Less than 450 years ago, all European scholars believed that the Earth was at the centre of a Universe that was at most a few million miles in extent, and that the planets, sun, and stars all rotated around this centre. Less than 250 years ago, they believed that the Universe was created essentially in its present state about 6000 years ago. Even less than 150 years ago, the view that living species were the result of special creation by God was still dominant.

The recognition by Charles Darw...

The study of human evolution is advancing rapidly. Newly discovered fossil evidence is adding ever more pieces to the puzzle of our past, whilst revolutionary technological advances in the study of ancient DNA are completely reshaping theories of early human populations and migrations. In this Very Short Introduction Bernard Wood traces the history of paleoanthropology from its beginnings in the eighteenth century to the very latest fossil finds.

In this new edition he discusses how Ancient D...

'Another masterpiece from one of my favorite authors . . . If you want a brief but thorough education in numeric thinking about many of the fundamental forces that shape human life, this is the book to read. It's a tour de force' BILL GATES

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We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, ...

"Wald's book is clearly the first textbook on general relativity with a totally modern point of view; and it succeeds very well where others are only partially successful. The book includes full discussions of many problems of current interest which are not treated in any extant book, and all these matters are considered with perception and understanding."—S. Chandrasekhar "A tour de force: lucid, straightforward, mathematically rigorous, exacting in the analysis of the theory in its physic...

Demonstrates that theory of evolution by natural selection discovered by Charles Darwin - is only answer to biggest question of all: why do we exist?

This book will draw these diverse threads together and present entropy as one of the crucial physical concepts.

Multivariate Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences, Second Edition is designed to show how a variety of statistical methods can be used to analyse data collected by psychologists and other behavioral scientists. Assuming some familiarity with introductory statistics, the book begins by briefly describing a variety of study designs used in the behavioral sciences, and the concept of models for data analysis. The contentious issues of p-values and confidence intervals are also discussed in the i...

Rural Geographies provides a critical, contemporary and accessible introduction to understanding rural change by using geographical ideas to explain and analyse current issues affecting the countryside.

Unifying Physics of Accelerators, Lasers and Plasma introduces the physics of accelerators, lasers and plasma in tandem with the industrial methodology of inventiveness, a technique that teaches that similar problems and solutions appear again and again in seemingly dissimilar disciplines.

This book provides an accessible introduction to radioactivity. The second in a two-volume set, this volume is presented in two parts, covering its development and modern applications.