The New Celebrity Scientists

Author : Declan Fahy
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1442233435
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The New Celebrity Scientists written by Declan Fahy and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-03-06 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new cultural icon strode the world stage at the turn of the twenty-first century: the celebrity scientist, as comfortable in Vanity Fair and Vogue as Smithsonian. Declan Fahy profiles eight of these eloquent, controversial, and compelling sellers of science to investigate how they achieved celebrity in the United States and internationally—and explores how their ideas influence our understanding of the world. Fahy traces the career trajectories of Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Stephen Jay Gould, Susan Greenfield, and James Lovelock. He demonstrates how each scientist embraced the power of promotion and popularization to stimulate thinking, impact policy, influence research, drive controversies, and mobilize social movements. He also considers critical claims that they speak beyond their expertise and for personal gain. The result is a fascinating look into how celebrity scientists help determine what it means to be human, the nature of reality, and how to prepare for society’s uncertain future.

Author : Charles Seife
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781541618374
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Hawking Hawking written by Charles Seife and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Stephen Hawking became the most brilliant man alive When Stephen Hawking died, he was widely recognized as the world's best physicist, and even its smartest person. He was neither. In Hawking Hawking, science journalist Charles Seife explores how Stephen Hawking came to be thought of as humanity's greatest genius. Hawking spent his career grappling with deep questions in physics, but his renown didn't rest on his science. He was a master of self-promotion, hosting parties for time travelers, declaring victory over problems he had not solved, and wooing billionaires. Confined to a wheelchair and physically dependent on a cadre of devotees, Hawking still managed to captivate the people around him-and use them for his own purposes. A brilliant exposé and powerful biography, Hawking Hawking uncovers the authentic Hawking buried underneath the fake. It is the story of a man whose brilliance in physics was matched by his genius for building his own myth.

Author : Timothy Caulfield
Publisher : Beacon Press
ISBN 13 : 0807039705
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything? written by Timothy Caulfield and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the effect our celebrity-dominated culture has on our ideas of what it means to live "the good life" What would happen if an average Joe tried out for American Idol, underwent a professional makeover, endured Gwyneth Paltrow’s “Clean Cleanse,” and followed the outrageous rituals of the rich and famous? Health law policy researcher Timothy Caulfield finds out in this thoroughly unique, engaging, and provocative book about celebrity culture and its iron grip on today’s society. Over the past decade, our perceptions of beauty, health, success, and happiness have become increasingly framed by a popular culture steeped in celebrity influence and ever more disconnected from reality. Research tells us that our health decisions and goals are influenced by celebrity culture and endorsements, our children's ambitions are now overwhelmingly governed by the fantasy of fame, and the ideals of beauty and success are mediated through a celebrity-dominated worldview. But while much has been written about the cause of our obsession with the rich and famous, Caulfield argues that not enough has been done to debunk celebrity messages and promises about health, diet, beauty, or happiness. From super-thin models to Gwyneth Paltrow’s endorsement of a gluten free-diet for almost anyone, celebrity opinions have the power to dominate our conversations and outlooks. In this book, Caulfield provides an entertaining look into the celebrity world, including vivid accounts of his own experiences trying out for American Idol, having his skin resurfaced, and doing the cleanse; interviews with actual celebrities; thought-provoking facts, and a practical and evidence-based reality check on our own celebrity ambitions.

Author : Karl Giberson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199728240
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Oracles of Science written by Karl Giberson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-27 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oracles of Science examines the popular writings of the six scientists who have been the most influential in shaping our perception of science, how it works, and how it relates to other fields of human endeavor, especially religion. Biologists Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson, and physicists Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Steven Weinberg, have become public intellectuals, articulating a much larger vision for science and what role it should play in the modern worldview. The scientific prestige and literary eloquence of each of these great thinkers combine to transform them into what can only be called oracles of science. Their controversial, often personal, sometimes idiosyncratic opinions become widely known and perceived by many to be authoritative. Curiously, the leading 'oracles of science' are predominantly secular in ways that don't reflect the distribution of religious beliefs within the scientific community. Many of them are even hostile to religion, creating a false impression that science as a whole is incompatible with religion. Karl Giberson and Mariano Artigas offer an informed analysis of the views of these six scientists, carefully distinguishing science from philosophy and religion in the writings of the oracles. This book will be welcomed by many who are disturbed by the tone of the public discourse on the relationship between science and religion and will challenge others to reexamine their own preconceptions about this crucial topic.

Author : Christoph Irmscher
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 0547577672
Total Pages : 453 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Louis Agassiz written by Christoph Irmscher and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2013 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative new life restoring Agassiz--America's most famous natural scientist of the 19th century, inventor of the Ice Age, stubborn anti-Darwinist--to his glorious, troubling place in science and culture.

Author : Elizabeth D Jones
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 030026237X
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient DNA written by Elizabeth D Jones and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of the rise of the new scientific field of ancient DNA research, and how Jurassic Park and popular media influenced its development Ancient DNA research—the recovery of genetic material from long-dead organisms—is a discipline that developed from science fiction into a reality between the 1980s and today. Drawing on scientific, historical, and archival material, as well as original interviews with more than fifty researchers worldwide, Elizabeth Jones explores the field’s formation and explains its relationship with the media by examining its close connection to de-extinction, the science and technology of resurrecting extinct species. She reveals how the search for DNA from fossils flourished under the influence of intense press and public interest, particularly as this new line of research coincided with the book and movie Jurassic Park. Ancient DNA is the first account to trace the historical and sociological interplay between science and celebrity in the rise of this new research field. In the process, Jones argues that ancient DNA research is more than a public-facing science: it is a celebrity science.

Author : Michio Kaku
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0385530811
Total Pages : 456 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Physics of the Future written by Michio Kaku and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The renowned theoretical physicist and national bestselling author of The God Equation details the developments in computer technology, artificial intelligence, medicine, space travel, and more, that are poised to happen over the next century. “Mind-bending…. [An] alternately fascinating and frightening book.” —San Francisco Chronicle Space elevators. Internet-enabled contact lenses. Cars that fly by floating on magnetic fields. This is the stuff of science fiction—it’s also daily life in the year 2100. Renowned theoretical physicist Michio Kaku considers how these inventions will affect the world economy, addressing the key questions: Who will have jobs? Which nations will prosper? Kaku interviews three hundred of the world’s top scientists—working in their labs on astonishing prototypes. He also takes into account the rigorous scientific principles that regulate how quickly, how safely, and how far technologies can advance. In Physics of the Future, Kaku forecasts a century of earthshaking advances in technology that could make even the last centuries’ leaps and bounds seem insignificant.

Author : Charles Seife
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 9780670020331
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sun in a Bottle written by Charles Seife and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the last half century's haphazard attempt to harness fusion energy, describing how governments and research teams throughout the world have employed measures ranging from the controversial to the humorous.

Author : Bruce Benamran
Publisher : The Experiment
ISBN 13 : 1615194207
Total Pages : 335 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How to Speak Science written by Bruce Benamran and published by The Experiment. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A math-free introduction to the greatest scientific ideas of the last 2,000 years: “This is the book for the wannabe science nerd.” —The Toronto Star As smartphones, supercomputers, supercolliders, and AI propel us into an ever more unfamiliar future, How to Speak Science takes us on a rollicking historical tour of the greatest discoveries and ideas that make today’s cutting–edge technologies possible. Wanting everyone to be able to “speak” science, YouTube science guru Bruce Benamran explains, accessibly and wittily, the fundamental ideas of the physical world: matter, life, the solar system, light, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, special and general relativity, and much more. Along the way, Benamran guides us through the wildest hypotheses and most ingenious ideas of Galileo, Newton, Curie, Einstein, and science’s other great minds, reminding us that while they weren’t always exactly right, they were always curious. How to Speak Science acquaints us not only with what scientists know, but how they think—so that each of us can reason like a physicist and appreciate the world in all its beautiful chaos. “The perfect example of a geeky text that is neither condescending nor highfalutin. It has sufficient genuine scientific content to keep the techies interested, while being fast-paced enough (and at times genuinely funny) to keep the neophyte on board.” —E&T Magazine

Author : Karl Giberson Professor of Physics Eastern Nazarene College
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0198042469
Total Pages : 285 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Oracles of Science : Celebrity Scientists versus God and Religion written by Karl Giberson Professor of Physics Eastern Nazarene College and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2006-11-29 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biologists Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson, and physicists Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Steven Weinberg have become public intellectuals, articulating a much larger vision for science and what role it should play in the modern worldview. The scientific prestige and literary eloquence of each of these great thinkers combine to transform them into what can only be called oracles of science. Curiously, the leading "oracles of science" are predominantly secular in ways that don't reflect the distribution of religious beliefs within the scientific community. Many of them are even hostile to religion, creating a false impression that science as a whole is incompatible with religion. Karl Giberson and Mariano Artigas offer an informed analysis of the views of these six scientists, carefully distinguishing science from philosophy and religion in the writings of the oracles.