"Hard work, we are often told, is the key to success. Putting in the effort, doing things the "right way," even if it's the long way. But according to Marcus du Sautoy, this common wisdom has it backwards. The key to success isn't hard work-it's shortcuts. We make the most progress when we find clever ways to do more with less. And there is no better way of finding shortcuts than math. Math is all about minimizing the amount of work you have to do...

"The idea of a single scientific method, shared across specialties and teachable to ten-year-olds, is just over a hundred years old. For centuries prior, science had meant a kind of knowledge, made from facts gathered through direct observation or deduced from first principles. But during the nineteenth century, science came to mean something else: a way of thinking. The Scientific Method tells the story of how this approach took hold in laboratories,...

"The inside story of a quest to unlock one of cosmology's biggest mysteries, derailed by the lure of the Nobel Prize. What would it have been like to be an eyewitness to the Big Bang? In 2014, astronomers wielding BICEP2, the most powerful cosmology telescope ever made, thought they'd glimpsed the spark that ignited the Big Bang. Millions around the world tuned in to the announcement, and Nobel whispers began to spread. But had these cosmologists...

We all know that we should ask now, before it's too late, before the stories are gone forever. But knowing and doing are two different things. Cynthia Hart, author of “Cynthia Hart's Scrapbook Workshop”, shows exactly how to collect, record, share, and preserve a family member's or a friend's oral history in this practical and inspirational guide. “The Oral History Workshop” breaks down what too often feels like an overwhelming project into...

"Where does great physics come from? As a young graduate student, cosmologist Stephon Alexander had a life-changing lesson in the subject. When asked by the legendary theoretical physicist Christopher Isham why he had attended graduate school, Alexander answered: "To become a better physicist." He could hardly have anticipated Isham's response: "Then stop reading those physics books." Instead, Isham said, Alexander should start listening to his dreams....

"Science is how we understand the world. Yet critical flaws in peer review, statistical methods, and publication procedures have rendered a shocking number of scientific studies useless--or worse, badly misleading. Drawing on surprising new data from "meta-science" (the science of how science works), Science Fictions documents the errors that have distorted our knowledge on issues as varied as cancer biology, nutrition, genetics, immigration, education,...

Readers learn about the scientific method and how to impress the judges. Features web site links to videos, activities, and more projects.

"A paradigm-shifting work that revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science. Captivatingly written, interwoven with tantalizing illustrations and historical vignettes ranging from Newton's alchemy to quantum mechanics to the storm surge of Hurricane Sandy, Michael Strevens's wholly original investigation of science asks two fundamental questions: Why is science so powerful? And why did it take so long, two thousand years...

"Eight-year-old Ada, who has a knack for science, math, and solving mysteries, teams up with her best friend, Nina, to find a missing dog."--