$34.95 (Hardcover book / Heinemann / ISBN:9780434018352)
Decoding The Heavens: Solving The Mystery Of The World's First Computer
In 1900 a group of sponge divers blown off course in the Mediterranean discovered an Ancient Greek shipwreck dating from around 70 BC. Lying unnoticed for months amongst their hard-won haul was what appeared to be a formless lump of corroded rock, which turned out to be the most stunning scientific artefact we have from antiquity. For more than a century this 'Antikythera mechanism' puzzled academics, but now, more than 2000 years after the device was lost at sea, scientists have pieced together its intricate workings. Unmatched in complexity for 1000 years, it was able to predict eclipses and track the paths of the Sun and the Moon through the zodiac, and probably even showed ancient astronomers the movements of the five known planets. In Decoding the Heavens, Jo Marchant tells for the first time the story of the 100-year quest to understand this ancient computer. Along the way she unearths a diverse cast of remarkable characters - ranging from Archimedes to Jacques Cousteau - and explores the deep roots of modern technology not only in ancient Greece but in the Islamic world and medieval Europe too. At heart an epic adventure story, it is a book that challenges our assumptions about technology transfer over the ages while giving us fresh insights into history itself.
Royal Society Prize for Science Books 2009 Shortlist
Bad Science
$24.99 (Paperback book / Harper Perennial )
When Dr Ben Goldacre saw someone on daytime TV dipping her feet in an ′Aqua Detox′ footbath, releasing her toxins into the water and turning it brown, he thought he′d try the same at home. ′Like some kind of Johnny Ball ... More »
Decoding The Heavens: Solving The Mystery Of The World's First Computer
$34.95 (Hardcover book / Heinemann )
In 1900 a group of sponge divers blown off course in the Mediterranean discovered an Ancient Greek shipwreck dating from around 70 BC. Lying unnoticed for months amongst their hard-won haul was what appeared to be a form... More »
The Age Of Wonder: How The Romantic Generation Discovered The Beauty And The Terror Of Science
$24.99 (Paperback book / Harper Collins )
A decade in the making, pre-eminent biographer Richard Holmes presents this marvellously original look of the early scientific movement in Britain at a time when the distinction between the arts and sciences had yet to b... More »
The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
$26.95 (Paperback book / Penguin Books )
Often historical, occasionally hysterical, and consistently smart and funny, this book challenges everything we think we know about how the world works' Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness
'A wonderfully rea... More »
Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into The 3.5 Billion Year History Of The Human Body
$26.95 (Paperback book / Penguin Books )
Have you ever wondered why our bodies look and work and fail the way they do?
One of the world's leading experts in evolutionary history, Neil Shubin reveals that if we want to understand our limbs we should take a close... More »
What The Nose Knows: The Science Of Scent In Everyday Life
$39.95 (Hardcover book / Crown )
• How many smells are there? And how many molecules would it take to create every smell in nature, from roses to stinky feet?
• Who was the bigger scent freak: the perfume-obsessed Richard Wagner or Emily Dickinson, wi... More »