Gabe — St. Jude’s resident genius—is back for his final year of middle school. As an eighth grader, he must fulfill a community service requirement and decide if he will attend a high school for science and math.

New York Times Bestseller: This life story of the quirky physicist is “a thorough and masterful portrait of one of the great minds of the century” (The New York Review of Books). Raised in Depression-era Rockaway Beach, physicist Richard Feynman was irreverent, eccentric, and childishly enthusiastic—a new kind of scientist in a field that was in its infancy. His quick mastery of quantum mechanics earned him a place at Los Alamos working on the Manhattan Project under J. Robert Oppenheimer, where the giddy young man held his own among the nation’s greatest minds. There, Feynman turned theory into practice, culminating in the Trinity test, on July 16, 1945, when the Atomic Age was born. He was only twenty-seven. And he was just getting started. In this sweeping biography, James Gleick captures the forceful personality of a great man, integrating Feynman’s work and life in a way that is accessible to laymen and fascinating for the scientists who follow in his footsteps.

From the acclaimed author of The Nobel Prize comes this fascinating portrait of four of the greatest minds in the history of science and the impossible turning point they...

The full and definitive biography of Frederick Law Olmsted, influential abolitionist, ardent social reformer and conservationist, and the visionary designer of Central Park Frederick Law Olmsted is arguably the most important historical figure that the average American knows the least about. Best remembered for his landscape architecture, from New York's Central Park to Boston's Emerald Necklace to Stanford University's campus, Olmsted was also an influential journalist, early voice for the environment, and abolitionist credited with helping dissuade England from joining the South in the Civil War. This momentous career was shadowed by a tragic personal life, also fully portrayed here.Most of all, he was a social reformer. He didn't simply create places that were beautiful in the abstract. An awesome and timeless intent stands behind Olmsted's designs, allowing his work to survive to the present day. With our urgent need to revitalize cities and a widespread yearning for green space, his work is more relevant now than it was during his lifetime. Justin Martin restores Olmsted to his rightful place in the pantheon of great Americans.

Imagine a world where the power is always on, where there is not just enough energy, but an abundance of it. Such a world is no Utopia, it is a possible reality. Using indefinitely available sources of energy – especially photovoltaic solar, in combination with others – and networking this energy, much in the way that we have networked information, we can get beyond our current energy ‘crisis’ and resolve it. The world we then find ourselves in is not a world without problems – we will face new challenges on the way – but in terms of energy it is a world of plenty. Rooted in sound theory and based on technology that is available now, A Genius Planet offers an accessible but detailed and insightful perspective on how we can free ourselves from our dependency on natural resources and generate, trade, and use energy in ways that open up the genuine potential that we have at our disposal today.

Born and raised in a small South Dakota prairie town, Ernest Orlando Lawrence (1901-1958), the grandson of Norwegian immigrants, was educated in country schools and attended the universities of South Dakota, Minnesota, and Chicago before obtaining his PhD at Yale in 1925. At age 29, he became the youngest full professor in the history of the University of California at Berkeley. He received the Nobel prize in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron which became an essential tool during the Manhattan project to enrich uranium via electromagnetic separation at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Lawrence founded and directed Berkeley’s Radiation Laboratory, where ever more powerful cyclotrons were built for basic research and to produce radioisotopes for medical and industrial uses. With Edward Teller, he advocated for the creation in 1952 of the Livermore National Laboratory to spur innovation, provide competition to Los Alamos and focus on the development of thermonuclear weapons. Lawrence had a lasting influence on American physics as the mentor and inspiration of a whole new generation of scientists, and through his role advising the top echelons of American government, research, and industry. When he died, at the age of 57, President Eisenhower said that, in a real sense, Lawrence had given his life for his country. “A remarkable book... must reading for anyone in the scientific or engineering development fields, whether he be a scientist, a researcher, a developer, or even a student still full of dreams of achievement... Throughout the book, the author has constantly brought out the qualities that made Ernest great...” — General Leslie R. Groves, former head of the Manhattan project “A detailed record of the life of an extraordinary man... The author was able to draw on vivid recollections of some 800 people who had known Lawrence and could provide what amounts to a series of detailed eyewitness accounts of important events in Lawrence’s life... a unique and valuable biography... those who have some memory of [Lawrence] will find this book fascinating, and historians will find it a rich source.” — Philip H. Abelson, Science “No other biography portrays so well the atmosphere of scientific research in America during the transition from small laboratories [...] to gigantic institutions... Herbert Childs has made the story of Lawrence’s life, and of his many accomplishments, into a story that can be appreciated by any intelligent reader, and is at the same time a most valuable addition to the scholarly history of science... Herbert Childs’ inspiring story of a great and generous pioneer and leader of modern physics, is a definitive account of an era that was, and will remain, unique in the history of science.” — Mark L. Oliphant,Physics Today “This is an extraordinary book about an extraordinary man... it provides a picture almost without parallel of the life and actions of a great man of science.” — Ralph E. Oesper, Journal of Chemical Education

The Genius of Place examines how, after the War of 1812, concerns about the scale of the nation resulted in a fundamental reorientation of American identity away from the Atlantic or global ties that held sway in the early republic and toward more localized forms of identification. Instead of addressing the sweep of the nation, American authors, artists, geographers, and politicians shifted from the larger reach of the globe to the more manageable scope of the local and sectional. Paradoxically, that local representation became the primary mode through which early Americans construed their emerging national identity. This newfound cultural obsession with locality impacted the literary consolidation and representation of key American imagined places - New England, the plantation, the West - in the decades between 1816 and 1836. Apap's examination of the intersections between local and national representations and exploration of the myths of space and place that shaped U.S. identity through the nineteenth century will appeal to a broad, interdisciplinary readership.

What do Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Leonardo da Vinci, and Ray Kroc, the man who created the McDonald's franchise enterprise, have in common? They have all mastered the skills of creative genius-essential tools in today's business climate. Having researched the lives and techniques of past and present geniuses for this inspiring and provocative new handbook, Annette Moser-Wellman helps workers at all levels build and refine their working styles. These qualities of creativity-drawn from the the realms of art, science, as well as business-make up the five distinct "faces": Seer-the power to image Observer-the power to notice details Alchemist-the power to make connections Fool-the power to celebrate weakness Sage-the power to simplify Moser-Wellman shows how we can utilize these creative thinking strategies and flourish in the workplace.

Although women participated in shaping scientific thinking from the outset, they very rarely became visible. This imbalance continues today, although there are currently more female scientists than ever before. Lars Jaeger spans an arc from antiquity to the present day and portrays the lives and work of the most important female scientists and mathematicians in essay-like introductions. From Hypatia of Alexandria to Emmy Noether and Lisa Randall, they have all achieved great things, decisively advanced science and yet often could not step out of the shadow of their male colleagues. In addition to the exciting portraits of the individual women scientists, the book also sheds light on gender relations in science and their agonisingly slow evolution in favour of women.