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'Probably the most readable, exciting and authoritative writer on
science we have. A new Lawrence Krauss book always goes to the top
of the curious mind's wish list.' Stephen Fry 'A great educator as
well as a great physicist ' Richard Dawkins In the beginning there
was light but more than this, there was gravity. After that, all
hell broke loose... This is how the story of the greatest
intellectual adventure in history should be introduced - how
humanity reached its current understanding of the universe, one
that is far removed from the realm of everyday experience. Krauss
connects the world we know with the invisible world all around us,
which is removed from intuition and direct sensation. He explains
our current understanding of nature and the struggle to construct
the greatest theoretical edifice ever assembled, the Standard Model
of Particle Physics -- and then to understand its implications for
our existence. Writing in the critically acclaimed style of A
Universe from Nothing, Krauss celebrates the beauty and wonders of
the natural world and details our place within it and how this
shapes our understanding of it. Krauss makes this story accessible
through profiles of the scientists responsible for these advances,
and clear explanations of their discoveries. Krauss takes us on a
tour of science and the brilliant personalities who shaped it,
often against political and religious indoctrination, enduring
persecution and ostracism. Krauss creates a captivating blend of
research and narrative to invite us into the lives and minds of
these figures,creating a landmark work of scientific history.
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.
'Probably the most readable, exciting and authoritative writer on
science we have. A new Lawrence Krauss book always goes to the top
of the curious mind's wish list.' Stephen Fry "I loved the fight
scenes and the sex scenes were excellent." (Eric Idle) 'In the span
of a century, physics progressed from skepticism that atoms were
real to equations so precise we can predict properties of subatomic
particles to the tenth decimal place. Lawrence Krauss rightly
places this achievement among the greatest of all stories, and his
book-at once engaging, poetic and scholarly-tells the story with a
scientist's penetrating insight and a writer's masterly craft.'
(Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe, and Director, Center
for Theoretical Physics, Columbia University) "Unlike some very
clever scientists, Lawrence Krauss is not content to bask on the
Mount Olympus of modern physics. A great educator as well as a
great physicist, he wants to pull others up the rarefied heights to
join him. But unlike some science educators, he doesn't dumb down.
In Einstein's words, he makes it 'as simple as possible but no
simpler.'" (Richard Dawkins, author of The Magic of Reality) "In
every debate I've done with theologians and religious believers
their knock-out final argument always comes in the form of two
questions: Why is there something rather than nothing? and Why are
we here? The presumption is that if science provides no answers
then there must be a God. But God or no, we still want answers. In
A Universe From Nothing Lawrence Krauss, one of the biggest
thinkers of our time, addressed the first question with verve, and
in The Greatest Story Ever Told he tackles the second with
elegance. Both volumes should be placed in hotel rooms across
America, in the drawer next to the Gideon Bible." (Michael Shermer,
Publisher Skeptic magazine, columnist Scientific American,
Presidential Fellow Chapman University, author The Moral Arc.) "A
Homeric tale of science, history, and philosophy revealing how we
learned so much about the universe and its tiniest parts." (Sheldon
Glashow, Nobel Laureate, 1979 in physics) "The Greatest Story Ever
Told-So Far ranges from Galileo to the LHC and beyond. It's
accessible, illuminating, and surprising-an ideal guide for anyone
interested in understanding our accidental universe." (Elizabeth
Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction)
"College students, hippies, squares, Christians, Muslims,
democrats, republicans, libertarians, theists, even atheists-all of
us-sit around BS-ing like: 'So, how did all this, I mean
everything, all of us, the whole universe, you know, man,
everything, how did this all get here?' While we were doing that,
Lawrence Krauss and people like him were doing the work to figure
it out. Then Krauss wrote this great book about it. 'Wow, man, you
mean, like we're getting closer to really knowing? I guess we'll
have to go back to talking about politics and sex.'" (Penn
Jillette, author of Presto!) "Discovering the bedrock nature of
physical reality ranks as one of humanity's greatest collective
achievements. This book gives a fine account of the main ideas and
how they emerged. Krauss is himself close to the field, and can
offer insights into the personalities who have led the key
advances. A practiced and skilled writer, he succeeds in making the
physics 'as simple as possible but no simpler.' I don't know a
better book on this subject." (Martin Rees, author of Just Six
Numbers) "It is an exhilarating experience to be led through this
fascinating story, from Galileo to the Standard Model and the Higgs
boson and beyond, with lucid detail and insight, illuminating
vividly not only the achievements themselves but also the joy of
creative thought and discovery, enriched with vignettes of the
remarkable individuals who paved the way. It amply demonstrates
that the discovery that 'nature really follows the simple and
elegant rules intuited by the 20th- and 21st-century versions of
Plato's philosophers' is one of the most astonishing achievements
of the human intellect." (Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor &
Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus), MIT) "Charming... Krauss has
written an account with sweep and verve that shows the full
development of our ideas about the makeup of the world around us...
