Download or read book Probable Impossibilities written by Alan Lightman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed author of Einstein’s Dreams tackles "big questions like the origin of the universe and the nature of consciousness ... in an entertaining and easily digestible way” (Wall Street Journal) with a collection of meditative essays on the possibilities—and impossibilities—of nothingness and infinity, and how our place in the cosmos falls somewhere in between. Can space be divided into smaller and smaller units, ad infinitum? Does space extend to larger and larger regions, on and on to infinity? Is consciousness reducible to the material brain and its neurons? What was the origin of life, and can biologists create life from scratch in the lab? Physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, whom The Washington Post has called “the poet laureate of science writers,” explores these questions and more—from the anatomy of a smile to the capriciousness of memory to the specialness of life in the universe to what came before the Big Bang. Probable Impossibilities is a deeply engaged consideration of what we know of the universe, of life and the mind, and of things vastly larger and smaller than ourselves.
Download or read book The Emergence of Life on Earth written by Iris Fry and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did life emerge on Earth? Is there life on other worlds? These questions, until recently confined to the pages of speculative essays and tabloid headlines, are now the subject of legitimate scientific research. This book presents a unique perspective--a combined historical, scientific, and philosophical analysis, which does justice to the complex nature of the subject. The book's first part offers an overview of the main ideas on the origin of life as they developed from antiquity until the twentieth century. The second, more detailed part of the book examines contemporary theories and major debates within the origin-of-life scientific community. Topics include: Aristotle and the Greek atomists' conceptions of the organism Alexander Oparin and J.B.S. Haldane's 1920s breakthrough papers Possible life on Mars?
Download or read book The Origin of Life written by Paul Davies and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2006-09-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The origins of life remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of science. Growing evidence suggests that the first organisms lived deep underground, in environments previously thought to be uninhabitable, and that microbes carried inside rocks have travelled between Earth and Mars. But the question remains: how can life spring into being from non-living chemicals? THE FIFTH MIRACLE reveals the remarkable new theories and discoveries that seem set to transform our understanding of life's role in the unfolding drama of the cosmos.
Download or read book The Search for Life s Origins written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1990-02-01 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of planetary biology and chemical evolution draws together experts in astronomy, paleobiology, biochemistry, and space science who work together to understand the evolution of living systems. This field has made exciting discoveries that shed light on how organic compounds came together to form self-replicating molecules-the origin of life. This volume updates that progress and offers recommendations on research programs-including an ambitious effort centered on Mars-to advance the field over the next 10 to 15 years. The book presents a wide range of data and research results on these and other issues: The biogenic elements and their interaction in the interstellar clouds and in solar nebulae. Early planetary environments and the conditions that lead to the origin of life. The evolution of cellular and multicellular life. The search for life outside the solar system. This volume will become required reading for anyone involved in the search for life's beginnings-including exobiologists, geoscientists, planetary scientists, and U.S. space and science policymakers.
Download or read book A Very Short History of Life on Earth written by Henry Gee and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Royal Society's Science Book of the Year "[A]n exuberant romp through evolution, like a modern-day Willy Wonka of genetic space. Gee’s grand tour enthusiastically details the narrative underlying life’s erratic and often whimsical exploration of biological form and function.” —Adrian Woolfson, The Washington Post In the tradition of Richard Dawkins, Bill Bryson, and Simon Winchester—An entertaining and uniquely informed narration of Life's life story. In the beginning, Earth was an inhospitably alien place—in constant chemical flux, covered with churning seas, crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster, life began. The earliest living things were no more than membranes stretched across microscopic gaps in rocks, where boiling hot jets of mineral-rich water gushed out from cracks in the ocean floor. Although these membranes were leaky, the environment within them became different from the raging maelstrom beyond. These havens of order slowly refined the generation of energy, using it to form membrane-bound bubbles that were mostly-faithful copies of their parents—a foamy lather of soap-bubble cells standing as tiny clenched fists, defiant against the lifeless world. Life on this planet has continued in much the same way for millennia, adapting to literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter and thriving, from these humblest beginnings to the thrilling and unlikely story of ourselves. In A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth, Henry Gee zips through the last 4.6 billion years with infectious enthusiasm and intellectual rigor. Drawing on the very latest scientific understanding and writing in a clear, accessible style, he tells an enlightening tale of survival and persistence that illuminates the delicate balance within which life has always existed.
