A leading astrobiologist argues that space travel is an evolutionary event at least as important as life’s first journey from sea to land"The Giant Leap is a detailed and provocative exploration of what it means for life as we know it to escape the bounds of the only planet where it has ever been." —Sean Carroll, author of The Biggest Ideas in the UniverseThe story of life has always been one of great transitions, of cross...

**“Full of fascinating insights drawn from an impressive range of disciplines, The Ascent of Information casts the familiar and the foreign in a dramatic new light.” —Brian Greene, author of The Elegant UniverseYour information has a life of its own, and it’s using you to get what it wants.**One of the most peculiar and possibly unique features of humans is the vast amount of information we carry outside our biological selves. But in our rush to build the ...

An accessible epic, full-color visual journey through all scales of the universe."A beautifully illustrated survey of the universe and its constituent parts, from quarks to galaxies and beyond. . . . A superb composite of scientific knowledge that will no doubt inspire readers of all ages to learn more about our enigmatic universe." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)In The Zoomable Universe...

A new understanding of black holes and what they do: "Scharf makes vivid the mind-boggling nature of the universe . . . [an] excellent book." — The Wall Street JournalWe've long understood black holes to be the points at which the universe as we know it comes to an end. Often billions of times more massive than the Sun, they lurk in the inner sanctum of almost every galaxy of stars in the universe. They're mysterious chasms so destructive and unforgiving th...

"Intoxicating . . . questions and startling discoveries. . . . Books such as these remind us that we are lucky to be here at all, and even luckier to be here now." ― The Guardian (UK)A Physics World Best Book of the YearAn NBC News Top Science and Tech Book of the YearIn the sixteenth century, Nicolaus Copernicus dared to go aga...

Though the concept of "the universe" suggests the containment of everything, the latest ideas in cosmology hint that our universe may be just one of a multitude of others-a single slice of an infinity of parallel realities.In The Copernicus Complex, the renowned astrophysicist and author Caleb Scharf takes us on a cosmic adventure like no other, from tiny microbes within the Earth to distant exoplanets and beyond, asserting that the age-old Copernican principle is in need ...

We have long understood black holes to be the points at which the universe as we know it comes to an end - mysterious chasms so destructive and unforgiving that not even light can escape their deadly power. Recent research, however, has led to a cascade of new discoveries that have revealed an entirely new, and crucially important, side to black holes. Super-sized versions, often billions of times more massive than the Sun, lurk in every galaxy in the universe. And these chasms don't just ...

**“Full of fascinating insights drawn from an impressive range of disciplines, The Ascent of Information casts the familiar and the foreign in a dramatic new light.” —Brian Greene, author of The Elegant UniverseYour information has a life of its own, and it’s using you to get what it wants.**One of the most peculiar and possibly unique features of humans is the vast amount of information we carry outside our biological selves. But in our rush to build the ...

The Sunday Times (UK) Best Science Book of 2014A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Science Book of Fall 2014An NBC News Top Science and Tech Book of 2014A Politics & Prose 2014 Staff PickIn the sixteenth century, Nicolaus Copernicus dared to go against the establishment by proposing that Earth rotates around the Sun. Having demoted Earth from its unique position in the cosmos to one of mediocrity, Cope...

One of The Barnes and Noble Review Editors' Picks: Best Nonfiction of 2012**Selected by The Christian Science Monitor as one of "21 smart nonfiction titles we think you'll enjoy this summer"Selected by The New Scientist as one of 10 books to look out for in 2012**We've long understood black holes to be the points at which the universe as we know it comes to an end. Often billions of times more massive than the Sun, they lu...

It was the universe's most elusive particle, the lynchpin for everything scientists dreamed up to explain how physics works. It had to be found. But projects as big as CERN's Large Hadron Collider don't happen without incredible risks - and occasional skullduggery. In the definitive account of this landmark event, Sean Carroll reveals the insights, rivalry, and wonder that fuelled the Higgs discovery, and takes us on a riveting and irresistible ride to the very edge of physics today.

In 2000, Martin Bojowald, then a twenty-seven-year-old post-doc at Pennsylvania State University, used a relatively new theory called loop quantum gravity—a cunning combination of Einstein’s theory of gravity with quantum mechanics—to create a simple model of the universe. Loop quantum cosmology was born, and with it, a theory that managed to do something even Einstein’s general theory of relativity had failed to do—illuminate the very birth of the universe.Ever since, loop quantum...