When her son Max was diagnosed with autism, Avery Abbot’s life changed forever. Her husband left, and her own dreams became a distant fantasy—always second to fighting never-ending battles to make sure Max was given opportunity, love and respect. Finding someone to fight along her side wasn’t even on her list, and she’d come to terms with the fact that she could never be her own priority again. But a familiar face walking into her life in the form of 25-year-old Mason Street had Avery’s heart waging a war within. Mason was a failure. When he left his hometown five years ago, he was never coming back—it was only a matter of time before his records hit the billboard charts. Women, booze and rock-n-roll—that was it for him. But it seemed fate had a different plan in mind, and with a dropped record contract, little money and nowhere to go, Mason turned to the only family that ever made him feel home—the Abbots. Avery loved Mason silently for years—until he broke her heart…completely. But time and life have a funny way of changing people, and sometimes second chances are there for a reason. Could this one save them both?

“[An] absorbing novel that will appeal to fans of Rainbow Rowell.” —Booklist “A poignant and carefully crafted story.” —School Library Journal “A gorgeous, sad, funny, and wise book about letting go and finding your place in the world.” —Kathleen Glasgow, New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces Parker struggles to reconnect with her twin brother, Charlie—who’s recovering from cancer—as she tries to deal with her anxiety about the future in this powerful new novel. Twins Parker and Charlie are polar opposites. Where Charlie is fearless, Parker is careful. Charlie is confident while Parker aims to please. Charlie is outgoing and outspoken; Parker is introverted and reserved. And of course, there’s the one other major difference: Charlie got cancer. Parker didn’t. But now that Charlie is officially in remission, life couldn’t be going better for Parker. She’s landed a prestigious summer internship at the hospital and is headed to Harvard in the fall to study pediatric oncology—which is why the anxiety she’s felt since her Harvard acceptance is so unsettling. And it doesn’t help that her relationship with Charlie has been on the rocks since his diagnosis. Enter Finn, a boy who’s been leaving strange graffiti messages all over town. Parker can’t stop thinking about those messages, or about Finn, who makes her feel free for the first time: free to doubt, free to make mistakes, and free to confront the truth that Parker has been hiding from for a long time. That she keeps trying to save Charlie, when the person who really needs saving is herself.

This book invites the reader to understand our Universe, not just marvel at it. From the clock-like motions of the planets to the catastrophic collapse of a star into a black hole, gravity controls the Universe. Gravity is central to modern physics, helping to answer the deepest questions about the nature of time, the origin of the Universe and the unification of the forces of nature. Linking key experiments and observations through careful physical reasoning, the author builds the reader's insight step-by-step from simple but profound facts about gravity on Earth to the frontiers of research. Topics covered include the nature of stars and galaxies, the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, black holes, gravitational waves, inflation and the Big Bang. Suitable for general readers and for undergraduate courses, the treatment uses only high-school level mathematics, supplemented by optional computer programs, to explain the laws of physics governing gravity.

"Of the four fundamental forces of nature, gravity might be the least understood and yet the one with which we are most intimate. From the months each of us spent suspended in the womb anticipating birth to the moments when we wait for sleep to transport us to other realities, we are always aware of gravity. In On Gravity, physicist A. Zee combines profound depth with incisive accessibility to take us on an original and compelling tour of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Inspired by Einstein's audacious suggestion that spacetime could ripple, Zee begins with the stunning discovery of gravity waves. He goes on to explain how gravity can be understood in comparison to other classical field theories, presents the idea of curved spacetime and the action principle, and explores cutting-edge topics, including black holes and Hawking radiation. Zee travels as far as the theory reaches, leaving us with tantalizing hints of the utterly unknown, from the intransigence of quantum gravity to the mysteries of dark matter and energy. Concise and precise, and infused with Zee's signature warmth and freshness of style, On Gravity opens a unique pathway to comprehending relativity and gaining deep insight into gravity, spacetime, and the workings of the universe"--Publisher's website.

Budding astronomers and scientists will love this humorous introduction to the extremely complex concept of black holes. With space facts and answers about the galaxies (ours, and others) A Black Hole is NOT a Hole takes readers on a ride that will stretch their minds around the phenomenon known as a black hole. In lively and text, the book starts off with a thorough explanation of gravity and the role it plays in the formation of black holes. Paintings by Michael Carroll, coupled with real telescopic images, help readers visualize the facts and ideas presented in the text, such as how light bends, and what a supernova looks like. Back matter includes a timeline which sums up important findings discussed throughout, while the glossary and index provide a quick point of reference for readers. Children and adults alike will learn a ton of spacey facts in this far-out book that’s sure to excite even the youngest of astrophiles.

