The Universe as It Really Is
Earth, Space, Matter, and Time
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- €37.99
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- €37.99
Publisher Description
The universe that science reveals to us can seem far outside the comfort zone of the human mind. Subjects near and far open up dizzying vistas, from the infinitesimal to the colossal. Humanity, the unlikely product of uncountable coincidences on unimaginable scales, inhabits a tumultuous universe that extends from our immediate environs to the most distant galaxies and beyond. But when the mind balks at the vertiginous complexity of the universe, science unveils the elegance amid the chaos.
In this book, Thomas R. Scott ventures into the known and the unknown to explain our universe and the laws that govern it. The Universe as It Really Is begins with physics and the building blocks of the universe—time, gravity, light, and elementary particles—and chemistry’s ability to explain the interactions among them. Scott, with the assistance of James Lawrence Powell, next tours the earth and atmospheric sciences to explain the forces that shape our planet and then takes off for the stars to describe our place in the cosmos. He provides vivid introductions to our collective scientific inheritance, narrating discoveries such as the shape of the atom and the nature of the nucleus or how we use GPS to measure time and what that has to do with relativity. A clear demonstration of the power of scientific reasoning to bring the incomprehensible within our grasp, The Universe as It Really Is gives an engrossing account of just how much we do understand about the world around us.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This excellent, accessible guide from Scott, a San Diego State professor emeritus of psychology who died in 2017, allows readers to acquaint themselves with the basic facts, history, and key figures of multiple physical sciences in a single volume. Reflecting its origins in a radio show, San Diego Science, which Scott hosted weekly for several years, the style throughout is more conversational than academic, and includes plenty of arresting facts designed to grab a lay audience's attention, such as that a single quasar "generates the light of four million million suns, 100 times the total luminance of the Milky Way." In his chapter "Earth: A Biography," Scott discusses Claire Patterson, "one of the most influential people of whom you have never heard," who first gave a date of 4.5 billion years for the Earth's age and led early campaigns to remove lead from consumer products. During his discussion of "Atmosphere and Weather," he describes "Project Stormfury," a 21-year effort by the U.S. military to influence weather, and reminds readers that human-caused climate change has "the level of certainty of plate tectonics and biological evolution." Other topics include gravity, time, light, oceans, and a tour of space extending from the Sun out to the expanses of "The Cosmos." Scott presents a wide range of scientific fact and history in a way that will delight and inform readers.
