Symphony in C: Carbon and the Evolution of (Almost) Everything - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Symphony in C: Carbon and the Evolution of (Almost) Everything write by Robert M. Hazen. This book was released on 2019-06-11. Symphony in C: Carbon and the Evolution of (Almost) Everything available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. An enchanting biography of the most resonant—and most necessary—chemical element on Earth. Carbon is everywhere: in the paper of this book and the blood of our bodies. It’s with us from beginning to end, present in our baby clothes and coffin alike. We live on a carbon planet, and we are carbon life. No other element is so central to our well-being; yet, when missing or misaligned, carbon atoms can also bring about disease and even death. At once ubiquitous and mysterious, carbon holds the answers to some of humanity’s biggest questions. Where did Earth come from? What will ultimately become of it—and of us? With poetic storytelling, earth scientist Robert M. Hazen explores the universe to discover the past, present, and future of life’s most essential element. We’re not only “made of star stuff,” as Carl Sagan famously observed, but “Big Bang stuff,” too. Hazen reveals that carbon’s grand symphony began with a frenzied prelude shortly after the dawn of creation, bringing new attention to the tiny number of Big Bang–created carbon atoms that often get overlooked. In minutes, violently colliding protons and neutrons improbably formed the first carbon atoms, which can still be found within our bodies. His book then unfolds in four movements, building momentum as he explores carbon as the element of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. He visits the famed volcanic crater Solfatara di Pozzuoli near Naples, where venting carbon dioxide and other noxious fumes condense into beautiful crystals. He climbs the cliffs of the Scottish Highlands and delves deep into the precious-metal mines of Namibia, journeying toward Earth’s mysterious core in search of undocumented carbon structures. Hazen often asks us to pause and consider carbon’s role in climate change and what we can do about it, for our lives and this element are inextricably intertwined. With prose that sparkles like a diamond, Symphony in C tells the story of carbon, in which we all have a part.
The Story of Earth
The Story of Earth - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Story of Earth write by Robert M. Hazen. This book was released on 2013-07-30. The Story of Earth available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Hailed by The New York Times for writing “with wonderful clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips along,” nationally bestselling author Robert M. Hazen offers a radical new approach to Earth history in this intertwined tale of the planet’s living and nonliving spheres. With an astrobiologist’s imagination, a historian’s perspective, and a naturalist’s eye, Hazen calls upon twenty-first-century discoveries that have revolutionized geology and enabled scientists to envision Earth’s many iterations in vivid detail—from the mile-high lava tides of its infancy to the early organisms responsible for more than two-thirds of the mineral varieties beneath our feet. Lucid, controversial, and on the cutting edge of its field, The Story of Earth is popular science of the highest order. "A sweeping rip-roaring yarn of immense scope, from the birth of the elements in the stars to meditations on the future habitability of our world." -Science "A fascinating story." -Bill McKibben
The Diamond Makers
The Diamond Makers - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Diamond Makers write by Robert M. Hazen. This book was released on 1999-07-22. The Diamond Makers available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Humans have treasured diamonds for their exquisite beauty and unrivaled hardness for thousands of years. Deep within the earth, diamonds grow. Diamonds the size of footballs, the size of watermelons - billions of tons of diamonds wait for eternity a hundred miles beyond our reach. Spanning centuries of ground-breaking science, bitter rivalry, outright fraud, and self-delusion, The Diamond Makers is a compelling narrative centered around the brilliant, often eccentric, and controversial pioneers of high pressure research. This vivid blend of dramatic personal stories and extraordinary scientific advances - and devastating failures - brings alive the quest to create diamond. Scientists have harnessed crushing pressures and scorching temperatures to transform almost any carbon-rich material, from road tar to peanut butter, into the most prized of gems. The book reveals the human dimensions of research - the competition, bravery, jealousy, teamwork, and greed that ultimately led to today's billion-dollar diamond synthesis industry.
Science Matters
Science Matters - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Science Matters write by Robert M. Hazen. This book was released on 2009-06-09. Science Matters available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A science book for the general reader that is informative enough to be a popular textbook and yet well-written enough to appeal to general readers. “Hazen and Trefil [are] unpretentious—good, down-to-earth, we-can-explain-anything science teachers, the kind you wish you had but never did.”—The New York Times Book Review Knowledge of the basic ideas and principles of science is fundamental to cultural literacy. But most books on science are often too obscure or too specialized to do the general reader much good. Science Matters is a rare exception—a science book that is informative enough for introductory courses in high school and college, and yet lucid enough for readers uncomfortable with scientific jargon and complicated mathematics. And now, revised and expanded, it is up-to-date, so that readers can enjoy Hazen and Trefil's refreshingly accessible explanations of the most recent developments in science, from particle physics to biotechnology.
Nature's Clocks
Nature's Clocks - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Nature's Clocks write by Doug Macdougall. This book was released on 2008-06-30. Nature's Clocks available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. "Radioactivity is like a clock that never needs adjusting," writes Doug Macdougall. "It would be hard to design a more reliable timekeeper." In Nature's Clocks, Macdougall tells how scientists who were seeking to understand the past arrived at the ingenious techniques they now use to determine the age of objects and organisms. By examining radiocarbon (C-14) dating—the best known of these methods—and several other techniques that geologists use to decode the distant past, Macdougall unwraps the last century's advances, explaining how they reveal the age of our fossil ancestors such as "Lucy," the timing of the dinosaurs' extinction, and the precise ages of tiny mineral grains that date from the beginning of the earth's history. In lively and accessible prose, he describes how the science of geochronology has developed and flourished. Relating these advances through the stories of the scientists themselves—James Hutton, William Smith, Arthur Holmes, Ernest Rutherford, Willard Libby, and Clair Patterson—Macdougall shows how they used ingenuity and inspiration to construct one of modern science's most significant accomplishments: a timescale for the earth's evolution and human prehistory.
