This book presents the history of the development of fibre optic technology, explaining the scientific challenges that needed to be overcome, the range of applications and future potential for this fundamental communications technology. The author has followed and reported the development closely for the past 20 years, and is better placed than anyone to write the definitive history of the field.

"A fascinating look inside the complexities and enjoyment of skiing. For every skier, from the beginner to the Olympic Gold Medalist, this book provides a treasure of information." -PAUL MAJOR, ATHLETIC DIRECTOR, U.S. SKI TEAM
"I was delighted to learn from this interesting book more about the physics of a sport I have enjoyed for more than seventy years." -NORMAN RAMSEY, NOBEL LAUREATE IN PHYSICS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Quadratic equations, Pythagoras' theorem, imaginary numbers, and pi - you may remember studying these at school, but did anyone ever explain why? Never fear - bestselling science writer, and your new favourite maths teacher, Michael Brooks, is here to help. In The Maths That Made Us, Brooks reminds us of the wonders of numbers: how they enabled explorers to travel far across the seas and astronomers to map the heavens; how they won wars and halted the HIV epidemic; how they are responsible for the design of your home and almost everything in it, down to the smartphone in your pocket. His clear explanations of the maths that built our world, along with stories about where it came from and how it shaped human history, will engage and delight. From ancient Egyptian priests to the Apollo astronauts, and Babylonian tax collectors to juggling robots, join Brooks and his extraordinarily eccentric cast of characters in discovering how maths made us who we are today.

Chemistry's most significant chart, the Periodic Table, and its 118 elements, is laid bare in this lively, accessible and compelling expose. The periodic table, created in the early 1860s by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, marked one of the most extraordinary advances in modern chemistry. This basic visual aid helped scientists to gain a deeper understanding of what chemical elements really were and the role they played in everyday life. Here, in the authoritative Elementary, James Russell uses his engaging narrative to explain the elements we now know about. From learning about the creation of the first three elements, hydrogen, lithium and helium, in the big bang, through to oxygen and carbon, which sustain life on earth - along with the many weird and wonderful uses of elements as varied as fluorine, arsenic, krypton and einsteinium - even the most unscientifically minded will be enthralled by this fascinating subject. This is the story of the building blocks of the universe, and the people who identified, isolated and even created them.

Winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books

A Best Science Book of the Year for the Guardian, Financial Times, and New Scientist

It was the universe s most elusive particle, the linchpin for everything scientists dreamed up to explain how physics works. It had to be found. But projects as big as CERN s Large Hadron Collider don t happen without incredible risks and occasional skullduggery. In the definitive account of this landmark event, Caltech physicist and acclaimed science writer Sean Carroll reveals the insights, rivalry, and wonder that fuelled the Higgs discovery, and takes us on a riveting and irresistible ride to the very edge of physics today.

A Times Best Book of 2021 From the very first dog to glowing fish and designer pigs - the human history of remaking nature. Virus-free mosquitoes, resurrected dinosaurs, designer humans - such is the power of the science of tomorrow. But the idea that humans have only recently begun to tinker with the natural world is false. We've been meddling with nature since the last ice age, and we're getting a lot better at it. Drawing on decades of research, Beth Shapiro reveals the surprisingly long history of human intervention in evolution - for good and for ill - and looks ahead to the future, casting aside scaremongering myths about the dangers of interference. New biotechnologies can present us with the chance to improve our own lives, and increase the likelihood that we will continue to live in a rich and biologically diverse world.

There are some mathematical problems whose significance goes beyond the ordinary - like Fermat's Last Theorem or Goldbach's Conjecture - they are the enigmas which define mathematics. The Great Mathematical Problems explains why these problems exist, why they matter, what drives mathematicians to incredible lengths to solve them and where they stand in the context of mathematics and science as a whole. It contains solved problems - like the Poincare Conjecture, cracked by the eccentric genius Grigori Perelman, who refused academic honours and a million-dollar prize for his work, and ones which, like the Riemann Hypothesis, remain baffling after centuries. Stewart is the guide to this mysterious and exciting world, showing how modern mathematicians constantly rise to the challenges set by their predecessors, as the great mathematical problems of the past succumb to the new techniques and ideas of the present.

Our gut is as important as our brain or heart, yet we know very little about how it works and many of us are too embarrassed to ask questions.

In Gut, Giulia Enders breaks this taboo, revealing the latest science on how much our digestive system has to offer.

From our miraculous gut bacteria – which can play a part in obesity, allergies, depression and even Alzheimer’s – to the best position to poo, this entertaining and informative health handbook shows that we can all benefit from getting to know the wondrous world of our inner workings.

