101 Things You Don't Know about Science and No One Else Does EitherJames Trefil takes the reader on a thrilling tour across the borders of current scientific knowledge-from astronomy to genetics, from information technology to cosmology, the great contested questions that preoccupy researchers today and will become headlines tomorrow. In elegant, witty three-page summations, Dr. Trefil "makes sense of science for the rest of us" (Washington Post). |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Is There a Theory of Everything and Can We Afford | 36 |
How Much of the World Can We Simulate with | 44 |
How Much of the World Is Chaotic? | 50 |
Are There Problems That Cant Be Solved? | 56 |
The Quantum Eraser | 62 |
How Much Is a Kilogram? | 68 |
A New Window on the Universe? | 74 |
Why Does a Protein Have the Shape It Has? | 193 |
Whither the Human Genome Project? | 199 |
What Will Follow the Pill? | 205 |
Can We Live Forever? | 211 |
What Is the Connection Between Mind and Brain? | 217 |
Are We the Men We Used to Be? | 223 |
The Attack of the Killer Bees | 229 |
Using Your Genes to Tell Why Youre Sick | 235 |
Astronomy and Cosmology | 81 |
How Old Is the Universe? | 89 |
How Will the Universe End? | 95 |
Is Anybody Out There? | 101 |
What Are Quasars? | 107 |
Parallel Universes and All That | 113 |
Earth and Planetary Sciences | 119 |
How Stable Is the Climate? | 127 |
The Case of the Missing Carbon | 130 |
Could | 136 |
Will the Antarctic Ice Sheet Melt? | 142 |
Why Does the Earths Magnetic Field Reverse Itself? | 148 |
Will We Be Able to Predict Earthquakes? | 154 |
How Well Can We Predict the Weather? | 160 |
Is There an Asteroid Out There with Our Name on It? | 166 |
What Is the Earth Observing System? | 172 |
Biology Mostly Molecular | 179 |
How Is DNA Repaired? | 187 |
Will We Find New Magic Bullets? | 241 |
Why Doesnt Your Immune System Attack Your | 247 |
Have We Lost the War on Cancer? | 253 |
Will We Be Able to Cure AIDS? | 259 |
Evolution Mostly Human | 265 |
We Get to Be So Smart? | 273 |
Who Were the Earliest Humans? | 276 |
Will We Be Looking for Fossils on Mars? | 282 |
Human Beings Arrive in North America? | 288 |
Technology Mostly Computers | 295 |
Will We Be Computing with Light? | 303 |
Can We Make Computers That Learn? | 309 |
Where Will Nanotechnology Take Us? | 315 |
Why Do We Face a Continuing Software Crisis? | 321 |
Will the World or the Federal Government End | 327 |
| 346 | |
Other editions - View all
101 Things You Don't Know about Science: And No One Else Does Either James S. Trefil No preview available - 1997 |
101 Things You Don't Know about Science and No One Else Does Either James S Trefil No preview available - 1997 |
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Popular passages
Page xi - If we can send a man to the moon, why can't we ..." followed by some thorny medical, technical, or social problem such as "cure the common cold?