Have you ever wondered what happened before the Big Bang, or how we would colonize Mars, or what an alien invasion might really be like? Astronomer Bob Berman has, and in Cosmic Adventure, a collection of twenty-six profound to outrageous essays, he takes readers on a mind-bending tour of the universe, including our own planet Earth.From the most extraordinary cosmic phenomena to the basics of the natural world, Berman challenges us to look at the...

"An unfailingly congenial explainer, always ready with the kinds of fascinating facts" reveals all you need to know about the radiation around you ( Christian Science Monitor ).How much do you know about the radiation all around you?Your electronic devices swarm with it; the sun bathes you in it. It's zooming at you from cell towers, microwave ovens, CT scans, mammogram machines, nuclear power plants, deep space, e...

In this essay collection, a noted astronomer reveals the bizarre and astonishingly true scientific facts that determine the world around us."Touches on a dizzying array of subjects, including UV rays, inert gases, fossils, meteorites, microwaves, rainbows . . . Like many a good teacher, Berman uses humor to entertain his audience and liven things up." — Los Angeles TimesBob Berman is motivated by a straightforward ...

The beating heart of the sun is the very pulse of life on earth. And from the ancients who plotted its path at Stonehenge to the modern scientists who unraveled the nuclear fusion reaction that turns mass into energy, humankind has sought to solve its mysteries. In this lively biography of the sun, Bob Berman ranges from its stellar birth to its spectacular future death with a focus on the wondrous and enthralling, and on the heartbreaking sacrifice, laughable errors, egotistical battles, ...

From the speed of light to moving mountains -- and everything in between -- Zoom explores how the universe and its objects move.If you sit as still as you can in a quiet room, you might be able to convince yourself that nothing is moving. But air currents are still wafting around you. Blood rushes through your veins. The atoms in your chair jiggle furiously. In fact, the planet you are sitting on is whizzing through space thirty-five times faster than the speed of s...

A heart-pumping exploration of the biggest explosions in history, from the Big Bang to mysterious activity on Earth and everything in betweenThe overwhelming majority of celestial space is inactive and will remain forever unruffled. Similarly, more than 90 percent of the universe's 70 billion trillion suns had non-attention-getting births and are burning through their nuclear fuel in steady, predictable fashion. But when cosmic violence does unfold, it changes the ...

A heart-pumping exploration of the biggest explosions in history, from the Big Bang to mysterious activity on Earth and everything in betweenThe overwhelming majority of celestial space is inactive and will remain forever unruffled. Similarly, more than 90 percent of the universe's 70 billion trillion suns had non-attention-getting births and are burning through their nuclear fuel in steady, predictable fashion. But when cosmic violence does unfold, it changes the ...

From the speed of light to moving mountains -- and everything in between -- Zoom explores how the universe and its objects move.If you sit as still as you can in a quiet room, you might be able to convince yourself that nothing is moving. But air currents are still wafting around you. Blood rushes through your veins. The atoms in your chair jiggle furiously. In fact, the planet you are sitting on is whizzing through space thirty-five times faster than the speed of ...

How much do you know about the radiation all around you?Your electronic devices swarm with it; the sun bathes you in it. It's zooming at you from cell towers, microwave ovens, CT scans, mammogram machines, nuclear power plants, deep space, even the walls of your basement. You cannot see, hear, smell or feel it, but there is never a single second when it is not flying through your body. Too much of it will kill you, but without it you wouldn't live a year.From beloved popula...

森林中的一棵樹倒下，如果旁邊沒有人看見，它是否發出了聲音？宇宙存在的先決條件是，「觀察者」必須存在你的意識決定了宇宙「二十一世紀愛因斯坦」頂尖生物學家、幹細胞研究先驅羅伯・蘭薩╳ 知名天文學家鮑伯．博曼以「生命宇宙論」重新詮釋宇宙的基本原理宇宙的誕生，絕非始於隨機的碰撞與爆炸......是生命與意識形塑了宇宙！回應《時間簡史》，21世紀人類無法迴避的革命性宇宙論生命與意識，才是了解宇宙的基礎；我們感覺到的真實，是與意識有關的過程！物體是否真實存在？如果沒有看、思、聽等各種各樣的感知，我們還剩下什麼？少了生物，又怎麼知道任何事物是否真的存在？「森林中的一棵樹倒下，如果旁邊沒有人看見，它是否發出了聲音？」事實上，如果沒有觀察者、耳朵和大腦，倒下的樹只會帶來空氣的波動。

Los autores nos invitan a una apasionante aventura intelectual en la que se cuestionará todo lo que creemos saber sobre la vida, la muerte, el universo y la propia realidad. El primer paso consiste en reconocer que nuestro actual modelo de realidad no encaja con lo que nos muestran ciertos descubrimientos científicos recientes. A modo de ejemplo, aunque la ciencia y el modelo científico pueden calcular con bastante precisión la proporción de materia y energía oscura del universo, se ven in...

Il Novecento è stato il secolo della fisica. Le scoperte sull'atomo, le sue particelle e l'architettura del cosmo hanno prodotto la nostra concezione di universo e tutta la tecnologia che plasma la vita quotidiana. Eppure, proprio la fisica non è stata capace, e non lo è ancora, di rispondere alle antichissime domande dell'uomo, invocando come risolutiva quella teoria del tutto che ha a lungo inseguito e mai raggiunto. Che cosa c'era prima del Big Bang? Perché l'universo sembra costruito p...