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Books > Science & Mathematics > Astronomy, space & time
This book describes the development and design of a unique combined
data and power management infrastructure for small satellites. This
new edition became necessary because in the frame of the system's
impressive evolution from an academic prototype to one of today's
most advanced core avionics, many elements were upgraded to their
next technology generation and diverse new components complement
the upgraded design. All elements are presented in updated
respectively new chapters. This modular infrastructure was selected
by the Swiss start-up ClearSpace SA for ESA's first mission
ClearSpace-1 to remove space debris. Furthermore it is the baseline
for the Thai national satellite development program and is used by
an increasing number of universities worldwide for research
studies.
The author has the distinction of being the only wife of a European
astronaut who has also worked in the area of human spaceflight. Her
story is told from a unique perspective. Lena De Winne provides a
first-hand account of the ins and outs of the complex astronaut
spaceflight system. This book captures the individual stories of
crewmembers Roman Romanenko, Bob Thirsk, Frank De Winne and their
spouses Julia, Brenda and Lena, as they prepare and embark on a
unique spaceflight mission. Delivered with raw emotional intensity,
it reads like a novel, sharing the aspirations, anguish, surprises
and disappointments of its subjects. Yet it is resolutely
biographical, offering a vivid recollection of events as they
happened. An easy but precise overview of space science and
technology is also provided. Readers will not only become
familiarised with the human space flight program, they will also be
left with an exhilarating sense of having been a part of the
adventure. The book is suffused with an intimacy and honesty that
renders the lives of the crew and their spouses in an unprecedented
light.
The development of nuclear weapons during the Manhattan Project is
one of the most significant scientific events of the twentieth
century. This revised and updated 4th edition explores the
challenges that faced the scientists and engineers of the Manhattan
Project. It gives a clear introduction to fission weapons at the
level of an upper-year undergraduate physics student by examining
the details of nuclear reactions, their energy release, analytic
and numerical models of the fission process, how critical masses
can be estimated, how fissile materials are produced, and what
factors complicate bomb design. An extensive list of references and
a number of exercises for self-study are included. Revisions to
this fourth edition include many upgrades and new sections.
Improvements are made to, among other things, the analysis of the
physics of the fission barrier, the time-dependent simulation of
the explosion of a nuclear weapon, and the discussion of tamped
bomb cores. New sections cover, for example, composite bomb cores,
approximate methods for various of the calculations presented, and
the physics of the polonium-beryllium "neutron initiators" used to
trigger the bombs. The author delivers in this book an
unparalleled, clear and comprehensive treatment of the physics
behind the Manhattan project.
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.
Time is relative, situation-dependent, location- and
culturally-dependent, and very much subjective. Yet we treat it as
if it were objective. We share standardized time, and we are
dependent on it for almost everything we do. When it comes to
waking up, business meetings, transportation, finding your way via
GPS, seeing friends, watching a show, we are all dependent on a
standardized notion of time and time measurement. The future gives
us hope and deadlines drive innovation and productivity. Time
drives us forward and we talk about time - all the time! The word
"time" is the most used noun in English, followed by "year" in
third place and "day" in fifth. We are obsessed with it, for a lot
of very good and practical reasons. The book looks at time through
different perspectives (ranging from physics, history, philosophy,
anthropology to art, business & politics, biology and
psychology). The author's aim is to bring us closer to the nature
and our experience of time by looking at it from different lenses
to improve our understanding of what time is and what it is not -
and to use that knowledge to improve how we organize ourselves
around time. It's by better understanding time's nature and
experience that we can keep the positive and productive elements of
time and get rid of the unhealthy time practices in our lives.
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.
Until now, important research on the historical records of comets
and meteor showers from China, Japan, and Korea has remained the
exclusive preserve of those with expertise in the relevant
languages. With a compilation like the present volume the authors
hope to ameliorate that situation. Applying the same rigorous
selection criteria and style of presentation as in the previous
catalogue, assembled and translated here are some 1,500 additional
observations of comets and meteor showers from China, Japan, and
Korea spanning nearly three millennia. With the publication of this
volume, most of the important historical records of East Asian
astronomical observations are now accessible in English. The
introductions and appendices provide all the required information
on specialized terminology, recording conventions, and nomenclature
the reader will need to make use of the records. In addition to
being an invaluable resource for professional astronomers, East
Asian astronomical records have materially aided the research of
scholars in fields as diverse as mythology, medieval iconography,
ancient chronology, and the oral history of pre-literate societies.
