David Helfand

The Universal Timekeepers

Reconstructing History Atom by Atom

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

David J. Helfand reconstructs the history of the universeâ back to its first microsecond 13.8 billion years agoâ with the help of atoms.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Columbia University Press
• Seitenzahl: 288
• Erscheinungstermin: 19. September 2023
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 238mm x 164mm x 28mm
• Gewicht: 646g
• ISBN-13: 9780231210980
• ISBN-10: 0231210981
• Artikelnr.: 67935528

Autorenporträt

David J. Helfand, former chair of the Astronomy Department at Columbia University, has served on Columbia's faculty for nearly five decades. He was also president and vice chancellor of Quest University Canada. Helfand is the chair of the American Institute of Physics and a past president of the American Astronomical Society. His commentary has appeared in Nature, Physics Today, the Globe and Mail, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, among other publications, and he is the author of A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age: Scientific Habits of Mind (Columbia, 2016).

Inhaltsangabe

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Calling the Witnesses to History
2. Conceptualizing the Atom: From Philosophy to Science
3. The Atom: A Utilitarian View
4. The Elements: Our Complete Set of Blocks
5. Isotopes: Elemental Flavors
6. Radioactivity: The Imperturbable Clock
7. Stolen and Forged: Forensic Art History
8. The Carbon Clock: Pinning Down Dates
9. History Without Words: Lime and Lead and Poop
10. You Are What You Eat
11. Paleoclimate: Taking the Earth's Temperature Long Ago
12. The Death of the Dinosaurs: An Atomic View
13. Evolution: From Meteorites to Cyanobacteria
14. What's Up in the Air? Earth's Evolving Atmosphere
15. Our Sun's Birthday: The Solar System in Formation
16. Stardust Creation: Building the Building Blocks
17. In the Beginning
Epilogue: A Quark's Tale
Glossary
Notes
Index