Showing results by author "Colin Stuart" in All Categories

As a subject, it has perplexed and fascinated generations of scientists, historians and more, and continues to spark the most intriguing questions being asked in science today. Can time be stopped? Is time travel possible? Does time even exist? In these 10 bite-sized essays, Colin Stuart delves into these big questions and uncovers the most awe-inspiring and revealing things we should all know about time.

In 1869, a great mystery was born. As astronomers observed a total solar eclipse, for the first time they saw the faint glow of the solar corona, the sun's outer atmosphere. Measurements of a previously unknown wavelength that made up this solar light sparked hot debate among scientists, but it was another 60 years before they discovered that this wavelength was in fact iron being burned at a staggering three million degrees Celsius. With the sun's surface only 6,000 degrees, this shouldn't be possible.

Our world simply wouldn't function if we didn't have numbers. But where do they come from? Why do we cut cake the wrong way? How can there be different sizes of infinity? All these questions and more are answered in this engaging romp through the history of numbers by acclaimed science writer Colin Stuart. From the mathematicians who have (and haven't) shouted 'Eureka!' to the theories that affect and inform our everyday lives, Numbers shows us that maths was never boring—we were just being taught it in the wrong way.

Un guide fascinant et complet sur le soleil, notre étoile d'origine. Cet astre reste le plus grand mystère de notre système solaire, et aujourd'hui plus que jamais sa compréhension s'avère essentielle à notre futur sur la planète Terre. En 1869, un grand mystère est né. Alors que les astronomes observaient une éclipse solaire totale, ils ont vu pour la première fois la faible lueur de la couronne solaire, l'atmosphère extérieure du soleil.