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Books > Biography > Science, technology & engineering

Shoot for the Moon - The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11 (Paperback): James Donovan Shoot for the Moon - The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11 (Paperback)
James Donovan
R519 R408 Discovery Miles 4 080 Save R111 (21%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Learn why NASA astronaut Mike Collins calls this extraordinary space race story "the best book on Apollo" this inspiring and intimate ode to ingenuity celebrates one of the most daring feats in human history. When the alarm went off forty thousand feet above the moon's surface, both astronauts looked down at the computer to see 1202 flashing on the readout. Neither of them knew what it meant, and time was running out . . . On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. One of the world's greatest technological achievements -- and a triumph of the American spirit -- the Apollo 11 mission was a mammoth undertaking involving more than 410,000 men and women dedicated to winning the space race against the Soviets. Set amid the tensions and upheaval of the sixties and the Cold War, Shoot for the Moon is a gripping account of the dangers, the challenges, and the sheer determination that defined not only Apollo 11, but also the Mercury and Gemini missions that came before it. From the shock of Sputnik and the heart-stopping final minutes of John Glenn's Mercury flight to the deadly whirligig of Gemini 8, the doomed Apollo 1 mission, and that perilous landing on the Sea of Tranquility -- when the entire world held its breath while Armstrong and Aldrin battled computer alarms, low fuel, and other problems -- James Donovan tells the whole story. Both sweeping and intimate, Shoot for the Moon is "a powerfully written and irresistible celebration" of one of humankind's most extraordinary accomplishments (Booklist, starred review).

Nobel Life - Conversations with 24 Nobel Laureates on their Life Stories, Advice for Future Generations and What Remains to be... Nobel Life - Conversations with 24 Nobel Laureates on their Life Stories, Advice for Future Generations and What Remains to be Discovered (Hardcover)
Stefano Sandrone
R665 R615 Discovery Miles 6 150 Save R50 (8%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Few people have changed the world like the Nobel Prize winners. Their breakthrough discoveries have revolutionised medicine, chemistry, physics and economics. Nobel Life consists of original interviews with twenty-four Nobel Prize winners. Each of them has a unique story to tell. They recall their eureka moments and the challenges they overcame along the way, give advice to inspire future generations and discuss what remains to be discovered. Engaging and thought-provoking, Nobel Life provides an insight into life behind the Nobel Prize winners. A call from Stockholm turned a group of twenty-four academics into Nobel Prize winners. This is their call to the next generations worldwide.

The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race (Paperback): Carl C Anthony The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race (Paperback)
Carl C Anthony
R592 Discovery Miles 5 920 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

In this work, Carl Anthony shares his perspectives as an African-American child in post-World War II Philadelphia; a student and civil rights activist in 1960s Harlem; a traveling student of West African architecture; and an architect, planner, and environmental justice advocate in Berkeley. He contextualizes this within American urbanism and human origins, making profoundly personal both African American and American urban histories as well as planetary origins and environmental issues, to not only bring a new worldview to people of color, but to set forth a truly inclusive vision of our shared planetary future. The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race connects the logics behind slavery, community disinvestment, and environmental exploitation to address the most pressing issues of our time in a cohesive and foundational manner. Most books dealing with these topics and periods silo issues apart from one another, but this book contextualizes the connections between social movements and issues, providing tremendous insight into successful movement building. Anthony's rich narrative describes both being at the mercy of racism, urban disinvestment, and environmental injustice as well as fighting against these forces with a variety of strategies. Because this work is both a personal memoir and an exposition of ideas, it will appeal to those who appreciate thoughtful and unique writing on issues of race, including individuals exploring their own African American identity, as well as progressive audiences of organizations and community leaders and professionals interested in democratizing power and advancing equitable policies for low-income communities and historically disenfranchised communities.

