Astronomy & Physics Audiobooks | Science & Technology

On the night of July 20, 1969, our world changed forever when two Americans, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, walked on the moon. Now the greatest event of the twentieth century is magnificently retold through the eyes and ears of the people who were there. Based on the interviews with twenty-three moon voyagers, as well as those who struggled to get the program moving, journalist Andrew Chaikin conveys every aspect of the missions with breathtaking immediacy: from the rush of liftoff, to the heart-stopping lunar touchdown, to the final hurdle of reentry.

Andrew Chaikin, Foreword by Tom Hanks, Tom Hanks (Author), Bronson Pinchot (Narrator)

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Reconnecting to the Source: The New Science of Spiritual Experience, How It Can Change You, and How

Reconnecting to the Source is a powerful new book on the science of spiritual experience by Dr. Ervin Laszlo. A well-known figure in the fields of new science, consciousness, and spirituality, Dr. Laszlo has inspired some of today's most important figures in science and philosophy. In Reconnecting to the Source he unpacks the science behind spiritual experience, investigating the ways in which we can access realms of experience beyond the everyday. It is in these moments, when our conscious minds are in contact or perhaps even overridden by our unconscious selves, that we can explore the depths of spiritual meaning. In addition to a foreword by Deepak Chopra, the book includes new, never before published contributions from a long list of well-known writers and public figures-including Jane Goodall, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Zhi-Gang Sha, Gregg Braden, and many more. Each contributor has written about a unique spiritual experience of their own, sharing moments in their lives that are outside of the boundaries of the usual and reflecting on the importance of these moments. This revolutionary and powerful book will challenge you to reconsider the boundaries of our own experience and change how we look at the world around us.

Ervin Laszlo (Author), Nigel Patterson (Narrator)

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Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology

Life is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the known universe; but how did it come to be? Even in an age of cloning and artificial biology, the remarkable truth remains: nobody has ever made anything living entirely out of dead material. Life remains the only way to make life. Are we still missing a vital ingredient in its creation? Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe Macfadden reveal the hitherto missing ingredient to be quantum mechanics and the strange phenomena that lie at the heart of this most mysterious of sciences. As they brilliantly demonstrate here, life lives on the quantum edge.

Jim Al-Khalili, Johnjoe McFadden, Johnjoe Mcfadden (Author), Pete Cross (Narrator)

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A Burst of Conscious Light: Near-Death Experiences, the Shroud of Turin, and the Limitless Potential

Provides evidence that human consciousness can never be reproduced and exposes the perils of artificial intelligence • Explains how consciousness transcends the brain and body through quantum theory and accounts of consciousness in the clinically dead • Shares scientific evidence of how the image on the Shroud of Turin was produced and connects these findings to evidence concerning near-death experiences • Reveals how consciousness cannot be reproduced by a machine and how attempts to do so threaten what makes us human Stephen Hawking once said that the unanticipated consequences of artificial intelligence will be the greatest threat to humanity's survival. In this book, Dr. Andrew Silverman reveals why the powerful consciousness of the human mind could never be manufactured and so cannot be reproduced with technology. Integrating extensive scientific research from three seemingly unrelated fields of study--quantum mechanics, near-death experiences, and the Shroud of Turin--Silverman reveals the pitfalls and perils of artificial intelligence and addresses the fundamentally flawed thinking that underlies it. Drawing on his work as one of the leading experts on the Shroud of Turin as well as research by scientists from NASA and Los Alamos, he shows how the image on the Shroud could only have been produced by a flash of light as intense as a nuclear explosion--a burst of light that occurred after the body was in the tomb. Sharing medical evidence of consciousness in people declared clinically dead, the author shows how the light of consciousness evidenced by the Shroud is also a consistent feature of most near-death experiences. Exploring the non-local nature of consciousness--how it transcends the physical brain and body, Silverman explains why the human mind cannot be reduced to a computer and examines what separates sentient beings from machines. He shows how getting caught up in the push for artificial intelligence and the technological quest for immortality--through the attempt to "download" our minds onto computers--will only lead us to devalue and erase what makes us unique and irreplaceable in this cold, dark universe: our humanity.

