A complete story of the people, events, themes, ideas and forces that have shaped human existence. This book explains our history's turning points, eye witness accounts and biographies that give a personal angle to major events. It helps you explore humankind's legacy from architecture and artefacts to the big ideas that have changed our world.

Product Description: This recollection by much-admired author and presenter Adam Hart-Davis takes the reader on a fascinating tour of an altogether different kind—a whirlwind tour of the history and mysteries of urine. The scientific aspects are presented in the author's own clear and engaging style, filled with the charm of someone who clearly loves his subject...read more

Product Description: Discover math puzzles everywhere--in pizzas, mirrors, bicycles, candy, hot dogs--and also ancient pyramids, pirates' treasure, and a witch's cauldron. These 82 tantalizing examples will work your brain cells and stump your friends...read more

Product Description: Sometime the stupidity of man is overwhelming, so much so that it is difficult to imagine that man has walked on the moon and created the wheel. We have distinguished ourselves by our need to invent. Occasionally, however we can get it wrong, very wrong indeed...read more

Adam Hart Davis has interviewed some of the most influential scientists and thinkers of our time. In this fascinating insight into modern science he presents the stories behind the science, the difficulties behind the discoveries and the future of the findings, as explained by the people themselves. Adam Hart Davis talks with: Jocelyn Bell Burnell (Bath, UK) Sir Michael Berry (Bristol, UK) Colleen Cavanaugh (Harvard, US) Richard Dawkins (Oxford, UK) . Loren Graham (MIT, US) Richard Gregory (Bristol, UK) Eric Lander (MIT, US) Lord May of Oxford (UK) John Maynard Smith (Sussex, UK) Rosalind Picard (MIT, US) Peter Raven (St Louis, US) Sir Martin Rees (Cambridge, UK) Eugenie Scott (Oakland, US) Lewis Wolpert (UCL, UK)

Illustrated questions of everyday scientific interest are arranged in sections on air, earth, water, fire, light, ice and rain, math, technology, plants, animals, and health.

Product Description: Very minor scuffing and creases on cover.

Presents a collection of various kinds of math puzzles--including number tricks, memory tricks, and geometric designs--in different levels of difficulty; also includes explanations of mathematical principles.

From the BBC series of the same name, this title takes the reader on a journey through the discoveries and innovations of the 16th and 17th centuries. Great heroes stride through the pages, including Edmund 'Comet' Halley, and Sir Francis Bacon, who died inventing the frozen chicken.

Product Description: When Victoria came to the throne in 1837, Britain was on the brink of world supremacy in the production of iron, steel, and steam engines, and had seen an explosion of growth and developments that included railways, the electric telegraph, and wool production...read more

Product Description: On 26 November 1703, during the worst storm that Britain had ever seen, Henry Winstanley died in his pioneering lighthouse as it was blown apart. He had defied incredible odds to build the first Eddystone Lighthouse in 1698, saving the lives of many sailors from the fate of the thousands who previously died upon the rocks...read more

Product Description: In the sweltering summer of 1858 the stink of sewage from the polluted Thames was so offensive that it drove Members of Parliament from the chamber of the House of Commons. Sewage generated by a population of over two million Londoners was pouring into the river and was being carried to and fro by the tides...read more

Product Description: Looks at the scientists and inventors to be found upon the walls of the National Portrait Gallery, and the often extraordinary connections between them. Relationships familial, intellectual, amicable and implacable are unearthed, as are the roles played by coincidence and accident in the great scientific breakthroughs...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This work presents 100 stories of weird and wonderful inventions, full-blown and well-developed disasters of what seemed to be brilliant inventions that fell at the first fence, or sometimes the second, like the first steam-powered submarine, still lying on the sea bed off North Wales...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Introduces basic scientific principles accompanied by related riddles and jokes

Product Description: The stories of over 45 British pioneers of science, invention, and technology which often focus on the less well known aspects of renowned heroes such as Edward Jenner, Brunel and Florence Nightingale. Among the inventions covered are the kaleidoscope, the Ayrton fan, the equals sign and decimal point, swimming umbrellas and a mobile sheep-wash...read more