Showing titles in History

Discover how Galileo worked out his scientific theories of motion and inertia, why Isaac Newton gets the credit for them, and what the discovery of DNA meant. All the big scientific ideas are brought to life with pithy quotes and step-by-step 'mind maps' - from evolution and continental drift to black holes and genetic engineering, showing how the ideas of famous scientists have affected our understanding of the world.

Chris and Chrissy Rouse, an experienced father-and-son scuba diving team, hoped to achieve widespread recognition for their outstanding but controversial diving skills. Obsessed and ambitious, they sought to solve the secrets of a mysterious, undocumented World War II German U-boat that lay...

Although we usually think of technology as something unique to modern times, our ancestors began to create the first technologies millions of years ago in the form of prehistoric tools and weapons. Over time, eight key technologies gradually freed us from the limitations of our animal origins.

The discovery of DNA’s structure is the story of five towering minds in pursuit of the advancement of science, and for almost all of them, the prospect of fame and immortality: Watson, Crick, Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins, and Linus Pauling. Howard Markel skillfully recreates the intense intellectual journey, and fraught personal relationships, that ultimately led to a spectacular breakthrough. But it is Rosalind Franklin - fiercely determined, relentless, and an outsider at Cambridge and the University of London in the 1950s - who becomes a focal point for Markel.

Bloomsbury presents The Matter of Everything written and read by Suzie Sheehy. The astonishing story of twentieth-century physics, told through the twelve experiments that changed our world A 2022 BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: NEW SCIENTIST * WATERSTONES * SUNDAY TIMES 'A splendid idea, vividly carried...

Space: the biggest geopolitical story of the coming century – new from the multi-million-copy international bestselling author of Prisoners of Geography. Spy satellites orbiting the moon. Space metals worth more than most countries’ GDP. People on Mars within the next ten years. This isn’t...

The Clockwork Universe is the story of a band of men who lived in a world of dirt and disease but pictured a universe that ran like a perfect machine. A meld of history and science, this book is a group portrait of some of the greatest minds who ever lived as they wrestled with natures most sweeping mysteries. The answers they uncovered still hold the key to how we understand the world.

Dava Sobel, acclaimed and bestselling author of Longitude, chronicles the life and work of the most famous woman in the history of science – and the untold story of the young women who trained in her laboratory. ‘A fresh and feminist study of the pioneering Nobel laureate reveals her impact...

Illness is not simply a matter of biology. Our thoughts, conscious or otherwise, can make us feel pain or become unwell. If you experienced side effects from your Covid vaccine, the chances are that these were caused by your belief that you would experience them. When a nurse tells you 'this is...

Brought to you by Penguin. The Number One bestselling author of The Order of Time is back with a stunning book about the enigma of quantum physics In June 1925, twenty-three-year-old Werner Heisenberg, suffering from hay fever, retreated to a small, treeless island in the North Sea called...

*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* America's favorite astrophysicist has written the most entertaining and universally appealing book of his stellar career: a practical guide for dealing with Alien visitors, an exploration of how it might happen, and a cultural history of our fascination with...

Quantum theory is so shocking that Einstein could not bring himself to accept it. It is so important that it provides the fundamental underpinning of all modern sciences. Without it, we'd have no computers, no science of molecular biology, no understanding of DNA, no genetic engineering. In...

The Quantum Rules applies the laws of physics to explain everything from relationships and human nature to the effects of globalization. It achieves the impossible task of making quantum physics deeply relevant to all listeners - even those with no interest in science. With a lively and engaging tone, author Kunal Das ponders the underlying truths and patterns in our shared and common life experiences, using insights derived from the fundamental laws of physics.

*Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2016* The Gene is the story of one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in our history, from bestselling, prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee. Spanning the globe and several centuries, The Gene is the story of the quest to...

In the 1970s, amid severe cutbacks in physics funding, a small group of underemployed physicists in Berkeley decided to throw off the constraints of academia and explore the wilder side of science. Dubbing themselves the “Fundamental Fysiks Group,” they pursued a freewheeling, speculative approach to physics. Some dabbled with LSD while conducting experiments. They studied quantum theory alongside Eastern mysticism and psychic mind reading, discussing the latest developments while lounging in hot tubs.

Everyone has heard of DNA. But by itself, DNA is just an inert blueprint for life. It is the ribosome - an enormous molecular machine made up of a million atoms - that makes DNA come to life, turning our genetic code into proteins and therefore into us. Gene Machine is an insider account of the race for the structure of the ribosome, a fundamental discovery that both advances our knowledge of all life and could lead to the development of better antibiotics against life-threatening diseases. 

From the author of the global bestseller The Secret History of the World comes an epic new history of the relationship between spiritual belief and cutting-edge science. Jonathan Black shows that from Marie Curie to today's architects of AI, many of our greatest scientists have been guided by...

In a rarified world of scientific research, a revolution has been brewing. Its activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics and pony-tailed graduates, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world. They have formed an iconoclastic think-tank and their radical idea is to create a new science: complexity. They want to know how a primordial soup of simple molecules managed to turn itself into the first living cell--and what the origin of life some four billion years ago can tell us about the process of technological innovation today.

Bayes' rule appears to be a straightforward, one-line theorem: by updating our initial beliefs with objective new information, we get a new and improved belief. To its adherents, it is an elegant statement about learning from experience. To its opponents, it is subjectivity run amok. Sharon Bertsch McGrayne here explores this controversial theorem and the human obsessions surrounding it.

Witness early, bloody, anaesthetic-free operations and first crude surgical instruments, trace the mapping of the circulatory system, follow the painstaking detective work that led to the decoding of the human genome and understand the role that potions, cures, therapies, herbal medicines and drugs have played in the human quest to tame and conquer disease, injury and death. An engrossing history and tale of drama and discovery that celebrates the milestones of medical history across generations and cultures.