What are the great scientific questions of our modern age and why don't we know the answers? This volume takes on the most fascinating and pressing mysteries we have yet to crack and explains how tantalisingly close science is to solving them (or how frustratingly out of reach they remain).

The Big Questions in Science and Religion explores these ten queries to determine whether religious beliefs can survive in the scientific age. Author Keith Ward, an expert in the field of world religions, devotes a full chapter to each question, wherein he considers concepts from Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity, alongside the speculations of cosmologists, physicians, mathematicians, and philosophers.

In this unique science book, Professor Robert Winston answers more than 100 real-life questions from children all around the world. Questions cover all the popular science topics, including the biology: "Why do freckles come in dots on your face?"; physics: "Could you jump off the world?"; Earth: "Why is the sky blue?"; chemistry: "Why are there bubbles in boiling water?"; natural science: "Do dogs cry?", and space: "Why will the Sun explode and make us extinct?". This new edition includes eight pages of additional questions relating to the recent hot topics in science, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Robert Winston was inspired to write this book by the many questions posed by his grandchildren and by children from the schools he has visited over the years. The book includes some of these questions, plus many more gathered from countries all over the world - including the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe, Canada, the USA, India, China, and Japan. The questions cover the main science topics: chemistry, physics, biology, Earth, space, and natural science. Packed with weird and wacky questions and clear and lively answers - Ask a Scientist puts the fun back into science. And who could be a better scientist to ask questions to than Professor Robert Winston?

One of our most brilliant social critics—author of the bestselling The Middle Mind—presents a scathing critique of the “delusions” of science alongside a rousing defense of the tradition of Romanticism and the “big” questions. With the rise of religion critics such as Richard Dawkins, and of pseudo-science advocates such as Malcolm Gladwell and Jonah Lehrer, you’re likely to become a subject of ridicule if you wonder “Why is there something instead of nothing?” or “What is our purpose on earth?” Instead, at universities around the world, and in the general cultural milieu, we’re all being taught that science can resolve all questions without the help of philosophy, politics, or the humanities. In short, the rich philosophical debates of the 19th century have been nearly totally abandoned, argues critic Curtis White. An atheist himself, White nonetheless calls this new turn “scientism”—and fears what it will do to our culture if allowed to flourish without challenge. In fact, in “scientism” White sees a new religion with many unexamined assumptions. In this brilliant multi-part critique, he aims at a TED talk by a distinguished neuroscientist in which we are told that human thought is merely the product of our “connectome,” a map of neural connections in the brain that is yet to be fully understood. . . . He whips a widely respected physicist who argues that our new understanding of the origins of the universe obviates any philosophical inquiry . . . and ends with a learned defense of the tradition of Romanticism, which White believes our technology and science-obsessed world desperately needs to rediscover. It’s the only way, he argues, that we can see our world clearly. . . and change it.

The Big Questions series is designed to let renowned experts address the 20 most fundamental and frequently asked questions of a major branch of science or philosophy. Each 3000-word essay simply and concisely examines a question that has eternally perplexed enquiring minds, and provides answers from history's great thinkers. This ambitious project is a unique distillation of humanity's best ideas.

The Big Questions series is designed to let renowned experts address the 20 most fundamental and frequently asked questions of a major branch of science or philosophy. Each 3000-word essay simply and concisely examines a question that has eternally perplexed enquiring minds, and provides answers from history's great thinkers. This ambitious project is a unique distillation of humanity's best ideas. In Big Questions: Physics, Michael Brooks answers the 20 key questions: What is the point of physics? Is everything ultimately random? What is time? Why is there no such thing as a free lunch? What happened to Schrodinger's cat? Can I change the universe with a single glance? Are solids really solid? Which is nature's strongest force? Why does an apple fall? Do we live in a computer simulation? What is light? Is Earth's magnetic shield failing? Am I unique in the universe? Does chaos theory spell disaster? Can we travel through time? Is string theory really about strings? Why does E=mc2? What is the God Particle? Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the ultimate nature of reality?

What is life about? How are men and women different? How did the universe begin? We all ponder these questions from time to time but some scientists spend their lives investigating them. Are they anywhere near finding answers? In this exciting new book, leading scientific thinkers address twenty of the really big questions that people have been asking for hundreds of years. The contributors include: John Sulston, who led the British side of the Human Genome Project and who offers his views on whether we can ever end disease; Susan Greenfield, Oxford University professor of pharmacology, who describes what she thinks is a thought; John Barrow, Cambridge professor of mathematical sciences, who tells us what is time; and American psychologist David Buss, who suggests why we fall in and out of love. Their answers are each put into context by more general commentaries discussing the differing views of other leading contemporary scientists and looking at how people have tackled the question in the past. The result is a breathtaking tour of scientific thought through the ages and a peek at some of the most cutting-edge and controversial research today. Packed with fascinating insights, it shows how science is investigating problems that affect us all on a large scale and suggests that we are closer to finding solutions to some of life's big questions than we might think.

What's wrong with stealing? What's the best way to blood test a pot-bellied pig? Should we tolerate intolerance? In the wake of his enormously popular books, The Armchair Economistand More Sex is Safer Sex, Steven Landsburg uses concepts from maths, economics and physics to address the big questions in philosophy: Where does knowledge come from? What's the difference between right and wrong? Do our beliefs matter? Is it possible to know everything? Provocative, utterly entertaining and always surprising, The Big Questions challenges readers to re-evaluate their most fundamental beliefs and reveals the relationship between the loftiest philosophical quests and our everyday lives.

Easy, enlightening and mind-stretching, here are answers to the 20 biggest questions of evolution and what they tell us about life on Earth. The Big Questions series is designed to let renowned experts address the 20 most fundamental and frequently asked questions of a major branch of science or philosophy. Each 3,000-word essay simply and concisely examines a question that has eternally perplexed enquiring minds, and provides answers based on the latest research. This ambitious project is a unique distillation of humanity's best ideas. In The Big Questions: Evolution, Francisco Ayala answers the 20 key questions: What is evolution? Was Darwin right? What is natural selection? What is survival of the fittest? Is evolution a random process? What is a species? What are chromosomes, genes and DNA? How do genes build bodies? What is molecular evolution? How did life begin? What is the tree of life? Am I really a monkey? What does the fossil record tell us? What is the missing link? Is intelligence inherited? Will humans continue to evolve? Can I clone myself? Where does morality come from? Is language a uniquely human attribute? Is Creationism true?

An introduction to philosophy which uses clear analogies to explore some of life's biggest moral and scientific questions, including the origins of the universe and the meaning of life.