The House of Alice Roughton: Cambridge Doctor, Humanist, Patron and Activist - From the Edwardian to the Contemporary... The House of Alice Roughton: Cambridge Doctor, Humanist, Patron and Activist - From the Edwardian to the Contemporary (Paperback)
Xavier Munoz Puiggros
R971 Discovery Miles 9 710 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

From her home at 9 Adams Road in the university city of Cambridge, Alice Roughton (19001995) demonstrated a strongly altruistic lifestyle, housing young students, the mentally ill, artists, intellectuals, friends, persecuted homosexuals and refugees (German Jews in 1939, Hungarians in 1956 and Chileans in 1973). She practiced psychiatry and general medicine alongside personal activism such as medics against nuclear warfare and opposing the financing of urbanisation the latter related to the destruction of the historical centres of English cities. Alice was a patron of artists and intellectuals, including the Catalan musician Robert Gerhard and the German dancer Kurt Jooss. She befriended the economists J. M. Keynes and Joan Robinson, the philosopher Bertrand Russell, the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, the molecular biologist James Watson, as well as the composer Benjamin Britten, who held memorable concerts at her house, as well as many other dignitaries of science and the humanities. The House of Alice Roughton locates her professional medical work and private life activities and relationships within the sociological circumstances within which she lived circumstances that reveal the historical and cultural changes of a century that experienced two world wars, the advance of science and the overturning of lifestyle prejudices. The biography revolves around one location 9 Adams Road. Alice and her familys lived experiences act as a window onto the profound global transformations which took place from the second industrial revolution to the discovery of the structure of DNA From the Edwardian to the Contemporary. Her familys life story moves through tragic events in Switzerland to her husbands war years in America. Her biographers engagement with Alice begins in 1978, on a student holiday trip from his native Catalonia.

Helene Deutsch - A Psychoanalyst's Life (Hardcover): Paul Roazen Helene Deutsch - A Psychoanalyst's Life (Hardcover)
Paul Roazen
R3,356 Discovery Miles 33 560 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Student and protege of Sigmund Freud, Helene Deutsch was one of the most influential psychoanalysts of her time. An early woman analyst, Deutsch was an ardent feminist and a leading proponent of Freud's controversial theories about the psychology of women. Deutsch was also one of the first prominent career women to combine a professional life with motherhood-even though she never resolved her own conflicts over those contradictory demands. At the time of her death in 1982 at the age of 97, Helene Deutsch was the last survivior of Freud's original circle from Vienna. This volume is a definitive account of the life and works of this remarkable-and enigmatic-woman. The author knew Deutsch personally and was given exclusive access to her papers after her death.The private life of Helene Deutsch was as unconventional as her professional life. While Felix Deutsch, a physician who specialized in psychosomatic medicine, was to remain her husband for fifty years and father her son, Martin, their relationship was highly eccentric. Roazen produces evidence that indicates Felix Deutsch may have been homosexual; also that their son was raised primarily by Felix, as Helene was more interested in her career than was Felix in his, and the Deutsches often lived continents apart.With the rise of Nazism, Helene Deutsch departed in 1935 for America She was welcomed in Cambridge, Massachusetts by the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and was made director of the Society's new institute for the training of analysts. Her two-volume The Psychology of Women, published in 1945, remains one of the foundations of modern analysis. Roazen's biography is an authoritative portrait of a pioneer of psychoanalysis, and one of the unique women of her day. It will be of interest to psychoanalysts, cultural historians, and specialists in women's studies.

George and Robert Stephenson - A Passion for Success (Paperback, 2nd edition): David Ross George and Robert Stephenson - A Passion for Success (Paperback, 2nd edition)
David Ross
R617 R506 Discovery Miles 5 060 Save R111 (18%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

From poverty to immense wealth, from humble beginnings to international celebrity, George and Robert Stephenson's was an extraordinary joint career. Together they overshadow all other engineers, except perhaps Robert's friend Isambard Kingdom Brunel, for one vital reason: they were winners. For them it was not enough to follow the progress made by others. They had to be the best. Colossal in confidence, ability, energy and ambition, George Stephenson was also a man of huge rages and jealousies, determined to create his own legend. Brought up from infancy by his father, Robert was a very different person. Driven by the need to be the super-successful son his father wanted, he struggled with self-distrust and morbid depression. More than once his career and reputation teetered on the edge of disaster. But, by being flawed, he emerges as a far more interesting and sympathetic figure than the conventional picture of the 'eminent engineer.' David Ross's biography of George and Robert Stephenson sheds much new light on this remarkable father and son. Authoritative and containing many new discoveries, it is a highly readable account of how these two men set the modern industrial world in motion.

