History

Sixteen years after Rene Descartes' death in Stockholm in 1650, a pious French ambassador exhumed the remains of the controversial philosopher to transport them back to Paris. Thus began a 350-year saga that saw Descartes' bones traverse a continent,...

Since the release of the documentary Blackfish in 2013, millions around the world have focused on the plight of the orca, the most profitable and controversial display animal in history. Yet, until now, no historical account has explained how we came to...

The little-known history of how the Sahara was transformed from a green and fertile land into the largest hot desert in the worldThe Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world, equal in size to China or the United States. Yet, this arid expanse was...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780385531108Author Mike BrownFormat PaperbackPage Count 288Imprint Random House IncPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 210gDimensions(mm) 203mm *...

A Vertical Empire provides a description of the British rocketry and space programme from the 1950s to 1970s, detailing the Medium Range Ballistic Missile Blue Streak and its conversion to a satellite launcher as part of the European Launcher Development...

Among the many constants that appear in mathematics, ?, e, and i are the most familiar. Following closely behind is ?,, or gamma, a constant that arises in many mathematical areas yet maintains a profound sense of mystery. In a tantalizing blend of...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780262691857Author Herbert A. SimonFormat PaperbackPage Count 464Imprint MIT PressPublisher MIT Press LtdWeight(grams) 748gDimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm *...

A renowned puzzle master and game inventor presents 315 new and traditional puzzles. Longlisted, 2016 School Library Association Information Book Award 12+ 'A great read for anyone interested in puzzles or mathematics.' Publishers Weekly. ...

If science has the equivalent of a Bloomsbury group, it is the five men born at the turn of the 20th century in the same neighborhood in Budapest: Theodore von Karman, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann, and Edward Teller. Through immigration...

John Hedley Brooke offers an introduction and critical guide to one of the most fascinating and enduring issues in the development of the modern world: the relationship between scientific thought and religious belief. It is common knowledge that in...

Traces a commonplace average—sea level—from its origins in charting land to its emergence as a symbol of global warming. News reports warn of rising sea levels spurred by climate change. Waters inch ever higher, disrupting delicate ecosystems and...

Gas! Gas! Quick, Boys! reveals for the first time the true extent of how chemistry rather than military strategy determined the shape, duration and outcome of the First World War. Chemistry was not only a destructive instrument of war but also protected...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781501142444Author David LindleyFormat PaperbackPage Count 272Imprint Simon & SchusterPublisher Simon & SchusterWeight(grams) 259gDimensions(mm) 213mm *...

Founded amid the urban commotion of Washington, DC, before the dawn of the twentieth century, the National Zoological Park opened to "preserve, teach, and conduct research about the animal world." Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo is a study of...

Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China is a monumental piece of scholarship which breaks new ground in presenting to the Western reader a detailed and coherent account of the development of science, technology and medicine in China from the...

An insider's account of the NASA mission that changed our understanding of planets, planetary systems, and the stars they orbitAre we alone in the universe? It's a fundamental question for Earth-dwelling humankind. Are there other worlds like ours, out...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781560259848Author Clifford PickoverFormat PaperbackPage Count 384Imprint Thunder's Mouth PressPublisher Thunder's Mouth PressWeight(grams)...

The iconic Periodic Table of the Elements is now in its most satisfyingly elegant form. This is because all the 'gaps' corresponding to missing elements in the seventh row, or period, have recently been filled and the elements named. But where do these...

Not Even Wrong is a fascinating exploration of our attempts to come to grips with perhaps the most intellectually demanding puzzle of all: how does the universe work at its most fundamnetal level?The book begins with an historical survey of the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781615191970Author Jessica WapnerFormat PaperbackPage Count 344Imprint The Experiment LLCPublisher The Experiment LLCWeight(grams) 386gDimensions(mm)...

Outstanding Academic Title, 1991, Choice Magazine Although building a space station has been an extraordinary challenge for America's scientists and engineers, the securing and sustaining of presidential approval, congressional support, and long-term...

Robert Kanigel takes us into the heady world of a remarkable group of scientists working at the National Institutes of Health and the Johns Hopkins University: a dynasty of American researchers who for over forty years have made Nobel Prize- and Lasker...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a field within computer science that is attempting to build enhanced intelligence into computer systems. This book traces the history of the subject, from the early dreams of eighteenth-century (and earlier) pioneers to...

In Synchronicity Paul Halpern tells the little-known story of the unlikely friendship between the Nobel-prize-winning quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli and the father of psychoanalysis, Carl Jung. In the 1930s, Pauli and Jung began collaborating on a...

In the Eastern Aegean lies an island of forested hills and olive groves, with streams, marshes and a lagoon that nearly cuts the land in two. It was here, over two thousand years ago, that Aristotle came to work. Aristotle was the greatest...

Dreamscapes of Modernity offers the first book-length treatment of sociotechnical imaginaries, a concept originated by Sheila Jasanoff and developed in close collaboration with Sang-Hyun Kim to describe how visions of scientific and technological...

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In the mid-nineteenth century, chemists came to the conclusion that elements should be organized by their atomic weights. However, the atomic weights of various elements were calculated erroneously, and chemists also observed some anomalies in the...

Generic drugs are now familiar objects in clinics, drugstores, and households around the world. We like to think of these tablets, capsules, patches, and ointments as interchangeable with their brand-name counterparts: why pay more for the same? And yet...

At a time when many people around the world are living into their tenth decade, the longest longitudinal study of human development ever undertaken offers some welcome news for the new old age: our lives continue to evolve in our later years, and often...

Do you ever look up to the stars and wonder about what is out there?Over the last few centuries, humans have successfully unraveled much of the language of the universe, exploring and defining formerly mysterious phenomena such as electricity, magnetism,...

Genius Inventions gives readers an unprecedented insight into the events, people and histories behind technological and scientific developments that have helped shape modern civilization. Discover the inspiration for some of the most important moments in...

An award-winning historian's revisionary account of the early modern world, showing how apocalyptic ideas stimulated political, religious, and intellectual transformations "A masterful synthesis of the prognostications of faith, knowledge, and politics...

"A discussion of the historical development of our ideas of time as they relate to nature, human nature and society. . . . The excellence of The Discovery of Time is unquestionable."--Martin Lebowitz, The Kenyon ReviewBook InformationISBN...

Originally published in 1932, this book provides a guide to the elementary principles underlying the examination, measurement and identification of minerals. The text was designed primarily for students of petrology and chemistry. Numerous illustrative...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780684838618Author Timothy FerrisFormat PaperbackPage Count 393Imprint Simon & SchusterPublisher Simon & SchusterWeight(grams) 363g

How genes are not the only basis of heredity-and what this means for evolution, human life, and diseaseFor much of the twentieth century it was assumed that genes alone mediate the transmission of biological information across generations and provide...

What we do and do not know about evolution, by one of the field's pioneering thinkers.Evolution is the most important idea in biology, with implications that go far beyond science. But despite more than a century's progress in understanding, there is...

August, 1755. Newcastle, on the north bank of the Tyne. In the fields, men and women are getting the harvest in. Sunlight, or rain. Scudding clouds and backbreaking labour. Three hundred feet underground, young...

'Everything you wanted to know about physics but were afraid to ask' Priyamvada Natarajan, author of Mapping the Heavens__________________________When leading theoretical physicist Professor Michael Dine was asked where you could find an accessible book...