Download or read book The Quirks Quarks Guide to Space written by Jim Lebans and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2008-02-19 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For everyone who’s curious about what’s new under (and over and around) the stars. Douglas Adams famously pronounced in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that the answer to life, the universe, and everything was 42. Quirks & Quarks, whose approach to science owes almost as much to Adams as it does to Newton or Einstein or Hawking, have flipped that notion through a gap in the space-time continuum (or something like that) and come up with answers to the 42 essential questions about space. Much about the universe is very hard for most of us to grasp, and if anyone can explain these mind-bending aspects of the heavens above, it’s the Quirks & Quarks producers, who have been bringing Canadians understandable science, with trademark humour, for more than thirty years. In their Guide to Space, they answer such pressing questions as Where does space begin? Why is most of the universe missing? Is there intelligent life in the universe? And the real puzzler: What came before the Big Bang? They also answer questions we wish we’d thought to ask, such as Can you surf a gravity wave? and Why is the universe’s temperature on my TV? There are answers as well to far more practical questions, like What happens when you fall into a black hole? and How will the universe end? The answers, which have been vetted by a team of astronomers, are witty, authoritative, in-depth, accurate, up-to-date astronomically, and, of course, quirky.
Download or read book The Quirks Quarks Guide to Space written by Jim Lebans and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2008-11-19 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For everyone who’s curious about what’s new under (and over and around) the stars. Douglas Adams famously pronounced in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that the answer to life, the universe, and everything was 42. Quirks & Quarks, whose approach to science owes almost as much to Adams as it does to Newton or Einstein or Hawking, have flipped that notion through a gap in the space-time continuum (or something like that) and come up with answers to the 42 essential questions about space. Much about the universe is very hard for most of us to grasp, and if anyone can explain these mind-bending aspects of the heavens above, it’s the Quirks & Quarks producers, who have been bringing Canadians understandable science, with trademark humour, for more than thirty years. In their Guide to Space, they answer such pressing questions as Where does space begin? Why is most of the universe missing? Is there intelligent life in the universe? And the real puzzler: What came before the Big Bang? They also answer questions we wish we’d thought to ask, such as Can you surf a gravity wave? and Why is the universe’s temperature on my TV? There are answers as well to far more practical questions, like What happens when you fall into a black hole? and How will the universe end? The answers, which have been vetted by a team of astronomers, are witty, authoritative, in-depth, accurate, up-to-date astronomically, and, of course, quirky.
Download or read book An Earthling s Guide to Outer Space written by Bob McDonald and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beloved science commentator Bob McDonald takes us on a tour of our galaxy, unraveling the mysteries of the universe and helping us navigate our place among the stars. How big is our galaxy? Is there life on those distant planets? Are we really made of star dust? And where do stars even come from? In An Earthling’s Guide to Outer Space, we finally have the answers to all those questions and more. With clarity, wisdom, and a great deal of enthusiasm, McDonald explores the curiosities of the big blue planet we call home as well as our galactic neighbours—from Martian caves to storm clouds on Jupiter to the nebulae at the far end of the universe. So if you’re pondering how to become an astronaut, or what dark matter really is, or how an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, look no further. Through a captivating mix of stories, experiments, and illustrations, McDonald walks us through space exploration past and present, and reveals what we can look forward to in the future. An Earthling’s Guide to Outer Space is sure to satisfy science readers of all ages, and to remind us earthbound terrestrials just how special our place in the universe truly is.
Download or read book Black Hole Survival Guide written by Janna Levin and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space—an authoritative and accessible guide to the most alluring and challenging phenomena of contemporary science. "[Levin will] take you on a safe black hole trip, an exciting travel story enjoyed from your chair’s event horizon.” —Boston Globe Through her writing, astrophysicist Janna Levin has focused on making the science she studies not just comprehensible but also, and perhaps more important, intriguing to the nonscientist. In this book, she helps us to understand and find delight in the black hole—perhaps the most opaque theoretical construct ever imagined by physicists—illustrated with original artwork by American painter and photographer Lia Halloran. Levin takes us on an evocative exploration of black holes, provoking us to imagine the visceral experience of a black hole encounter. She reveals the influence of black holes as they populate the universe, sculpt galaxies, and even infuse the whole expanse of reality that we inhabit. Lively, engaging, and utterly unique, Black Hole Survival Guide is not just informative—it is, as well, a wonderful read from first to last.
