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Books: Related Pages.Click here to visit the main page on, Science Fiction Books.
Science fiction has been called the books that science fiction writers write! In other words, it can be about anything in or out of this world.
Dec 28, 2005 - Television, with its 20 second sound bites, has done much to alter our attention spans and our expectations for news delivery. Robert Godwin takes on this challenge and has prepared the pocket space guide Apollo 11 for our reading pleasure. Though needing a little bit longer than the typical TV newsclip, it is perfect for those wanting a colourful, informative guide about this space flight without getting into the nitty gritty details. Dec 19, 2005 - Equality is a rallying call for many. The emancipation of women gave ladies the right to vote, obtain education, achieve gainful employment and have an equal chance at being a national leader. However, this freedom doesn't extend to all nations nor to all industries. In the book Women in Space by David Shayler and Ian Moule, we read how women have made many startling contributions to aerospace and are also well on their way to being an accepted part of space programs. By listing their many achievements, the authors demonstrate that women can equally contribute, but only if and when society lets them. Dec 8, 2005 - Press the correct buttons and the ATM spits out the cash you need for the weekend's jaunt. Lying behind the machine's panel, cables connect the ATM to computers that process millions of such transactions every second. Before this nano-age, people kept track of numbers using paper, pencil and an unfailing eye that looked at one item then the next. These human computers supported financiers and as George Johnson tells in his book, Miss Leavitt's Stars, they were also the backbone of early 20th century astronomy. Dec 5, 2005 - Get a flat while riding a bike and you fix it, though you may never see the tack on the road that caused the puncture. However on the failure of a space mission, the whole aerospace industry might be left scratching their heads as to what happened and why. David Harland and Ralph Lorenz in their book Space Systems Failures lay down the known space failures before the reader in great detail and full disclosure. There's the occasional rescue of launcher payloads that slightly lighten this otherwise negative subject, but from the number and variety of faults they leave no doubt that space ventures are more a gamble than a certainty. Nov 28, 2005 - Everyday, small children ask the darnedest things. Why is the sky blue? Where does the sun go at night? What's a belly button for? These and endless others keep parents on their toes. But, when it comes to discussing emotions, even the smartest parent may be in a quandary. Just look at the challenges of Cyrano de Bergerac to describe love. Susan Lendroth writes and Enrique Moreiro illustrates the book Why Explore? to bring visual and rythmic nuances to this equally challenging question on why some many people try their darnedest to exceed the boundaries of today. Nov 21, 2005 - The branch of science called physics comes with a long history of preliminary conjectures later proven or disproved via experimentation. Brave champions pillared their beliefs before friend and foe alike with the simple desire to contribute. Those correct in their postulations live for eternity in textbooks, while those who fail ignobly disappear. Arthur Miller in his book Empire of the Stars dusts off the fairly recent instantiation of ideas and postulations surrounding black holes. In it he shows that even being correct may not necessarily add your name to the wall of physics fame. Nov 14, 2005 - One of the most intriguing ideas that pursued by philosophers, artists, and scientists throughout the ages is the one of other dimensions. Is it possible that there is another reality hiding right before our eyes? In his latest book Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions, from Plato to String Theory and Beyond, Dr. Lawrence Krauss explores the existence of extra dimensions in culture and science. Nov 9, 2005 - "Aruba, Jamaica oh I want to take you, Bermuda, Bahamas, come on pretty mamma, that's where you want to go to get away from it all", or do you? What about the edge of space, low earth orbit or Mare Tranquillitatis? They don't rhyme as well, but the company Space Adventures can take you there or get you as close as any private company can make possible. To show their stuff, Eric Anderson, the president of Space Adventures, together with Joshua Piven, have written, The Space Tourist's Handbook. In it, they help you decide which space vacation to choose and how to make the best of your special time. So really get away from it all, skip the run-of-the-mill, and read about trying some truly out-of-this-world stuff. Nov 7, 2005 - The history of our universe encompasses all. Our existence and the existence of every other atom can be traced back to an earlier time. One strong postulation envisions a moment when time and space all came together at which moment there was a Big Bang. Since then, actions and relationships have dictated development until we arrive at where we see ourselves on Earth today. Joseph Silk in his book On the Shores of the Unknown manages to include physical explanations for many of the astronomical highlights of this process. In so doing, he's made a very readable history of our universe. Oct 31, 2005 - Is science fiction an arena where fantasies run wild or an experimental lab where new technologies, cultures and even physics can be assessed? Afficionados of this genre more likely think the latter. But not long ago, science fiction stories and even rocketry were considered little more than a fool's occupation. One person bucked this trend. He is Jack Parsons and he is also the central figure in George Pendle's biography entitled Strange Angel. From this we read how Parsons made believers of many people who ridiculed science and space travel. Oct 24, 2005 - Everyone has their own personal reason for taking up astronomy. Some want to make it a career. Others need to satisfy their curiosity. Then there are those who simply get captured by the seductive