Physics War

An epic story of science and technology at the very limits of human understanding: the monumental race to build the first atomic weapons.

Rich in personality, action, confrontation, and deception, The First War of Physics is the first fully realized popular account of the race to build humankind's most destructive weapon. The book draws on declassified material, such as MI6's Farm Hall transcripts, coded Soviet messages cracked by American cryptographers in the Venona project, and interpretations by Russian scholars of documents from the Soviet archives.

What happens when something is sucked into a black hole? Does it disappear? Three decades ago, a young physicist named Stephen Hawking claimed that it did - and in doing so, put at risk everything we know about the fundamental laws of the universe. Leonard Susskind and Gerard 't Hooft realized the threat and responded with a counterattack that changed the course of physics.

New York Times Bestseller An exploration of the age-old complicity between skywatchers and warfighters, from the best-selling author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. In this fascinating foray into the centuries-old relationship between science and military power, acclaimed astrophysicist...

In Rust journalist Jonathan Waldman travels from Key West, Florida, to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to meet the colorful and often reclusive people concerned with corrosion. He sneaks into an abandoned steelworks with a brave artist and nearly gets kicked out of Can School. Across the Arctic he follows a massive high-tech robot, hunting for rust in the Alaska pipeline.

**Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award** The definitive history of nuclear weapons—from the turn-of-the-century discovery of nuclear energy to J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project—this epic work details the science, the...

From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes the gripping, untold story of a renegade group of scientists and spies determined to keep Adolf Hitler from obtaining the ultimate prize: a nuclear bomb. Scientists have always kept secrets. But rarely have the secrets been as vital as...

The definitive biography of the brilliant, charismatic, and very human physicist and innovator Enrico Fermi In 1942, a team at the University of Chicago achieved what no one had before: a nuclear chain reaction. At the forefront of this breakthrough stood Enrico Fermi. Straddling the ages of...

When voices from the future whisper in your head, you either decide you're losing your mind—or accept you're humanity's last hope for freedom. David Caffery's ordered world shatters the moment he hears her voice. She claims to be family. She claims to be from 2102. And she's asking him to commit an unthinkable act to save millions of lives. But in a war between AI gods fighting across time itself, truth is the first casualty. Every ally could be an enemy. Every coincidence could be manipulation. And David's autistic mind—the very thing that makes him different—might be the key to ...

As we delve into the fascinating life of Robert Oppenheimer - the American theoretical physicist who is best known for his notable role in the development of the atomic bomb - we will explore the moments and achievements that shaped his extraordinary journey. Often referred to as the "father of the atomic bomb," Oppenheimer's story goes beyond his involvement in the Manhattan Project. Throughout this series, we will uncover aspects of his personal life, early academic triumphs, and contributions to the scientific community that have left an indelible mark on history.

Samurai warriors were experts in hand-to-hand combat and fighting from horseback. They may not have realized it, but they owed their success to science. Learn how science helped the samurai to become some of the greatest warriors in history.

Trevor Cox is on a hunt for the sonic wonders of the world. A renowned expert who engineers classrooms and concert halls, Cox has made a career of eradicating bizarre and unwanted sounds. But after an epiphany in the London sewers, Cox now revels in exotic noises - creaking glaciers, whispering galleries, stalactite organs, musical roads, humming dunes, seals that sound like alien angels, and a Mayan pyramid that chirps like a bird.

Ninja warriors were masters of stealth and disguise. They could quickly defeat their enemies without raising the alarm. They may not have realized it, but they owed their success to science. Learn how science helped ninjas successfully achieve their secret missions.

All the Light We Cannot See meets The Nightingale in this literary WWI-era novel and epic love story of a brilliant young doctor who races against Einstein to solve one of the universe's great mysteries. In Russia, in the summer of 1914, as war with Germany looms and the Czar's army tightens its...

The birth of a world-changing idea in the middle of a bloodbath Einstein’s War is a riveting exploration of both the beauty of scientific creativity and enduring horrors of human nature. These two great forces battle in a story that culminates with a victory now a century old, the mind...

Dr. Yoshio Nishina is sometimes known as the father of modern nuclear physics in Imperial pre-war Japan. Nishina was a 20th Century Japanese engineer and physicist well respected in Japan. However, he was less known in the West, except among a few American physicists and in Nazi Germany. He led the efforts of Imperial Japan to develop an atomic bomb or A-bomb before and during the second World War (WWII). In 1921, RIKEN provided funding for Nishina to study in Europe. There he met several famous Western physicists. At Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, he worked under Ernest ...

In a world of spycraft, betrayals, and reversals, a Stasi officer is unraveled by the cruel system he served and by the revelation of a decades-old secret, in this “story that John le Carré might have written for The Twilight Zone” (Washington Post). A BuzzFeed Best Book of 2020 On November...

From the Marginalian creator and bestselling author Maria Popova, a bold exploration of what makes a meaningful life. In Traversal, her startling and moving new book, Maria Popova traverses the border between life and death, chance and choice, chemistry and consciousness: What makes a body a...

Two bestselling authors first met in a televised Caltech debate on “the future of God,” one an articulate advocate for spirituality, the other a prominent physicist. This remarkable book is the product of that serendipitous encounter and the contentious—but respectful—clash of...

Marie Curie’s life was a remarkable journey of scientific brilliance, perseverance, and groundbreaking discoveries that forever changed the world. Born in Poland, she overcame immense societal and financial challenges to pursue her passion for science, ultimately becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only person to win in two different scientific fields. Her pioneering research on radioactivity—coining the very term—led to the discovery of polonium and radium, elements that revolutionized medicine, energy, and scientific understanding. Curie’s contributions extended ...

Claymore Straker is trying to forget a violent past. Working as an oil company engineer in the wilds of Yemen, he is hijacked at gunpoint by Islamic terrorists. Clay has a choice: help uncover the cause of a mysterious sickness afflicting the village of Al Urush, close to the company's oil-processing facility, or watch Abdulkader, his driver and close friend, die.