Andrew Silverman (Author), Andy Rick (Narrator)

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Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilisation

Bringing his cosmic perspective to civilization on Earth, Neil deGrasse Tyson, bestselling author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, shines new light on the crucial fault lines of our time–war, politics, religion, truth, beauty, gender, race, and tribalism–in a way that stimulates a deeper sense of unity for us all. In a time when our political and cultural perspectives feel more divisive than ever, Tyson provides a much-needed antidote to so much of what divides us, while making a passionate case for the twin engines of enlightenment–a cosmic perspective and the rationality of science. After thinking deeply about how a scientist views the world and about what Earth looks like from space, Tyson has found that terrestrial thoughts change as our brain resets and recalibrates life's priorities, along with the actions we might take in response. As a result, no outlook on culture, society, or civilisation remains untouched. In Starry Messenger, Tyson reveals just how human the enterprise of science is. Far from a cold, unfeeling undertaking, scientific methods, tools, and discoveries have shaped modern civilisation and created the landscape we've built for ourselves on which to live, work, and play. Tyson shows how an infusion of science and rational thinking renders worldviews deeper and more informed than ever before–and exposes unfounded perspectives and unjustified emotions. With crystalline prose and an abundance of evidence, Starry Messenger walks us through the scientific palette that sees and paints the world differently. From lessons on resolving global conflict to reminders of how precious it is to be alive, Tyson reveals, with warmth and eloquence, ten surprising, brilliant, and beautiful truths of human society, informed and enlightened by knowledge of our place in the universe.

Neil Degrasse Tyson (Author), Neil Degrasse Tyson (Narrator)

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La teoría del todo: El origen y el destino del universo

Escucha este audiolibro y acércate a los misterios del universo de una manera clara y amena En este esclarecedor audiolibro, el gran físico británico Stephen Hawking nos ofrece una historia del universo, del big bang a los agujeros negros. En siete pasos, Hawking logra explicar la historia del universo, desde las primeras teorías del mundo griego y de la época medieval hasta las más complejas teorías actuales, siempre con su característico tono didáctico y accesible a todos los públicos. Newton, Einstein, la mecánica cuántica, los agujeros negros y la teoría de la gran unificación desfilan por estas páginas acercando al lector los misterios del universo. Las mejores obras de no ficción disponibles en formato audiolibro Reseña: «Un libro exquisito. En definitiva, auténtica poesía del infinito.» Leer

Stephen Hawking (Author), Alberto Mieza (Narrator)

Audiobook

Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Apollo Moon Landings

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, and the space race was born. Desperate to beat the Russians into space, NASA put together a crew of the nation's most daring test pilots: the seven men who were to lead America to the moon. The first into space was Alan Shepard; the last was Deke Slayton, whose irregular heartbeat kept him grounded until 1975. They spent the 1960s at the forefront of NASA's effort to conquer space, and Moon Shot is their inside account of what many call the twentieth century's greatest feat-landing humans on another world. Collaborating with NBC's veteran space reporter Jay Barbree, Shepard and Slayton narrate in gripping detail the story of America's space exploration from the time of Shepard's first flight until he and eleven others had walked on the moon.

Alan Shepard, Deke Slayton (Author), Christopher Grove (Narrator)

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The Interstellar Age: Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission

The story of the men and women who drove the Voyager spacecraft mission- told by a scientist who was there from the beginning. The Voyager spacecraft are our farthest-flung emissaries-11.3 billion miles away from the crew who built and still operate them, decades since their launch. Voyager 1 left the solar system in 2012; its sister craft, Voyager 2, will do so in 2015. The fantastic journey began in 1977, before the first episode of Cosmos aired. The mission was planned as a grand tour beyond the moon; beyond Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; and maybe even into interstellar space. The fact that it actually happened makes this humanity's greatest space mission. In The Interstellar Age, award-winning planetary scientist Jim Bell reveals what drove and continues to drive the members of this extraordinary team, including Ed Stone, Voyager's chief scientist and the one-time head of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab; Charley Kohlhase, an orbital dynamics engineer who helped to design many of the critical slingshot maneuvers around planets that enabled the Voyagers to travel so far; and the geologist whose Earth-bound experience would prove of little help in interpreting the strange new landscapes revealed in the Voyagers' astoundingly clear images of moons and planets. Speeding through space at a mind-bending eleven miles a second, Voyager 1 is now beyond our solar system's planets. It carries with it artifacts of human civilization. By the time Voyager passes its first star in about 40,000 years, the gold record on the spacecraft, containing various music and images including Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode," will still be playable.