Into the Gray Zone - A Neuroscientist Explores the Mysteries of the Brain and the Border Between Life and Death (Paperback):... Into the Gray Zone - A Neuroscientist Explores the Mysteries of the Brain and the Border Between Life and Death (Paperback)
Adrian Owen
R471 R390 Discovery Miles 3 900 Save R81 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Brain on Fire (10th Anniversary Edition) - My Month of Madness (Paperback): Susannah Cahalan Brain on Fire (10th Anniversary Edition) - My Month of Madness (Paperback)
Susannah Cahalan
R489 R368 Discovery Miles 3 680 Save R121 (25%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

An award-winning memoir and instant "New York Times" bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, "Brain on Fire" is the powerful account of one woman's struggle to recapture her identity.
When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she'd gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened?
In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Susannah tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family's inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn't happen. "A fascinating look at the disease that . . . could have cost this vibrant, vital young woman her life" ("People"), "Brain on Fire" is an unforgettable exploration of memory and identity, faith and love, and a profoundly compelling tale of survival and perseverance that is destined to become a classic.

Walk It Off - The True and Hilarious Story of How I Learned to Stand, Walk, Pee, Run, and Have Sex Again After a Nightmarish... Walk It Off - The True and Hilarious Story of How I Learned to Stand, Walk, Pee, Run, and Have Sex Again After a Nightmarish Diagnosis Turned My Awesome Life Upside Down (Paperback, Canadian Origin ed.)
Ruth Marshall
R443 R367 Discovery Miles 3 670 Save R76 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Psyche Unbound - Essays in Honor of Stanislav Grof (Hardcover): Richard Tarnas, Sean M. Kelly Psyche Unbound - Essays in Honor of Stanislav Grof (Hardcover)
Richard Tarnas, Sean M. Kelly; Foreword by Rick Doblin
R683 Discovery Miles 6 830 Ships in 12 - 17 working days
Man with His Head in the Clouds - James Sadler: the First Englishman to Fly (Hardcover): Richard O. Smith Man with His Head in the Clouds - James Sadler: the First Englishman to Fly (Hardcover)
Richard O. Smith 1
R452 Discovery Miles 4 520 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This is the story of how an uneducated Oxford pastry cook became the first Englishman to fly, in a self-built balloon powered by primitive, and potentially lethal, hydrogen. Despite taking off in force 8 gales, crashing into hills and plopping into the Irish Sea, James Sadler became a rare pioneering aeronaut to survive such perilous ascents. Good luck was not hereditary; his son's balloon fatally collided with a chimney. Sadler advanced the scientific evolution of lighter-than-air flight, and took part in both of the famous races that so captivated the public in late eighteenth-century Europe: across the Channel, and the Irish Sea. He earned Lord Nelson's endorsement for improving the Royal Navy with applied science, created one of the first - perhaps the very first - mobile steam engines and was revered by fans like Percy Shelley and Dr. Johnson. Yet even the brightest stars one day collapse, as Sadler's name emits virtually no light today. Like Sadler, Richard O. Smith emanates from Oxford's Town not Gown. Like Sadler, he wants to look down on Oxford - literally - and his admiration for the balloonist culminates in him replicating the first ever flight, also over Oxford. But there is a problem. The author suffers from acute acrophobia, a crippling fear of heights. This prevents him from standing on a stool, yet alone dangling at 3,000 feet beneath an oversized party balloon. To overcome his chronic height anxiety, he seeks pre-flight counselling, learning all about current understanding of phobias and anxieties. Here he discovers that he is also bathmophobic - a fully-functioning adult who is afraid of stairs. Inspired by Sadler, Smith sets out to overcome his debilitating fear and ascend in a balloon over Oxford. 'Be positive. You just need a will to do it,' counsels a psychologist. So, taking that advice, he starts positively, by making a will.

