Download or read book Meditations at 10 000 Feet written by James Trefil and published by Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers. This book was released on 1987 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trefil's preeminent reputation for explaining complex, scientific principles in an engaging and lucid manner results in a most fascinating and elegantly guided tour through mountains and the natural and scientific world. 23 black-and-white photographs. 71 line drawings.
Download or read book Meditations at Sunset written by James S. Trefil and published by Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers. This book was released on 1988 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third and final book in the Natural Philospher trilogy addresses the puzzles overhead: the mystery of the disappearing sunspots, why sunsets and geraniums are red, how bad clouds crashed Delta Flight 191, why we'll never see a Hurricane Zelda, the riddle of ball lightning and UFOs, and more.
Download or read book Ice written by Mariana Gosnell and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2011-04-27 with total page 793 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like the adventurer who circled an iceberg to see it on all sides, Mariana Gosnell, former Newsweek reporter and author of Zero Three Bravo, a book about flying a small plane around the United States, explores ice in all its complexity, grandeur, and significance.More brittle than glass, at times stronger than steel, at other times flowing like molasses, ice covers 10 percent of the earth’s land and 7 percent of its oceans. In nature it is found in myriad forms, from the delicate needle ice that crunches underfoot in a winter meadow to the massive, centuries-old ice that forms the world’s glaciers. Scientists theorize that icy comets delivered to Earth the molecules needed to get life started, and ice ages have shaped much of the land as we know it.Here is the whole world of ice, from the freezing of Pleasant Lake in New Hampshire to the breakup of a Vermont river at the onset of spring, from the frozen Antarctic landscape that emperor penguins inhabit to the cold, watery route bowhead whales take between Arctic ice floes. Mariana Gosnell writes about frostbite and about the recently discovered 5,000-year-old body of a man preserved in an Alpine glacier. She discusses the work of scientists who extract cylinders of Greenland ice to study the history of the earth’s climate and try to predict its future. She examines ice in plants, icebergs, icicles, and hail; sea ice and permafrost; ice on Mars and in the rings of Saturn; and several new forms of ice developed in labs. She writes of the many uses humans make of ice, including ice-skating, ice fishing, iceboating, and ice climbing; building ice roads and seeding clouds; making ice castles, ice cubes, and iced desserts. Ice is a sparkling illumination of the natural phenomenon whose ebbs and flows over time have helped form the world we live in. It is a pleasure to read, and important to read—for its natural science and revelations about ice’s influence on our everyday lives, and for what it has to tell us about our environment today and in the future.
Download or read book The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy written by Eric Donald Hirsch and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2002 with total page 944 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides information on ideas concerning people, places, ideas, and events currently under discussion, including gene therapy, NAFTA, pheromones, and Kwanzaa.
Download or read book Human Nature written by James Trefil and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2005-05 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Uncommon and refreshing. Moreover, Trefil is right." -Michael Ruse, The New York Times Book Review As a prizewinning theoretical physicist and bestselling author, James Trefil has long been the public's guide to a better understanding of the world. Now, in this provocative and engaging book, Trefil looks squarely at our environmental future and finds-contrary to popular wisdom-reason to celebrate. For too long, Trefil argues, humans have treated nature as something separate from themselves-pristine wilderness to be saved or material resources to be exploited. What we need instead is a scientific approach to the environment. In Human Nature, Trefil exposes the benefits of genetically modified species, uncovers vital facts about droughts and global warming, and shows why putting humans first is the best path ahead. By taking advantage of explosive advances in the sciences, we can fruitfully manage the planet, if we rise to the challenge. Human Nature promises to awaken a new state of environmentalism and our relationship to the planet-and is filled with optimism, rather than alarm.
Download or read book Mountains Figured and Disfigured in the English Speaking World written by Françoise Besson and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 730 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this book, written by poets, novelists, mountain-climbers and academics from all over the world, evoke the representation of mountains in the English-speaking world as artists, writers, philosophers or mountain-climbers have represented them from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries. From the Alps to the Pyrenees, from Mount Fuji to Mount Shasta, from the Himalayas to the Scottish Highlands, from Ikere in Nigeria to Devil's Tower in the United States, from Uluru in Australia to the most northern mountain of the Arctic, the shapes of the world speak the same language and tell the world its own story. This interdisciplinary book, weaving together mountaineering, literature, philosophy, painting, cinema, ecology, history, palaeontology, geography, geopolitics, toponymy, law, religion and myth, invites people to an innovative reading of mountains: it reveals the close relationship existing between the shapes of the world and all forms of writing and, at the same time, it shows how the representations of the imagination may be instrumental in protecting the natural world. The story told by the landscape inscribes a broken line in the shapes of the world, tearing the landscape like a fragile page whenever historical and political events (wars, mining or deforestation) leave scars in the landscape; but writers' and artists' representations of mountains constitute a path to awareness as they are not only a painting of beauty, but an image of our link to nature and a warning as well. For centuries the image of the mountain has conveyed a symbolism telling the story of human thought, and this book shows to what extent literature and art play an essential part in our awareness of nature.
Download or read book The Best American Essays of the Century written by Joyce Carol Oates and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty five unforgettable essays by the finest American writers of the twentieth century.
