Download or read book The World in a Grain written by Vince Beiser and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award The gripping story of the most important overlooked commodity in the world--sand--and the crucial role it plays in our lives. After water and air, sand is the natural resource that we consume more than any other--even more than oil. Every concrete building and paved road on Earth, every computer screen and silicon chip, is made from sand. From Egypt's pyramids to the Hubble telescope, from the world's tallest skyscraper to the sidewalk below it, from Chartres' stained-glass windows to your iPhone, sand shelters us, empowers us, engages us, and inspires us. It's the ingredient that makes possible our cities, our science, our lives--and our future. And, incredibly, we're running out of it. The World in a Grain is the compelling true story of the hugely important and diminishing natural resource that grows more essential every day, and of the people who mine it, sell it, build with it--and sometimes, even kill for it. It's also a provocative examination of the serious human and environmental costs incurred by our dependence on sand, which has received little public attention. Not all sand is created equal: Some of the easiest sand to get to is the least useful. Award-winning journalist Vince Beiser delves deep into this world, taking readers on a journey across the globe, from the United States to remote corners of India, China, and Dubai to explain why sand is so crucial to modern life. Along the way, readers encounter world-changing innovators, island-building entrepreneurs, desert fighters, and murderous sand pirates. The result is an entertaining and eye-opening work, one that is both unexpected and involving, rippling with fascinating detail and filled with surprising characters.

Download or read book A Million Grains of Sand written by Danny L. Formhals, Sr. and published by . This book was released on 2016-07-21 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever pondered how much God thinks about you? Not just what He thinks about you, your life, and your character, but how many times has He considered you? In his book, A Million Grains of Sand, author Danny Formhals Sr. share a powerful insight into what a grain of sand means to God? Sand is both an annoyance, and amazing at the same time. An annoyance when it gets in your eye, and amazing when you see it the way God does. Jeremiah 29:11 (NKJV) states, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." In this book you'll see sand in a new light. And, you will gain a powerful perspective on just one grain, as well as a million of them. Just as you are a product of God, so is a grain of sand.

Download or read book Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand written by Samuel R. Delany and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2004-12-15 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of a truly galactic civilization with over 6,000 inhabited worlds.

Download or read book A Grain of Sand written by Gary Greenberg and published by Voyageur Press. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower. To hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour." William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence"1805 Here is the world viewed within a grain of sand, thanks to the stunning three-dimensional microphotography of Dr. Gary Greenberg. To some, all sand looks alike--countless grains in a vast expanse of beach. Look closer--much closer--and your view of sand will never be the same. Employing the fantastic microphotographic techniques that he developed, Greenberg invites readers to discover the strange and wonderful world that each grain of sand contains. Here are the sands of Hawaii and Tahiti, the Sahara and the Poles, a volcano, each exquisitely different, and each telling a fascinating geological story. Red sand and yellow, white sand and black, singing sand and quicksand: Greenbergs pictures reveal the subtle differences in their colors, textures, sizes, and shapes. And as this infinitesimal world unfolds so does an intriguing explanation of how each grain of sand begins and forms and finds itself in a particular place, one of a billion and one of a kind.

Download or read book Sand written by Michael Welland and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-01-15 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From individual grains to desert dunes, from the bottom of the sea to the landscapes of Mars, and from billions of years in the past to the future, this is the extraordinary story of one of nature's humblest, most powerful, and most ubiquitous materials. Told by a geologist with a novelist's sense of language and narrative, Sand examines the science—sand forensics, the physics of granular materials, sedimentology, paleontology and archaeology, planetary exploration—and at the same time explores the rich human context of sand. Interwoven with tales of artists, mathematicians, explorers, and even a vampire, the story of sand is an epic of environmental construction and destruction, an adventure in staggering scales of time and distance, yet a tale that encompasses the ordinary and everyday. Sand, in fact, is all around us—it has made possible our computers, buildings and windows, toothpaste, cosmetics, and paper, and it has played dramatic roles in human history, commerce, and imagination. In this luminous, kinetic, revelatory account, we do indeed find the world in a grain of sand.

