Can you walk over red-hot charcoal without burning your feet? Appear to stop the beating of your heart? Bend spoons using the power of your mind? In "Debunked " Nobel Prize winner Georges Charpak and physics professor Henri Broch team up to show you the tricks of the trade and sleight of hand that keep astrologers, TV psychics, and spoon benders in business.

Using only the simplest of science, the authors explore the effectiveness of horoscopes--the blander the better--and why, with a television audience in the millions, any strange, unlikely prediction is almost certain to come true. If such insider information does not impress your colleagues, why not pierce your tongue with a skewer or demonstrate your eerie powers by using telepathy and the telephone to get a distant friend to intuit the number and suit of a card picked at random. Charpak and Broch show you how.

Not merely an expose of magic tricks, this book demonstrates how pseudoscientists use science, statistics, and psychology to bamboozle an audience--sometimes for fun, sometimes for profit. During the most scientifically advanced period in human history, belief in the paranormal and the supernatural is alarmingly common. Entertaining and enlightening, "Debunked " is the antidote, vigorously asserting the virtues of doubt, skepticism, curiosity, and scientific knowledge. This lucid translation makes the arguments clear, understandable, and a pleasure to read.

Much instrumentation has been developed for imaging the trajectories of elementary particles produced in high energy collisions. Since 1968, gaseous detectors, beginning with multiwire chambers and drift chambers, have been used for the visualisation of particle trajectories and the imaging of X-rays, neutrons, hard gamma rays, beta rays and ultraviolet photons. This book commemorates the groundbreaking research leading to the evolution of such detectors carried out at CERN by Georges Charpak, Nobel Prizewinner for Physics in 1992. Besides collecting his key papers, the book also includes original linking commentary which sets his work in the context of other worldwide research.

Much instrumentation has been developed for imaging the trajectories of elementary particles produced in high energy collisions. Since 1968, gaseous detectors, beginning with multiwire chambers and drift chambers, have been used for the visualisation of particle trajectories and the imaging of X-rays, neutrons, hard gamma rays, beta rays and ultraviolet photons. This book commemorates the groundbreaking research leading to the evolution of such detectors carried out at CERN by Georges Charpak, Nobel Prizewinner for Physics in 1992. Besides collecting his key papers, the book also includes original linking commentary which sets his work in the context of other worldwide research.

In "Megawatts and Megatons, world-renowned physicists Richard L. Garwin and Georges Charpak offer an accessible, eminently well-informed primer on two of the most important issues of our time: nuclear weapons and nuclear power. They begin by explaining clearly and concisely how nuclear fission and fusion work in both warheads and reactors, and how they can impact human health. Making a strong and eloquent argument in favor of arms control, Garwin and Charpak outline specific strategies for achieving this goal worldwide. But they also demonstrate how nuclear power can provide an assured, economically feasible, and environmentally responsible source of energy--in a way that avoids the hazards of weapons proliferation. Numerous figures enliven the text, including cartoons by Sempe.