All atomic particles have a particular "spin." Simple as spin may sound, the quantum mechanical reality underlying it is complex and still poorly understood. Because of the wide range of physics needed for its understanding, spin is not described in sufficient depth by any standard textbook. Yet this mysterious quality and the statistics associated with it have vast practical importance to topics as wide-ranging as the stability of atoms and stars and magnetic resonance imaging. Originally published in 1974, Sin-itiro Tomonaga's The Story of Spin remains the most complete and accessible treatment of the subject, and is now available for the first time in English translation. Tomonaga tells the tale of the pioneers of physics and their difficult journey toward an understanding of the nature of spin and its relationship to statistics.
One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives. The effect is worldwide. The sun is now a featureless disk - a heat source, rather than an astronomical object. The moon is gone, but tides remain. Not only have the world's artificial satellites fallen out of orbit, their recovered remains are pitted and aged, as though they'd been in space far longer than their known lifespans. As Tyler, Jason, and Diane grow up, space probe reveals a bizarre truth: The barrier is artificial, generated by huge alien artifacts. Time is passing faster outside the barrier than inside - more than a hundred million years per day on Earth. At this rate, the death throes of the sun are only about forty years in our future. Jason, now a promising young scientist, devotes his life to working against this slow-moving apocalypse. Diane throws herself into hedonism, marrying a sinister cult leader who's forged a new religion out of the fears of the masses. Earth sends terraforming machines to Mars to let the onrush of time do its work, turning the planet green. Next they send humans...and immediately get back an emissary with thousands of years of stories to tell about the settling of Mars. Then Earth's probes reveal that an identical barrier has appeared around Mars. Jason, desperate, seeds near space with self-replicating machines that will scatter copies of themselves outward from the sun - and report back on what they find. Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger.
Ride away on a 'round-the-world adventure of a lifetime—with only a change of clothes and a pearl-handled revolver—in this trascendent novel inspired by the life of Annie Londonderry. “Bicycling has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.”—Susan B. Anthony Who was Annie Londonderry? She captured the popular imagination with her daring ‘round the world trip on two wheels. It was, declared The New York World in October of 1895, “the most extraordinary journey ever undertaken by a woman.” But beyond the headlines, Londonderry was really Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, a young, Jewish mother of three small children, who climbed onto a 42-pound Columbia bicycle and pedaled away into history. Reportedly set in motion by a wager between two wealthy Boston merchants, the bet required Annie not only to circle the earth by bicycle in 15 months, but to earn $5,000 en route, as well. This was no mere test of a woman’s physical endurance and mental fortitude; it was a test of a woman’s ability to fend for herself in the world. Often attired in a man’s riding suit, Annie turned every Victorian notion of female propriety on its head. Not only did she abandon, temporarily, her role of wife and mother (scandalous in the 1890s), she earned her way selling photographs of herself, appearing as an attraction in stores, and by turning herself into a mobile billboard. Zheutlin, a descendent of Annie, brilliantly probes the inner life and seeming boundless courage of this outlandish, brash, and charismatic woman. In a time when women could not vote and few worked outside the home, Annie was a master of public relations, a consummate self-promoter, and a skillful creator of her own myth. Yet, for more than a century her remarkable story was lost to history. In SPIN, this remarkable heroine and her marvelous, stranger-than-fiction story is vividly brought to life for a new generation.
From a stunning new voice in hard science fiction comes the thrilling story of one woman’s quest to wrest truth from chaos, love from violence, and reality from illusion in a post-human universe of emergent AIs, genetic constructs, and illegal wetware. . . . UN Peacekeeper Major Catherine Li has made thirty-seven faster-than-light jumps in her lifetime—and has probably forgotten more than most people remember. But that’s what backup hard drives are for. And Li should know; she’s been hacking her memory for fifteen years in order to pass as human. But no memory upgrade can prepare Li for what she finds on Compson’s World: a mining colony she once called home and to which she is sent after a botched raid puts her on the bad side of the powers that be. A dead physicist who just happens to be her cloned twin. A missing dataset that could change the interstellar balance of power and turn a cold war hot. And a mining “accident” that is starting to look more and more like murder. . . . Suddenly Li is chasing a killer in an alien world miles underground where everyone has a secret. And one wrong turn in streamspace, one misstep in the dark alleys of blackmarket tech and interstellar espionage, one risky hookup with an AI could literally blow her mind.