A great romp." (Walter Gilbert, Nobel Award, Chemistry, 1980)
"History of science with an edge-humorous, personal, passionate,
yet intellectually serious and authoritative." (Frank Wilczek,
Nobel Laureate, Physics) In the beginning there was light but more
than this, there was gravity. After that, all hell broke loose...
This is how the story of the greatest intellectual adventure in
history should be introduced - how humanity reached its current
understanding of the universe, one that is far removed from the
realm of everyday experience. Krauss connects the world we know
with the invisible world all around us, which is removed from
intuition and direct sensation. He explains our current
understanding of nature and the struggle to construct the greatest
theoretical edifice ever assembled, the Standard Model of Particle
Physics -- and then to understand its implications for our
existence. Writing in the critically acclaimed style of A Universe
from Nothing, Krauss celebrates the beauty and wonders of the
natural world and details our place within it and how this shapes
our understanding of it. Krauss makes this story accessible through
profiles of the scientists responsible for these advances, and
clear explanations of their discoveries. Krauss takes us on a tour
of science and the brilliant personalities who shaped it, often
against political and religious indoctrination, enduring
persecution and ostracism. Krauss creates a captivating blend of
research and narrative to invite us into the lives and minds of
these figures,creating a landmark work of scientific history.
Bestselling author and acclaimed physicist Lawrence Krauss offers a
paradigm-shifting view of how everything that exists came to be in
the first place.
"Where did the universe come from? What was there before it? What
will the future bring? And finally, why is there something rather
than nothing?"
One of the few prominent scientists today to have crossed the chasm
between science and popular culture, Krauss describes the
staggeringly beautiful experimental observations and mind-bending
new theories that demonstrate not only can something arise from
nothing, something will "always "arise from nothing. With a new
preface about the significance of the discovery of the Higgs
particle, "A Universe from Nothing "uses Krauss's characteristic
wry humor and wonderfully clear explanations to take us back to the
beginning of the beginning, presenting the most recent evidence for
how our universe evolved--and the implications for how it's going
to end.
Provocative, challenging, and delightfully readable, this is a
game-changing look at the most basic underpinning of existence and
a powerful antidote to outmoded philosophical, religious, and
scientific thinking.
Wherever the people are well informed, Thomas Jefferson wrote, they
can be trusted with their own government. But what happens when
they are not? In every issue of modern society--from climate change
to vaccinations, transportation to technology, health care to
defense--we are in the midst of an unprecedented expansion of
scientific progress and a simultaneous expansion of danger. At the
very time we need them most, scientists and the idea of objective
knowledge are being bombarded by a vast, well-funded, three-part
war on science: the identity politics war on science, the
ideological war on science, and the industrial war on science. The
result is an unprecedented erosion of thought in Western
democracies as voters, policymakers, and justices actively ignore
the evidence from science, leaving major policy decisions to be
based more on the demands of the most strident voices. Shawn Otto's
compelling new book investigates the historical, social,
philosophical, political, and emotional reasons why evidence-based
politics are in decline and authoritarian politics are once again
on the rise on both left and right, and provides some compelling
solutions to bring us to our collective senses, before it's too
late.
"Raif Badawi's is an important voice for all of us to hear"--
Salman Rushdie Raif Badawi, a Saudi Arabian blogger, shared his
thoughts on politics, religion, and liberalism online. He was
sentenced to 1,000 lashes, ten years in prison, and a fine of 1
million Saudi Riyal, over a quarter of a million U.S. dollars. This
politically topical polemic gathers together Badawi's pivotal
texts. He expresses his opinions on life in an autocratic-Islamic
state under the Sharia and his perception of freedom of expression,
human and civil rights, tolerance and the necessary separation of
state and religion.
In this classic treatise on atheism,George H. Smith sets out to
demolish what he considers the most widespread and destructive of
all the myths devised by human beings - the concept of a supreme
being. With painstaking scholarship and rigorous arguments, Mr.