Download or read book The Impact of Discovering Life Beyond Earth written by Steven J. Dick and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-26 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the big questions about how the discovery of extraterrestrial life, whether intelligent or microbial, would impact society and humankind.
Download or read book Rare Earth written by Peter D. Ward and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-05-08 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What determines whether complex life will arise on a planet, or even any life at all? Questions such as these are investigated in this groundbreaking book. In doing so, the authors synthesize information from astronomy, biology, and paleontology, and apply it to what we know about the rise of life on Earth and to what could possibly happen elsewhere in the universe. Everyone who has been thrilled by the recent discoveries of extrasolar planets and the indications of life on Mars and the Jovian moon Europa will be fascinated by Rare Earth, and its implications for those who look to the heavens for companionship.
Download or read book The Origin and Nature of Life on Earth written by Eric Smith and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-31 with total page 703 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uniting the foundations of physics and biology, this groundbreaking multidisciplinary and integrative book explores life as a planetary process.
Download or read book Life written by Richard Fortey and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-03-23 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By one of Britain's most gifted scientists: a magnificently daring and compulsively readable account of life on Earth (from the "big bang" to the advent of man), based entirely on the most original of all sources--the evidence of fossils. With excitement and driving intelligence, Richard Fortey guides us from the barren globe spinning in space, through the very earliest signs of life in the sulphurous hot springs and volcanic vents of the young planet, the appearance of cells, the slow creation of an atmosphere and the evolution of myriad forms of plants and animals that could then be sustained, including the magnificent era of the dinosaurs, and on to the last moment before the debut of Homo sapiens. Ranging across multiple scientific disciplines, explicating in wonderfully clear and refreshing prose their findings and arguments--about the origins of life, the causes of species extinctions and the first appearance of man--Fortey weaves this history out of the most delicate traceries left in rock, stone and earth. He also explains how, on each aspect of nature and life, scientists have reached the understanding we have today, who made the key discoveries, who their opponents were and why certain ideas won. Brimful of wit, fascinating personal experience and high scholarship, this book may well be our best introduction yet to the complex history of life on Earth. A Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection With 32 pages of photographs
Download or read book A Brief History of Life on Earth written by Clémence Dupont and published by Prestel. This book was released on 2018-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of life on earth unfolds in dramatic fashion in this amazing concertina picture book that takes readers from 4.6 billion years ago to the present day. Fully expanded to 8 meters (26 feet), this spectacular visual timeline is a very impressive panorama that reveals evolution in all its glory. Full color.
Download or read book Why Is There Life on Earth written by Andrew Solway and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2015-12-21 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains the conditions that allow life to flourish on Earth, and the possibility of finding life on other planets.