Download or read book A Walk in the Woods written by Bill Bryson and published by Anchor Canada. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God only knows what possessed Bill Bryson, a reluctant adventurer if ever there was one, to undertake a gruelling hike along the world's longest continuous footpath—The Appalachian Trail. The 2,000-plus-mile trail winds through 14 states, stretching along the east coast of the United States, from Georgia to Maine. It snakes through some of the wildest and most spectacular landscapes in North America, as well as through some of its most poverty-stricken and primitive backwoods areas. With his offbeat sensibility, his eye for the absurd, and his laugh-out-loud sense of humour, Bryson recounts his confrontations with nature at its most uncompromising over his five-month journey. An instant classic, riotously funny, A Walk in the Woods will add a whole new audience to the legions of Bill Bryson fans.
Download or read book A Short History of Nearly Everything Special Illustrated Edition written by Bill Bryson and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-11-30 with total page 876 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition of the acclaimed bestseller is lavishly illustrated to convey, in pictures as in words, Bill Bryson’s exciting, informative journey into the world of science. In A Short History of Nearly Everything, the bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body, confronts his greatest challenge yet: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as his territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. The result is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Now, in this handsome new edition, Bill Bryson’s words are supplemented by full-color artwork that explains in visual terms the concepts and wonder of science, at the same time giving face to the major players in the world of scientific study. Eloquently and entertainingly described, as well as richly illustrated, science has never been more involving or entertaining.
Download or read book The Reader s Adviser written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 1026 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ten Good Reasons Why Benjamin Buchanan Believes in God written by Graeme D. Buchan and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2012-11-16 with total page 75 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides, through the semi-fictional character Benjamin Buchanan, strong but simply presented evidence for the existence of God. Benjamin's 'ten good reasons' are argued from the perspective of a scientist and Christian. They are based on a combination of a) logical reasoning, and b) his observations on the awesome (literally!) combination of factors which have combined to make life possible on planet Earth including God's human family. The book should inspire readers to see Earth, its rich resources and lifeforms, from a more reverential perspective - essential in an environmentally and socially stressed planet!
Download or read book Science Matters written by Robert M. Hazen and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2009-06-09 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A science book for the general reader that is informative enough to be a popular textbook and yet well-written enough to appeal to general readers. “Hazen and Trefil [are] unpretentious—good, down-to-earth, we-can-explain-anything science teachers, the kind you wish you had but never did.”—The New York Times Book Review Knowledge of the basic ideas and principles of science is fundamental to cultural literacy. But most books on science are often too obscure or too specialized to do the general reader much good. Science Matters is a rare exception—a science book that is informative enough for introductory courses in high school and college, and yet lucid enough for readers uncomfortable with scientific jargon and complicated mathematics. And now, revised and expanded, it is up-to-date, so that readers can enjoy Hazen and Trefil's refreshingly accessible explanations of the most recent developments in science, from particle physics to biotechnology.
Download or read book Disturbing the Solar System written by Alan E. Rubin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The solar system has always been a messy place in which gravity wreaks havoc. Moons form, asteroids and comets crash into planets, ice ages commence, and dinosaurs disappear. By describing the dramatic consequences of such disturbances, this authoritative and entertaining book reveals the fundamental interconnectedness of the solar system--and what it means for life on Earth. After relating a brief history of the solar system, Alan Rubin describes how astronomers determined our location in the Milky Way. He provides succinct and up-to-date accounts of the energetic interactions among planetary bodies, the generation of the Earth's magnetic field, the effects of other solar-system objects on our climate, the moon's genesis, the heating of asteroids, and the origin of the mysterious tektites. Along the way, Rubin introduces us to the individual scientists--including the famous, the now obscure, and the newest generation of researchers--who have enhanced our understanding of the galactic neighborhood. He shows how scientific discoveries are made; he discusses the uncertainty that presides over the boundaries of knowledge as well as the occasional reluctance of scientists to change their minds even when confronted by compelling evidence. This fresh historical perspective reveals science as it is: an imperfect but self-correcting enterprise. Journeying to the frontiers of knowledge, Rubin concludes with the exciting realm of astrobiology. He chronicles the history of the search for life on Mars and describes cutting-edge lines of astrobiological inquiry, including panspermia (the possible transfer of life from planet to planet), the likelihood of technologically advanced alien civilizations in our galaxy, and our probable responses to alien contact. Authoritative and up-to-date but also entertaining and fluidly written, Disturbing the Solar System will appeal to any reader who has ever picked up a rock or gazed at the moon with a sense of wonder.
Download or read book Are We Unique written by James Trefil and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 1998-02-01 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating book on an exciting and timely topic, James Trefil explores just exactly what it is that is so special about the human mind that sets us so far from all the other animals and that also makes it impossible to design a computer that coul
Download or read book The Renaissance of Science written by Albert Martini and published by Albert Martini. This book was released on 2015-05-27 with total page 551 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Magnificent Scientists and their Fabulous Accomplishments A Fantastic Dream and Journey into the Past, Present and Future In the World of Biology
Download or read book Evening Tide written by Elizabeth Tarbox and published by Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. This book was released on 1998 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether in the bleakest moment of bidding goodbye to her dying father or in the pain she hears as she counsels gay youth, Tarbox's ears and eyes are attuned to the hopes and the solace that she finds in nature -- in the gentle sounds in a stand of pines, in the intensive chore of splitting wood. These meditations will comfort and inspire. Part of the UUA Meditation Manual series.
Download or read book The Dark Side of the Universe written by James Trefil and published by Anchor. This book was released on 1989-08-28 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides lay reports on the state of the universe as now understood on the frontiers of physics.