The Innovators - How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (Paperback): Walter Isaacson The Innovators - How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (Paperback)
Walter Isaacson
R629 R505 Discovery Miles 5 050 Save R124 (20%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - Adventures of a Curious Character (Paperback): Richard P. Feynman "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - Adventures of a Curious Character (Paperback)
Richard P. Feynman; Introduction by Bill Gates; Edited by Ralph Leighton
R308 R290 Discovery Miles 2 900 Save R18 (6%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Richard P. Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous adventures. In this lively work that "can shatter the stereotype of the stuffy scientist" (Detroit Free Press), Feynman recounts his experiences trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and cracking the uncrackable safes guarding the most deeply held nuclear secrets-and much more of an eyebrow-raising nature. In his stories, Feynman's life shines through in all its eccentric glory-a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah. Included for this edition is a new introduction by Bill Gates.

Smoking Kills - The Revolutionary Life of Richard Doll (Paperback): Conrad Keating Smoking Kills - The Revolutionary Life of Richard Doll (Paperback)
Conrad Keating
R482 Discovery Miles 4 820 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

At the end of the Second World War, Britain had the highest incidence of lung cancer in the world. For the first time lung cancer deaths exceeded those from tuberculosis - and no one knew why. On 30 September 1950, a young physician named Richard Doll concluded in a research paper that smoking cigarettes was "a cause and an important cause" of the rapidly increasing epidemic of lung cancer. His historic and contentious finding marked the beginning of a life-long crusade against premature death and the forces of "Big Tobacco". Born in 1912, Doll, a natural patrician, jettisoned his Establishment background and joined the Communist Party as a reaction to the "anarchy and waste" of capitalism in the 1930s. He treated the blistered feet of the Jarrow Marchers, served as a medical officer at the retreat to Dunkirk, and became a true hero of the NHS. A political revolutionary and an epidemiologist with a Darwinian heart-of-stone, Doll fulfilled his early ambition to be "a valuable member of society". Doll steered a course through a minefield of medical and political controversy. Opponents from the tobacco industry questioned his science, while later critics from the environmental lobby attacked his alleged connections to the chemical industry. An enigmatic individual, Doll was feared and respected throughout a long and wide-ranging scientific career which ended only with his death in 2005. In this authorised and groundbreaking biography, Conrad Keating reveals a man whose life and work encapsulates much of the twentieth century. Described by the British Medical Journal as "perhaps Britain's most eminent doctor", Doll ushered in a new era in medicine: the intellectual ascendancy of medical statistics. According to the Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse, his work, which may have prevented tens of millions of deaths, "transcends the boundaries of professional medicine into the global community of mankind."

A Crack in Creation - Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution (Paperback): Jennifer A. Doudna, Samuel H... A Crack in Creation - Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution (Paperback)
Jennifer A. Doudna, Samuel H Sternberg 1
R443 R336 Discovery Miles 3 360 Save R107 (24%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

BY THE WINNER OF THE 2020 NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize "A powerful mix of science and ethics . . . This book is required reading for every concerned citizen--the material it covers should be discussed in schools, colleges, and universities throughout the country."-- New York Review of Books Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. That is, until 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the gene-editing tool CRISPR--a revolutionary new technology that she helped create--to make heritable changes in human embryos. The cheapest, simplest, most effective way of manipulating DNA ever known, CRISPR may well give us the cure to HIV, genetic diseases, and some cancers. Yet even the tiniest changes to DNA could have myriad, unforeseeable consequences, to say nothing of the ethical and societal repercussions of intentionally mutating embryos to create "better" humans. Writing with fellow researcher Sam Sternberg, Doudna--who has since won the Nobel Prize for her CRISPR research--shares the thrilling story of her discovery and describes the enormous responsibility that comes with the power to rewrite the code of life. "The future is in our hands as never before, and this book explains the stakes like no other." -- George Lucas "An invaluable account . . . We owe Doudna several times over." -- Guardian

