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With Beth Powning’s trademark elegance and insight into the hearts and minds of unforgettable women, A Measure of Light brings to life an extraordinary historical figure. Mary Dyer is a seventeenth-century Puritan who flees persecution in England, only to find the colony of Massachusetts Bay as dangerous as the country she left behind. Though she is the wife of a successful merchant and mother to their children, she becomes stigmatized following a birth gone terribly wrong and is reviled as a friend to the infamous heretic Anne Hutchinson. Mary tries to accept New England’s harsh realities, but is out­raged by the cold-hearted Puritan magistrates, with their doctrinaire stranglehold on church and state, their sub­jugation of women, their wars against the natives in the surrounding territories and their vicious treatment of any who challenge their rule. Mary becomes one of America’s first Quakers. As both outcast and privileged citizen, caught between the call­ings of faith and the ambitions of her husband, she comes to the realization that she must follow her convictions in order to bring an end to the brutal repression of the Quakers in Massachusetts, for whom death by hanging is the ultimate punishment. From Mary’s relationship with Anne Hutchinson to her fiery exchanges with the colonial magistrates, A Measure of Light is both a sensitive work of imagi­nation and meticulously true to the historical record. In this exceptional pairing of author and subject, Mary Dyer receives in the hands of Beth Powning— herself a New England–born Quaker—the full-blooded recognition too long denied a woman of her moral stature and significance in shaping American history.
Introducing an incredible and elegant link from the past—a global link as integral to our journey today as it was thousands of years ago! This is a link through an ancient unit of measurement, used at sacred sites to unify within ourselves Heaven and Earth, along with time and space. And it is a symbolic message of meaning and hope that has been left for all of us.
This book tells the story of one of man's greatest intellectual adventures - how it came to be understood that light travels at a finite speed, so that when we look up at the stars we are looking back in time. From the ancient Greeks measuring the distance to the sun, to today's satellite navigation, the book offers a gripping historical journey.
Discusses the origins of standard units of measurement and how they have changed from ancient times to modern day, and describes systems of measurement, including the metric and Imperial systems and the Système International.
In June 1792, amidst the chaos of the French Revolution, two intrepid astronomers set out in opposite directions on an extraordinary journey. Starting in Paris, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre would make his way north to Dunkirk, while Pierre-François-André Méchain voyaged south to Barcelona. Their mission was to measure the world, and their findings would help define the meter as one ten-millionth of the distance between the pole and the equator—a standard that would be used “for all people, for all time.” The Measure of All Things is the astonishing tale of one of history’s greatest scientific adventures. Yet behind the public triumph of the metric system lies a secret error, one that is perpetuated in every subsequent definition of the meter. As acclaimed historian and novelist Ken Alder discovered through his research, there were only two people on the planet who knew the full extent of this error: Delambre and Méchain themselves. By turns a science history, detective tale, and human drama, The Measure of All Things describes a quest that succeeded as it failed—and continues to enlighten and inspire to this day.
A comprehensive reference and history book on what is measured and why. Measurement is one of humankind's oldest and most vital activities. By measuring height, speed, size, temperature, strength and many other factors, humans can compare, improve and progress. In fact, measurement is an essential tool for survival. A Measure of Everything is a wide-ranging and comprehensive guide to what is measured and why. The book begins when the basic measurements were as simple as more, less and enough. As societies evolved, relative measurements were no longer sufficient. Advances in language allowed more precise measurements. Short distances were measured in relation to parts of the human body. For example, the ancient measurement cubit was the length of a pharaoh's arm plus the width of his hand. As society and culture progress and change, so do measurements. The rise of astronomy and the sciences demanded more exact measurements. These measurements are typically named after the discovering scientist, e.g., henry, curie, watt, rutherford, fahrenheit. This book features 28 categories organized into three sections: Earth and Life Sciences: astronomy, distance, time, meteorology, medicine, and five others. Physical Sciences: chemistry, mathematics, physics, speed, weight, temperature, and three others. Technology and Leisure: computers, engineering, finance, food, textiles, and four others. A Measure of Everything is an informative and entertaining book that will appeal to a wide range of readers.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! "A story of love and hope as interweaving characters display: how all moments, big and small, can measure a life. If you want joy, love, romance, and hope—read with us." —Jenna Bush Hager A luminous, spirit-lifting blockbuster that asks: would you choose to find out the length of your life? Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice. It seems like any other day. You wake up, drink a cup of coffee, and head out. But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. The contents of this mysterious box tells you the exact number of years you will live. From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise? As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge? The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another: best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything. Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is an ambitious, invigorating story about family, friendship, hope, and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest.
This text aims to expose students to the science of optics and optical engineering without the complications of advanced physics and mathematical theory.
The birth of science in ancient Greece had a historical impact that is still being felt today. Physicist Demetris Nicolaides examines the epochal shift in thinking that led pre-Socratic philosophers of the sixth and fifth centuries BCE to abandon the prevailing mythologies of the age and, for the first time, to analyze the natural world in terms of impersonal, rationally understood principles. He argues not only that their conceptual breakthroughs anticipated much of later science but that scientists of the twenty-first century are still grappling with the fundamental problems raised twenty-five hundred years ago. Looking at the vast sweep of human history, the author delves into the factors that led to the birth of science: urbanization, the role of religion, and in Greece a progressive intellectual curiosity that was unafraid to question tradition. Why did the first scientific approach to understanding the world take place in Greece? The author makes a convincing case that, aside from factors of geography and politics, the power of the Greek language and a cultural proclivity for critical thinking played a large role. In the Light of Science is a unique approach to the history of science revealing the important links between the ancient past and the present scientific endeavor to understand the universe.
At eighty-two, Florida Scott-Maxwell felt impelled to write about her strong reactions to being old, and to the time in which we live. Until almost the end this document was not intended for anyone to see, but the author finally decided that she wanted her thoughts and feelings to reach others. Mrs. Scott-Maxwell writes: “I was astonished to find how intensely one lives in one’s eighties. The last years seemed a culmination and by concentrating on them one became more truly oneself. Though old, I felt full of potential life. It pulsed in me even as I was conscious of shrinking into a final form which it was my task and stimulus to complete.” The territory of the old is not Scott-Maxwell’s only concern. In taking the measure of the sum of her days as a woman of the twentieth century, she confronts some of the most disturbing conflicts of human nature—the need for differentiation as against equality, the recognition of the evil forces in our nature—and her insights are challenging and illuminating. The vision that emerges from her accumulated experience of life makes this a remarkable document that speaks to all ages.