Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

$24.99 AUD

Category: Science

#1 New York Times Bestseller From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity's creation and evolution--a #1 international bestseller--that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be "human." One hundred th ousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one--homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas. Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become? Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem. ...Show more

Infinite Powers: The Story of Calculus - the Language of the Universe by Steven Strogatz

$29.99 AUD

Category: Science

A magisterial history of calculus (and the people behind it) from one of the world's foremost popularisers of mathematics, the author of The Joy of X.

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

$22.99 AUD

Category: Science

Sapiens showed us where we came from. Homo Deus looked to the future. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century explores the present. How can we protect ourselves from nuclear war, ecological cataclysms and technological disruptions? What can we do about the epidemic of fake news or the threat of terrorism? What should we teach our children? Yuval Noah Harari takes us on a thrilling journey through today's most urgent issues. The golden thread running through his exhilarating new book is the challenge of maintaining our collective and individual focus in the face of constant and disorienting change. Are we still capable of understanding the world we have created? ...Show more

A Cloud a Day by Gavin Pretor-Pinney

$34.99 AUD

Category: Science

Cloudspotter and bestselling author Gavin Pretor-Pinney delivers a moment of calm atmospheric contemplation to members of his Cloud Appreciation Society by sharing a cloud image and story every day. A Cloud a Day urges all of us to keep our heads in the clouds with 365 fascinating formations from his ex traordinarily popular Cloud Appreciation Society collection. Inspirational quotes and informative cloud facts accompany provocative and meditative images of the sky, encouraging readers to pause for a moment and look up. A beautifully illustrated book, A Cloud a Day makes a wonderful gift for dedicated or erstwhile cloudspotters--as for any of us with our heads lost in them. ...Show more

The Secret Lives of the Planets - A User's Guide to the Solar System by Paul Murdin

$32.99 AUD

Category: Science

We have the impression that the solar system is perfectly regular like a clock, or a planetarium instrument. On a short timescale it is. But, seen in a longer perspective, the planets, and their satellites, have exciting lives, full of events - for example, did you know that Saturn's moon, Titan, boasts lakes which contain liquid methane surrounded by soaring hills and valleys, exactly as the earth did before life evolved on our fragile planet? Or that Mercury is the shyest planet? Or, that Mars' biggest volcano is 100 times the size of Earth's, or that its biggest canyon is 10 times the depth of the Grand Canyon, or that it wasn't always red, but blue? The culmination of a lifetime of astronomy and wonder, Paul Murdin's enchanting new book reveals everything you ever wanted to know about the planets, their satellites, and our place in the solar system. ...Show more

Here Comes the Sun by Steve Jones

$32.99 AUD

Category: Science

In Here Comes the Sun, Steve Jones explores the dependency of all life and systems on Earth - ecological, biological and physical - on our nearest star. It is a book about connections between those systems, and also about the connections between the various disciplines that study them - from astronomy t o cancer prevention, from microbiology to the study of sleep. The book will also be a form of scientific autobiography as Steve charts his own work and interests over fifty years against developments in a wide range of fields, showing how what was once seen as a narrow specialism has become a subject of vast scientific, social and political significance: it is his most personal book to date. ...Show more

Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini

$32.99 AUD

Category: Science

'We can draw lines across the world any way we choose, and in the history of race science, people have. What matters isn't where the lines are drawn, but what they mean.' Modern science is pivotal in our understanding of race - not because of the lines that thinkers through the centuries have chosen to trace, but because, once grouped, what they thought belonging to these groups signified. In Superior award-winning science writer Angela Saini explores the concept of race, both past and present. At its heart, race is the belief that we are born different, in character and intellectually, as well as in appearance. It's the notion that as groups of people we have certain innate qualities that are not only visible, but which may also have helped define the passage of progress, of the success and failure of the nations our ancestors came from. But modern science has moved on from these beliefs, finding reality to be much more complicated. Taking us from Darwin through the civil rights movement to 23andMe, Saini examines how deeply our present is influenced by our past, and the role that politics has so often had to play in our understanding of race. Superior is a rigorous, much needed examination of the insidious history and damaging consequences of race science - and the unfortunate reasons behind its apparent recent resurgence across the globe. ...Show more

Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence by James Lovelock

$29.99 AUD

Category: Science

James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis and the greatest environmental thinker of our time has produced an astounding new theory about future of life on Earth. He argues that the anthropocene - the age in which humans acquired planetary-scale technologies - is, after 300 years, coming to an end. A new age - the novacene - has already begun. New beings will emerge from existing artificial intelligence systems. They will think 10,000 times faster than we do and they will regard us as we now regard plants - as desperately slow acting and thinking creatures. But this will not be the cruel, violent machine takeover of the planet imagined by sci-fi writers and film-makers. These hyper-intelligent beings will be as dependent on the health of the planet as we are. They will need the planetary cooling system of Gaia to defend us from the increasing heat of the sun as much as we do. And Gaia depends on organic life. We will be partners in this project. It is crucial, Lovelock argues, that the intelligence of Earth survives and prospers. He does not think there are intelligent aliens, so we are the only beings capable of understanding the cosmos. Maybe, he speculates, the novacene could even be the beginning of a process that will finally lead to intelligence suffusing the entire cosmos. At the age 100, James Lovelock has produced the most important and compelling work of his life. ...Show more

The Royal Society & the Invention of Modern Science by Adrian Tinniswood

$35.00 AUD

Category: Science | Series: The\Landmark Library

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge has been at the forefront of scientific endeavour for more than 350 years, since receiving its royal charter from Charles II in 1662. Philosophical Transactions, published in 1665, established the concepts of scientific priority and peer review and is the oldest scientific journal in continuous publication in the world. The 8,000 fellows elected to the Society to date include all of the scientific leading lights of the last four centuries, including Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Tim Berners-Lee and Stephen Hawking. The Society's motto, nullius in verba, 'on the word of no one', is a reminder of its founders' belief that authority must always be questioned; hypotheses can never be taken for granted; truths must be demonstrated or they are not truths at all. Adrian Tinniswood examines why the Royal Society has been such a pivotal institution in the cultural life of Britain and the world. ...Show more

How to Grow a Human: Adventures in How We Are Made and Who We Are by Philip BALL; Philip Ball

$34.99 AUD

Category: Science

Einstein's War: How Relativity Conquered Nationalism and Shook the World by Matthew Stanley

$35.00 AUD

Category: Science | Reading Level: 4 Science

The birth of a world-changing idea, relativity, and how it was shaped by the social upheaval and bloody horror of the First World War Einstein's ascent to worldwide celebrity was, in large part, not his own doing. It was because of two wars. The first was the Great War, the industrialized slaughter that bled Europe from 1914 to 1918. While Einstein never held a rifle, the war shaped his life and work for years: falling ill from wartime starvation, unable to communicate with his most important colleagues. Being a scientist trapped one in the power plays of empire. The second conflict was Einstein's struggle to craft relativity and persuade the world that it was correct. This was, after all, the first complete revision of our conception of the universe since Isaac Newton's. Its victory was far from sure. Scientists seeking to confirm Einstein's ideas were arrested as spies. Technical journals were banned as enemy propaganda. Colleagues died in the trenches. In Berlin, Einstein was separated from his most crucial ally by barbed wire and U-boats. This ally was the Quaker astronomer and Cambridge don A. S. Eddington, who would go on to convince the world of the truth of relativity and the greatness of Einstein. In May of 1919, when Europe was still in chaos from the war, Eddington led a globe-spanning expedition to catch a fleeting solar eclipse for a rare opportunity to confirm Einstein's bold prediction that light has weight. It was the result of this expedition--the proof of relativity, as many saw it--that put Einstein on front pages around the world. Precisely one hundred years later, Einstein's War is a celebration of how bigotry and nationalism can be defeated and of what science can offer when they are. ...Show more

When Einstein Walked with Gödel - Excursions to the Edge of Thought by Jim Holt

$32.95 AUD

Category: Science

From Jim Holt, the New York Times bestselling author of Why Does the World Exist?, comes an entertaining and accessible guide to the most profound scientific and mathematical ideas of recent centuries in When Einstein Walked with G del Excursions to the Edge of Thought.Does time exist? What is infinity? Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down? In this scintillating collection, Holt explores the human mind, the cosmos, and the thinkers who've tried to encompass the latter with the former. With his trademark clarity and humor, Holt probes the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the quest for the foundations of mathematics, and the nature of logic and truth. Along the way, he offers intimate biographical sketches of celebrated and neglected thinkers, from the physicist Emmy Noether to the computing pioneer Alan Turing and the discoverer of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot. Holt offers a painless and playful introduction to many of our most beautiful but least understood ideas, from Einsteinian relativity to string theory, and also invites us to consider why the greatest logician of the twentieth century believed the U.S. Constitution contained a terrible contradiction--and whether the universe truly has a future. ...Show more