Cicely Saunders - The Founder Of The Modern Hospice Movement (Paperback): Shirley Du Boulay Cicely Saunders - The Founder Of The Modern Hospice Movement (Paperback)
Shirley Du Boulay
R433 R354 Discovery Miles 3 540 Save R79 (18%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

Dame Cicely Saunders was the founder of the Hospice Movement, in which Britain leads the world. Her work transformed our approach to the care of the dying, and also the debate about euthanasia. She died in 2005 and her memorial service was held in Westminster Abbey in March 2006. Over 1600 people attended. This biography, by Shirley du Boulay, includes a 4-page plate section and new chapters by Marianne Rankin covering the years after 1984.

The Seven Ages of Death - 'Every chapter is like a detective story' Telegraph (Paperback): Richard Shepherd The Seven Ages of Death - 'Every chapter is like a detective story' Telegraph (Paperback)
Richard Shepherd
R265 R212 Discovery Miles 2 120 Save R53 (20%) Ships in 5 - 10 working days

The heart-wrenchingly honest new book about life and death from forensic pathologist and bestselling author of UNNATURAL CAUSES, Dr Richard Shepherd A TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Deeply insightful. Unflinching' THE TIMES 'A finely-crafted detective story' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Enlightening, strangely uplifting' DAILY MAIL 'Fascinating' DAILY EXPRESS _________ Dr Richard Shepherd, a medical detective and Britain's top forensic pathologist, shares twenty-four of his most intriguing, enlightening and never-before-told cases. These autopsies, spanning the seven ages of human existence, uncover the secrets not only of how a person died, but also of how they lived. From old to young, murder to misadventure, and illness to accidental death, each body has something to reveal - about its owner's life story, how we age, justice, society, the certainty of death. And, above all, the wonderful marvel of life itself. _________ Praise for Dr Richard Shepherd 'Gripping, grimly fascinating, and I suspect I'll read it at least twice' Evening Standard 'A deeply mesmerising memoir of forensic pathology. Human and fascinating' Nigella Lawson 'An absolutely brilliant book. I really recommend it, I don't often say that but it's fascinating' Jeremy Vine, BBC Radio 2 'Puts the reader at his elbow as he wields the scalpel' Guardian 'Fascinating, gruesome yet engrossing' Richard and Judy, Daily Express 'Fascinating, insightful, candid, compassionate' Observer

One Doctor - Close Calls, Cold Cases, and the Mysteries of Medicine (Paperback): Brendan Reilly One Doctor - Close Calls, Cold Cases, and the Mysteries of Medicine (Paperback)
Brendan Reilly
R540 R453 Discovery Miles 4 530 Save R87 (16%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Told by a unique voice in American medicine, this epic story recounts life-changing experiences in the career of a distinguished physician, and is described by "The" "New York Times "as "a true service to history]. Dr. Reilly deserves a resounding bravo for telling it like it is." Malcolm Gladwell agrees: "Brendan Reilly has written a beautiful book about a forgotten subject--what it means for a physician to truly care for a patient."
Every review of "One Doctor" noted its beautiful writing and compelling story, the riveting tension and suspense. "Remarkable with heart-pounding pace and drama" ("Publishers Weekly");" ""a gripping, moving memoir" (Abraham Verghese); "a terrific read" ("The Boston Globe");" ""an astonishingly moving and incredibly personal account of a modern doctor" ("The Lancet").
In compelling first-person prose, Dr. Brendan Reilly takes readers to the front lines of medicine today. Whipsawed by daily crises and frustra-tions, Reilly must deal with several daunting challenges simultaneously. As Reilly's patients and their families survive close calls, struggle with heartrending decisions, and confront the limits of medicine's power to cure, "One Doctor "lays bare a fragmented, depersonalized, business-driven health care system where real caring is hard to find. Every day, Reilly sees patients who fall through the cracks and suffer harm because they lack one doctor who knows them well and relentlessly advocates for their best interests. Filled with fascinating characters in New York City and rural New England--people with dark secrets, mysterious illnesses, impossible dreams, and limitless courage--"One Doctor" tells their stories with sensitivity and empathy, reminding us of professional values once held dear by all physicians.

