In this fascinating, accessible introduction to one of the most revolutionary developments in modern physics, Einstein scholar Banesh Hoffmann recounts the successive insights that led to both the special and general theories of relativity.Using simple examples from everyday life, the author presents entertaining, nontechnical demonstrations of what relativity actually means and how it has revolutionized our ideas of time and space. Starting with the geometrical and cosmological ide...

From his unusual beginning in "Defining a vector" to his final comments on "What then is a vector?" author Banesh Hoffmann has written a book that is provocative and unconventional. In his emphasis on the unresolved issue of defining a vector, Hoffmann mixes pure and applied mathematics without using calculus. The result is a treatment that can serve as a supplement and corrective to textbooks, as well as collateral reading in all courses that deal with vectors.Major topics include...

“Hoffmann does more than convey the emotional impact of Einstein’s science on Einstein. He tries to make the general reader see the problems that concerned Einstein and understand the kinds of theories he constructed to solve them... This calls for scientific popularization of a high order... Hoffmann [...] does it very effectively.” — Martin Klein and Robert Merton, The New York Times“... succeeds in catching some of Einstein’s wholeness, the genius and t...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A whirlwind tour of fundamental physics and cosmology.”—The Wall Street Journal“Fascinating . . . a wealth of ideas [that] leave us with a clearer understanding of modern physics in all its invigorating complexity.”—Los Angeles TimesWhen and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? What is the nature of reality? Is the apparent “grand design” of our universe evidence of a benevo...

**The New York Times bestseller from the author of The Order of Time and Reality Is Not What It Seems, Helgoland, and Anaximander“One of the year’s most entrancing books about science.”—The Wall Street Journal“Clear, elegant...a whirlwind tour of some of the biggest ideas in physics.”—The New York Times Book Review**This playful, entertaining, and mind-bending introduction to modern physics briskly expla...

A Nobel Prize–winning physicist's "funny, clever, entertaining" account of the history of particle physics and the hunt for a Higgs boson ( Library Journal).In this extraordinarily accessible and witty book, Leon Lederman—"the most engaging physicist since the late, much-missed Richard Feynman" ( San Francisco Examiner)—offers a fascinating tour that takes us from the Greeks' earliest scientific observations through Einstein and beyond in an inspi...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic story of the greatest quest in all of science—the holy grail of physics that would explain the creation of the universe—from renowned theoretical physicist and author of The Future of the Mind and The Future of Humanity.When Newton discovered the law of gravity, he unified the rules governing the heavens and the Earth. Since then, physicists have been placing new forces into ever-grander theories.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Stephen Hawking’s closest collaborator offers the intellectual superstar’s final thoughts on the cosmos—a dramatic revision of the theory he put forward in A Brief History of Time.“This superbly written book offers insight into an extraordinary individual, the creative process, and the scope and limits of our current understanding of the cosmos.”—Lord Martin ReesPerhaps the biggest question Step...

Are there other dimensions beyond our own? Is time travel possible? Can we change the past? Are there gateways to parallel universes? All of us have pondered such questions, but there was a time when scientists dismissed these notions as outlandish speculations. Not any more. Today, they are the focus of the most intense scientific activity in recent memory. In Hyperspace, Michio Kaku, author of the widely acclaimed Beyond Einstein and a leading theoretical physicist, off...

A rising star in theoretical physics offers his awesome vision of our universe and beyond, all beginning with a simple question: Why does time move forward?Time moves forward, not backward—everyone knows you can’t unscramble an egg. In the hands of one of today’s hottest young physicists, that simple fact of breakfast becomes a doorway to understanding the Big Bang, the universe, and other universes, too. In From Eternity to Here, Sean Carroll argues that ...

"A compelling, enjoyable, and widely accessible exploration of one of the most fundamental scientific issues of our age" (Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe).In The Hole in the Universe, an award-winning science writer "provides an illuminating slant on physics and mathematics by exploring the concept of nothing" ( Scientific American).Welcome to the world of cutting-edge math, physics, and neuroscience, where the search...

"A fascinating read" that explores theories for the origin of the universe from throughout history ( New Scientist).Los Angeles Times Summer Reading Pick"Clegg follows the footsteps of Carl Sagan's Cosmos, Steven Hawking's A Brief History of Time and Timothy Ferris's Coming of Age in the Milky Way. He shares his predecessors' enthusiasm, eloquence and ability to explain complex ideas but pr...