The Last Unknowns

Author: John Brockman
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062897950
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Book Description
Discover the universe's last unknowns—here are the unanswered questions that obsess "the world's finest minds" (The Guardian) Featuring a foreword by DANIEL KAHNEMAN, Nobel Prize-winning author of Thinking, Fast and Slow This is a little book of profound questions (only questions!)—unknowns that address the secrets of our world, our civilization, the meaning of life. Here are the deepest riddles that have fascinated, obsessed, and haunted the greatest thinkers of our time, including Nobel laureates, cosmologists, philosophers, economists, prize-winning novelists, religious scholars, and more than 250 leading scientists, artists, and theorists. In The Last Unknowns, John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, asks "a mind-blowing gathering of innovative thinkers" (Booklist): "What is ‘The Last Question,’ your last question, the question for which you will be remembered?" Featuring the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel JARED DIAMOND • Nobel Prize-winning University of Chicago economist RICHARD THALER • Harvard psychologist STEVEN PINKER • religion scholar ELAINE PAGELS • author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics CARLO ROVELLI • Booker Prize–winning novelist IAN McEWAN • neuroscientist SAM HARRIS • philosopher DANIEL C. DENNETT • MIT theorist SHERRY TURKLE • decoder of the human genome J. CRAIG VENTER • The Coddling of the American Mind author JONATHAN HAIDT • Nobel Prize-winning physicist FRANK WILCZEK • UC Berkeley psychologist ALISON GOPNICK • philosopher REBECCA NEWBERGER GOLDSTEIN • New York Times columnist CARL ZIMMER • MIT cosmologist MAX TEGMARK • Whole Earth founder STEWART BRAND • "Marginal Revolution" economist TYLER COWEN • Anatomy of Love author HELEN FISHER • Noble Prize-winning NASA physicist JOHN C. MATHER • psychologist JUDITH RICH HARRIS • Princeton physicist FREEMAN DYSON • musician BRIAN ENO • environmental scientist JENNIFER JACQUET • Duke economist DAN ARIELY • Oxford philosopher A. C. GRAYLING • Harvard cosmologist LISA RANDALL • anthropologist MARY CATHERINE BATESON • Emotional Intelligence author DANIEL GOLEMAN • Harvard genticist GEORGE CHURCH • Blueprint author NICHOLAS A. CHRISTAKIS • Stanford political scientist MARGARET LEVI • economist ALAN S. BLINDER • publisher TIM O'REILLY • theoretical cosmologist JANNA LEVIN • Serpentine Gallery owner HANS ULRICH OBRIST • Wired founding editor KEVIN KELLY • Cambridge astrophysicist MARTIN REES, and more than 200 others.

The Book of Unknown Americans

Author: Cristina Henríquez
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385350856
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
A stunning novel of hopes and dreams, guilt and love—a book that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be American and "illuminates the lives behind the current debates about Latino immigration" (The New York Times Book Review). When fifteen-year-old Maribel Rivera sustains a terrible injury, the Riveras leave behind a comfortable life in Mexico and risk everything to come to the United States so that Maribel can have the care she needs. Once they arrive, it’s not long before Maribel attracts the attention of Mayor Toro, the son of one of their new neighbors, who sees a kindred spirit in this beautiful, damaged outsider. Their love story sets in motion events that will have profound repercussions for everyone involved. Here Henríquez seamlessly interweaves the story of these star-crossed lovers, and of the Rivera and Toro families, with the testimonials of men and women who have come to the United States from all over Latin America.

Atlas of Unknowns

Author: Tania James
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1847377440
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 475

Book Description
When seventeen-year-old Anju wins an all-expenses-paid scholarship to study in New York for a year, she jumps at the chance to leave her home town in Kerala and embrace all that America has to offer. But there are bittersweet consequences ahead, not only for Anju, but also for the father and older sister she has left behind. For when the lie behnd Anju's scholarship is suddenly revealed she is left without a visa and, too proud to confess to her family, goes into hiding. She accepts a job in a suburban beauty salon and the offer of a roof over her head from the kindly Bird, who strangely seems to know more about Anju's past than Anju herself has told her. Meanwhile, Anju's family are on a mission to find her, trying not to contemplate the possibility that they might never see her again… Atlas of Unknownsis vibrant, moving and breathtakingly told -- the debut of an irresistible and utterly original new voice in fiction.

Known Unknowns

Author: Charles Saatchi
Publisher:
ISBN: 186154362X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Book Description
In Known Unknowns, Charles Saatchi provides fascinating insights into some of the world’s lesser-known but truly extraordinary historical events and social phenomena. 100 individual essays illustrated with 198 arresting photographs tackle subjects as varied as the tattoo habits of Russian criminals, the Vatican’s favourite Barbie, North Korean traffic jams, American gun legislation and the world’s richest animal. Behind each poignant, startling and often disconcerting image lies a treasure trove of hidden histories. Drawing on a career that has seen him produce and collect some of the most iconic images of modern times, Charles Saatchi presents his own unique perspective on contemporary culture.

Known and Unknown

Author: Donald Rumsfeld
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101502495
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 882

Book Description
A powerful memoir from the late former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld With the same directness that defined his career in public service, Rumsfeld's memoir is filled with previously undisclosed details and insights about the Bush administration, 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also features Rumsfeld's unique and often surprising observations on eight decades of history. Rumsfeld addresses the challenges and controversies of his illustrious career, from the unseating of the entrenched House Republican leader in 1965, to helping the Ford administration steer the country away from Watergate and Vietnam, to the war in Iraq, to confronting abuse at Abu Ghraib. Along the way, he offers his plainspoken, first-hand views and often humorous and surprising anecdotes about some of the world's best-known figures, ranging from Elvis Presley to George W. Bush. Both a fascinating narrative and an unprecedented glimpse into history,Known and Unknown captures the legacy of one of the most influential men in public service.