"Vortex" tells the story of Turk Findley, the protagonist introduced in "Axis," who is transported 10,000 years into the future by the mysterious entities called "the Hypotheticals."
Go for a spin up a hill—when the story of a bike ride becomes an inspirational journey. Albert Einstein once said, "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving." Ride along up and down the hills and valleys of this bike ride. Featuring lyrical text and vivid artwork, Spin shows that any mountain can be climbed. By pushing forward and pedaling around and around, anyone can spin onwards.
“A brilliant, fast-moving narrative history of the leaders who have defined the modern American presidency.”—Bob Woodward In Republic of Spin—a vibrant history covering more than one hundred years of politics—presidential historian David Greenberg recounts the rise of the White House spin machine, from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama. His sweeping, startling narrative takes us behind the scenes to see how the tools and techniques of image making and message craft work. We meet Woodrow Wilson convening the first White House press conference, Franklin Roosevelt huddling with his private pollsters, Ronald Reagan’s aides crafting his nightly news sound bites, and George W. Bush staging his “Mission Accomplished” photo-op. We meet, too, the backstage visionaries who pioneered new ways of gauging public opinion and mastering the media—figures like George Cortelyou, TR’s brilliantly efficient press manager; 1920s ad whiz Bruce Barton; Robert Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower’s canny TV coach; and of course the key spinmeisters of our own times, from Roger Ailes to David Axelrod. Greenberg also examines the profound debates Americans have waged over the effect of spin on our politics. Does spin help our leaders manipulate the citizenry? Or does it allow them to engage us more fully in the democratic project? Exploring the ideas of the century’s most incisive political critics, from Walter Lippmann and H. L. Mencken to Hannah Arendt and Stephen Colbert, Republic of Spin illuminates both the power of spin and its limitations—its capacity not only to mislead but also to lead.
In April 2010, the world watched in alarm as BP's Macondo well suffered a fatal explosion and a catastrophic leak. Over the next three months, amid tense scenes of corporate and political finger-pointing, millions of barrels of crude oil dispersed across the Gulf of Mexico in what became one of the worst oil spills in history. But there is more to BP's story than this. Tom Bergin, an oil broker turned Reuters reporter, watched the 'two-pipeline company' of the early 1980s grow into a dynamic oil giant and PR machine by the turn of the twenty-first century. His unique access to key figures before, during and after the spill - including former CEO Tony Hayward - has enabled him to piece together this compelling account of a corporation in crisis, and to examine how crucial decisions made during BP's remarkable turnaround paved the way for its darkest hour.
THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER #1 New York Times bestselling author Jocko Willink’s fast-paced thriller Final Spin: a story of love, brotherhood, suffering, happiness, and sacrifice. A story about life. Johnny... Shouldn’t be in a dead-end job. Shouldn’t be in a dead-end bar. Shouldn’t be in a dead-end life. But he is. It’s a hamster wheel existence. Stocking warehouse store shelves by day, drinking too much whiskey and beer by night. In between, Johnny lives in his childhood home, making sure his alcoholic mother hasn’t drunk herself to death, and looking after his idiosyncratic older brother Arty, whose world revolves around his laundromat job. Rinse and repeat. Then Johnny’s monotonous life takes a tumble. The laundromat where Arty works, and the one thing that gives him happiness, is about to be sold. Johnny doesn't want that to happen, so he takes measures into his own hands. Johnny, along with his friend, Goat, come up with a plan to get the money to buy the laundromat. But things don’t always go as planned...
