“This is a delightful account of one of the deepest and most fascinating explorations going on today at the frontier of our knowledge.” ―Carlo Rovelli, bestselling author of The Order of Time and Seven Brief Lessons on Physics“Musser knows that the point...

“I love maps. I love math. And gosh, do I love this book, which so beautifully and clearly sounds the depths of both.” ―Ben Orlin, author of Math with Bad DrawingsExplore the surprising connections between math and maps―and the myriad ways they’ve shaped...

Whenever a person engages with music―when a piano student practices a scale, a jazz saxophonist riffs on a melody, a teenager sobs to a sad song, or a wedding guest gets down on the dance floor―countless neurons are firing. Playing an instrument requires...

One of the twentieth century’s great paleontologists and science writers, Stephen Jay Gould was, for Bruce S. Lieberman and Niles Eldredge, also a close colleague and friend. In Macroevolutionaries, they take up the tradition of Gould’s acclaimed essays...

A special 10th anniversary edition of the million-copy bestseller What If? from the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd—revised and annotated with brand-new illustrations and answers to important questions you never thought to ask.Fans of xkcd...

An intriguing new scientific theory that explains what life is and how it emerges.What is life? This is among the most difficult open problems in science, right up there with the nature of consciousness and the existence of matter. All the definitions we...

A philosophical task force explores how AI is revolutionizing our lives - and what moral problems it might bring, showing us what to be wary of, and what to be hopeful for.There is no more important issue at present than artificial intelligence. AI has...

A multifaceted biography of a brilliant mathematician and iconoclastA mathematician unlike any other, John Horton Conway (1937–2020) possessed a rock star’s charisma, a polymath’s promiscuous curiosity, and a sly sense of humor. Conway found fame as a...

The legendary Renaissance math duel that ushered in the modern age of algebraThe Secret Formula tells the story of two Renaissance mathematicians whose jealousies, intrigues, and contentious debates led to the discovery of a formula for the solution of...

An illuminating biography of one of the greatest geometers of the twentieth centuryDriven by a profound love of shapes and symmetries, Donald Coxeter (1907–2003) preserved the tradition of classical geometry when it was under attack by influential...

How magicians exploit the natural functioning of our brains to astonish and amaze usHow do magicians make us see the impossible? The Illusionist Brain takes you on an unforgettable journey through the inner workings of the human mind, revealing how...