beauty of the stars. Jan DeBlieu is one of the later. In her book, Year of the Comets she shares her experiences after being entranced by the night skies and at the same time being challenged by her everyday life on Earth. Oct 18, 2005 - Maybe it is just a statement of our times that one person's life can span the complete maturation of a technology. As John Glenn said, 'it was hard to imagine that virtually the entire history of space travel had occurred between my first flight and my second'. With so many stunning achievements and horrific failures, the history of humanity's space program, though short, was eventful. The collection of narrations prepared by Richard Russell Lawrence and presented in the book entitled Space Exploration and Disasters gives an emotional, often first hand account of many dramatic moments of our space program. Oct 12, 2005 - Great scientists don't necessarily make for great people. One reportedly never took a bath in his long life. Many were so anti-social as to have their mental stability questioned. Sordid character traits often set them well apart from peers and students. Joshua Gilder and Anne-Lee Gilder explore this avenue in their book Heavenly Intrigue. In it, they bring to life the olden times of Europe and two great astronomers, Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe. Then, step by step, they lead the reader onto a great scientific undertaking that might have its roots in a less than great murder. Oct 5, 2005 - Tour guides add vibrant, often personal accounts of locales along your travels. They impart much more knowledge than simply standing in front of a building and reading some brief nameplate. By including a relative context, they tie a building to its neighbours and even substantiate its mere existence. Ron Miller and William K. Hartmann in their book The Grand Tour, A Traveller's Guide to the Solar System equally provide this important service for worlds within our solar system. They take the reader along on a detailed tour, and, without assuming prior knowledge, they vividly distinguish and join each of the worlds into a technical and visual journey. Sep 30, 2005 - According to Genesis, 'First there was light.'. According to scientists, this initial light is still about us, shining down from the heavens. Not only does it shine, it's red-shifted, and, depending on its composition, it indicates whether the universe is static, expanding or contracting. All we need do is detect this light to learn about our origin. This is the story in Michael Lemonick's book Echo of the Big Bang. In particular, he tells the tale of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), its place in remote sensing and its role in cosmology. From it, we learn a little more about the first light and we know it is good. Sep 23, 2005 - Researchers answer their true calling by flinging themself headlong into discovering and perhaps add a little more to humanity's collective knowledge. Their friends, sleep and even food get deleted to a secondary role as just one more lead, one more calculation or one more experiment could endow understanding. The cost for a researcher in answering this call might be years of personal neglect, even though society benefits greatly. Marcelo Gleiser in his book The Dancing Universe takes us through the history of physics from the gods of yesteryear to the cosmologists of today. He focuses on some of the really productive researchers and, in so doing, gives us a clearer understanding of physics, people and our society. Sep 21, 2005 - Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For a desolation to be beautiful, there must be something special. Just after Dr. Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the moon, Neil Armstrong asked him what were his thoughts. He replied, "it's a magnificent desolation". Nearly forty years later, Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Mark Cowen combine the wizardry of IMAX with the magic of top flight professional entertainers to the film Magnificent Desolation. The result puts the viewer on the surface of the moon and lets them experience its strange but magnificent beauty all for themselves. Sep 19, 2005 - Some people dream in black and white while others dream in techni-colour. Daydreamers wander the realm of possibilities just as well as the sleepers. Subjects of dreams differ as greatly as the dreamer. Engineers, particularly astro-engineers, probably have recurrent dreams of launching into a project destined for the stars. Well, if dreams don't come true, there's always the pen and paper. That's how the book The Rocket Company by Patrick Stiennon and David Hoerr seems to have risen. Using the literary licence of a fictional company, the authors bring a wealth of non-fictional detail to a pleasant little dream. Sep 12, 2005 - September arrives and with it come all the sweet memories of anticipation, trepidation and expectation of new school years. These days, I relive these feelings through my children but many of my own emotions still lie close to the surface. There won't be any astronomy texts yet for my two young ones, but others may find on their list the introductory text by Andrew Fraknoi, David Morrison, and Sidney Wolff entitled Voyages to the Stars and Galaxies. For those so fortunate, a good memory may be more practical than a sweet memory, for this book is chalkfull of pertinent astronomical information. Aug 29, 2005 - Dream up an hypothesis and envelop it with supporting evidence and you're well on the way to contributing to the scientific process. Given that nature surrounds us with a veritable nirvana of wonders, this reasoning process serves us well. A case in point - many years ago, bright flashes in the sky, followed by powerful explosions, teased our imaginations and brain power then and today. Surendra Verma in his book The Tunguska Fireball plays part detective, part historian and part scientist in presenting some highly speculative yet nevertheless plausible reasons for this natural wonder. Scientific processes by their nature are based on fact, but read this and you can judge for yourself how close imagination is its parody. Print Version Print This Article |
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