In case you haven't noticed, you get to choose the world you live in. I don't mean you can control the conditions of your life. You may have had little or no choice of the house you live in or even of the street where you live. Certainly most of us do not have any great deal of control over our economic, political and cultural circumstances. Where we do have a choice is in our outlook. We can, indeed we must, choose how we view the world. We can neither act nor think without holding some w...

How alien would aliens be? Would they look like us or perhaps more like an octopus? How would they communicate? Could we even hear their voices, assuming they have them? Like us, aliens would be constrained by the physical world. Understanding how those physical constraints apply both to us and to aliens is the theme of this book. The constraints imply that they will not be all that different from us, perhaps half to twice as big as we are. They will depend on vision and hearing as we do a...

This book is about why we age and how to fix it. Human aging, a complex biological process, has long eluded a unified explanation. The book explains that aging is fundamentally a cellular energy crisis, driven by the progressive accumulation of damage to the vulnerable DNA of mitochondria, the cell's primary energy producers. Drawing on this perspective, which emphasizes energy conservation and flow in biological systems, new light is cast on the traditional theories of aging, demonstratin...

Leading historians offer the first look at Biden’s four years in the White HouseThe Presidency of Joseph R. Biden presents a first draft of history by providing insights into how this one-term president fits within the broader historical forces shaping the United States in the twenty-first century. Acclaimed political historian Julian Zelizer brings together some of today’s leading scholars to give balanced and strikingly original assessments of the major ...

"True hard science fiction—deftly done, with plenty of fine surprises." — Gregory Benford."Twistor marks the arrival of a major new science-fiction talent." — Gene Wolfe."A fine hard science thriller, very enjoyable." — Greg Bear.Research scientist David Harrison happens upon the "twistor effect," a phenomenon that opens doors into countless alternate universes. The discovery's potential for unlimited power draws the attention of industrial spies and corporate...

Why do we think matter is made of atoms and the Earth goes around the Sun? How big is the universe? Did it have a beginning or is it eternal? Is heat a fluid or just the random motion of molecules? Is light made of particles or is it a fluid or maybe something else? This book answers these questions and many more as it traces the development of the modern scientific understanding of the physical world. The historical approach allows us to see not only how the content of the physical scienc...

Somewhere in the Multiverse, in a lab distant from the Makers’ Planet, Tunnel Maker, Creator of Bridges, answers an alarm. His inter-universe probe is detecting signals from another bubble universe, indicating that some new high-intelligence alien species is doing high-energy physics and creating hyperdimensional signals. Tunnel Maker knows that, in another bubble universe, the predatory Hive Mind should be receiving the same signals. It is time to make a Bridge . . .George Griffin...

Ordinary differential equations come in an almost bewildering variety. This field guide systematizes them and gives general methods for solving each type. Since there are numerous specific examples, some even with specific names, for which simpler methods are known, the guide also enumerates these too along with the secondary and tertiary methods for solving them.

Are you a K-5 teacher who needs to teach science but feels unprepared? It is especially common for K-5 teachers to feel uncomfortable teaching physical sciences. This is the book for you. It is material I have prepared for our Masters in Arts in Teaching students at Oglethorpe University over years of teaching them how to teach physical sciences. I emphasize teaching by activities and demonstrations so the book is a compendium of activities and demonstrations in all the science areas cover...

Word play has surely been around since language began. One suspects it may even have been a prime motivation in the very first framing of language. Language as a wholesale joke? Don't underestimate the possibility. Word juggling, tossing words around, can assume an almost infinite variety of forms. Riddles and puns are apparently as old as language itself. The invention of writing and alphabets then opened up more possibilities that I classify as letter juggling, Reversible words and palin...

What I have observed of student struggles with introductory physics, after more than forty years of teaching it, is that learning how to think like a physicist is a much greater challenge than learning the subject matter. Introductory physics courses introduce students not only to content but also to new ways of thinking. The 75 forays of this book are invitations to a wide-ranging exploration of the physical world. A foray Is defined as "a venture or initial attempt in some field" and tha...

It has been 15 years since the events of Einstein’s Bridge. George and Alice Griffin and Roger Coulton have established the Iris Foundation, a powerful island-isolated research organization tasked with exploiting the technologies learned from the Makers, re-learning Maker techniques for creating wormholes, reestablishing contact with the Makers, and protecting Earth from Hive invasions. Sparked by a new idea from Roger, Iris researchers finally master wormhole tec...