Breakfast with Robots gives you a glimpse of what your daily routine could look like in the not-so-distant future.What will your morning look like in thirty years? Picture a robot butler serving your lab-grown breakfast, slug-like nanobots cleaning up after your shower, a 9,500-mile commute by rocket and using cranial implants to control your dreams. It may sound like a distant fantasy, but the future is already taking shape thanks to today’s science....

Most science chronicles present a triumphant march through time, with revolutionary thinkers and their discoveries following in orderly progression. The truth, however, is somewhat different. Scientific Feuds is a collection of the most vicious battles among the greatest minds of our time. It features such contests as Huxley and Wilberforce's debate on Darwin's theory of evolution, Franklin and Wilkins' fight over the discovery of DNA, and the "War of Currents" between Tesla and Edison (wh...

A clear, concise and fascinating guide to philosophical thought experiments and how they’ve shaped our understanding of the world.From Plato’s Cave to Descartes’ Demon, and from Zeno’s paradoxes to Hilbert’s Hotel, great thinkers have used thought experiments and paradoxes to try and work out complex ideas in the simplest way possible.Perhaps the most famous thought experiment is that of Zeno’s Achilles and the tortoise. If both Achilles and the tortoise mo...

Can you really tell a criminal by the bumps on his head? What does a memory look like? Can a machine think? Why are some people shy? Is it better not to feel so much?These are some of the many questions that have troubled the minds of some of the greatest thinkers in human civilization and are discussed in this comprehensive yet accessible introduction to psychology.The complex workings of the mind have fascinated mankind for centuries, but the key theories...

Meltdown investigates and recreates the dramatic events behind the most notorious nuclear accidents in history, as well as those shrouded in secrecy. Combining human tragedy with intriguing science, each account reveals new aspects of humanity's complex relationship with nuclear power and the ongoing struggle to harness and control it.From the pioneers of Los Alamos who got up close and personal with the cores of atomic bombs, to the hapless engineers in Soviet fuel-proces...

Meltdown investigates and recreates the dramatic events behind the most notorious nuclear accidents in history, as well as those shrouded in secrecy.Combining human tragedy with intriguing science, each account reveals new aspects of humanity's complex relationship with nuclear power and the ongoing struggle to harness and control it. From the pioneers of Los Alamos who got up close and personal with the cores of atomic bombs, to the hapless engineers in Soviet fuel-processing plan...

A hands-on approach to exploring the human mindToo often, textbooks turn the noteworthy theories, principles, and experiments of psychology into tedious discourse that even Freud would want to repress. Psych 101 cuts out the boring details and statistics, and instead, gives you a lesson in psychology that keeps you engaged - and your synapses firing.From personality quizzes and the Rorschach Blot Test to B.F. Skinner and the stages of development, ...

A "groundbreaking" (Booklist) investigation of the mind and consciousness that asks whether the self even existsIn The Ego Tunnel, philosopher and cognitive scientist Thomas Metzinger argues that neuroscience’s picture of the “self” as an emergent phenomenon of our biology—and the attendant fact that the self can be manipulated and even experimentally controlled—raises novel and serious ethical questions. If, as M...

"Astounding and convincing . . . A book that should be read by everyone who thinks about thinking." —Oliver Sacks, neurologist and bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a HatAlva Noë is one of a new breed—part philosopher, part cognitive scientist, part neuroscientist—who are radically altering the study of consciousness by asking difficult questions and pointing out obvious flaws in the current science. In Out of Our...

'How Emotions Are Made did what all great books do. It took a subject I thought I understood and turned my understanding upside down' – Malcolm Gladwell, author of Talking to StrangersWhen you feel anxious, angry, happy, or surprised, what's really going on inside of you?Perhaps you thought of your emotions as automatic and reactive, a response to the world around you. The thrill of seeing an old friend, the fear of losing someone you love...

Psychology is part of everyone's experience: it influences the way we think about everything from education and intelligence, to relationships and emotions, advertising and criminality. People readily behave as amateur psychologists, offering explanations for what people think, feel, and do. But what exactly are psychologists trying to do? What scientific grounding do they have for their approach? This Very Short Introduction explores some of psychology's leading ideas and their p...

• Where do our thoughts come from?• How can we manipulate our dreams?• What is the role of the unconscious?• How do we make choices and trust the judgement of both others and ourselves?These are some of the questions in this groundbreaking, personal and comprehensive guide into understanding our thoughts.In this mind-bending international bestseller by Mariano Sigman, o...