Water is everywhere. It covers almost 70 percent of Earth's surface. It forms the oceans and flows as rushing rivers. The atmosphere not to mention clouds is a vast storehouse of water in the form of the gas called water vapor. Billions of tons of water are locked up as the enormous ice caps that sit on the top and bottom of the world. If all of that icy water were to melt, it would cause a rise in sea level of about 260 feet (80 meters). Coastal cities the world over would be flooded beyond repair.

The best-selling science book ever published in the Englishlanguage, COSMOS is a magnificent overview of the past, present,and future of science. Brilliant and provocative, it traces today'sknowledge and scientific methods to their historical roots,blending science and philosophy in a wholly energetic andirresistible way.

Bestselling nature writer David Quammen introduces CharlesDarwin's incredible tale of excursion that led to his revolutionarytheory of evolution--Voyage of the Beagle.

Is science beautiful? Yes, argues acclaimed philosopher andhistorian of science Robert P. Crease in this engaging explorationof history’s most beautiful experiments. The result is anengrossing journey through nearly 2,500 years of scientificinnovation. Along the way, we encounter glimpses into thepersonalities and creative thinking of some of the field’s mostinteresting figures. We see the first measurement of the earth’s circumference,accomplished in the third century B.C. by Eratosthenes usingsticks, shadows, and simple geometry. We visit Foucault’smesmerizing pendulum, a cannonball suspended from the dome of thePanthéon in Paris that allows us to see the rotation of the earthon its axis. We meet Galileo—the only scientist with twoexperiments in the top ten—brilliantly drawing on his musicaltraining to measure the speed of falling bodies. And we travel tothe quantum world, in the most beautiful experiment of all. We also learn why these ten experiments exert such a powerful holdon our imagin

Starred Review。 What Aczel did for mathematician Fermat（Fermat’s Last Theorem）he now does for Descartes in this splendidstudy about the French philosopher and mathematician （1596–1650）most famous for his paradigm-smashing declaration， “I think;therefore， I am。” Part historical sketch， part biography and partdetective story， Aczel’s chronicle of Descartes’s hidden workhinges on his lost secret notebook。 Of 16 pages of codedmanu*， one and a half were copied in 1676 by fellowphilosopher and mathematician Leibniz。 For him， Descartes’sin*ion of the cryptic letters“GFRC” immediately revealed hisassociation with the occult fraternity of the Rosicrucians—Leibnizwas also a member。 The notebook also revealed to Leibniz adiscovery made by Descartes that would have transformedmathematics。 As Aczel so deftly demonstrates， Descartes'smathematical theories were paths to an understanding the order andmystery of the cosmos， and he kept the notebook hidden because itcont