A selection of the History, Scientific American, and Quality Paperback Book Clubs For a very brief moment during the 1960s, America was moonstruck. Boys dreamt of being an astronaut; girls dreamed of marrying one. Americans drank Tang, bought "space pens" that wrote upside down, wore clothes made of space age Mylar, and took imaginary rockets to the moon from theme parks scattered around the country. But despite the best efforts of a generation of scientists, the almost foolhardy heroics of the astronauts, and 35 billion dollars, the moon turned out to be a place of "magnificent desolation," to use Buzz Aldrin's words: a sterile rock of no purpose to anyone. In Dark Side of the Moon, Gerard J. DeGroot reveals how NASA cashed in on the Americans' thirst for heroes in an age of discontent and became obsessed with putting men in space. The moon mission was sold as a race which America could not afford to lose. Landing on the moon, it was argued, would be good for the economy, for politics, and for the soul. It could even win the Cold War. The great tragedy is that so much effort and expense was devoted to a small step that did virtually nothing for mankind. Drawing on meticulous archival research, DeGroot cuts through the myths constructed by the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations and sustained by NASA ever since. He finds a gang of cynics, demagogues, scheming politicians, and corporations who amassed enormous power and profits by exploiting the fear of what the Russians might do in space. Exposing the truth behind one of the most revered fictions of American history, Dark Side of the Moon explains why the American space program has been caught in a state of purposeless wandering ever since Neil Armstrong descended from Apollo 11 and stepped onto the moon. The effort devoted to the space program was indeed magnificent and its cultural impact was profound, but the purpose of the program was as desolate and dry as lunar dust.

The beginning of the 21st century is witnessing the emergence of a social, political and technological revolution in networked computing. We now live in a networked society, but it functions and develops at such an accelerating rate that it becomes increasingly difficult to adequately understand the nature of this radical society. Empires of Speed is the first book to analyse the far-reaching transformations of speed-filled everyday life. In a compelling study Hassan shows that we are leaving behind a modern world based upon the time of the clock, and are entering a new and volatile phase where an accelerating 'network time' poses fundamental economic and political challenges in our postmodern world, challenges we barely comprehend and are thus woefully unprepared for.

With illustrations and photographsp in full color.

This book reports on the extraordinary observation of TeV gamma rays from the Crab Pulsar, the most energetic light ever detected from this type of object. It presents detailed information on the painstaking analysis of the unprecedentedly large dataset from the MAGIC telescopes, and comprehensively discusses the implications of pulsed TeV gamma rays for state-of-the-art pulsar emission models. Using these results, the book subsequently explores new testing methodologies for Lorentz Invariance Violation, in terms of a wavelength-dependent speed of light. The book also covers an updated search for Very-High-Energy (VHE), >100 GeV, emissions from millisecond pulsars using the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi satellite, as well as a study on the promising Pulsar Wind Nebula candidate PSR J0631. The observation of VHE gamma rays is essential to studying the non-thermal sources of radiation in our Universe. Rotating neutron stars, also known as pulsars, are an extreme source class known to emit VHE gamma rays. However, to date only two pulsars have been detected with emissions above 100 GeV, and our understanding of their emission mechanism is still lacking.

Space junkies and armchair astronauts are provided with comprehensive, handy references for a variety of space-related missions, vehicles, and concepts in this pocket-sized series. Compiled with the co-operation of NASA, each topic-specific reference features relevant statistics, photographs, and the stories behind each project. Books on manned missions include crew photographs, information on patches and equipment, and flight statistics such as time in space, distance traveled, and mission objectives. Photographs and statistics for launch vehicles, orbiters, probes, and experimental equipment are featured in each equipment-specific reference. Covering such design elements as propellants, tanks, engines, and payloads, this detailed look at the mechanism that gets it all started describes 259 types of launch vehicles developed by China, the European Space Agency, Japan, Russia, and the United States. Learn how these most complex and awe inspiring machines actually work and why they call anything that is difficult to achieve "Rocket Science".

Time holds an enduring fascination for humans. Time and Trace investigates the human experience and awareness of time and time's impact on a wide range of cultural, psychological, and artistic phenomena, from reproductive politics and temporal logic to music and theater, from law to sustainability, from memory to the Vikings. The volume presents selected essays from the 15th triennial conference of the International Society for the Study of Time from the arts (literature, music, theater), history, law, philosophy, science (psychology, biology), and mathematics. Taken together, they pursue the trace of time into the past and future, tracing temporal processes and exploring the traces left by time in individual experience as well as culture and society. Contributors are: Michael Crawford, Orit Hilewicz, Rosemary Huisman, John S. Kafka, Erica W. Magnus, Arkadiusz Misztal, Carlos Montemayor, Stephanie Nelson, Peter Ohrstrom, Jo Alyson Parker, Thomas Ploug, Helen Sills, Lasse C. A. Sonne, Raji C. Steineck, and Frederick Turner.

Astronomical and astrological knowledge circulated in many ways in the ancient world: in the form of written texts and through oral communication; by the conscious assimilation of sought-after knowledge and the unconscious absorption of ideas to which scholars were exposed. The Circulation of Astronomical Knowledge in the Ancient World explores the ways in which astronomical knowledge circulated between different communities of scholars over time and space, and what was done with that knowledge when it was received. Examples are discussed from Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, India, and China.