This volume brings together eleven essays by the distinguished philosopher of science, Peter Achinstein. The unifying theme is the nature of the philosophical problems surrounding the postulation of unobservable entities such as light waves, molecules,...

A robust yet accessible introduction to the idea, history, and key applications of differential privacy—the gold standard of algorithmic privacy protection.Differential privacy (DP) is an increasingly popular, though controversial, approach to protecting...

Why do some people become radicalized?How do ideologies shape the human brain?And how can we unchain our minds from toxic dogmas?In The Ideological Brain, Leor Zmigrod reveals the deep connection between political beliefs and the biology of the brain...

For more than 150 years, the question of nature versus nurture has been one of the most contentious issues in the human sciences. On the one side are "blank-slaters," who believe we are mainly shaped by our environment. On the other side are...

A profound and lyrical reflection on the cyclical nature of life, what happens when we break that cycle, and how to repair it—told through the fate of phosphorus: in our bedrock, in our fertilizers, in our food, and in our cells.“There would be no life...

A concise and engaging investigation of six interpretations of quantum physics.Rules of the quantum world seem to say that a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time and a particle can be in two places at once. And that particle is also a wave;...

“New Dark Age is among the most unsettling and illuminating books I’ve read about the Internet, which is to say that it is among the most unsettling and illuminating books I’ve read about contemporary life.”  – New YorkerAs the world around us increases...

#1 New York Times BestsellerA 2025 best book of the year so far by The New York Times, The Economist, NPR, and more“Careless People is darkly funny and genuinely shocking...Not only does [Sarah Wynn-Williams] have the storytelling chops to unspool a...

A bold reimagining of the Greek mathematician’s singular life as a truly modern scientist. Galileo, Leonardo, Newton, and Tesla revered him: Archimedes of Syracuse—an engineer who single-handedly defied the world’s most powerful army and a mathematician...

Essays by the outstanding engineering writer, author of The Evolution of Useful Things.

"The companion to Fernandez's successful Calculus Simplified, completing a full year of accessible, personalized support for college calculus Calculus is both beautiful and useful. Its usefulness has made it the subject of core service courses that must...

The definitive story of the Riemann Hypothesis, a fascinating and epic mathematical mystery that continues to challege the world.In 1859, Bernhard Riemann, a little-known thirty-two year old mathematician, made a hypothesis while presenting a paper to...

The real-life story behind Marie Benedict’s The Other Einstein—a fascinating profile of mathematician Mileva Einstein-Marić and her contributions to her husband’s scientific discoveries.Albert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Einstein-Marić, was forgotten...

The seventeen equations that form the basis for life as we know itMost people are familiar with history's great equations: Newton's Law of Gravity, for instance, or Einstein's theory of relativity. But the way these mathematical breakthroughs have...

"Vaclav Smil is my favorite author."—Bill GatesAn indispensable analysis of how the world really produces and consumes its food—and a scientist's exploration of how we can successfully feed a growing population without killing the planetWe have never had...

A NEW YORK TIMES AND NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A poet, a physicist, and a philosopher explored the greatest enigmas in the universe—the nature of free will, the strange fabric of the cosmos, the true limits of the mind—and each in their own way...