Book cover of Fear of a Black Universe: An Outsider's Guide to the Future of Physics by Stephon Alexander
Astronomy & Space Science

Fear of a Black Universe: An Outsider’s Guide to the Future of Physics

In this important guide to science and society, a cosmologist argues that physics must embrace the excluded, listen to the unheard, and be unafraid of being wrong. Years ago, cosmologist Stephon Alexander received life-changing advice: to discover real physics, he needed to stop memorizing and start taking risks. In Fear of a Black Universe, Alexander shows that great physics requires us to think outside the mainstream — to improvise and rely on intuition. His approach leads him to three principles that shape all theories of the universe: the principle of invariance, the quantum principle, and the principle of emergence. […Learn More]

Biological Sciences

Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life from Ancient Fossils to DNA

The author of the best-selling Your Inner Fish gives us a lively and accessible account of the great transformations in the history of life on Earth–a new view of the evolution of human and animal life that explains how the incredible diversity of life on our planet came to be.

Over billions of years, ancient fish evolved to walk on land, reptiles transformed into birds that fly, and apelike primates evolved into humans that walk on two legs, talk, and write. […Learn More]