The book should be of great interest to cultural astronomers, as
well as to those engaged in historical and comparative research.
Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War. Based on secret files in the United States and the former Soviet Union, this monumental work of history discloses how and why the United States decided to create the bomb that would dominate world politics for more than forty years.
In an expanding world with limited resources, optimization and
uncertainty quantification have become a necessity when handling
complex systems and processes. This book provides the foundational
material necessary for those who wish to embark on advanced
research at the limits of computability, collecting together
lecture material from leading experts across the topics of
optimization, uncertainty quantification and aerospace engineering.
The aerospace sector in particular has stringent performance
requirements on highly complex systems, for which solutions are
expected to be optimal and reliable at the same time. The text
covers a wide range of techniques and methods, from polynomial
chaos expansions for uncertainty quantification to Bayesian and
Imprecise Probability theories, and from Markov chains to surrogate
models based on Gaussian processes. The book will serve as a
valuable tool for practitioners, researchers and PhD students.
This book provides in-depth explanations of design theories and
methods for remote sensing satellites, as well as their practical
applications. There have been significant advances in spacecraft
remote sensing technologies over the past decade. As the latest
edition of the book "Space Science and Technology Research," it
draws on the authors' vast engineering experience in system design
for remote sensing satellites and offers a valuable guide for all
researchers, engineers and students who are interested in this
area. Chiefly focusing on mission requirements analyses and system
design, it also highlights a range of system design methods.
This book includes the proceedings of the conference "Problems of
the Geocosmos" held by the Earth Physics Department, St. Petersburg
State University, Russia, every two years since 1996. Covering a
broad range of topics in solid Earth physics and solar-terrestrial
physics, as well as more applied subjects such as engineering
geology and ecology, the book reviews the latest research in
planetary geophysics, focusing on the interaction between the
Earth's shells and the near-Earth space in a unified system. This
book is divided into four sections: * Exploration and Environmental
Geophysics (EG), which covers two broad areas of environmental and
engineering geophysics - near-surface research and deep geoelectric
studies; * Paleomagnetism and Rock Magnetism (P), which includes
research on magnetostratigraphy, paleomagnetism applied to
tectonics, environmental magnetism, and marine magnetic anomalies;
* Seismology (S), which covers the theory of seismic wave
propagation, Earth's structure from seismic data, global and
regional seismicity and sources of earthquakes, and novel seismic
instruments and data processing methods; and * Physics of
Solar-Terrestrial Connections (STP), which includes magnetospheric
phenomena, space weather, and the interrelationship between solar
activity and climate.
Internationally renowned theoretical physicist and bestselling
author Lawrence Krauss offers provocative, revelatory answers to
the biggest philosophical questions: Where did our universe come
from? Why does anything exist? And how is it all going to end? 'Why
is there something rather than nothing?' is the question atheists
and scientists are always asked,and until now there has not been a
satisfying scientific answer. Today, exciting scientific advances
provide new insight into this cosmological mystery: not only
cansomething arise from nothing, but something willalwaysarise from
nothing. A mind-bending trip back to the beginning of the
beginning, A Universe from Nothingauthoritatively presents the most
recent evidence that explains how our universe evolved - and the
implications for how it's going to end. It will provoke, challenge,
and delight readers to look at the most basic underpinnings of
existence in a whole new way. In the words of Richard Dawkins: this
could potentially be the most important scientific book since
Darwin's On the Origin of Species.
