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The Science of Star Wars: An Astrophysicist's Independent Examination of Space Travel, Aliens, Planets, and Robots as Portrayed in the Star Wars Films and Books
Former NASA astrophysicist Jeanne Cavelos examines the scientific possibility of the fantastical world of Star Wars. She explains to non-technical readers how the course of science might soon intersect with such fantasies as interstellar travel, robots capable of thought and emotion, habitable alien planets, bizarre intelligent life forms, high-tech weapons and spacecraft, and advanced psychokinetic abilities. She makes complex physics concepts, like quantum mechanics, wormholes, and Einstein's theory of relativity both fascinating and easy to comprehend . The Science of Star Wars does for Star Wars what Lawrence Krauss's bestselling The Physics of Star Trek did for the Star Trek universe. Cavelos answers questions like:* How might spaceships like the Millennium Falcon make the exhilarating jump into hyperspace?* Could a single blast from the Death Star destroy an entire planet?* How close are we to creating robots that look and act like C-3PO and R2-D2?* Could light sabers possibly be built, and if so, how would they work?* Do Star Wars aliens look like "real" aliens might?* What kind of environment could spawn a Wookie?* What would living on a desert planet like Tatooine be like?* Why does Darth Vader require an artificial respirator?* Can we access a "force" with our minds to move objects and communicate telepathically with each other? .
Price: $8.38
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The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist
This is the absorbing story of Neil de Grasse Tyson's lifelong fascination with the night sky, a restless wonder that began some thirty years ago on the roof of his Bronx apartment building and eventually led him to become the director of the Hayden Planetarium. A unique chronicle of a young man who at one time was both nerd and jock, Tyson's memoir could well inspire other similarly curious youngsters to pursue their dreams..
Price: $10.77
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Explorer of the Universe: A Biography of George Ellery Hale (History of Modern Physics and Astronomy)
A reprint edition of a 1966 biography of foremost astronomer George Ellery Hale, who laid much of the foundation of modern astrophysics and observational cosmology. He's best known for the planning and building of the 200-inch Hale Telescope of the Palomar Mountain Observatory. This book features a new introduction by Allan Sandage and an index not included in the original work. Since the history of astrophysics is mostly undocumented, this work provides a rare look at Hale's scientific achievements: his invention of the spectroheliograph, his discovery of the magnetic nature of sunspots, and his legendary leadership in founding the Yerkes, Mount Wilson, and Palomar Mountain Observatories..
Price: $48.00
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Chandra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar (Centennial Publications of The University of Chicago Press)
Chandra is an intimate portrait of a highly private and brilliant man, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, a Nobel laureate in physics who has been a major contributor to the theories of white dwarfs and black holes. "Wali has given us a magnificent portrait of Chandra, full of life and color, with a deep understanding of the three cultures—Indian, British, and American—in which Chandra was successively immersed. . . . I wish I had the job of reviewing this book for the New York Times rather than for Physics Today. If the book is only read by physicists, then Wali's devoted labors were in vain."—Freeman Dyson, Physics Today"An enthralling human document."—William McCrea, Times Higher Education Supplement"A dramatic, exuberant biography of one of the century's great scientists."— Publishers Weekly .
Price: $27.82
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Empire of the Stars: Obsession, Friendship, and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes
In August 1930, on a voyage from Madras to London, a young Indian looked up at the stars and contemplated their fate. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar--Chandra, as he was called--calculated that certain stars would suffer a strange and violent death, collapsing to virtually nothing. This extraordinary claim, the first mathematical description of black holes, brought Chandra into direct conflict with Sir Arthur Eddington, one of the greatest astrophysicists of the day. Eddington ridiculed the young man's idea at a meeting of the Royal Astronomy Society in 1935, sending Chandra into an intellectual and emotional tailspin--and hindering the progress of astrophysics for nearly forty years. Empire of the Stars is the dramatic story of this intellectual debate and its implications for twentieth-century science. Arthur I. Miller traces the idea of black holes from early notions of "dark stars" to the modern concepts of wormholes, quantum foam, and baby universes. In the process, he follows the rise of two great theories--relativity and quantum mechanics--that meet head on in black holes. Empire of the Stars provides a unique window into the remarkable quest to understand how stars are born, how they live, and, most portentously (for their fate is ultimately our own), how they die. It is also the moving tale of one man's struggle against the establishment--an episode that sheds light on what science is, how it works, and where it can go wrong. Miller exposes the deep-seated prejudices that plague even the most rational minds. Indeed, it took the nuclear arms race to persuade scientists to revisit Chandra's work from the 1930s, for the core of a hydrogen bomb resembles nothing so much as an exploding star. Only then did physicists realize the relevance, truth, and importance of Chandra's work, which was finally awarded a Nobel Prize in 1983. Set against the waning days of the British Empire and taking us right up to the present, this sweeping history examines the quest to understand one of the most forbidding phenomena in the universe, as well as the passions that fueled that quest over the course of a century..
Price: $2.95
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Home Is Where the Wind Blows: Chapters from a Cosmologist's Life
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The Einstein Tower: An Intertexture of Dynamic Construction, Relativity Theory, and Astronomy (Writing Science)
This book focuses on the "Einstein Tower," an architecturally historic observatory built in Potsdam in 1920 to allow the German astronomer Erwin Finlay Freundlich to attempt to verify experimentally Einstein's general theory of relativity. Freundlich, who was the first German astronomer to show a genuine interest in Einstein's theory, managed to interest his architect friend Erich Mendelsohn in designing this unique building. Freundlich's researches were not a success; he came to doubt the very theory he was attempting to prove. (Adequate technology to test Einstein's theory lay many decades in the future.) By contrast, as an experiment in modernist architecture, the building led to international fame for Mendelsohn.
To develop a full historical picture of this moment in the history of science, the book interweaves several descriptive levels: the biography of Freundlich; the social context in which he interacted with teachers, co-workers, students, his patrons (including Einstein), and scientific opponents; the cognitive aspects of his attempts to verify Einstein's theory; the political milieu within the Berlin scientific research community; and a cross-national comparison of astrophysics.
Other layers of the narrative include the place of the Einstein Tower in architectural history; economics and sociopsychological components of the Tower's financing and construction; the reception of the Tower and the theory; a historical examination of the Tower's research results; and the effect on Freundlich and on the work at the Tower of the National Socialists’ rise to power.
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Price: $35.00
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