When weapons builders detonated the first hydrogen bomb in 1952, they tapped into the biggest source of energy in our solar system – the phenomenon that makes the sun shine. Nuclear fusion seems a virtually unlimited source of power, but it has been at the center of a tragic and comic pursuit that has left scores of scientists battered and disgraced. Like the eternal quest to build a perpetual motion machine, the dream of harnessing the energy of a miniature star is irresistible. Not only would a fusion energy device give the world endless electrical power, it would give power to its inventors – financial power, the power of fame, even military might. Right now the world’s richest countries are spending billions of dollars trying to build a giant fusion reactor. Yet if history is any guide, the money will not bring the dream of fusion energy within reach. Indeed, the quest for fusion energy has been a failure, generation after generation. Fusion is at the heart of some of the biggest scientific scandals of all time, and Charles Seife traces its story from its beginning into the twenty-first century. Even after fusion scientists face defeat after defeat, they continue trying to put the sun in a bottle, hoping against hope that they will succeed where others have failed. The science of wishful thinking is as strong as ever, and this book is our key to understanding why.

Product Description: The Manchurian Candidate meets the New World Order in this stunning thriller by the bestselling author of Crux and Flashpoint. Secret Service agent Bill Sullivan has a wife, two children, and a secret unknown even to himself: he is a multiple personality programmed and planted by the KGB during the Cold War...read more

Product Description: Roy Spence has helped organizations such as Southwest Airlines, BMW, the University of Texas, Wal-Mart, the Clinton Global Initiative, and many others achieve greatness by obsessing about one big idea: purpose. Simply put, purpose is a definitive statement about the difference you are trying to make in the world...read more

Product Description: New York Times bestselling author Joe Weber offers a chilling possibility: What would happen if the delicate and vital United States/Japanese relationship was sabotaged and stretched to the point of no return? It begins ominously when a cruise ship at Pearl Harbor is strafed, resulting in the deaths of several Japanese tourists...read more

Product Description: The Last of the Mohicans is an epic story of romance and adventure on the American frontier. It is a story of love and loyalty, and of America's coming of age.While the French and Indians besiege Fort William Henry, Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of the English commander, are on their way to join him...read more

Product Description: “No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own.…”So begins The War of the Worlds, the novel that made Wells famous and has enthralled and terrified readers and listeners for almost 100 years...read more