Download or read book Nasty Brutish and Short written by Pat Senson and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2010-04-13 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Birds do it, and bees do it, so do all animals, some of them in weird and wonderful ways. Quirks & Quarks' latest book explores the more bizarre behaviours of more than 100 creatures, from barnacles to Panda bears. The tiny spider that has to tear off one of its two huge sex organs just to be able to get around; the sea slug that produces a powerful love drug and mates with both males and females; the bedbug that stabs its penis into the female's abdomen — the range of animal sexual practices is mind-boggling. And it's not only reproduction that has them doing very strange things. There's a beetle that shoots a stream of boiling hot, toxic liquid when it's threatened; a lizard that can run on water; a shrimp that explodes its prey. Quirks & Quarks' latest guide is much more than a catalogue of peculiar practices, it's an engrossing look at the astonishing behaviours different animals have evolved in order to survive and reproduce. With an introduction by Bob McDonald, host of Quirks & Quarks.
Download or read book The Quirks Quarks Question Book written by CBC and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2010-08-27 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • Is there really such a thing as a blue moon? • What time is it at the North Pole? • Why don’t woodpeckers get concussed? • Why don’t snorers wake themselves with the racket they make? • Do insects sleep? These are just a few of the intriguing questions asked and answered in The Quirks & Quarks Question Book, the first question and answer book to come out of CBC Radio’s enormously popular weekly science program. Quirks & Quarks producers have combed through ten years’ worth of archives to find the most puzzling questions – or the most fascinating answers to apparently simple questions – from the program’s Question of the Week segment or its once-a-season all-question show. The scientists and researchers with the answers (many of whom updated their answers for the book in light of new research findings) come from all scientific disciplines and all parts of the country. What they have in common is their ability to explain serious, complicated science in layman’s terms. This isn’t science made simple, but science made understandable. Introduced by the program’s host for the past ten years, the genial and ever-curious Bob McDonald, The Quirks & Quarks Question Book has the answers to questions you may never have thought to ask (why does Uranus spin on a different axis from all the other planets in our solar system?) or have spent idle time wondering about (why is there a calm before a storm?). Whether you want to know if you can sweat while you swim or what the view would be like if you could travel at the speed of light, or perhaps you just want to peruse the latest scientific thinking on a wide range of topics, The Quirks & Quarks Question Book has the answer. Quirks & Quarks has been keeping Canadians up to date on the world of science for more than 25 years. Every week, the program presents the people behind the latest discoveries in the physical and natural sciences. The program also examines the political, social, environmental, and ethical implications of new developments in science and technology. Over its lifetime, Quirks & Quarks has won more than 40 national and international awards for science journalism.
Download or read book Do You Believe in Rock and Roll written by Raymond I. Schuck and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2012-10-10 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its release in 1971, Don McLean's song "American Pie" has become an indelible part of U.S. culture. It has sparked countless debates about the references within the lyrics; been celebrated as a chronicle of American life from the late 1950s through the early 1970s; and has become iconic itself as it has been remade, parodied, and referenced within numerous texts and forums. This volume offers a set of new essays that focus on the cultural and historical significance of the song. Representing a variety of perspectives and fields of study, the essays address such topics as historical and literary interpretations of the song's lyrics, its musical qualities, the commentary the song offers on rock and roll history, the continuing significance of the song, and the ways in which the song has been used by various writers and artists. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Download or read book The Quirks Quarks Question Book written by and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A selection of the most puzzling questions asked in the last ten years in the popular CBC Radio One weekly science program Quirks & quarks are answered by Canadian scientists and researchers from all scientific disciplines. A question about the difference of gravity forces on the Earth and on the Moon is answered by Leah Braithwaite of the Canadian Space Agency.