'A fascinating celebration of the impact that structural engineering has on all our lives.[an] eye-opening book' The Sunday Times

In BUILT, structural engineer Roma Agrawal takes a unique look at how construction has evolved from the mud huts of our ancestors to skyscrapers of steel that reach hundreds of metres into the sky. She unearths how engineers have tunnelled through kilometres of solid mountains; how they've bridged across the widest and deepest of rivers, and tamed Nature's precious - and elusive - water resources. She tells vivid tales of the visionaries who created the groundbreaking materials in the Pantheon's record-holding concrete dome and the frame of the record-breaking Eiffel Tower. Through the lens of an engineer, Roma examines tragedies like the collapse of the Quebec Bridge, highlighting the precarious task of ensuring people's safety they hold at every step.

With colourful stories of her life-long fascination with buildings - and her own hand-drawn illustrations - Roma reveals the extraordinary secret lives of structures.

Twenty years after Stephen Hawking's 9-million-copy selling A Brief History of Time, pioneering theoretical physicist Sean Carroll takes our investigation into the nature of time to the next level. You can't unscramble an egg and you can't remember the future. But what if time doesn't (or didn't!) always go in the same direction? Carroll's paradigm-shifting research suggests that other universes experience time running in the opposite direction to our own. Exploring subjects from entropy and quantum mechanics to time travel and the meaning of life, Carroll presents a dazzling new view of how we came to exist.

Display and play with the building blocks of life with The Elements Magnet Set! Based on the iconic images from Theodore Gray's bestselling book The Elements, this beautiful magnet set is the perfect way to add a little atomic flair at work and home. Spell out a fun message or just display and inspire some awe for all the elements that make up the world around you. This miniature kit includes: - 121 element magnets, each highlighting an important piece of the periodic table. Magnet size is approximately 1" x 1" - 48-page book exploring the world's most important elements, with full color-photographs throughout

BBC R4 Book of the Week 'Brilliant' Guardian 'Fascinating and often delightful' The Times What if intelligent life on Earth evolved not once, but twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter? In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself - a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind's fitful development from unruly clumps of seaborne cells to the first evolved nervous systems in ancient relatives of jellyfish, he explores the incredible evolutionary journey of the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous molluscs who would later abandon their shells to rise above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so - a journey completely independent from the route that mammals and birds would later take. But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? How did the octopus, a solitary creature with little social life, become so smart? What is it like to have eight tentacles that are so packed with neurons that they virtually 'think for themselves'? By tracing the question of inner life back to its roots and comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives, Godfrey-Smith casts crucial new light on the octopus mind - and on our own.

The spectacular culinary creations of modern cuisine are the stuff of countless articles and Instagram feeds. But to a scientist they are also perfect pedagogical explorations into the basic scientific principles of cooking. In Science and Cooking, Harvard professors Michael Brenner, Pia Soerensen and David Weitz bring the classroom to your kitchen to teach the physics and chemistry underlying every recipe. Science and Cooking answers questions such as why we knead bread, what determines the temperature at which we cook a steak or the how much time our chocolate chip cookies should spend in the oven, through fascinating lessons ranging from the role of pressure and boiling points in pecan praline to that of microbes in your coffee. With beautiful full-colour illustrations and recipes, hands-on experiments, and engaging introductions from world-renowned chefs Ferran Adria and Jose Andres, Science and Cooking will change the way readers approach both subjects-in their kitchens and beyond.

Through the vivid, true stories of five addicts, a neuroscientist explains how addiction happens in the brain, and what we can do to overcome it. The psychiatric establishment and rehab industry in the Western world have branded addiction a brain disease, based on evidence that brains change with drug use. But in The Biology of Desire, cognitive neuroscientist and former addict Marc Lewis makes a convincing case that the disease model has become an obstacle to healing. Lewis reveals addiction as an unintended consequence of the brain doing what it's supposed to do - seek pleasure and relief - in a world that's not cooperating. Brains are designed to restructure themselves with normal learning and development, but this process is accelerated in addiction when highly attractive rewards are pursued repeatedly. Lewis shows why treatment based on the disease model so often fails, and how treatment can be retooled to achieve lasting recovery, given the realities of brain plasticity. Combining intimate human stories with clearly rendered scientific explanation, The Biology of Desire is enlightening and optimistic reading for anyone who has wrestled with addiction either personally or professionally.