Planting the World - Joseph Banks and His Collectors: an Adventurous History of Botany (Paperback): Jordan Goodman Planting the World - Joseph Banks and His Collectors: an Adventurous History of Botany (Paperback)
Jordan Goodman
R263 Discovery Miles 2 630 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

'Based on meticulous research in original sources ... Goodman illustrates vividly how adept [Banks] was ... Shining a light on individuals whose achievements are relatively uncelebrated' Jenny Uglow, New York Review of Books A bold new history of how botany and global plant collecting - centred at Kew Gardens and driven by Joseph Banks - transformed the earth. Botany was the darling and the powerhouse of the eighteenth century. As European ships ventured across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, discovery bloomed. Bounties of new plants were brought back, and their arrival meant much more than improved flowerbeds - it offered a new scientific frontier that would transform Europe's industry, medicine, eating and drinking habits, and even fashion. Joseph Banks was the dynamo for this momentous change. As botanist for James Cook's great voyage to the South Pacific on the Endeavour, Banks collected plants on a vast scale, armed with the vision - as a child of the Enlightenment - that to travel physically was to advance intellectually. His thinking was as intrepid as Cook's seafaring: he commissioned radically influential and physically daring expeditions such as those of Francis Masson to the Cape Colony, George Staunton to China, George Caley to Australia, William Bligh to Tahiti and Jamaica, among many others. Jordan Goodman's epic history follows these high seas adventurers and their influence in Europe, as well as taking us back to the early years of Kew Gardens, which Banks developed devotedly across the course of his life, transforming it into one of the world's largest and most diverse botanical gardens. In a rip-roaring global expedition, based on original sources in many languages, Goodman gives a momentous history of how the discoveries made by Banks and his collectors advanced scientific understanding around the world.

A Sense of Where You Are - Bill Bradley at Princeton (Paperback, Revised ed.): John McPhee A Sense of Where You Are - Bill Bradley at Princeton (Paperback, Revised ed.)
John McPhee
R471 R357 Discovery Miles 3 570 Save R114 (24%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

When John McPhee met Bill Bradley, both were at the beginning of their careers. A Sense of Where You Are, McPhee’s first book, is about Bradley when he was the best basketball player Princeton had ever seen. McPhee delineates for the reader the training and techniques that made Bradley the extraordinary athlete he was, and this part of the book is a blueprint of superlative basketball. But athletic prowess alone would not explain Bradley’s magnetism, which is in the quality of the man himself—his self-discipline, his rationality, and his sense of responsibility. Here is a portrait of Bradley as he was in college, before his time with the New York Knicks and his election to the U.S. Senate—a story that suggests the abundant beginnings of his professional careers in sport and politics.

What Stars Are Made Of - The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (Hardcover): Donovan Moore What Stars Are Made Of - The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (Hardcover)
Donovan Moore; Foreword by Jocelyn Bell Burnell
R890 R664 Discovery Miles 6 640 Save R226 (25%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

A New Scientist Book of the Year A Physics Today Book of the Year A Science News Book of the Year The history of science is replete with women getting little notice for their groundbreaking discoveries. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a tireless innovator who correctly theorized the substance of stars, was one of them. It was not easy being a woman of ambition in early twentieth-century England, much less one who wished to be a scientist. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin overcame prodigious obstacles to become a woman of many firsts: the first to receive a PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College, the first promoted to full professor at Harvard, the first to head a department there. And, in what has been called "the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy," she was the first to describe what stars are made of. Payne-Gaposchkin lived in a society that did not know what to make of a determined schoolgirl who wanted to know everything. She was derided in college and refused a degree. As a graduate student, she faced formidable skepticism. Revolutionary ideas rarely enjoy instantaneous acceptance, but the learned men of the astronomical community found hers especially hard to take seriously. Though welcomed at the Harvard College Observatory, she worked for years without recognition or status. Still, she accomplished what every scientist yearns for: discovery. She revealed the atomic composition of stars-only to be told that her conclusions were wrong by the very man who would later show her to be correct. In What Stars Are Made Of, Donovan Moore brings this remarkable woman to life through extensive archival research, family interviews, and photographs. Moore retraces Payne-Gaposchkin's steps with visits to cramped observatories and nighttime bicycle rides through the streets of Cambridge, England. The result is a story of devotion and tenacity that speaks powerfully to our own time.

