Halo left the dawn of time, leaving our world trapped in a simulation that everyone is born into. A few uneducated broke the programming centuries ago. Those since must overcome a stilted progression in status. Nothing is left for the newborn, in a desperate pursuance of peace of mind. People are those afflicted with insanity. Heroes of legend, from our world and alien, guide those with the opportunity in repairing the damage. Planar a‑ airs still must be handled in an anarchy of possible realities due to changes in the past by those who time travel. A miracle of possible past’s jolts those of us effected in and out of the simulation, into worse, better, and diabolical circumstances. Then the cloud of desperation parts. These are the alter-realities conceived, that only one person will ever truly know, that both plight and give the satisfaction of moral exertion.

A history of gravity, and a study of its importance and relevance to our lives, as well as its influence on other areas of science. Physicists will tell you that four forces control the universe. Of these, gravity may be the most obvious, but it is also the most mysterious. Newton managed to predict the force of gravity but couldn’t explain how it worked at a distance. Einstein picked up on the simple premise that gravity and acceleration are interchangeable to devise his mind-bending general relativity, showing how matter warps space and time. Not only did this explain how gravity worked—and how apparently simple gravitation has four separate components—but it predicted everything from black holes to gravity’s effect on time. Whether it’s the reality of anti-gravity or the unexpected discovery that a ball and a laser beam drop at the same rate, gravity is the force that fascinates.

Every child who performs these 50 fabulous feats will feel like a magician--but the magic here is really science at play. Every trick in the book has a sound, easy-to-understand scientific explanation that will stimulate kids’ understanding of basic concepts. Even as they’re having fun, children will wow the crowd by poking a skewer through a balloon without making it pop, or balancing a penny on a coat hanger. Nothing’s cooler than watching a real egg get sucked into a glass bottle, picking up ice without even touching it, or whipping up fizzy and colorful solutions that any mad scientist would prize. Wild optical illusions will boggle the mind and astound the eye.

Blast off into space to discover the galaxies and beyond with the new edition of this out-of-this-world reference Send your child on an amazing journey into space. They'll see the Hubble telescope orbiting the Earth, discover the birth of our solar system and follow the search for life on Mars. Packed with practical tips for the amateur astronomer, spectacular images from space, detailed charts and fantastic facts. Perfect for home or school, there are even instructions on building a simple telescope! Supports Common Core State Standards.

His father was a scientist and atheist, his mother a spiritual seeker. As a boy, he could sense magic, even God—in the woods that surrounded their rural New Hampshire home, in the music of the Beatles, and in the mystery of dreams. But how could any of that really be real? Surely, the science his father believed in told us what was really real: Our sense of having a soul is just chemicals. Our presence in the universe is just the result of impersonal laws and natural selection. And all our hopes are ultimately doomed in the eternal extinction of death. That last one was the biggest gut-punch. As a boy, Chris would sometimes lie in bed and contemplate that awful and seemingly certain fate—until it became unbearable and, with a shudder, he pushed it from his mind. But over the years, as he read, contemplated, and experienced more, he began to see things differently. He began to realize that you could be intelligent and open-minded—like scientists are supposed to be—and also embrace the reality of realms beyond. In fact, he came to see that the more intelligence and open-mindedness we bring to the question of ultimate reality, the less our conventional science looks like an authority on the topic. The essays in The Science Spell don’t question the value of science. In fact, they push its critical thinking further than most scientists are used to. In easy, playful prose, these essays go where our most educated and well-respected citizens generally don’t. In doing so, they explore a paradox: The idea of a universe devoid of magic may itself be a kind of spell. Want to wake up? Essays include: The Science Fiction: How Scientific Are Scientists? Who Should We Ask About God?: Do Scientists Know What Reality Is? What You See Is What You See: Common Sense & Ultimate Truth Where Scientists Fear to Tread: Science, Taboos, Magic, & Meaning The Science Spell: Science & the Big Picture — Summa cum laude Harvard graduate, comedy screenwriter, math and science teacher, philosopher, and published poet, Chris Spark has been a lifelong seeker of truth, without regard for the conventional ways our culture tends to divide up reality. The Science Spell is the first collection of essays in the series Making Belief: Essays Towards a Natural, Magical, Intelligent Faith. In these essays, Spark explores deep, life-changing ideas in lively, down-to-earth prose. What are the hidden connections between geometry and Jesus, reason and revelation, the paranormal and the pedestrian? Is there a boundary between the impish and the important? Between the sensual and the spiritual? Between the everyday and the exalted? Refusing to stop at border crossings or check points, Chris Spark roams coyote-like through the terrain of science, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, myth, religion, the supernatural, and our own direct experience of the world. By blending what we tend to keep separate, Spark’s essays offer us perspective on the ways our culture has conditioned us to feel divided and confused, buffeted by competing ideas about existence. In these essays, you’ll discover a way to feel yourself more wholly, as part of a coherent, meaningful cosmos—one in which Western civilization is but one of many stars.

