The meaning of life and light are not simple to explain. The universe cannot exist without either of these critical dimensional components. Light is not the reflection of electro-magnetic waves we have been taught in school and existence without life is meaningless. After you read this book, things will become clearer to you.

After Physics presents ambitious new essays about some of the deepest questions at the foundations of physics, by the physicist and philosopher David Albert. The book's title alludes to the close connections between physics and metaphysics, much in evidence throughout these essays. It also alludes to the work of imagining what it would be like for the project of physical science-considered as an investigation into the fundamental laws of nature-to be complete. Albert argues that the difference between the past and the future-traditionally regarded as a matter for metaphysical or conceptual or linguistic or phenomenological analysis-can be understood as a mechanical phenomenon of nature. In another essay he contends that all versions of quantum mechanics that are compatible with the special theory of relativity make it impossible, even in principle, to present the entirety of what can be said about the world as a narrative sequence of "befores" and "afters." Any sensible and realistic way of solving the quantum-mechanical measurement problem, Albert claims in yet another essay, is ultimately going to force us to think of particles and fields, and even the very space of the standard scientific conception of the world, as approximate and emergent. Novel discussions of the problem of deriving principled limits on what can be known, measured, or communicated from our fundamental physical theories, along with a sweeping critique of the main attempts at making sense of probabilities in many-worlds interpretations of quantum mechanics, round out the collection.

*Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 in the Sunday Times* The full inside story of the detection of gravitational waves at LIGO, one of the most ambitious feats in scientific history. Travel around the world 100 billion times. A strong gravitational wave will briefly change that distance by less than the thickness of a human hair. We have perhaps less than a few tenths of a second to perform this measurement. And we don't know if this infinitesimal event will come next month, next year or perhaps in thirty years. In 1916 Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves: miniscule ripples in the very fabric of spacetime generated by unfathomably powerful events. If such vibrations could somehow be recorded, we could observe our universe for the first time through sound: the hissing of the Big Bang, the whale-like tunes of collapsing stars, the low tones of merging galaxies, the drumbeat of two black holes collapsing into one. For decades, astrophysicists have searched for a way of doing so... In 2016 a team of hundreds of scientists at work on a billion-dollar experiment made history when they announced the first ever detection of a gravitational wave, confirming Einstein's prediction. This is their story, and the story of the most sensitive scientific instrument ever made: LIGO. Based on complete access to LIGO and the scientists who created it, Black Hole Blues provides a firsthand account of this astonishing achievement: a compelling, intimate portrait of cutting-edge science at its most awe-inspiring and ambitious.

This book addresses the latest advances in general relativity research, including the classical world and spinor formalisms; keys to understanding gravity; the continuum mechanics of space-time; new evidences on matter without energy-stress tensor; a new approach to study gravitational stability of the solutions to the Einstein equations; Mond theory; polynumbers field theory; the algebra, geometry and physics of hyperland; S2-like star orbits near the galactic center in RN and Yukawa gravity; geodesic analysis in multidimensional gravity models; and the collapsing of general relativity and the singularity in the event of the Big Bang and black holes.

'Deeply researched and profoundly absorbing . . . Matthew Stanley traces one of the greatest epics of scientific history . . . An amazing story' Michael Frayn, author of Tony Award-winning Copenhagen In 1916, Arthur Eddington, a war-weary British astronomer, opened a letter written by an obscure German professor named Einstein. The neatly printed equations on the scrap of paper outlined his world-changing theory of general relativity. Until then Einstein's masterpiece of time and space had been trapped behind the physical and ideological lines of battle, unknown. Einstein's name is now synonymous with 'genius', but it was not an easy road. He spent a decade creating relativity and his ascent to global celebrity owed much to against-the-odds international collaboration, including Eddington's globe-spanning expedition of 1919 - two years before they finally met. We usually think of scientific discovery as a flash of individual inspiration, but here we see it is the result of hard work, gambles and wrong turns. Einstein's War is a celebration of what science can offer when bigotry and nationalism are defeated. Using previously unknown sources and written like a thriller, it shows relativity being built brick-by-brick in front of us, as it happened 100 years ago. 'Riveting . . . Stanley lets us share the excitement a hundred years later in this entertaining and gripping book. It's a must read if you ever wondered how Einstein became 'Einstein'' Manjit Kumar, author of Quantum