The surprising, little-known story of the scientific revolution that almost didn't happen: how cleric and scientific genius Nicolaus Copernicus's work revolutionized astronomy and altered our understanding of our place in the world.Nicolaus Copernicus...

"An ambitious and meticulous foray into the nature of being." -- The Boston GlobeA landmark exploration of the relationship between emotion and reasonSince Descartes famously proclaimed, "I think, therefore I am," science has often overlooked emotions as...

My book "Asymptotic Expansions for Ordinary Differential Equations" published in 1965 is out of print. In the almost 20 years since then, the subject has grown so much in breadth and in depth that an account of the present state of knowledge of all the...

This New York Times bestseller is an exciting and fearless investigation of language from the author of Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Sense of Style and Enlightenment Now."Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty."--The New York Times...

It was home to Einstein in decline, the place where Kurt Göedel starved himself in paranoid delusion, and where J. Robert Oppenheimer rode out his political persecution in the Director's mansion. It is the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New...

How does a scientist go about solving problems? How do scientific discoveries happen? Why are cold fusion and parapsychology different from mainstream science? What is a scientific worldview? In this lively and wide-ranging book, Gregory Derry talks...

In this fascinating book, John Charap offers a panoramic view of the physicist's world as the twenty-first century opens--a view that is entirely different from the one that greeted the twentieth century. We have learned that the universe is billions of...

From the Nobel Prize–winning physicistP. J. E. Peebles teaches the often counterintuitive physics of quantum mechanics by working through detailed applications of general ideas. A principal example used in the book is the hyperfine structure of atomic...

From two of the world's great physicists―Stephen Hawking and Nobel laureate Roger Penrose―a lively debate about the nature of space and timeEinstein said that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. But was he...

The philosophy of Robert Boyle (1627-1691) is a hot topic in early modern philosophy. Boyle was at the centre of the scientific community of 17th-century England, and an accurate view of the Enlightenment scientific revolution is impossible without...

By the author of the acclaimed bestsellers Benjamin Franklin and Steve Jobs, this is the definitive biography of Albert Einstein. How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Isaacson’s biography shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the...

In this classic, the world's expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples...

Decisive biotechnological interventions in the lottery of human life--to enhance our bodies and brains and perhaps irreversibly change our genetic makeup--have been widely rejected as unethical and undesirable, and have often met with extreme hostility...

Devoted to the foundation of mechanics, namely classical Newtonian mechanics, the subject is based mainly on Galileo's principle of relativity and Hamilton's principle of least action. The exposition is simple and leads to the most complete direct means...

For many students, calculus can be the most mystifying and frustrating course they will ever take. The Calculus Lifesaver provides students with the essential tools they need not only to learn calculus, but to excel at it. All of the material in this...

The life of Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), the man who gave living organisms two Latin names, is celebrated afresh in this newly revised and magnificently illustrated edition of the definitive biography. In his native Sweden, Linnaeus is revered by children...

Tracy Kidder's "riveting" (Washington Post) story of one company's efforts to bring a new microcomputer to market won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has become essential reading for understanding the history of the American tech...

In Infinite Ascent, David Berlinski, the acclaimed author of The Advent of the Algorithm, A Tour of the Calculus, and Newton’s Gift, tells the story of mathematics, bringing to life with wit, elegance, and deep insight a 2,500-year-long intellectual...

Honorable Mention in the 2005 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book AwardsNearly fifty years after his death, Albert Einstein remains one of America's foremost cultural icons. A thicket of materials, ranging from scholarly to popular, have been written,...

There is a vast range of astronomical equipment available to the amateur astronomer and this pocket-sized handbook will help the amateur make an informed choice about which instruments are best suited to his or her needs covering binoculars, telescopes,...