differs significantly from that of traditional particle physics.


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The Cosmic Landscape

Leonard Susskind

It is gradually becoming accepted, by many theoretical physicists, that the Laws of Physics may not only be variable but are almost always deadly.