Download or read book Built on Sand written by Etienne Guyon and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explaining the science contained in a simple assembly of grains—the most abundant form of matter present on Earth. Granular media—composed of vast amounts of grains, consolidated or not—constitute the most abundant form of solid matter on Earth. Granular materials assemble in disordered configurations scientists often liken to a bag of marbles. Made of macroscopic particles rather than molecules, they defy the standard scheme of classification in terms of solid, liquid, and gas. Granular materials provide a model relevant to various domains of research, including engineering, physics, and biology. William Blake famously wished “To See a World in a Grain of Sand”; in this book, pioneering researchers in granular matter explain the science hidden behind simple grains, shedding light on collective behavior in disordered settings in general. The authors begin by describing the single grain with its different origins, shapes, and sizes, then examine grains in piled or stacked form. They explain the packing fraction of granular media, a crucial issue that bears on the properties displayed in practical applications; explore small-scale deformations in piles of disordered grains, with particular attention to friction; and present theories of various modes of disorder. Along the way, they discuss such concepts as force chains, arching effects, wet grains, sticky contacts, and inertial effects. Drawing on recent numerical simulations as well as classical concepts developed in physics and mechanics, the book offers an accessible introduction to a rapidly developing field.

Download or read book Cosmic Inflation Explained written by Kelly Blumenthal and published by Enslow Publishing, LLC. This book was released on 2018-07-15 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cosmic inflation is the theory that the early universe went through fast, exponential expansion for a fraction of a second after the Big Bang and then slowed down to the current rate of expansion. Simplified explanations of complex scientific concepts such as dark energy, dark matter, and the cosmic microwave background and dynamic images will help students comprehend how the study of cosmic inflation has reshaped our understanding of how the universe was born, evolved, and might be in the future. This book correlates with the Next Generation Science Standards' emphasis on scientific collection and analysis of data and evidence-based theories. Informative sidebars explore related timely topics in depth, while a Further Reading section provides several resources for additional study.

Download or read book Grains of Sand written by Sibylle Delacroix and published by Owlkids. This book was released on 2018-04-15 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brother and sister dream up ways to save sand from a beach vacation

Download or read book Counting Grains of Sand written by Natasha Metzler and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-01-11 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do you delight in a God-Who-Speaks-Promises when those promises seem as distant as the stars in the sky? Holding onto faith when everything is falling apart is a difficult task at best. Drawing from Scripture and her own personal walk through sorrow, the author of Counting Grains of Sand leads you through a journey of discovering the Lord's kindness, even from the middle of loss. Counting Grains of Sand takes a real look at faith, hope, and trust in the face of loss, heartache, and incredible joy.

Download or read book Galaxies Like Grains of Sand written by Brian Aldiss and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2012-04-05 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Brian Aldiss seems to have always had a more oceanic sense of time than most science fiction writers, an almost measured vision of what will transpire in the long run, a time-sense which is reflected both in his fiction and in the pace and course of his career.' Norman Spinrad These nine stories from 1960, early in Brian Aldiss's long and productive career, were originally conceived as a single entity, and form a chronicle of the next forty million years. They are arranged sequentially, beginning with the near-future and ending, with 'The Ultimate Millennia', hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years later. 'One cannot help being struck by the variety of concepts, the mastery of style, the sureness of the dialogue, the depth of characterization, the fertility of ideas, and the urbanity of the wit ... here is a major talent at work.' Science Fiction Writers

Download or read book Atlas of Sand Grain Surface Textures and Applications written by W. C. Mahaney and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2002 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mahaney presents methods of using electron microscopy developed in the past 25 years, and discusses their values in the interpretation of sedimentary environments, the problems inherent in these methods, case studies and future possibilities for research.

Download or read book Seven Quintillion Five Hundred Quadrillion Grains of Sand on Planet Earth written by Paul Rockett and published by Heinemann-Raintree Library. This book was released on 2015 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Find out all about Earth, including the types of rock on earth and how they are formed, the longest river and smallest mountain, earthquakes, volcanoes, the water cycle, and how we can really count the grains of sand on our planet.