Smith examines, dissects, and refutes the myriad "proofs" offered
by theists - sophisticated, professional theologians - as well as
the average religious layperson. He explores the historical and
psychological havoc wrought by religion in general and concludes
that religious belief cannot have any place in the life of modern,
rational man. "It is not my purpose to convert people to atheism .
. . (but to) demonstrate that the belief in God is irrational to
the point of absurdity. If a person wishes to continue believing in
a god, that is his prerogative, but he can no longer excuse his
belief in the name of reason and moral necessity."
Perhaps the greatest physicist of the second half of the twentieth
century, Richard Feynman changed the way we think about quantum
mechanics, the most perplexing of all physical theories. Here
Lawrence M. Krauss, himself a theoretical physicist and a
best-selling author, offers a unique scientific biography: a
rollicking narrative coupled with clear and novel expositions of
science at the limits. From the death of Feynman s childhood
sweetheart during the Manhattan Project to his reluctant rise as a
scientific icon, we see Feynman s life through his science,
providing a new understanding of the legacy of a man who has
fascinated millions."
Will the universe continue to expand forever, reverse its expansion
and begin to contract, or reach a delicately poised state where it
simply persists forever? The answer depends on the amount and
properties of matter in the universe, and that has given rise to
one of the great paradoxes of modern cosmology: there is too little
visible matter to account for the behavior we can see. Over ninety
percent of the universe consists of "missing mass" or "dark matter"
- what Lawrence Krauss, in his classic book, termed "the fifth
essence."In this new edition of T"he Fifth Essence," retitled
"Quintessence" after the now widely accepted term for dark matter,
Krauss shows how the dark matter problem is now connected with two
of the hottest areas in recent cosmology: the fate of the universe
and the "cosmological constant." With a new introduction, epilogue,
and chapter updates, Krauss updates his classic for 1999 and shares
one of the most stunning discoveries of recent years: an
anti-gravity force that explains recent observations of a
permanently expanding universe.
In the bestselling The Physics of Star Trek, the renowned theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss took readers on an entertaining and eye-opening tour of the Star Trek universe to see how it stacked up against the real universe. Now, responding to requests for more as well as to a number of recent exciting discoveries in physics and astronomy, Krauss takes a provocative look at how the laws of physics relate to notions from our popular culture -- not only Star Trek, but other films, shows, and popular lore -- from Independence Day to Star Wars to The X-Files. - What's the difference between a flying saucer and a flying pretzel?
- Why didn't the aliens in Independence Day have to bother invading Earth to destroy it?
- What's new with warp drives?
- What's the most likely scenario for doomsday?
- Are ESP and telekinesis impossible?
- What do clairvoyance and time travel have in common?
- How might quantum mechanics ultimately affect the fate of life in the universe?
An exploration of mankind's fascination with worlds beyond our
own-by the bestselling author of "The Physics of Star Trek"
Lawrence Krauss -an international leader in physics and
cosmology-examines our long and ardent romance with parallel
universes, veiled dimensions, and regions of being that may extend
tantalizingly beyond the limits of our perception. Krauss examines
popular culture's current embrace (and frequent misunderstanding)
of such topics as black holes, life in other dimensions, strings,
and some of the more extraordinary new theories that propose the
existence of vast extra dimensions alongside our own. BACKCOVER:
"An astonishing and brilliantly written work of popular
science."
-Science a GoGo
"A brilliant, thrilling book . . . You'll have so much fun reading
that you'll hardly notice you're getting a primer on contemporary
physics and cosmology."
-Walter Isaacson, author of "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life"
Six acclaimed scholars-including a biologist, a sociologist, a
historian, a philosopher, and a physicist-examine the evolution
debate. Eighty-one years after America witnessed the Scopes trial
over the teaching of evolution in public schools, the debate
between science and religion continues. In this book scholars from
a variety of disciplines-sociology, history, science, and
theology-provide new insights into the contemporary dialogue as
well as some perspective suggestions for delineating the
responsibilities of both the scientific and religious spheres. Why
does the tension between science and religion continue? How have
those tensions changed during the past one hundred years? How have
those tensions impacted the public debate about so-called
"intelligent design" as a scientific alternative to evolution? With
wit and wisdom the authors address the conflict from its
philosophical roots to its manifestations within American culture.
In doing so, they take an important step toward creating a society
that reconciles scientific inquiry with the human spirit. This
book, which marks the one hundredth anniversary of The Terry
Lecture Series, offers a unique perspective for anyone interested
in the debate between science and religion in America.
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