Physics Philosophy

The latest developments in physics have the potential to radically revise our understanding of the world: its makeup, its evolution, and the fundamental forces that drive its operation. Knocking on Heaven's Door is an exhilarating and accessible overview of these developments and an impassioned argument for the significance of science. There could be no better guide than Lisa Randall.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, long-suppressed information has emerged on Heisenberg’s role in the Nazi atomic bomb project. In Beyond Uncertainty, Cassidy interprets this and other previously unknown material within the context of his vast research and tackles the vexing questions of a scientist’s personal responsibility and guilt when serving an abhorrent military regime.

A complete investigation of the development and suppression of antigravity and field propulsion technologies Reveals advanced aerospace technologies capable of controlling gravity that could revolutionize air travel and energy production Reviews numerous field propulsion devices that...

Buckle up for a joy ride through physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. Drawing on conversations with hundreds of the world's top scientists and her own work as an award-winning science writer, Natalie Angier does the impossible: she makes science fascinating and seriously fun, even for those of us who, in Angier's words, "still can't tell the difference between a proton, a photon, and a moron".

We live in complicated, dangerous times. They are also hyper-technical times. As citizens who will elect future presidents of the most powerful and influential world, we need to know - truly understand, not just rely on television's talking heads - if Iran's nascent nuclear capability is a genuine threat to the West, if biochemical weapons are likely to be developed by terrorists, if there are viable alternatives to fossil fuels that should be nurtured and supported by the government, if nuclear power should be encouraged, and if global warming is actually happening.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Thirteen extraordinary essays shed new light on the mystery of the universe—and on one of the most brilliant thinkers of our time. “[Hawking] sprinkles his explanations with a wry sense of humor and a keen awareness that the sciences today delve not only into...

Werner Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle" challenged centuries of scientific understanding, placed him in direct opposition to Albert Einstein, and put Niels Bohr in the middle of one of the most heated debates in scientific history. Heisenberg's theorem stated that there were physical limits to what we could know about sub-atomic particles; this "uncertainty" would have shocking implications.

In Overcomplicated, complexity scientist Samuel Arbesman offers a fresh, insightful field guide to living with complex technologies that defy human comprehension. As technology grows more complex, Arbesman argues, its behavior mimics the vagaries of the natural world more than it conforms to a mathematical model. If we are to survive and thrive in this new age, we must abandon our need for governing principles and rules and accept the chaos.

In a clear and engaging way, this book shows how the principle of emptiness, the philosophic heart of Tibetan Buddhism, connects intimately to quantum nonlocality and other foundational features of quantum mechanics. Detailed connections between emptiness, modern relativity, and the nature of time are also explored. For Tibetan Buddhists, the profound interconnectedness implied by emptiness demands the practice of universal compassion.

How can we prepare for an event that is literally beyond anything humanity has ever faced? Making Contact presents multiple perspectives on what no longer can be denied: UFOs and their occupants are visiting our world. The book answers questions which remain in the wake of the recent...

Are you seeking a deeper understanding of consciousness? Are you interested in meditation or currently practicing meditation? The Buddha and the Quantum is about the connection between meditation and physics. Many books show parallels between consciousness and physics; a few of these attempt to explain consciousness in terms of the physics of everyday experience. This is the only book that explains physics and the everyday world in terms of consciousness alone.

Can two particles become inextricably linked, so that a change in one is instantly reflected in its counterpart, even if a universe separates them? Albert Einstein's work suggested it was possible, but it was too bizarre, and too contrary to how we then understood space and time, for him to...

A mind-bending exploration of gravity, the universe's greatest mystery. What is gravity? Nobody knows - and just about nobody knows that nobody knows. How something so pervasive can also be so mysterious, and how that mystery can be so wholly unrecognized outside the field of physics, is one of the greatest conundrums in modern science. But as award-winning author Richard Panek shows in this groundbreaking book, gravity is a cold case that we are closer to cracking than ever - and whose very investigation has yielded untold truths about the cosmos and humanity itself.

Both pseudoscience and science fiction (SF) are creative endeavors that have little in common with academic science, beyond the superficial trappings of jargon and subject matter. The most obvious difference between the two is that pseudoscience is presented as fact, not fiction. This engaging and well-researched audiobook explores a wide range of intriguing similarities and differences between pseudoscience and the fictional science found in SF.

As we navigate through life we instinctively model time as having a flowing present that divides a fixed past from open future. This model develops in childhood and is deeply saturated within our language, thought, and behavior, affecting our conceptions of the universe, freedom, and the self. Yet as central as it is to our lives, physics seems to have no room for this flowing present. What Makes Time Special? demonstrates this claim in detail and then turns to two novel positive tasks.

Physics informs our understanding of how the world works - but more than that, key breakthroughs in physics have transformed everyday life. We journey back to 10 separate days in history to understand how particular breakthroughs were achieved, meet the individuals responsible and see how each breakthrough has influenced our lives.

For the past 25 years, scientists have challenged conventional views of evolution and have developed revolutionary theories with profound implications. Fritjof Capra has been at the forefront of this revolution and now, in The Web of Life, he offers a brilliant synthesis of these exciting breakthroughs.

Science may be known for banishing the demons of superstition from the modern world. Yet just as the demon-haunted world was being exorcized by the enlightening power of reason, a new kind of demon mischievously materialized in the scientific imagination itself. Scientists began to employ hypothetical beings to perform certain roles in thought experiments―experiments that can only be done in the imagination―and these impish assistants helped scientists achieve major breakthroughs that pushed forward the frontiers of science and technology.

Beginning with a detailed discussion of the role of mathematics and experimentation in validating generalizations in physics-looking closely at the reasoning of scientists such as Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Lavoisier, and Maxwell-Harriman skillfully argues that the inductive method used in philosophy is in principle indistinguishable from the method used in physics.

Galileo Unbound traces the journey that brought us from Galileo's law of free fall to today's geneticists measuring evolutionary drift, entangled quantum particles moving among many worlds, and our lives as trajectories traversing a health space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes.