How might the world as we know it end? In this illustrated guide, How Stuff Works author Marshall Brain explores myriad doomsday scenarios and the science behind them.What if the unimaginable happens? A nuclear bomb detonates over a major city, for example, or a deadly virus infects millions around the world. There are other disasters we don’t even have to imagine because they’ve already occurred, like violent hurricanes or cataclysmic tsunamis that have c...

Engineering is where human knowledge meets real-world problems—and solves them. It's the source of some of our greatest inventions, from the catapult to the jet engine. Marshall Brain, creator of the How Stuff Works series and a professor at the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program at NCSU, provides a detailed look at 250 milestones in the discipline. He covers the various areas, including chemical, aerospace, and computer engineering, from ancient history to the present. The topics include a...

Does God exist? Using an intellectually rigorous, scientific approach, Marshall Brain—the founder of HowStuffWorks.com and author of the How Stuff Works series—sets out to resolve the eternal debate once and for all. With a compelling sense of curiosity, he breaks down mankind's search for a higher power, tackling such quandaries as: Who is God? What are his attributes? What is God doing and why? How does God interact with humanity? And ultimately, *how can humans know wi...

One of the greatest adventures in the future of humanity will be to construct, work, and live in space based structures.In this book we look at the history of ideas for living in space, proposed space colony designs, and technology.The details of current life support technology on the International Space Station is reviewed, and what technologies will be required for development of large scale space colonies.What other things in terms of financing and materials avai...

How long can people really live? We are all taught by family, friends, and our family doctors that we should live into our seventies and eighties then die in the normal course of events.The truth is that there are legitimate records of persons up to hundreds of years old.One only has to do the research.In this book I present extensive records of nine individuals who lived from one hundred thirty to over three hundred years--or more.Read about Li Ching Yun wh...

A special 10th anniversary edition of the million-copy bestseller What If? from the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd—revised and annotated with brand-new illustrations and answers to the most absurd hypothetical questions you never thought to ask.Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions: What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and li...

From safety pins to steam engines to cell phones, the stories behind innovations that have transformed everyday lives.We take thousands of inventions for granted, using them daily and enjoying their benefits. But how much do we really know about their origins and development? This absorbing new book tells the stories behind the inventions that have changed the world, with details about:Convenience items, such as safety pins, toothbrushes, a...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERFrom the creator of the wildly popular xkcd.com, hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask.Millions visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. Fans ask him a lot of strange questions: How fast can you hit a speed bump, driving, and live? When (if ever) did the sun go down on the British Empire? When will Facebook contain more profiles of dead people ...

The technology underground is a thriving, humming, and often literally scintillating subculture of amateur inventors and scientific envelope-pushers who dream up, design, and build machines that whoosh, rumble, fly—and occasionally hurl pumpkins across enormous distances. In the process they astonish us with what is possible when human imagination and ingenuity meet nature’s forces and materials. William Gurstelle spent two years exploring the most fascinating outposts of this world of won...

The perfect companion to any flight - a guide to the science on view from your window seat. There are few times when science is so immediate as when you're in a plane. Your life is in the hands of the scientists and engineers who enable tons of metal and plastic to hurtle through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour. Inflight Science shows how you stay alive up there - but that's only the beginning.Brian Clegg explains the ever changing view, whether it's crop circles or clouds, mou...

Flickering pixels are the tiny dots of light that make up the screens of life--from TVs to cell phones. They are nearly invisible, but they change us.In this provocative book, author Shane Hipps takes readers beneath the surface of things to see how the technologies we use end up using us.Not all is dire, however, as Hipps shows us that hidden things have far less power to shape us when they aren't hidden anymore. We are only puppets of our technology if we...

**AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!An NPR Best Book of 2022"The questions throughout What If? 2 are equal parts brilliant, gross, and wonderfully absurd and the answers are thorough, deeply researched, and great fun. . . . Science isn’t easy, but in Munroe’s capable hands, it surely can be fun." —TIMEThe #1 New York Times bestselling author of What If? and How To answers more of the weirdest questions you nev...