The human brain is made up of 85 billion neurons, which are connected by over 100 trillion synapses. For more than a century, a diverse array of researchers searched for a language that could be used to capture the essence of what these neurons do and how they communicate. The language they were looking for was mathematics, and we would not be able to understand the brain as we do today without it. In Models of the Mind, author and computational neuroscientist Grace Lindsay explains how mathematical models have allowed scientists to understand and describe many of the brain's processes. She introduces readers to the most important concepts in modern neuroscience, and highlights the tensions that arise when the abstract world of mathematical modelling collides with the messy details of biology. Each chapter of Models of the Mind focuses on mathematical tools that have been applied in a particular area of neuroscience, progressing from the simplest building block of the brain - the individual neuron - through to circuits of interacting neurons, whole brain areas and even the behaviours that brains command. Grace examines the history of the field, starting with experiments done on frog legs in the late eighteenth century and building to the large models of artificial neural networks that form the basis of modern artificial intelligence. Throughout, she reveals the value of using the elegant language of mathematics to describe the machinery of neuroscience.

Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience - classics which will endure for generations to come. 'Maths is one of the purest forms of thought, and to outsiders mathematicians may seem almost otherworldly' In 1963, schoolboy Andrew Wiles stumbled across the world's greatest mathematical problem: Fermat's Last Theorem. Unsolved for over 300 years, he dreamed of cracking it. Combining thrilling storytelling with a fascinating history of scientific discovery, Simon Singh uncovers how an Englishman, after years of secret toil, finally solved mathematics' most challenging problem. Fermat's Last Theorem is remarkable story of human endeavour, obsession and intellectual brilliance, sealing its reputation as a classic of popular science writing. 'To read it is to realise that there is a world of beauty and intellectual challenge that is denied to 99.9 per cent of us who are not high-level mathematicians' The Times

An NRC Handelsblad Book of the Year "Offers rich discussions of olfactory perception, the conscious and subconscious impacts of smell on behavior and emotion." -Science Decades of cognition research have shown that external stimuli "spark" neural patterns in particular regions of the brain. We think of the brain as a space we can map: here it responds to faces, there it perceives a sensation. But the sense of smell-only recently attracting broader attention in neuroscience-doesn't work this way. So what does the nose tell the brain, and how does the brain understand it? A. S. Barwich turned to experts in neuroscience, psychology, chemistry, and perfumery in an effort to understand the mechanics and meaning of odors. She discovered that scents are often fickle, and do not line up with well-defined neural regions. Upending existing theories of perception, Smellosophy offers a new model for understanding how the brain senses and processes odors. "A beguiling analysis of olfactory experience that is fast becoming a core reference work in the field." -Irish Times "Lively, authoritative...Aims to rehabilitate smell's neglected and marginalized status." -Wall Street Journal "This is a special book...It teaches readers a lot about olfaction. It teaches us even more about what philosophy can be." -Times Literary Supplement

Earthquakes rank among the most terrifying natural disasters faced by mankind. Out of a clear blue sky-or worse, a jet black one-comes shaking strong enough to hurl furniture across the room, human bodies out of bed, and entire houses off of their foundations. When the dust settles, the immediate aftermath of an earthquake in an urbanized society can be profound. Phone and water supplies can be disrupted for days, fires erupt, and even a small number of overpass collapses can snarl traffic for months. However, when one examines the collective responses of developed societies to major earthquake disasters in recent historic times, a somewhat surprising theme emerges: not only determination, but resilience; not only resilience, but acceptance; not only acceptance, but astonishingly, humor. Elastic rebound is one of the most basic tenets of modern earthquake science, the term that scientists use to describe the build-up and release of energy along faults. It is also the best metaphor for societal responses to major earthquakes in recent historic times. After The Earth Quakes focuses on this theme, using a number of pivotal and intriguing historic earthquakes as illustration. The book concludes with a consideration of projected future losses on an increasingly urbanized planet, including the near-certainty that a future earthquake will someday claim over a million lives. This grim prediction impels us to take steps to mitigate earthquake risk, the innately human capacity for rebound notwithstanding.

Despite everything that has been written about the brain, a potentially critical part of this vital organ has been overlooked--until now. "The Other Brain "examines the growing importance of glia, which make up approximately 85 percent of the cells in the brain, and the role they play in how the brain functions, malfunctions, and heals itself.
Long neglected as little more than cerebral packing material, glia (meaning "glue") are now known to regulate the flow of information between neurons and to repair the brain and spinal cord after injury and stroke. But scientists are also discovering that diseased and damaged glia play a significant role in psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression, and in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Diseased glia cause brain cancer and multiple sclerosis and are linked to infectious diseases such as HIV and prion disease (mad cow disease, for example) and to chronic pain. The more we learn about these cells that make up the "other" brain, the more important they seem to be.
Written by a neuroscientist who is a leader in glial research, "The Other Brain "gives readers a much more complete understanding of how the brain works and an intriguing look at potentially revolutionary developments in brain science and medicine.