Description: How did the Sun evolve, and what will it become? What
is the origin of its light and heat? How does solar activity affect
the atmospheric conditions that make life on Earth possible? These
are the questions at the heart of solar physics, and at the core of
this book. The Sun is the only star near enough to study in
sufficient detail to provide rigorous tests of our theories and
help us understand the more distant and exotic objects throughout
the cosmos. Having observed the Sun using both ground-based and
spaceborne instruments, the authors bring their extensive personal
experience to this story revealing what we have discovered about
phenomena from eclipses to neutrinos, space weather, and global
warming. This second edition is updated throughout, and features
results from the current spacecraft that are aloft, especially
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, for which one of the authors
designed some of the telescopes.
This book highlights the technological and managerial fundamentals
and frontier questions of space science. Space science is a new
interdisciplinary and comprehensive subject that takes spacecraft
as the main tools to study the planet Earth, the solar-terrestrial
space, the solar system, and even the whole universe, to answer
significant questions covering the formation and evolution of the
solar system and the universe, the origin and evolution of life and
the structure of the material. The book introduces major scientific
questions in various branches of space science and provides related
technological and managerial knowledge. It also discusses the
necessity of international cooperation and elaborates on the
strategic planning of space science in China. The book can be used
as a reference book or textbook for scientists, engineers, college
students, and the public participating in space science programs.
This book brings together papers from a conference that took place
in the city of L'Aquila, 4-6 April 2019, to commemorate the 10th
anniversary of the earthquake that struck on 6 April 2009.
Philosophers and scientists from diverse fields of research debated
the problem that, on 6 April 1922, divided Einstein and Bergson:
the nature of time. For Einstein, scientific time is the only time
that matters and the only time we can rely on. Bergson, however,
believes that scientific time is derived by abstraction, even in
the sense of extraction, from a more fundamental time. The
plurality of times envisaged by the theory of Relativity does not,
for him, contradict the philosophical intuition of the existence of
a single time. But how do things stand today? What can we say about
the relationship between the quantitative and qualitative
dimensions of time in the light of contemporary science? What do
quantum mechanics, biology and neuroscience teach us about the
nature of time? The essays collected here take up the question that
pitted Einstein against Bergson, science against philosophy, in an
attempt to reverse the outcome of their monologue in two voices,
with a multilogue in several voices.
This book tells the story of how, over the past century, dedicated
observers and pioneering scientists achieved our current
understanding of the universe. It was in antiquity that humankind
first attempted to explain the universe often with the help of
myths and legends. This book, however, focuses on the time when
cosmology finally became a true science. As the reader will learn,
this was a slow process, extending over a large part of the 20th
century and involving many astronomers, cosmologists and
theoretical physicists. The book explains how empirical
astronomical data (e.g., Leavitt, Slipher and Hubble) were
reconciled with Einstein's general relativity; a challenge which
finally led Friedmann, De Sitter and Lemaitre, and eventually
Einstein himself, to a consistent understanding of the
observational results. The reader will realize the extraordinary
implications of these achievements and how deeply they changed our
vision of the cosmos: From being small, static, immutable and
eternal, it became vast and dynamical - originating from (almost)
nothing, and yet now, nearly 14 billion years later, undergoing
accelerated expansion. But, as always happens, as well as precious
knowledge, new mysteries have also been created where previously
absolute certainty had reigned.
This volumes in the Greenwood Guides to the Universe series covers
the current scientific understanding of the creation and evolution
of the universe. Cosmology and the Evolution of the Universe
provides readers with an up-to-date survey of the current
scientific understanding of how the universe has evolved in the
almost 14 billion years since the Big Bang. Scientifically sound
and written with the student in mind, it is an excellent first step
for students researching the science of cosmology and a resource
for all who wish to know more about the evolution of the universe.
Cosmology and the Evolution of the Universe discusses all areas of
what is known about the subject. Topics include: the large-scale
structure of the universe; the discovery and importance of cosmic
microwave background radiation; and the forces and particles
involved in the evolution of the universe. The book even tackles
that most provocative of questions: How will the universe end?
Thematic chapters enhance understanding of the broad concepts
presented 66 illustrations make it easier for students to grasp the
subjects discussed A glossary of scientific and astrology-related
terms facilitates reading and understanding A bibliography of
useful resources puts readers on the right track to learn more
about the subjects discussed
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