Natalie’s near death experience when her truck was hit with a roadside bomb in Iraq. She recalls the entire spirit side experience as they repair her body so she could live.

“An elegant and accessible” investigation of quantum mechanics for non-specialists—“highly recommended” for students of the sciences, sci-fi fans, and anyone interested in the strange world of quantum physics (Forbes) Rules of the quantum world seem to say that a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time and a particle can be in two places at once. And that particle is also a wave; everything in the quantum world can described in terms of waves—or entirely in terms of particles. These interpretations were all established by the end of the 1920s, by Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, and others. But no one has yet come up with a common sense explanation of what is going on. In this concise and engaging book, astrophysicist John Gribbin offers an overview of six of the leading interpretations of quantum mechanics. Gribbin calls his account “agnostic,” explaining that none of these interpretations is any better—or any worse—than any of the others. Gribbin presents the Copenhagen Interpretation, promoted by Niels Bohr and named by Heisenberg; the Pilot-Wave Interpretation, developed by Louis de Broglie; the Many Worlds Interpretation (termed “excess baggage” by Gribbin); the Decoherence Interpretation (“incoherent”); the Ensemble “Non-Interpretation”; and the Timeless Transactional Interpretation (which theorized waves going both forward and backward in time). All of these interpretations are crazy, Gribbin warns, and some are more crazy than others—but in the quantum world, being more crazy does not necessarily mean more wrong.

The New York Times bestselling author of Being Mortal and Complications reveals the surprising power of the ordinary checklist We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies—neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third. In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection. He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from disaster response to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds. An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference, The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to get things right.

Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives? The primary obstacle is a conflict that's built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed bestseller Made to Stick. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems - the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort - but if it is overcome, change can come quickly. In Switch, the Heaths show how everyday people - employees and managers, parents and nurses - have united both minds and, as a result, achieved dramatic results: • The lowly medical interns who managed to defeat an entrenched, decades-old medical practice that was endangering patients • The home-organizing guru who developed a simple technique for overcoming the dread of housekeeping • The manager who transformed a lackadaisical customer-support team into service zealots by removing a standard tool of customer service In a compelling, story-driven narrative, the Heaths bring together decades of counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, a pattern you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your waistline.

Grief. We avoid talking about it. We avoid thinking about it. However, every one of us who lives long enough will experience it. Since you are reading this, you are likely experiencing grief at this moment. It is also likely you've given little thought as to how you were going to cope with grief when it came to you, and the pain caught you off guard.In Grief 2 Growth, Brian Smith explores what grief is, what you can expect while in grief, and how you can best cope with the universal human experience of grief. Grief is not an emotion. Grief is a container for a myriad of emotions that ebb and flow. Rather than a linear process, grief is more like a dance. Once Brian has explained what grief is and what you can expect from grief, Brian gives simple, practical methods for coping. You can do more than deal with grief. You can transform your pain into an opportunity for growth. When a great tragedy befalls us, we can see ourselves as either planted or buried. Being buried means we are done. Being planted means, we are in a position where growth is about to take place. Brian's approach to handling grief is rooted in a firm understanding of who we are as spiritual beings having a human experience.About The AuthorBrian became well acquainted with grief in 2015 after the sudden passing of his fifteen-year-old daughter Shayna. Brian first learned how to survive for the sake of his wife and surviving daughter. Brian studied in depth the nature of life and death and how to progress through grief. Currently, Brian does volunteer work with organizations dedicated to helping parents heal from the passing of a child. Brian also operates a life coaching and small business consulting practice. You can find Brian at www.grief2growth.com.iversal human experience of grief. Grief is not an emotion, grief is a container for a myriad of emotions that ebb and flow (credit to R. Glenn Kelly for this insight). Once he has explained what grief is and what you can expect from grief, Brian gives simple, practical methods you can use to not only cope with grief but to transform your grief into an opportunity for growth. When a great tragedy befalls us, we can see ourselves as either planted or buried. Brian's approach to handling grief is rooted in a firm understanding of who we are as spiritual beings having a human experience.About The AuthorBrian became well acquainted with grief in 2015 after the sudden passing of his fifteen-year-old daughter Shayna. After turning inward to learn how to survive for the sake of his wife and daughter, Brian turned outward. Brian studied in depth the nature of life and death and how to progress through grief. Turning outward, Brian does volunteer work with organizations dedicated to helping parents heal from the passing of a child and in a life coaching and small business consulting practice.

A groundbreaking approach to creating memorable messages that are easy to process, hard to forget, and impossible to ignore—using the latest in brain science Audiences forget up to 90 percent of what you communicate. But people make decisions and act based on what they remember, so a pragmatic approach for the effective communicator is to be deliberate about the 10 percent that audiences do retain. Otherwise, content recall is random and inconsistent. Many experts have offered techniques on how to improve your own memory, but not how to influence other people’s memory. Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology, Impossible to Ignore is a practical step-by-step guide that will show you how to control the 10 percent that your audiences do remember by creating content that attracts attention, sharpens recall, and guides decision-making toward a desired action.

Imagine taking an extraordinary, life-altering voyage beyond time and space. One that is consistently described by experiencers as "realer than real," powerfully loving, and forever life-altering. One that transcends ordinary, three-dimensional consciousness. Near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, contact with non-human intelligent beings, and past-life recall are examples of such journeys. All share numerous commonalities, and are ultimately uplifting and healing on physiological, emotional, and psychological levels. The authors propose all such experiences are inter-connected, rather than independent modalities, via non-local consciousness. With compassion, wit, and brutal honesty, the authors share their uniquely personal experiences. They understand first hand that experiencers, like the authors, came into this world 'wired differently.' Barbara and Lynn explore each modality from their personal encounters, backed by cutting-edge science. They investigate anomalous-prone personality types, integration of experiences, transformative aftereffects, and the woefully inadequate medical and psychological support currently available to experiencers. The word convergence may be defined as several phenomena joining together, or merging into one. This book is the embodiment of that definition.

Winner of six Nebula and two Hugo awards for her fiction, Connie Willis is acclaimed for her gifted imagination and bold invention. Here are eleven of her finest stories, surprising tales in which the impossible becomes real, the real becomes impossible, and strangeness lurks at every turn. The end of the world comes not with a bang but a series of whimpers over many years in "The Last of the Winnebagos." The terror of pain and dying gives birth to a startling truth about the nature of the stars, a principle known as the "Schwarzschild Radius." In "Spice Pogrom," an outrageous colony in outer space becomes the setting for a screwball comedy of bizarre complications, mistaken identities, far-too-friendly aliens--and even true love.

The subject matter of Subjects and Objects is the limits of Abstraction in art. The notion of Abstraction, its development in art history, and the relation of art and philosophy regarding Abstraction are considered in addition to identifying and examining things that are essential to artworks. Any artwork has an identity, and comprehension of that identity depends on a perceptual object. A subject’s apprehension of such an object creates an “artistic complex” of which the object, the subject, and the apprehension are constituents. The essential elements of this kind of complex are the subject of the final part of the work. Its concluding section considers these elements as ‘material’ to be used to determine the limits of Abstraction.