Jim Bell (Author), Jim Bell (Narrator)

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Too Far From Home: A Story of Life and Death in Space

An incredible true-life adventure set on the most dangerous frontier of all–outer space For a special breed of individual, the call of space is worth the risk it entails: men such as U.S. astronauts Donald Pettit and Kenneth Bowersox, and Russian flight engineer Nikolai Budarin, who in November 2002 left on what was to be a routine fourteen-week mission maintaining the International Space Station. But then, on February 1, 2003, the Columbia exploded beneath them. With the launch program suspended indefinitely, these astronauts had suddenly lost their ride home. TOO FAR FROM HOME chronicles the efforts of the beleaguered Mission Controls in Houston and Moscow as they work frantically against the clock to bring their men safely back to Earth. Chris Jones writes beautifully of the majesty and mystique of space travel, while reminding us all how perilous it is to soar beyond the sky. From the Compact Disc edition.

Chris Jones (Author), Erik Davies (Narrator)

Audiobook

Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Endurance, written and read by Scott Kelly. From the Nasa astronaut who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station - what it's like out there and what it's like now, back here. Enter Scott Kelly's fascinating world and dare to think of your own a little differently. The veteran of four space flights and the American record holder for most consecutive days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things very few of us ever have and very few of us ever will. Kelly's humanity, compassion, humour, and passion shine as he describes navigating the extreme challenge of long-term spaceflight, both existential and banal. He touches on what's happened to his body, the sadness of being isolated from everyone he loves; the pressures of constant close cohabitation; the catastrophic risks of colliding with space junk, and the still more haunting threat of being absent should tragedy strike at home. From a natural storyteller Endurance is one of the finest examples the triumph of the human imagination, the strength of the human will, and the boundless wonder of the galaxy.

Scott Kelly (Author), Scott Kelly (Narrator)

Audiobook

Quantum Entanglement

Quantum physics is notable for its brazen defiance of common sense. (Think of Schrödinger's Cat, famously both dead and alive.) An especially rigorous form of quantum contradiction occurs in experiments with entangled particles. Our common assumption is that objects have properties whether or not anyone is observing them, and the measurement of one can't affect the other. Quantum entanglement rejects this assumption, offering impeccable reasoning and irrefutable evidence of the opposite. Is quantum entanglement mystical, or just mystifying? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Jed Brody equips listeners to decide for themselves. He explains how our commonsense assumptions impose constraints-from which entangled particles break free. Brody explores such concepts as local realism, Bell's inequality, polarization, time dilation, and special relativity. He introduces listeners to imaginary physicists Alice and Bob and their photon analyses; points out that it's easier to reject falsehood than establish the truth; and reports that some physicists explain entanglement by arguing that we live in a cross-section of a higher-dimensional reality. He also examines a variety of viewpoints held by physicists, including quantum decoherence, Niels Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation, genuine fortuitousness, and QBism.

Jed Brody (Author), Jonathan Todd Ross (Narrator)

Audiobook

Limitless: The Autobiography

Brought to you by Penguin. From the #1 bestselling author of Hello, is this Planet Earth? and Ask an Astronaut 'What surprised me was how entirely serene I felt. I was weightless, no forces exerting themselves on my body. To my left was the Space Station. Below me, gradually going into shadow, was the Earth. And over my right shoulder was the universe.' In fascinating and personal detail, and drawing on exclusive diaries and audio recordings from his mission, astronaut Tim Peake takes readers closer than ever before to experience what life in space is really like: the sights, the smells, the fear, the sacrifice, the exhilaration and the deep and abiding wonder of the view. Warm, inspiring and often funny, Tim also charts his surprising road to becoming an astronaut, from a shy and unassuming boy from Chichester who had a passion for flight, to a young British Army officer, Apache helicopter pilot, flight instructor and test pilot who served around the world. Tim's extensive eighteen-year career in the Army included the command of a platoon of soldiers in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, deployment in Bosnia, and operations in Afghanistan. Full of life lessons for readers of all ages, Limitless is the story of how ordinary can become extraordinary. 'For someone who has literally been out of this world Tim's an incredibly down to earth guy and I think you'll be amazed at some of the things he has done ... it's so inspiring to know that even going into space didn't change him as much as being a parent did.' JOE WICKS 'Tim is one of our nation's good guys - and his story is a testament to his courage, kindness and a never-give-up spirit.' BEAR GRYLLS 'Full of courage, camaraderie and daring escapades, this reads like a Boys' Own adventure' MIRROR 'Fasten your seatbelt for an exhilarating read ... His accounts of blasting into orbit at 25 times the speed of sound and floating, weightless, around the space station are enthralling.' EXPRESS © Tim Peake 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Tim Peake (Author), Tim Peake (Narrator)

Audiobook

Astronomy & Physics Audiobooks in Science & Technology