Following the discovery of the Higgs boson, Frank Close has produced this major revision to his classic and compelling introduction to the fundamental particles that make up the universe.

Sunday Times Bestseller How did life on Earth begin? What is the nature of space and time? What are the chances that we will discover life on other worlds?

Goodreads Choice Award Finalist (Mystery & Thriller, 2018) BookBrowse Best Books of 2018 Winner of the Prix Polar Award for Best International Novel BookRiot’s 25 Best Suspense Books from 2018 Davitt Awards shortlist for Adult Crime Novel 2018 Dead Good Reads shortlist for Best Small Town Mystery 2018 Five women go on a hike. Only four return. Jane Harper, the New York Times bestselling author of The Dry, asks: How well do you really know the people you work with? When five colleagues are forced to go on a corporate retreat in the wilderness, they reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking down the muddy path. But one of the women doesn’t come out of the woods. And each of her companions tells a slightly different story about what happened. Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing hiker. In an investigation that takes him deep into isolated forest, Falk discovers secrets lurking in the mountains, and a tangled web of personal and professional friendship, suspicion, and betrayal among the hikers. But did that lead to murder? “Force of Nature bristles with wit; it crackles with suspense; it radiates atmosphere. An astonishing book from an astonishing writer.” —A.J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window Select praise for The Dry: "One of the most stunning debuts I've ever read. Every word is near perfect. Read it!" —David Baldacci, #1 New York Times bestselling author “A breathless page-turner ... Ms. Harper has made her own major mark.” —The New York Times

From the ancient world to the present women have been critical to the progress of science, yet their importance is overlooked, their stories lost, distorted, or actively suppressed. Forces of Nature sets the record straight and charts the fascinating history of women’s discoveries in science. In the ancient and medieval world, women served as royal physicians and nurses, taught mathematics, studied the stars, and practiced midwifery. As natural philosophers, physicists, anatomists, and botanists, they were central to the great intellectual flourishing of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. More recently women have been crucially involved in the Manhattan Project, pioneering space missions and much more. Despite their record of illustrious achievements, even today very few women win Nobel Prizes in science. In this thoroughly researched, authoritative work, you will discover how women have navigated a male-dominated scientific culture – showing themselves to be pioneers and trailblazers, often without any recognition at all. Included in the book are the stories of: Hypatia of Alexandria, one of the earliest recorded female mathematicians Maria Cunitz who corrected errors in Kepler’s work Emmy Noether who discovered fundamental laws of physics Vera Rubin one of the most influential astronomers of the twentieth century Jocelyn Bell Burnell who helped discover pulsars

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM IFC FILMS STARRING ERIC BANA INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A breathless page-turner, driven by the many revelations Ms. Harper dreams up...You’ll love [her] sleight of hand...A secret on every page.” —The New York Times “One of the most stunning debuts I've ever read... Every word is near perfect.” —David Baldacci A small town hides big secrets in The Dry, an atmospheric, page-turning debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper. After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke’s steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn’t tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead. Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke. As Falk reluctantly investigates to see if there’s more to Luke’s death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies that have haunted them. And Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets.

Gauge fields are the messengers carrying signals between elementary particles, enabling them to interact with each other. Originating at the level of quarks, these basic interactions percolate upwards, through nuclear and atomic physics, through chemical and solid state physics, to make our everyday world go round. This book tells the story of gauge fields, from Maxwell's 1860 theory of electromagnetism to the 1954 theory of Yang and Mills that underlies the Standard Model of elementary particle theory. In the course of the narration, the author introduces people and events in experimental and theoretical physics that contribute to ideas that have shaped our conception of the physical world.

"Since the first edition of the book appeared in 1979 major developments have occurred, with the discovery of yet more particles and the emergence of novel theoretical ideas. Most exciting is the recent progress towards a unified description of the forces of nature, which received a major boost when the so-called W and Z particles were found in 1983. Other promising advances include the study of grand unified theories (GUTs) with their predictions of magnetic monopoles and proton decay, and their sweeping implications for our understanding of the very early stages of the universe."--Page 4 de la couverture.

