Space Universe

Michael Schneider leads us on a spectacular journey along the numbers one through 10 to explore the mathematical principles made visible in flowers, shells, crystals, plants, and the human body, expressed in the symbolic language of folk sayings and fairy tales, myth and religion, art and architecture. This is a new view of mathematics, not the one we learned at school but a comprehensive guide to the patterns that recur through the universe and underlie human affairs.

On March 21, 2013, the European Space Agency released a map of the afterglow of the big bang. Taking in 440 sextillion kilometers of space and 13.8 billion years of time, it is physically impossible to make a better map: We will never see the early universe in more detail. On the one hand, such a view is the apotheosis of modern cosmology; on the other, it threatens to undermine almost everything we hold cosmologically sacrosanct.

This Way to the Universe is a celebration of the astounding, ongoing scientific investigations that have revealed the nature of reality at its smallest, at its largest, and at the scale of our daily lives. The enigmas that Professor Michael Dine discusses are like landmarks on a fantastic journey to the edge of the universe. Asked where to find out about the big bang, dark matter, the Higgs boson particle - the long cutting edge of physics right now - Dine had no single book he could recommend. This is his accessible, authoritative, and up-to-date answer.

Years ago, cosmologist Stephon Alexander received life-changing advice: to discover real physics, he needed to stop memorizing and start taking risks. In Fear of a Black Universe, Alexander shows that great physics requires us to think outside the mainstream - to improvise and rely on intuition. His approach leads him to three principles that shape all theories of the universe: the principle of invariance, the quantum principle, and the principle of emergence. Alexander uses them to explore some of physics' greatest mysteries.

In the early 17th century, Galileo broke free from the hold of ancient Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. He drastically changed the framework through which we view the natural world when he asserted that we should base our theory of reality on what we can observe rather than pure thought. In the process, he invented what we would come to call science. This set the stage for all the breakthroughs that followed - from Kepler to Newton to Einstein.

James A. Michener tackles the most ambitious subject of his career: space, the last great frontier. This astounding novel brings to life the dreams and daring of countless men and women - people like Stanley Mott, the engineer whose irrepressible drive for knowledge places him at the center of the American exploration effort, and Norman Grant, the war hero and US senator who takes his personal battle not only to a nation but to the heavens.

Based directly on Frank Herbert's final outline, which lay hidden in two safe-deposit boxes for a decade, Sandworms of Dune will answer the urgent questions Dune fans have been debating for two decades: the origin of the Honored Matres, the tantalizing future of the planet Arrakis, the final revelation of the Kwisatz Haderach, and the resolution to the war between Man and Machine.

Let us journey, with beloved physicist Carlo Rovelli, into the heart of a black hole. We slip beyond its horizon and tumble down this crack in the universe. As we plunge, we see geometry fold. Time and space pull and stretch. And finally, at the black hole’s core, space and time dissolve, and a white hole is born. Rovelli has dedicated his career to uniting the time-warping ideas of general relativity and the perplexing uncertainties of quantum mechanics. In White Holes, he reveals the mind of a scientist at work.

More than 3,000 years have passed since the first events recorded in Dune. Only one link survives with those tumultuous times: the grotesque figure of Leto Atreides, son of the prophet Paul Muad'Dib, and now the virtually immortal God Emperor of Dune. He alone understands the future, and he knows with a terrible certainty that the evolution of his race is at an end unless he can breed new qualities into his species.

When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? What is the nature of reality? Is the apparent “grand design” of our universe evidence of a benevolent creator who set things in motion—or does science offer another explanation? In The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow present the most illuminating scientific thinking about these and other abiding mysteries of the universe, in nontechnical language marked by brilliance and simplicity.

Terra. For centuries, it has been the Clans’ ultimate prize. As prophesied by their founder, Nicholas Kerensky, the Clan that conquers Terra shall ascend above all others to become the ilClan, ruler over the rest of the Clans. And its leader shall become the ilKhan, and will lead the Inner Sphere into a new era.

At the end of Frank Herbert's final novel, Chapterhouse: Dune, a ship carrying a crew of refugees escapes into the uncharted galaxy, fleeing from a terrifying, mysterious Enemy. Hunters of Dune is the exotic odyssey of the crew as it is forced to elude the diabolical traps set by the ferocious, unknown Enemy.

On Arrakis, now called Rakis, known to legend as Dune, 10 times 10 centuries have passed. The planet is becoming desert again. The Lost Ones are returning home from the far reaches of space. The great sandworms are dying, and the Bene Gesserit and the Bene Tleilax struggle to direct the future of Dune. The children of Dune's children awaken as from a dream, wielding the new power of a heresy called love.

In the year 3060, the reborn Star League has destroyed Clan Smoke Jaguar, conquered their home world Huntress, and scattered the few remaining Jaguar warriors to the winds. Now the League seeks to end the Clan invasion for good by using former Smoke Jaguars against their own people.

From the best-selling author of The Emperor’s New Mind and The Road to Reality, a groundbreaking book that provides new views on three of cosmology’s most profound questions: What, if anything, came before the Big Bang? What is the source of order in our universe? What is its ultimate future?

After 10 years of wandering the outer rim of the galaxy, Eddie Teach is a man without a purpose. He was one of the toughest pilots in the Federation, but now he's just a regular guy, getting into bar fights and making a difference wherever he can. It's not the same as flying a ship and saving colonies, but it'll have to do.

Ten thousands years ago, the Furies nearly exterminated all life in the universe, before being defeated by a coalition of worlds led by the Olympians. Or so everyone thought.... Now they're back and a new reign of terror has begun. Chase trains to increase his powers tenfold in the hope to defeat the Furies once and for all. But will it be enough to stop an unstoppable enemy?

Harry Cliff - a University of Cambridge particle physicist and researcher on the Large Hadron Collider - sets out in pursuit of answers. He ventures to the largest underground research facility in the world, deep beneath Italy's Gran Sasso mountains, where scientists gaze into the heart of the Sun using the most elusive of particles, the ghostly neutrino. He visits CERN in Switzerland to explore the "Antimatter Factory," where the stuff of science fiction is manufactured daily (and we're close to knowing whether it falls up).

The Muad'Dib's jihad is in full swing. His warrior legions march from victory to victory. But beneath the joy of victory there are dangerous undercurrents. Paul, like nearly every great conqueror, has enemies - those who would betray him to steal the awesome power he commands. Paul himself begins to have doubts: Is the jihad getting out of his control? Has he created anarchy? Has he been betrayed by those he loves and trusts the most? And most of all, he wonders: Am I going mad?

Humanity and their new allies, the Qash'vo'tar and the Zhal Confederation, embark on a mission to find the home system of their enemy-the Val'ayash. Both the Qash'vo'tar and the Zhal have been attacked by the Val'ayash and their allies, and were barely holding the line. Meanwhile, Earth is developing its magi-tech with the help from their Ethorrian allies, while also trying to build more ships.