This Explains Everything

Author: John Brockman
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062230182
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 429

Book Description
Drawn from the cutting-edge frontiers of science, This Explains Everything will revolutionize your understanding of the world. What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation? This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org ("The world's smartest website"—The Guardian), posed to the world's most influential minds. Flowing from the horizons of physics, economics, psychology, neuroscience, and more, This Explains Everything presents 150 of the most surprising and brilliant theories of the way of our minds, societies, and universe work. Jared Diamond on biological electricity • Nassim Nicholas Taleb on positive stress • Steven Pinker on the deep genetic roots of human conflict • Richard Dawkins on pattern recognition • Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek on simplicity • Lisa Randall on the Higgs mechanism • BRIAN Eno on the limits of intuition • Richard Thaler on the power of commitment • V. S. Ramachandran on the "neural code" of consciousness • Nobel Prize winner ERIC KANDEL on the power of psychotherapy • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on "Lord Acton's Dictum" • Lawrence M. Krauss on the unification of electricity and magnetism • plus contributions by Martin J. Rees • Kevin Kelly • Clay Shirky • Daniel C. Dennett • Sherry Turkle • Philip Zimbardo • Lee Smolin • Rebecca Newberger Goldstein • Seth Lloyd • Stewart Brand • George Dyson • Matt Ridley

The Unknowns

Author: Patrick K. O'Donnell
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
ISBN: 080214926X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 446

Book Description
The award-winning combat historian and author of Washington’s Immortals honors the Unknown Soldier with this “gripping story” of America’s part in WWI (Washington Times). The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is sacred ground at Arlington National Cemetery. Originally constructed in 1921 to hold one of the thousands of unidentified American soldiers lost in World War I, it now receives millions of visitors each year. “With exhaustive research and fluid prose,” historian Patrick O’Donnell illuminates the saga behind the creation of the Tomb itself, and the stories of the soldiers who took part in its consecration (Wall Street Journal). When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing selected eight of America’s most decorated veterans to serve as Body Bearers. These men appropriately spanned America’s service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. In telling the stories of these brave men, O’Donnell shines a light on the service of all veterans, including the hero they brought home. Their stories present an intimate narrative of America’s involvement in the Great War, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles that ultimately decided the conflict.

Third Culture

Author: John Brockman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684823446
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 420

Book Description
This eye-opening look at the intellectual culture of today--in which science, not literature or philosophy, takes center stage in the debate over human nature and the nature of the universe--is certain to spark fervent intellectual debate.

We Have No Idea

Author: Jorge Cham
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735211523
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
Prepare to learn everything we still don’t know about our strange and mysterious universe Humanity's understanding of the physical world is full of gaps. Not tiny little gaps you can safely ignore —there are huge yawning voids in our basic notions of how the world works. PHD Comics creator Jorge Cham and particle physicist Daniel Whiteson have teamed up to explore everything we don't know about the universe: the enormous holes in our knowledge of the cosmos. Armed with their popular infographics, cartoons, and unusually entertaining and lucid explanations of science, they give us the best answers currently available for a lot of questions that are still perplexing scientists, including: * Why does the universe have a speed limit? * Why aren't we all made of antimatter? * What (or who) is attacking Earth with tiny, superfast particles? * What is dark matter, and why does it keep ignoring us? It turns out the universe is full of weird things that don't make any sense. But Cham and Whiteson make a compelling case that the questions we can't answer are as interesting as the ones we can. This fully illustrated introduction to the biggest mysteries in physics also helpfully demystifies many complicated things we do know about, from quarks and neutrinos to gravitational waves and exploding black holes. With equal doses of humor and delight, Cham and Whiteson invite us to see the universe as a possibly boundless expanse of uncharted territory that's still ours to explore.

This Idea Is Brilliant

Author: John Brockman
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062698222
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 605

Book Description
Brilliant but overlooked ideas you must know, as revealed by today’s most innovative minds What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known? That is the question John Brockman, publisher of the acclaimed science salon Edge.org (“The world’s smartest website”—The Guardian), presented to 205 of the world’s most influential thinkers from across the intellectual spectrum—award-winning physicists, economists, psychologists, philosophers, novelists, artists, and more. From the origins of the universe to the order of everyday life, This Idea Is Brilliant takes readers on a tour of the bold, exciting, and underappreciated scientific concepts that will enrich every mind. Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel JARED DIAMOND on the lost brilliance of common sense * Oxford evolutionary biologist RICHARD DAWKINS on how The Genetic Book of the Dead could reconstruct ecological history * philosopher REBECCA NEWBERGER GOLDSTEIN on how to extend our grasp of reality beyond what we can see and touch * author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics CARLO ROVELLI on the interconnected fabric of information * Booker Prize–winning novelist IAN McEWAN on the Navier-Stokes equations, which govern everything from weather prediction to aircraft design and blood flow * cosmologist LAWRENCE M. KRAUSS on the hidden blessings of uncertainty * psychologist STEVEN PINKER on the fight against entropy * Nobel Prize–winning economist RICHARD THALER on the visionary power of the “premortem” * Grammy Award–winning musician BRIAN ENO on confirmation bias in the Internet age * advertising guru RORY SUTHERLAND on the world-changing power of sex appeal * Harvard physicist LISA RANDALL on the power of the obvious * Wired founding editor KEVIN KELLY on how to optimize your chances at success * Nobel Prize winner FRANK WILCZEK on the creative potential of complementarity * Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter JOHN MARKOFF on the synthetic metamaterials that soon will transform industry and technology * euroscientist SAM HARRIS on the lost art of intellectual honesty *Berkeley psychologist ALISON GOPNIK on the role of life history in the human story, and many others.