How did the atom bomb help save the elephant? Have we found the secret to eternal youth? Could a parasite be manipulating you right now? This dazzling collection of stories reveals the key recent breakthroughs in science, across all fields. Inside you will meet the killers lurking in Earth's ice, the super-coral that could save our seas and the neuroscientists hunting ghosts. You will travel beyond our galaxy to worlds where the sun sets twice, and beyond our time to a future where the Internet is unhackable and chickenosaurs roam the land. Divided into sections covering physics, space, humanity, the brain, plants and animals, and linking stories from different fields, Cutting-Edge Science offers a boundless journey of discovery for anyone with a passion for the world around them. Prepare to be shocked and amazed on every page.

World-renowned neuroscientist Beau Lotto reveals the truths of human perception and devises a cognitive toolkit for how to succeed in a world of uncertainty. Perception is the foundation of human experience, but few of us understand how our own perception works. By revealing the startling truths about the brain and perception, Beau Lotto shows that the next big innovation is not a new technology: it is a new way of seeing. In his first major book, Beau Lotto draws on over a decade of pioneering research to show how our brains play tricks on us. With an innovative combination of case studies and optical- and perception-illusion exercises, DEVIATE will revolutionise the way you see the world. With this new understanding of how the brain works and its perceptive trickery, we can apply these insights to every aspect of life and work. DEVIATE is not just an engaging look into the neuroscience of thought, behaviour and creativity: it is a call to action, enlisting readers in their own journey of self-discovery.

Is anything truly random? Does infinity actually exist? Could we ever see into other dimensions?

In this delightful journey of discovery, David Darling and extraordinary child prodigy Agnijo Banerjee draw connections between the cutting edge of modern maths and life as we understand it, delving into the strange would we like alien music? and venturing out on quests to consider the existence of free will and the fantastical future of quantum computers. Packed with puzzles and paradoxes, mind-bending concepts and surprising solutions, this is for anyone who wants life s questions answered even those you never thought to ask.

The Medicine Cabinet is a beautifully curated and expertly written compendium of over 100 astonishing objects related to the story of medicine. Each object is cared for by London's Science Museum, which houses one of the largest and most significant collections of medical artefacts in the world - including a Bronze Age trepanned skull, healing water from an Ancient Greek well, a seventeenth-century barber's pole, a pharmacist's ceramic leech jar, a gold memento mori ring, First World War blood transfusion apparatus and a prototype MRI scanner. Each object is a profound reminder of the fragility of human existence, but also of the extraordinary lengths gone to by scientists, medical professionals and ordinary people in the attempt to conquer mortality. Published in association with the Science Museum, The Medicine Cabinet is a rich visual exploration of life, death and everything in between.

'Fascinating . . . timely' Daily Mail 'Refreshingly clear and engaging' Tim Harford 'Delightful . . . full of unique insights' Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter There's no getting away from statistics. We encounter them every day. We are all users of statistics whether we like it or not. Do missed appointments really cost the NHS GBP1bn per year? What's the difference between the mean gender pay gap and the median gender pay gap? How can we work out if a claim that we use 42 billion single-use plastic straws per year in the UK is accurate? What did the Vote Leave campaign's GBP350m bus really mean? How can we tell if the headline 'Public pensions cost you GBP4,000 a year' is correct? Does snow really cost the UK economy GBP1bn per day? But how do we distinguish statistical fact from fiction? What can we do to decide whether a number, claim or news story is accurate? Without an understanding of data, we cannot truly understand what is going on in the world around us. Written by Anthony Reuben, the BBC's first head of statistics, Statistical is an accessible and empowering guide to challenging the numbers all around us.

Our systems are failing. Old models - for education, healthcare and government, food production, energy supply - are creaking under the weight of modern challenges. As the world's population heads towards 10 billion, it's clear we need new approaches. Futurologist Mark Stevenson sets out to find them, across four continents.

From Brazilian favelas to high tech Boston, from rural India to a shed inventor in England's home counties, We Do Things Differently travels the world to find the advance guard re-imagining our future. At each stop, he meets innovators who have already succeeded in challenging the status quo, pioneering new ways to make our world more sustainable, equitable and humane.

Populated by extraordinary characters, We Do Things Differently paints an enthralling picture of what can be done to address the world's most pressing dilemmas, offering a much needed dose of down-to-earth optimism. It is a window on (and a roadmap to) a different and better future.