Download or read book Gathering Grains of Sand written by Jeff Kaye and published by Gefen Books. This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost eighty years after Samuel Jacobs died in Glasgow, only two of his original seventeen grandchildren remained, and his life story was at dire risk of being lost to the sands of time. But fate thought differently. When, following the death of his own father, Jeff Kaye stumbled on his great-grandfather Shmuilo, he began to track him down to find out how he got from his birthplace in a farm beside Vievis, Lithuania, to Glasgow, Scotland. Inevitably, the journey forces Kaye to grapple with core questions of Jewish existence, Israel, and the human condition, culminating in an encounter Kaye would have preferred not to share.

Download or read book Grains of Sand written by Shifra Shomron and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grains Of Sand: The Fall Of Neve Dekalim puts a human face to the people of Gush Katif as it closely follows the story of an Israeli family from pre-Intifada II until the Disengagement, which was the expulsion of Israeli citizens from Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip in 2005. The reader is given a rare opportunity to look into the hearts and souls of Gush Katif residents. This novel is historic fiction based upon the author's life and experiences in Gush Katif, as well as those of friends and neighbors. It vividly reflects the thoughts and feelings of the people who lived there during those difficult times. The author, a teen at the time she wrote this book, was herself an expellee.

Download or read book The Mountain Mystery written by Ron Miksha and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty years ago, no one could explain mountains. Arguments about their origin were spirited, to say the least. Progressive scientists were ridiculed for their ideas. Most geologists thought the Earth was shrinking. Contracting like a hot ball of iron, shrinking and exposing ridges that became mountains. Others were quite sure the planet was expanding. Growth widened sea basins and raised mountains. There was yet another idea, the theory that the world's crust was broken into big plates that jostled around, drifting until they collided and jarred mountains into existence. That idea was invariably dismissed as pseudo-science. Or "utter damned rot" as one prominent scientist said. But the doubtful theory of plate tectonics prevailed. Mountains, earthquakes, ancient ice ages, even veins of gold and fields of oil are now seen as the offspring of moving tectonic plates. Just half a century ago, most geologists sternly rejected the idea of drifting continents. But a few intrepid champions of plate tectonics dared to differ. The Mountain Mystery tells their story.

Download or read book The Secrets of Sand written by Gary Greenberg and published by Voyageur Press. This book was released on 2015-09-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beach to the moon--explore the incredible hidden world of sand, seen through a microscope. To the naked eye, the tiny particles that make up sand are less than inspiring. Under the microscope, however, it's a completely different story. Looking at sand under extreme magnification, we quickly find ourselves immersed in a new world of brilliant colors, organic shapes, and the stunning patterns of nature. Every grain of sand is a snapshot in time: Each grain originated somewhere and is headed somewhere else. Biogenic sands often contain fragments of the hard tissues from marine organisms such as shells, corals, sponges, sea urchins, forams, and bryozoans. When these organisms die, the hard tissues that are left behind erode into some of the most spectacular grains of sand imaginable. In this book, deep-focus microscope photography, x-ray images, and high-resolution scanning electron microscopy reveal their secrets. The Secrets of Sand is a virtual tour of sands from across North America. It shows their origins, the environmental forces that have acted upon them, and their journey from bedrock or invertebrate shell to the fine particles that, in countless billions, form our familiar beaches and dunes. It then moves on to an exploration of lunar sand, which has been formed under such alien conditions that it has no terrestrial counterpart. The Secrets of Sand is an amazing voyage of discovery in the ancient past--and the dynamic present--of the earth and our nearest neighbor.

Download or read book Grains of Golden Sand written by Delfi Messinger and published by Fine Print Press, Limited. This book was released on 2007 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an intimate, first-hand look at one of the world's most precarious, endangered species in a precarious, endangered place. While providing adventure and exotic appeal, this book adds a new perspective to readers' understanding of the relationship between humans and what remains of the natural world. 96800x600 Includes art-book quality illustrations throughout, including 16-page full-color insert. Normal0falsefalsefalseEN-USJAX-NONE