Download or read book Many The Diversity of Life on Earth written by Nicola Davies and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The more we study the world around us, the more living things we discover every day. The planet is full of millions of species of plants, birds, animals, and microbes, and every single one including us is part of a big, beautiful, complicated pattern. When humans interfere with parts of the pattern, by polluting the air and oceans, taking too much from the sea, and cutting down too many forests, animals and plants begin to disappear. What sort of world would it be if it went from having many types of living things to having just one?--
Download or read book Exoplanet Atmospheres written by Sara Seager and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-02 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past twenty years, astronomers have identified hundreds of extrasolar planets--planets orbiting stars other than the sun. Recent research in this burgeoning field has made it possible to observe and measure the atmospheres of these exoplanets. This is the first textbook to describe the basic physical processes--including radiative transfer, molecular absorption, and chemical processes--common to all planetary atmospheres, as well as the transit, eclipse, and thermal phase variation observations that are unique to exoplanets. In each chapter, Sara Seager offers a conceptual introduction, examples that combine the relevant physics equations with real data, and exercises. Topics range from foundational knowledge, such as the origin of atmospheric composition and planetary spectra, to more advanced concepts, such as solutions to the radiative transfer equation, polarization, and molecular and condensate opacities. Since planets vary widely in their atmospheric properties, Seager emphasizes the major physical processes that govern all planetary atmospheres. Moving from first principles to cutting-edge research, Exoplanet Atmospheres is an ideal resource for students and researchers in astronomy and earth sciences, one that will help prepare them for the next generation of planetary science. The first textbook to describe exoplanet atmospheres Illustrates concepts using examples grounded in real data Provides a step-by-step guide to understanding the structure and emergent spectrum of a planetary atmosphere Includes exercises for students
Download or read book Planet Earth written by Cesare Emiliani and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-08-28 with total page 740 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains why we have such a vast array of environments across the cosmos and on our own planet, and also a stunning diversity of plant and animal life on earth.
Download or read book The Atlas of Life on Earth written by and published by Chartwell Books. This book was released on 2014-05-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Atlas of Life on Earth offers a comprehensive, chronological survey of the Earth, its landscape and its life forms, from the beginning of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago to the present.The atlas is accessibly organized in six major parts, with 18 chapters devoted to each of the major geological periods, in which the crucial geological and biological developments in the history of our planet are described in lucid and intriguing detail. A concluding section looks at the ways in which the Earth and its biosphere continue to evolve today. Each chapter begins with a timeline of the geological period in question and a vivid and arresting map presenting a ‘snapshot from space' of the world as it was then. These maps, together with detailed artworks (including lavish reconstructions of prehistoric landscapes), stunning photographs, and explanatory diagrams, take the reader on a fascinating, informative, and awe-inspiring journey through time. Specially devised feature spreads illustrating graphically and elegantly the evolution and relationships of each major group of plants and animals provide the reader with an incomparable reference source. Each section of the atlas has been written by an acknowledged expert in the relevant field, ensuring clear, informed coverage of the exciting and extraordinary story of the evolution of our planet. Part 1: In the Beginning Part 2: The Early Paleozoic Part 3: The Late Paleozoic Part 4: The Mesozoic Part 5: The Tertiary Part 6: The Quaternary
Download or read book Life on Earth and Beyond written by Pamela S. Turner and published by Charlesbridge Publishing. This book was released on 2008-02-01 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is there life beyond Earth? NASA astrobiologist Dr. Chris McKay has searched the earth's most extreme environments on his quest to understand what factors are necessary to sustain life. Pamela S. Turner offers readers an inside look at Dr. McKay's research, explaining his findings and his hopes for future exploration both on Earth and beyond. Behind-the-scenes photos capture Dr. McKay, his expeditions, and the amazing microbes that survive against all odds.
Download or read book Life on Earth written by Mike Dooley and published by . This book was released on 2018-07-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What's happening in the world lately? What happens when we die? Do secret societies have any real secrets? How do we know or find our purpose? What's real? What matters? Many of us ask ourselves these questions to try and make sense of our lives. Mike Dooley asks them too, except... his questions get answered. One such answer explained its source, stating that we all have a higher self within that predates this life and will live beyond it, and thus already knows where we've been, why we're here and what will happen next on our planet. Life on Earth takes the form of a journal in which Mike asks what's on his mind during pivotal times in his life, and takes on topics such as: - How to make sense of natural disasters and man-made tragedies - Living deliberately and creating consciously - Wealth, relationships, 'past lives' and consciousness - The ultimate reason for life on Earth (hint: it's not what you think) Mike Dooley asks questions from the heart with a cautious, even suspicious mind, and explores the answers, as always, with infinite wisdom and compassion.