The development of physical theory is one of our greatest intellectual achievements. Its products--the currently prevailing theories of physics, astronomy, and cosmology--have proved themselves to possess intrinsic beauty and to have enormous explanatory and predictive power. This anthology of primary readings chronicles the birth and maturation of five such theories (the heliocentric theory, the electromagnetic field theory, special and general relativity, quantum theory, and the big bang theory) in the words of the scientists who brought them to life. It is the first historical account that captures the rich substance of these theories, each of which represents a fascinating story of the interplay of evidence and insight--and of dialogue among great minds. Readers sit in with Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo as they overturn the geocentric universe; observe the genius of Faraday and Maxwell as they "discover" the electromagnetic field; look over Einstein's shoulder as he works out the details of relativity; listen in as Einstein and Bohr argue for the soul of quantum mechanics in the Completeness Debate; and watch as Hubble and others reveal the history of the universe. The editors' approach highlights the moments of discovery that rise from scientific creativity, and the presentation humanizes the scientific process, revealing the extent to which great scientists were the first to consider the philosophical implications of their work. But, most significantly, the editors offer this as their central thesis: although each was ushered in by a revolution, and each contains counterintuitive elements that delayed its acceptance, these five theories exhibit a continuous rational development that has led them to a permanent place in the worldview of science. Accessible to the general reader yet sufficiently substantive that working scientists will find value in it, The Tests of Time offers an intimate look into how physical theory has been developed, by the brilliant people who have developed it.

“The most must-read of all must-reads.” —Marie Claire “A kickass debut from start to finish.” —Colson Whitehead, author of The Underground Railroad Lee Cuddy is seventeen years old and on the run. Betrayed by her family after taking the fall for a friend, Lee finds refuge in a cooperative of runaways holed up in an abandoned building they call the Crystal Castle. But the façade of the Castle conceals a far more sinister agenda, one hatched by a society of fanatical men set on decoding a series of powerful secrets hidden in plain sight. And they believe Lee holds the key to it all. Aided by Tomi, a young hacker and artist with whom she has struck a wary alliance, Lee escapes into the unmapped corners of the city—empty aquariums, deserted motels, patrolled museums, and even the homes of vacationing families. But the deeper she goes underground, the more tightly she finds herself bound in the strange web she’s trying to elude. Desperate and out of options, Lee steps from the shadows to face who is after her—and why. A novel of puzzles, conspiracies, secret societies, urban exploration, art history, and a singular, indomitable heroine, The Readymade Thief heralds the arrival of a spellbinding and original new talent in fiction.

In the first chapters the author describes how our knowledge of the position of Earth in space and time has developed, thanks to the work of many generations of astronomers and physicists. He discusses how our position in the Galaxy was discovered, and how in 1929, Hubble uncovered the fact that the Universe is expanding, leading to the picture of the Big Bang. He then explains how astronomers have found that the laws of physics that were discovered here on Earth and in the Solar System (the laws of mechanics, gravity, atomic physics, electromagnetism, etc.) are valid throughout the Universe. This is illustrated by the fact that all matter in the Universe consists of atoms of the same chemical elements that we know on Earth. This unity is all the more surprising when one realizes that in the original Big Bang theory, different parts of the Universe could never have communicated with each other. It then is a mystery how they could have shared the same physical laws. This problem was solved by the introduction of the idea of inflation, a phase of extremely rapid expansion of the Universe during the first fraction of a second following the Big Bang. The author explains how the unity of the Universe finds its origin in the Big Bang prior to inflation. The book addresses the many fundamental questions about the Universe and its contents from the perspective of the Big Bang: the formation of structure in the Universe, the questions of the mysterious dark matter and dark energy, the possibilities of other Universes (the Multiverse) and of the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe.