Weighing The Soul Scientific Discovery From The Brilliant To The Bizarre

Author : Len Fisher
Publisher : Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1611459761
Total Pages : 166 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Weighing the Soul: Scientific Discovery from the Brilliant to the Bizarre written by Len Fisher and published by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2012-01-23 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the man who "puts the fizz in physics" (Entertainment Weekly), an entertaining and thought-provoking foray into the science of the bizarre, the peculiar, and the downright nutty! Winner of the IgNobel Prize in physics and the 2004 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award, Len Fisher showed just how much fun science can be in his enthusiastically praised debut, How to Dunk a Doughnut. In this new work, he reveals that science sometimes takes a path through the ridiculous and the bizarre to discover that Nature often simply does not follow common sense. One experiment, involving a bed, platform scales, and a dying man, seemed to prove that the soul weighed the same as a slice of bread. But other, no less fanciful experiments and ideas led to the fundamentals of our understanding of movement, heat, light, and energy, and such things as the discovery of electricity, and the structure of DNA; improved engines; and the invention of computers. As in his previous book, Fisher uses personal stories and examples from everyday life, as well as humor, to make the science accessible. He touches on topics from lightning to corsets and from alchemy to Frankenstein and water babies, but he may not claim the last word on the weight of the soul!

Author : Len Fisher
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1611459125
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Scientific Discovery from the Brilliant to the Bizarre written by Len Fisher and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-04-04 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the IgNobel Prize in physics and the 2004 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award, Len Fisher showed just how much fun science can be in his enthusiastically praised debut, How to Dunk a Doughnut. In this new work, he reveals that science sometimes takes a path through the ridiculous and the bizarre to discover that Nature often simply does not follow common sense. One experiment, involving a bed, platform scales, and a dying man, seemed to prove that the soul weighed the same as a slice of bread. But other, no less fanciful experiments and ideas led to the fundamentals of our understanding of movement, heat, light, and energy, and such things as the discovery of electricity, and the structure of DNA; improved engines; and the invention of computers. As in his previous book, Fisher uses personal stories and examples from everyday life, as well as humor, to make the science accessible. He touches on topics from lightning to corsets and from alchemy to Frankenstein and water babies, but he may not claim the last word on the weight of the soul!

Author : Len Fisher
Publisher : Arcade Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9781559707329
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Weighing the Soul written by Len Fisher and published by Arcade Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the strange and ridiculous paths science can take, describing bizarre experiments, discoveries, and figures.

Author : John Grant
Publisher : Union Square + ORM
ISBN 13 : 1454917261
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Spooky Science written by John Grant and published by Union Square + ORM. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hilarious lampoon of scientific inquiry into the psychic. Life after death, spirit communication, the astral plane, reincarnation: on the relatively rare occasions when scientists have tried to apply their methods to the paranormal, they’ve often ended up embarrassed—fooled by obvious charlatans, deluded into making irrational and unsubstantiated claims, or frustrated in their attempt to find something that just isn’t there. John Grant—author of Discarded Science and Corrupted Science—investigates the pseudoscience of spooky stuff to fascinating and humorous effect. From scamming mediums, to poltergeist fakery, to heavenly hallucinations, Grant spares ardent believers and gullible thinkers no mercy in this rollicking history of psychic “phenomena.”

Author : Len Fisher
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465023355
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Crashes, Crises, and Calamities written by Len Fisher and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2011-03-29 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do certain civilizations, societies, and ecosystems collapse? How does the domino effect relate to the credit crunch? When can mathematics help explain marriage? And how on earth do toads predict earthquakes? The future is uncertain. But science can help foretell what lies ahead. Drawing on ecology and biology, math and physics, Crashes, Crises, and Calamities offers four fundamental tools that scientists and engineers use to forecast the likelihood of sudden change: stability, catastrophe, complexity, and game theories. In accessible prose, Len Fisher demonstrates how we can foresee and manage events that might otherwise catch us by surprise. At the cutting edge of science, Fisher helps us find ways to act before a full-fledged catastrophe is upon us. Crashes, Crises, and Calamities is a witty and informative exploration of the chaos, complexity, and patterns of our daily lives.

Author : John F. Brinster
Publisher : Xlibris Corporation
ISBN 13 : 1456826840
Total Pages : 513 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Precarious Human Role In a Mechanistic Universe written by John F. Brinster and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2011-01-06 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No description available for this title

Author : Len Fisher
Publisher : Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN 13 : 0465020240
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Perfect Swarm written by Len Fisher and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2011-03-08 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The IgNobel Prize-winner and author of Rock, Paper, Scissors applies science-based solutions to seemingly complex problems in life.

Author : Len Fisher
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0786726938
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rock, Paper, Scissors written by Len Fisher and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-11-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praised by Entertainment Weekly as “the man who put the fizz into physics,” Dr. Len Fisher turns his attention to the science of cooperation in his lively and thought-provoking book. Fisher shows how the modern science of game theory has helped biologists to understand the evolution of cooperation in nature, and investigates how we might apply those lessons to our own society. In a series of experiments that take him from the polite confines of an English dinner party to crowded supermarkets, congested Indian roads, and the wilds of outback Australia, not to mention baseball strategies and the intricacies of quantum mechanics, Fisher sheds light on the problem of global cooperation. The outcomes are sometimes hilarious, sometimes alarming, but always revealing. A witty romp through a serious science, Rock, Paper, Scissors will both teach and delight anyone interested in what it what it takes to get people to work together.

Author : Len Fisher
Publisher : Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN 13 : 178022060X
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Weighing the Soul written by Len Fisher and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2011-05-12 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the IgNobel-winning author of How to Dunk a Doughnut, another slice of the weird and wonderful side of science Good science and common sense often don't mix. In Weighing the Soul, Len Fisher shows the path to scientific discovery is frequently a bumpy one that follows Schopenhauer's famous maxim - 'All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident.' Fisher tells the fascinating, human stories behind some of the great as well as some of the not-so-great scientific ideas of the past - those that were truly bizarre, peculiar or downright daft, and those that just seemed that way at the time. As he shows, it is often only with hindsight that the two can be told apart, and it is some of those who appeared most wrong - and who were variously ignored, persecuted and imprisoned as a result - that ultimately went on to be proved most right.

Author : Edward Dolnick
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465094961
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Seeds of Life written by Edward Dolnick and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why cracking the code of human conception took centuries of wild theories, misogynist blunders, and ludicrous mistakes Throughout most of human history, babies were surprises. People knew the basics: men and women had sex, and sometimes babies followed. But beyond that the origins of life were a colossal mystery. The Seeds of Life is the remarkable and rollicking story of how a series of blundering geniuses and brilliant amateurs struggled for two centuries to discover where, exactly, babies come from. Taking a page from investigative thrillers, acclaimed science writer Edward Dolnick looks to these early scientists as if they were detectives hot on the trail of a bedeviling and urgent mystery. These strange searchers included an Italian surgeon using shark teeth to prove that female reproductive organs were not 'failed' male genitalia, and a Catholic priest who designed ingenious miniature pants to prove that frogs required semen to fertilize their eggs. A witty and rousing history of science, The Seeds of Life presents our greatest scientists struggling-against their perceptions, their religious beliefs, and their deep-seated prejudices-to uncover how and where we come from.