This book describes a paradigm change in modern physics from the philosophy and mathematical expression of the quantum theory to those of general relativity. The approach applies to all domains - from elementary particles to cosmology. The change is from the positivistic views in which atomism, nondeterminism and measurement are fundamental, to a holistic view in realism, wherein matter - electrons, galaxies, - are correlated modes of a single continuum, the universe. A field that unifies electromagnetism, gravity and inertia is demonstrated explicitly, with new predictions, in terms of quaternion and spinor field equations in a curved spacetime. Quantum mechanics emerges as a linear, flatspace approximation for the equations of inertia in general relativity.

An Introduction to Gravity Modification, Second Edition is the result of a 12-year (1999-2011) study into the theoretical and technological feasibility of gravity modification, that presents the new physics of forces by replacing relativistic, quantum and string theories with process models. Gravity, electromagnetism and mechanical forces are unified by Ni fields, and obey a common equation g = (tau)c DEGREES2. Gravity modification is defined as the modification of the strength and direction of the gravitational acceleration without the use of mass as the primary source of this modification, in local space time. It consists of field modulation and field vectoring. Field modulation is the ability to attenuate or amplify a force field. Field vectoring is the ability to change the direction of this force field . This book reaches out to a wider audience, and not just to the theoretical physicist; to engineers and technologist who have the funding to experiment; just as Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson experimented with the Holmdel Horn Antenna and discovered the microwave background radiation. The mathematics is easier than that taught in theoretical physics and therefore accessible to a wider audience such as these engineers and technolog

This book provides a complete treatise of the canonical quantisation of general relativity and the loop quantum gravity theory. Mathematical concepts are provided, so it can be read by graduate students with a basic knowledge of quantum field theory or general relativity.

A former NASA deputy administrator recounts how she battled greed and corruption to revolutionize the agency and usher in a new space age. Escaping Gravity is former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver’s firsthand account of how a handful of revolutionaries overcame the political patronage and bureaucracy that threatened the space agency. The success of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, and countless other commercial space efforts were preceded by decades of work by a group of people Garver calls “space pirates.” Their quest to transform NASA put Garver in the crosshairs of Congress, the aerospace industry, and hero-astronauts trying to protect their own profits and mythology within a system that had held power since the 1950s. As the head of the NASA transition team for President-elect Barack Obama and second-in-command of the agency, Garver drove policies and funding that enabled commercial competition just as the capabilities and resources of the private sector began to mature. She was determined to deliver more valuable programs, which required breaking the self-interested space-industrial cycle that, like the military, preferred to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on programs aimed to sustain jobs and contracts in key congressional districts. The result: more efficiency and greater progress. Including insider NASA conversations and insights on how the US space industry has been transformed to become the envy of the world and is ushering in a new space age, Escaping Gravity offers a blueprint for how to drive productive and meaningful change. Praise for Escaping Gravity “Former NASA official Lori Garver offers a front-row seat to the decades-long struggles within and among space bureaucrats and space billionaires. Bring popcorn, as you bear witness to an untold slice of space history.” —Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist and author of Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier “We are living at the most exciting time in space exploration since the Apollo era, in part because the world’s largest space agency, NASA, got around to trying something new, the funding of commercial crews. Lori Garver tells it like it is . . . or was for a woman effecting change at NASA despite men of the military industrial complex—and their cost-plus contracts. It wasn’t rocket science, it was much harder than that. Don’t take my word(s) for it; read this book.” —Bill Nye, CEO, The Planetary Society “A scathing memoir that shows the ugly side of NASA while offering hope for a better future for the space agency.” —Kirkus Reviews

Mesklin is a vast, inhospitable, disc-shaped planet, so cold that its oceans are liquid methane and its snows are frozen ammonia. It is a world spinning dizzyingly, a world where gravity can be a crushing 700 times greater than Earth's, a world too hostile for human explorers. But the planet holds secrets of inestimable value, and an unmanned probe that has crashed close to one of its poles must be recovered. Only the Mesklinites, the small creatures so bizarrely adapted to their harsh environment, can help. And so Barlennan, the resourceful and courageous captain of the Mesklinite ship Bree, sets out on an heroic and appalling journey into the terrible unknown. For him and his people, the prize to be gained is as great as that for mankind... Hal Clement's MISSION OF GRAVITY is universally regarded as one of the most important and best loved novels in the genre. The remarkable and sympathetic depiction of an alien species and the plausible and scientifically based realisation of the strange world they inhabit make it a major landmark in the history of hard SF.