We spend our lives surrounded by air, hardly even noticing it. It’s the most miraculous substance on earth, yet responsible for our food, our weather, our water, and our ability to hear. In fact, we live at the bottom of an ocean of air. In this exuberant book, gifted science writer Gabrielle Wal...
The traditional way to understand the workings of the world—through a combination of divine revelation and abstract reasoning—had begun to come under attack from a new breed. These people called themselves "natural philosophers," because the word "scientist" had not yet been invented. To find out...
It is an imaginary dot in a vast field of white; the farthest south anyone can go; one of only two places on Earth where all the lines of longitude meet, where if you make one full turn your feet pass through every time zone, but where the Earth itself does not spin, and the ground beneath you is...