Many people know that Columbus wouldn't have dared to sail across the Atlantic if he had been aware how far the way to Asia really is. But there exist a lot more errors which turned out to be useful. Great thinkers like Copernicus and Einstein, but also ordinary people made mistakes which changed our world in many ways. A collection of the most interesting and useful errors in history, science, kitchen and art. Contents: Errors – always negative? To err as a program? Trial and error or: Wh...

Jens Müller was one of only three men who successfully escaped from Stalag Luft III in March 1944—the break that later became the basis for the famous film The Great Escape.Müller was no. 43 of the 76 prisoners of war who managed to escape from the camp (now in Zagan, Poland). Together with Per Bergsland he stowed away on a ship to Gothenburg. The escapees sought out the British consulate and were flown from Stockholm to Scotland. From there they were sent by train to Lond...

Cross-Border Networks in Writing Studies coordinates mixed methods approaches to survey, interview, and case study data to study Canadian writing studies scholars. The authors argue for networked disciplinarity, the notion that ideas arise and flow through intellectual networks that connect scholars not only to one another but to widening networks of human and nonhuman actors. Although the Canadian field is historically rooted in the themes of location and national culture, expressing a te...

An award-winning astrophysicist leads a brisk, lucid tour of the human quest to uncover reality’s fundamentals, from myth-making to mathematical precisionSince the dawn of consciousness, humans have sought to make sense of this world into which we’re each born. The Shortest History of Reality explores the shifting boundary between what we perceive and what truly exists—tracing the idea of “what’s real” from its everyday, commonsense begin...

From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table.Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters?The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventur...

On the 8th of January 2012 a man who discovered at 21 that he had motor neurone disease, which usually means a few years' degeneration then death, celebrated his 70th birthday. Stephen Hawking was born January 8, 1942 in Oxford, England. Even as a child, he exhibited a fascination for mathematics, science and the sky. At age 21, while studying cosmology at Cambridge, Stephen was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). In the two years after this live changing announcement; Step...

An original history of man's greatest adventure: his search to discover the world around him. In the compendious history, Boorstin not only traces man's insatiable need to know, but also the obstacles to discovery and the illusion that knowledge can also put in our way. Covering time, the earth and the seas, nature and society, he gathers and analyzes stories of the man's profound quest to understand his world and the cosmos.

While most people seem to believe the theories of evolution, the fact is that the majority of people have never really checked them out for themselves. They just believe what they have been told to believe. This booklet proves that all the theories are nothing but far-fetched fantasies.

The companion volume for the award-winning PBS and BBC series from "one of the most intriguing minds in the western world" ( The Washington Post).The Day the Universe Changed presents a sweeping view of the history of science, technology, and human civilization and examines the moments in history when a change in knowledge radically altered man's understanding of himself and the world around him.James Burke examines eight periods in history ...

Many appreciate Richard P. Feynman's contributions to twentieth-century physics, but few realize how engaged he was with the world around him -- how deeply and thoughtfully he considered the religious, political, and social issues of his day. Now, a wonderful book -- based on a previously unpublished, three-part public lecture he gave at the University of Washington in 1963 -- shows us this other side of Feynman, as he expounds on the inherent conflict between science and religion, people'...

This book is for every age, anyone who can read and who is interested in what time is, will be the main audience. It explains why people think time is relative, what is time, and gives the audience examples of different devices to "measure" time.If you want to know how to better explain to your kids, your friends or your students about what Time means, then in this book you will find the answers.At first, let me tell you how and why I wrote this book.Long ago, in th...

Science: A Four Thousand Year History rewrites science's past. Instead of focussing on difficult experiments and abstract theories, Patricia Fara shows how science has always belonged to the practical world of war, politics, and business. Rather than glorifying scientists as idealized heroes, she tells true stories about real people - men (and some women) who needed to earn their living, who made mistakes, and who trampled down their rivals in their quest for success. Fara sweeps ...