How do and how did people perceive, manage and respond to natural disasters? How are the causes of natural disasters explained in history, how are they explained today? This volume investigates relationships between forces of nature and human culture in a multidisciplinary context bridging science and the humanities. Forces of nature and cultural responses is divided into four sections: (1) ball lightnings, (2) earthquakes and tsunamis, (3) volcanic eruptions and plagues, and (4) hurricanes and floodings. Specifically, Section 1 investigates theories and case studies of ball lightning phenomena. Section 2 includes a psychological study on the impact of earthquakes on academic performance, a study on tsunami vulnerability and recovery strategies in Thailand and a study on the social and economic aftermaths of a tsunami and a hurricane in Hawaii. Section 3 consists of a chapter on volcanic eruptions and plagues as well as cultural responses in Ancient Times and a study on contemporary vulnerability and resilience under chronic volcanic eruptions. Section 4 investigates the impact of hurricane Katrina on the current jazz scene in New Orleans and cultural responses to floodings in The Netherlands in Early Modern Times.

Which was first, Matter or Force? If we think on this question, we shall find that we are unable to conceive of matter without force, or of force without matter. When God created the elements of which the earth is composed, He created certain wondrous forces, which are set free, and become evident when matter acts on matter. All these forces, with many differences, have much in common, and if one is set free, it will immediately endeavour to free its companions. Thus, heat will enable us to eliminate light, electricity, magnetism, and chemical action; chemical action will educe light, electricity, and heat. In this way we find that all the forces in nature tend to form mutually dependent systems; and as the motion of one star affects another, so force in action liberates and renders evident forces previously tranquil. We say tranquil, and yet the word is almost without meaning in the Cosmos.—Where do we find tranquillity? The sea, the seat of animal, vegetable, and mineral changes, is at war with the earth, and the air lends itself to the strife. The globe, the scene of perpetual intestine change, is, as a mass, acting on, and acted on, by the other planets of our system, and the very system itself is changing its place in space, under the influence of a known force springing from an unknown centre. For many years the English public had the privilege of listening to the discourses and speculations of Professor Faraday, at the Royal Institution, on Matter and Forces; and it is not too much to say that no lecturer on Physical Science, since the time of Sir Humphrey Davy, was ever listened to with more delight. The pleasure which all derived from the expositions of Faraday was of a somewhat different kind from that produced by any other philosopher whose lectures we have attended. It was partially derived from his extreme dexterity as an operator: with him we had no chance of apologies for an unsuccessful experiment—no hanging fire in the midst of a series of brilliant demonstrations, producing that depressing tendency akin to the pain felt by an audience at a false note from a vocalist. All was a sparkling stream of eloquence and experimental illustration. We would have defied a chemist loving his science, no matter how often he might himself have repeated an experiment, to feel uninterested when seeing it done by Faraday.

In physics, the fundamental forces, are the interactions that do not appear to be reducible to more basic interactions. There are four conventionally accepted fundamental interactions-gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, and weak. Each one is described mathematically as a field. The gravitational force is modelled as a continuous classical field. The other three, part of the Standard Model of particle physics, are described as discrete quantum fields, and their interactions are each carried by a quantum, an elementary particle. The strong and weak interactions have short ranges, producing forces at minuscule, subatomic distances; these forces govern nuclear interactions. The strong interaction, which is carried by the gluon particle, is responsible for the binding of quarks together to form hadrons, such as protons and neutrons. As a residual effect, it creates the nuclear force that binds the latter particles to form atomic nuclei. The weak interaction, which is carried by the W and Z particles, also acts on the nucleus, mediating radioactive decay. The other two, electromagnetism and gravity, produce significant forces at macroscopic scales where the effects can be seen directly in everyday life. The electromagnetic force, carried by the photon, creates electric and magnetic fields, which are responsible for chemical bonding and are used in electrical technology. Electromagnetic forces tend to cancel each other out when large collections of objects are considered, so over the largest distances (on the scale of planets and galaxies), gravity tends to be the dominant force. All four fundamental forces are believed to be related, and to unite into a single force at high energies on a minuscule scale, the Planck scale, but particle accelerators cannot produce the enormous energies required to experimentally probe this. A goal of theoretical physicists working beyond the Standard Model is to quantize the gravitational field, yielding a theory of quantum gravity (QG) which would unite gravity in a common theoretical framework with the other three forces. Other theorists seek to unite the electroweak and strong fields within a Grand Unified Theory (GUT). Some theories, notably string theory, seek both QG and GUT within one framework, unifying all four fundamental interactions along with mass generation within a theory of everything (ToE). A few researchers have interpreted various anomalous observations in physics as evidence for a fifth force, but this is not widely accepted. This book is designed to be a state of the art, superb academic reference work and provide an overview of the topic and give the reader a structured knowledge to familiarize yourself with the topic at the most affordable price possible. The accuracy and knowledge is of an international viewpoint as the edited articles represent the inputs of many knowledgeable individuals and some of the most current knowledge on the topic, based on the date of publication.