| Description |
1 online resource (xii, 756 pages) |
| Contents |
INTRODUCTION: Welcome to the spider's web; OVER 130 ARTICLES, FROM..; ALCOHOL: Genetic revelations of when yeast invented booze; ALTRUISM AND AGGRESSION: Looking for the origins of those human alternatives; ANTIMATTER: Does the coat that Sakharov made really explain its absence?; ARABIDOPSIS: The modest weed that gave plant scientists the big picture; ASTRONAUTICS: Will interstellar pioneers be overtaken by their grandchildren?; BERNAL'S LADDER: Pointers; BIG BANG: The inflationary Universe's sleight-of-hand; BIODIVERSITY: The mathematics of co-existence; BIOLOGICAL CLOCKS: Molecular machinery that governs life's routines; BIOSPHERE FROM SPACE: 'I want to do the whole world'; BITS AND QUBITS: The digital world and its looming quantum shadow; BLACK HOLES: The awesome engines of quasars and active galaxies; BRAIN IMAGES: What do all the vivid movies really mean?; BRAIN RHYTHMS: The mathematics of the beat we think to; BRAIN WIRING: How do all those nerve connections know where to go?; BUCKYBALLS AND NANOTUBES: Doing very much more with very much less; ... TO..; SMALLPOX: The dairymaid's blessing and the general's curse; SOLAR WIND: How it creates the heliosphere in which we live; SPACE WEATHER: Why it is now more troublesome than in the old days; SPARTICLES: A wished-for superworld of exotic matter and forces; SPEECH: A gene that makes us more eloquent than chimpanzees; STARBURSTS: Galactic traffic accidents and stellar baby booms; STARS: Hearing them sing and sizing them up; STEM CELLS: Tissue engineering, natural and medical; SUN'S INTERIOR: How sound waves made our mother star transparent; SUPERATOMS, SUPERFLUIDS AND SUPERCONDUCTORS: The march of the boson armies; SUPERSTRINGS: Retuning the cosmic imagination; TIME MACHINES: The biggest issue in contemporary physics?; TRANSGENIC CROPS: For better or worse, a planetary experiment has begun; TREE OF LIFE: Promiscuous bacteria and the course of evolution; UNIVERSE: 'It must have known we were coming'; VOLCANIC EXPLOSIONS: Where will the next big one be? |
| Summary |
As a prolific author, BBC commentator and magazine editor, Nigel Calder has spent a lifetime spotting and explaining the big discoveries in all branches of science. In 'Magic Universe', he draws on his vast experience to offer readers a lively, far-reaching look at modern science |
| Notes |
Originally published: 2003 |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and indexes |
| Notes |
English |
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Print version record |
| Subject |
Science.
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Science -- History -- 20th century
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Discoveries in science.
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Science
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sciences (philosophy)
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science (modern discipline)
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SCIENCE -- Essays.
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SCIENCE -- Nanoscience.
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SCIENCE -- Reference.
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Popular Science.
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Discoveries in science
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Science
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Physical Sciences & Mathematics.
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Sciences - General.
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| Genre/Form |
History
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| LC no. |
2006273347 |
| ISBN |
1423753038 |
|
9781423753032 |
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9780192806697 |
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0192806696 |
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9780191539671 |
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0191539678 |
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