"Some stories keep returning, each time reimagined to fit the occasion. In some cases, we know them without having read the originals, and in a few brief sentences we can sketch the essential plot points and key characters. Robinson Crusoe, Frankenstein,...
Since Niels Bohr said this many years ago, quantum mechanics has only been getting more shocking. We now realize that itâs not really telling us that âweirdâ things happen out of sight, on the tiniest...
'I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.' Richard Feynman wrote this in 1965 - the year he was awarded the Nobel prize in physics for his work on quantum mechanics. Over the past decade, the enigma of quantum mechanics...
Though at first glance the natural world may appear overwhelming in its diversity and complexity, there are regularities running through it, from the hexagons of a honeycomb to the spirals of a seashell and the branching veins of a leaf. Revealing the...
Through curiosity, our innocence was said to be lost. Yet this hasn't deterred us. Today we spend vast sums trying to recreate the first instants of creation in particle accelerators, out of pure desire to know. There seems now to be no question too...
Chartres Cathedral, south of Paris, is revered as one of the most beautiful and profound works of art in the Western canon. But what did it mean to those who constructed it in the twelfth and thirteenth centuriesâand why was it built...
This Very Short Introduction is an exciting and non-traditional approach to understanding the terminology, properties, and classification of chemical elements. It traces the history and cultural impact of the elements on humankind, and examines why people...
Is there a 'physics of society'? Ranging from Hobbes and Adam Smith to modern work on traffic flow and market trading, and across economics, sociology and psychology, this title shows how much we can understand of human behaviour when we cease...
Some of the most exciting scientific developments in recent years have come not from theoretical physicists, astronomers, or molecular biologists but instead from the chemistry lab. Chemists have created superconducting ceramics for brain scanners, design...