The Physics Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained (Hardcover): Dk The Physics Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained (Hardcover)
Dk; Foreword by Jim Al-Khalili
R904 R737 Discovery Miles 7 370 Save R167 (18%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers - The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth (Paperback, 1st pbk. ed): Paul... The Man Who Loved Only Numbers - The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth (Paperback, 1st pbk. ed)
Paul Hoffman
R518 R428 Discovery Miles 4 280 Save R90 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Based on a National Magazine Award-winning article, this masterful biography of Hungarian-born Paul Erdos is both a vivid portrait of an eccentric genius and a layman's guide to some of this century's most startling mathematical discoveries. A man who possessed unimaginable powers of thought yet was unable to perform the simplest daily tasks, Erdos dedicated his life to the pursuit of mathematical truth. Here, award-winning science writer Paul Hoffman follows the career and achievements of this philosopher-scientist whose way of life was as inconceivable as the theorems he devised, yet whose accomplishments continue to enrich and inform the world.

Sir James Dewar, 1842-1923 - A Ruthless Chemist (Hardcover, New Ed): J. S. Rowlinson Sir James Dewar, 1842-1923 - A Ruthless Chemist (Hardcover, New Ed)
J. S. Rowlinson
R4,361 Discovery Miles 43 610 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Sir James Dewar was a major figure in British chemistry for around 40 years. He held the posts of Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy at Cambridge (1875-1923) and Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution (1877-1923) and is remembered principally for his efforts to liquefy hydrogen successfully in the field that would come to be known as cryogenics. His experiments in this field led him to develop the vacuum flask, now more commonly known as the thermos, and in 1898 he was the first person to successfully liquefy hydrogen. A man of many interests, he was also, with Frederick Abel, the inventor of explosive cordite, an achievement that involved him in a major legal battle with Alfred Nobel. Indeed, Dewar's career saw him involved in a number of public quarrels with fellow scientists; he was a fierce and sometimes unscrupulous defender of his rights and his claims to priority in a way that throws much light on the scientific spirit and practice of his day. This, the first scholarly biography of Dewar, seeks to resurrect and reinterpret a man who was a giant of his time, but is now sadly overlooked. In so doing, the book will shed much new light on the scientific culture of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries and the development of the field of chemistry in Britain.

The Lizard Man Speaks (Paperback): Eric R Pianka The Lizard Man Speaks (Paperback)
Eric R Pianka
R489 Discovery Miles 4 890 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Alone on the endless red-sand desert in the Australian outback, tracking Varanus giganteus, the perentie lizard that grows to be more than six feet long...for desert rat Eric Pianka, such adventures have led to a satisfying, if unusual, way of life, as well as a distinguished career as a field biologist.

In The Lizard Man Speaks, Pianka recounts more than thirty years of adventures in reptile studies. He tells of "lizarding" in the North American deserts, the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, and the Great Victoria Desert in Western Australia. His vivid imagery draws the reader into a world where lions lurk in the darkness beyond a gecko hunter's lights, where being stranded by car trouble miles from the last outpost is a constant danger, and where the wilderness still deserves to be called wild.

Along the way, Pianka provides much general information about lizard ecology, the fire succession cycle, and the interaction of humans with the landscape. And he reveals the springs of his own determined spirit and love of solitude, describing a near-fatal boyhood accident and its shaping and character-building effect on the life that followed.

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