Download or read book A Series of Fortunate Events written by Sean B. Carroll and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fascinating and exhilarating—Sean B. Carroll at his very best."—Bill Bryson, author of The Body: A Guide for Occupants From acclaimed writer and biologist Sean B. Carroll, a rollicking, awe-inspiring story of the surprising power of chance in our lives and the world Why is the world the way it is? How did we get here? Does everything happen for a reason or are some things left to chance? Philosophers and theologians have pondered these questions for millennia, but startling scientific discoveries over the past half century are revealing that we live in a world driven by chance. A Series of Fortunate Events tells the story of the awesome power of chance and how it is the surprising source of all the beauty and diversity in the living world. Like every other species, we humans are here by accident. But it is shocking just how many things—any of which might never have occurred—had to happen in certain ways for any of us to exist. From an extremely improbable asteroid impact, to the wild gyrations of the Ice Age, to invisible accidents in our parents' gonads, we are all here through an astonishing series of fortunate events. And chance continues to reign every day over the razor-thin line between our life and death. This is a relatively small book about a really big idea. It is also a spirited tale. Drawing inspiration from Monty Python, Kurt Vonnegut, and other great thinkers, and crafted by one of today's most accomplished science storytellers, A Series of Fortunate Events is an irresistibly entertaining and thought-provoking account of one of the most important but least appreciated facts of life.
Download or read book Crisis as Form written by Peter Osborne and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Criticism of contemporary art is split by an opposition between activism and the critical function of form. Yet the deeper, more subterranean terms of art-judgment are largely neglected on both sides. These essays combine a re-examination of the terms of judgement of contemporary art with critical interpretations of individual works and exhibitions by Luis Camnitzer, Marcel Duchamp, Matias Faldbakken, Anne Imhof and Cady Noland. The book moves from philosophical issues, via the lingering shadows of medium-specificity (in photography and art music), and the changing states of museums, to analyses of the peculiar ways that works of art relate to time.To give artistic form to crisis, it is suggested, one needs to understand contemporary art's own constitutive crisis of form.
Download or read book An Earthling s Guide to Outer Space written by Bob McDonald and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beloved science commentator Bob McDonald takes us on a tour of our galaxy, unraveling the mysteries of the universe and helping us navigate our place among the stars. How big is our galaxy? Is there life on those distant planets? Are we really made of star dust? And where do stars even come from? In An Earthling’s Guide to Outer Space, we finally have the answers to all those questions and more. With clarity, wisdom, and a great deal of enthusiasm, McDonald explores the curiosities of the big blue planet we call home as well as our galactic neighbours—from Martian caves to storm clouds on Jupiter to the nebulae at the far end of the universe. So if you’re pondering how to become an astronaut, or what dark matter really is, or how an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, look no further. Through a captivating mix of stories, experiments, and illustrations, McDonald walks us through space exploration past and present, and reveals what we can look forward to in the future. An Earthling’s Guide to Outer Space is sure to satisfy science readers of all ages, and to remind us earthbound terrestrials just how special our place in the universe truly is.
Download or read book Canadian Spacewalkers written by Bob McDonald and published by Douglas & McIntyre Limited. This book was released on 2015-03 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the 2014 Canadian Science Writers' Association's Science in Society General Book Award There are astronauts, and there are spacewalkers. Astronauts leave earth's atmosphere in a spaceship. Spacewalkers don pressure suits and step outside into the universe. Spacewalking is a physically exhausting, mentally rigorous endeavor. It's so difficult, only three Canadians have ever succeeded: Chris Hadfield, Steve MacLean and Dave Williams. Chris Hadfield and Dave Williams are record breakers; Hadfield completed thefirst Canadian spacewalk and installed the Canadarm 2 on the International Space Station, while Williams holds the record forthe longest spacewalk by a Canadian. And Steve MacLean, Senior Research Affiliate at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and former head of the Canadian Space Agency, was one of Canada's original six astronauts. But what is it really like to step into that abyss; to leap out into space with only the thin fabric of your suit between you and the universe? In Canadian Spacewalkers, author Bob McDonald compiles each of the spacewalkers' perspectives and presents an extensive interview transcription -- a one-on-one with spacewalkers who tell tales of training underwater in the world's largest swimming pool, recount how they learned to use power tools in zero gravity while wearing bulky gloves and describe the moment when they opened the hatch and stepped outside. McDonald, science journalist and simulator-spacewalker, also shares his own experiences with astronaut training: the almost- reality of simulators, the sensory deprivation of the spacesuit, and even a zero-g airplane ride where he experiences the wonder and giddiness of floating weightless. Highly illustrated with stunning NASA photos, Canadian Spacewalkers will inspire, astound and surprise. This is the gripping first-hand story of unique adventurers -- in their own words -- who have gone where very few humans have had the privilege to go.
