Product Description: This book provides a review of biochemistry as an algebra of molecules of living matter and utilizes Clifford algebras to discuss the basic biochemical processes of DNA replication, DNA transcription, RNA splicing and translation...read more

This is a history of fur trading in the North American colonial period, which was often carried out by French settlers and Native Americans. From the intro: "The history of the West is still largely the story of discovery, exploration, survey, colonization, and the like; for aught else is of comparatively recent development—is contemporaneous, or nearly such. The bison was the original engineer, who followed the lay of the land and the run of the water; the Indian followed the bison; the white man followed the Indian; the gun and trap, the pick and shovel, the whiskey-jug, plow, and locomotive followed the white man, at little if any interval: this is the order of empire westward. Every step of this succession is of absorbing interest and momentous consequence; perhaps none more so than those taken during what I may style the picturesque period, when the plain was furrowed not by the plow but by the hoof of the bison, when no Indian war-whoop had been silenced by a steam-whistle, when the trapper and trader were romantic figures in scenes untamed to more prosaic industries. Such times as these call for chroniclers; and it is the purpose of the American Explorer Series, of which the present volumes form a continuation, to traverse this historic ground, perhaps to cultivate some corners of this fruitful field. What results may be expected are instanced in the case of the Journal of Jacob Fowler, with which the series began. Whoever heard of it, or of its author, till this year of grace 1898? A floating paragraph in one or two not well-known books was to the vague effect that a trader named Glenn took a party to Santa Fe in 1822—that was all. Now we have the narrative of that enterprise, complete in every detail, in an authentic, genuine, original, contemporaneous human document—and of such is the kingdom of history. Few persons now living may measure the full importance of the Fur Trade as a factor in the development of what has been called the " wild and woolly-West "—thereby giving occasion for Lummis' witty retort upon a " tame and cottony East." Fewer still can be aware of what iniquities and atrocities the seamy side of that indispensable industry reveals. Those who have read the Journals of Alexander Henry and David Thompson have had their eyes opened to the systematic swindling and debauching of Indians which characterized the traffic as conducted in Canada and some portions of the United States, and may readily believe that the pursuit of pelf in pelt was always tarred with the same stick. This identical subject—intrinsically important, in some respects repellent, never failing of tragic interest, albeit sordid and squalid—is continued in the autobiography of Charles Larpenteur. As Fowler's Journal and Fowler himself were until this year, so have Larpenteur and his narrative been hitherto—unknown. The latter, like the former, will be found composed of the very fiber that goes to the web of history. It is a notable and entirely novel contribution to our knowledge of the Fur Trade of the Upper Missouri for a period of more than an average lifetime, by one who lived the life and worked his way through it, from the position of a mere hand to that of one of its heads. Among other conclusions we may draw from this narrative, it would appear that the unpalliated and unmitigated evils were inherent in the system of traffic itself, red and white natures being what they respectively were; that there was a smoother than the seamy side of the business; that a good, kindly man might be about it, and die poor but honest; and that it called out some of the best as well as the worst of human qualities—some of the most manly, even heroic, traits, remote from cupidity and cruelty."

Explains what materials are made of, how particles behave, and how new substances are created.

Product Description: Solids, liquids, and gases are the three states of matter. But have you ever made matter change from one state to another? Or seen how even invisible matter takes up space? Now you can! Explore matter with the fun experiments you'll find in this book...read more

Discusses the scientific principles behind the laws of conservation of matter, the combination of elements, the periodic table, and the first and second law of thermodynamics, and describes the work of the scientists who discovered them.

Product Description: This textbook, now in its third edition, provides a formative introduction to the structure of matter that will serve as a sound basis for students proceeding to more complex courses, thus bridging the gap between elementary physics and topics pertaining to research activities...read more

Product Description: Everything in the universe is made of matter. Matter is made of tiny objects called atoms. There are many types of atoms. When atoms of the same type combine, the result is an element. Some elements, like silver and oxygen, are found in nature...read more

Product Description: Who discovered electrons, protons, and neutrons? What is antimatter? Could atomic research help scientists cure cancer? This book tells the amazing story of the discovery of the atom and the particles that exist inside it, and explains how scientists have

Product Description: Explores the atoms that govern chemical processes. This book shows how the interactions between simple substances such as salt and water are crucial to life on Earth and how those interactions are predestined by the atoms that make up the molecules.

Explains atomic structure and the history of atomic theory, discussing electrons, radioactivity, neutrons, quarks and other particles, and the Standard Model.

In the form of a series of questions and answers, explains what matter is, and describes its three states and how it changes between them.

The world's foremost experimental physicist and Nobel laureate uses humor, metaphor, and storytelling to delve into the mysteries of matter, discussing the particle accelerator and the as-yet-to-be-discovered God particle. Reprint.

Provides information on the different forms of matter--solids, liquids, and gases--and their components, as well as facts about the periodic table and the elements it represents.

Product Description: Even in crystalline matter most of the interesting phenomena are caused by imperfections in the structure. When the disorder is radical, as in disordered alloys or - even more - in liquids, glasses, quasi-crystals and amorphous solids, physics encounters different phenomena and new problems, many still unsolved...read more

We are connected to distant space and time not only by our imaginations but also through a common cosmic heritage. Emerging now from modern science is a unified scenario of the cosmos, including ourselves as sentient beings, based on the time-honored concept of change. From galaxies to snowflakes, from stars and planets to life itself, we are beginning to identify an underlying ubiquitous pattern penetrating the fabric of all the natural sciences--a sweepingly encompassing view of the order and structure of every known class of object in our richly endowed universe. This is the subject of Eric Chaisson's new book. In Cosmic Evolution Chaisson addresses some of the most basic issues we can contemplate: the origin of matter and the origin of life, and the ways matter, life, and radiation interact and change with time. Guided by notions of beauty and symmetry, by the search for simplicity and elegance, by the ambition to explain the widest range of phenomena with the fewest possible principles, Chaisson designs for us an expansive yet intricate model depicting the origin and evolution of all material structures. He shows us that neither new science nor appeals to nonscience are needed to understand the impressive hierarchy of the cosmic evolutionary story, from quark to quasar, from microbe to mind.