Download or read book Useful Delusions The Power and Paradox of the Self Deceiving Brain written by Shankar Vedantam and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2021 A Next Big Idea Club Best Nonfiction of 2021 From the New York Times best-selling author and host of Hidden Brain comes a thought-provoking look at the role of self-deception in human flourishing. Self-deception does terrible harm to us, to our communities, and to the planet. But if it is so bad for us, why is it ubiquitous? In Useful Delusions, Shankar Vedantam and Bill Mesler argue that, paradoxically, self-deception can also play a vital role in our success and well-being. The lies we tell ourselves sustain our daily interactions with friends, lovers, and coworkers. They can explain why some people live longer than others, why some couples remain in love and others don’t, why some nations hold together while others splinter. Filled with powerful personal stories and drawing on new insights in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, Useful Delusions offers a fascinating tour of what it really means to be human.
Download or read book Ice Walker written by James Raffan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From bestselling author James Raffan comes an enlightening and original story about a polar bear’s precarious existence in the changing Arctic, reminiscent of John Vaillant’s The Golden Spruce. Nanurjuk, “the bear-spirited one,” is hunting for seals on Hudson Bay, where ice never lasts more than one season. For her and her young, everything is in flux. From the top of the world, Hudson Bay looks like an enormous paw print on the torso of the continent, and through a vast network of lakes and rivers, this bay connects to oceans across the globe. Here, at the heart of everything, walks Nanurjuk, or Nanu, one polar bear among the six thousand that traverse the 1.23 million square kilometers of ice and snow covering the bay. For millennia, Nanu’s ancestors have roamed this great expanse, living, evolving, and surviving alongside human beings in one of the most challenging and unforgiving habitats on earth. But that world is changing. In the Arctic’s lands and waters, oil has been extracted—and spilled. As global temperatures have risen, the sea ice that Nanu and her young need to hunt seal and fish has melted, forcing them to wait on land where the delicate balance between them and their two-legged neighbors has now shifted. This is the icescape that author and geographer James Raffan invites us to inhabit in Ice Walker. In precise and provocative prose, he brings readers inside Nanu’s world as she treks uncertainly around the heart of Hudson Bay, searching for nourishment for the children that grow inside her. She stops at nothing to protect her cubs from the dangers she can see—other bears, wolves, whales, human beings—and those she cannot. By focusing his lens on this bear family, Raffan closes the gap between humans and bears, showing us how, like the water of the Hudson Bay, our existence—and our future—is tied to Nanu’s. He asks us to consider what might be done about this fragile world before it is gone for good. Masterful, vivid, and haunting, Ice Walker is an utterly unique piece of creative nonfiction and a deeply affecting call to action.
Download or read book Quill Quire written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Concrete Abstractions written by Max Hailperin and published by Max Hailperin. This book was released on 1999 with total page 686 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CONCRETE ABSTRACTIONS offers students a hands-on, abstraction-based experience of thinking like a computer scientist. This text covers the basics of programming and data structures, and gives first-time computer science students the opportunity to not only write programs, but to prove theorems and analyze algorithms as well. Students learn a variety of programming styles, including functional programming, assembly-language programming, and object-oriented programming (OOP). While most of the book uses the Scheme programming language, Java is introduced at the end as a second example of an OOP system and to demonstrate concepts of concurrent programming.
Download or read book Making Space written by Matrix and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 1984 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Los presupuestos sexistas acerca de la vida familiar y el papel de la mujer se han introducido dentro del diseño de los edificios y las ciudades (inclusive en las construcciones mas modernas). Siete arquitectas y constructoras critican el entorno ambiental creado por los profesionales masculinos y muestran como las diseñadoras y consumidoras pueden trabajar juntas. Hablan de sus luchas para lograr un reconocimiento profesional, los intentos por mejorar el diseño de las casas para las clases trabajadoras en el periodo de entreguerras y de los experimentos, tales como restaurantes comunales durante la segunda guerra mundial, que pusieron en cuestion la convencion de que el lugar de la mujer esta en el hogar.
