Jeffrey Bennett Books

Building on a long tradition of effective pedagogy and comprehensive coverage, The Cosmic Perspective, Seventh Edition provides a thoroughly engaging and up-to-date introduction to astronomy for non-science majors. The text provides a wealth of features that enhance student skill-building, including new group work exercises that engage students in active learning, helping them retain concepts longer and build communication skills for the future. The Seventh Edition has also been fully updated to include the latest astronomical observations, results from recent space missions, and new theoretical developments that inform our understanding of the early universe. This text is also available in two volumes, which can be purchased separately: * The Cosmic Perspective: The Solar System, Seventh Edition (includes Chapters 1-13, 24) * The Cosmic Perspective: Stars, Galaxies, and Cosmology, Seventh Edition (includes Chapters 1-6, S2-S4, 14-24)

A critical study of diabetes in the popular imaginationOver twenty-nine million people in the United States, more than nine percent of the population, have some form of diabetes. In Managing Diabetes, Jeffrey A. Bennett focuses on how the disease is imagined in public culture. Bennett argues that popular anecdotes, media representation, and communal myths are as meaningful as medical and scientific understandings of the disease.In focusing on the public character of the disease, Bennett looks at health campaigns and promotions as well as the debate over public figures like Sonia Sotomayor and her management of type 1 diabetes. Bennett examines the confusing and contradictory public depictions of diabetes to demonstrate how management of the disease is not only clinical but also cultural. Bennett also has type 1 diabetes and speaks from personal experience about the many misunderstandings and myths that are alive in the popular imagination. Ultimately, Managing Diabetes offers a fresh take on how disease is understood in contemporary society and the ways that stigma, fatalism, and health can intersect to shape diabetes’s public character. This disease has dire health implications, and rates keep rising. Bennett argues that until it is better understood it cannot be better treated.

Astrobiology is explored as a groundbreaking field that merges astronomy, biology, and geology to investigate the potential for extraterrestrial life. Jeffrey Bennett delves into fundamental questions surrounding the nature of life, the criteria for habitability on other celestial bodies, and the prospects of finding life on Mars or beyond. The book examines the implications of discovering microbial or intelligent life elsewhere and what such revelations could mean for humanity's understanding of life on Earth.

Provides information about global warming, discussing the science, the consequences, and the possible solutions.

The media often portrays our climate future as a choice between bleak and bleaker, which may seem justified given the many impacts of global warming that we are already seeing. But it doesn't have to be that way, because if we understand the science behind global warming, then we can also see a pathway to its solution. In this book, astrophysicist/educator Jeffrey Bennett uses a Q&A format to provide a brief and extremely clear overview of the surprisingly simple basic science behind global warming, of the consequences of this warming, and of solutions that can help us alleviate and eventually reverse those consequences. This will help readers understand how we can in principle create a " post-global warming" future, meaning a future in which today's children will someday be able to talk about global warming as a once-serious problem that we found a way to solve.

Tens of millions of people came out to view the 2017 total solar eclipse, the first in the US in nearly four decades. Now we are approaching an even more exciting, back-to-back pair of US eclipses: an annular eclipse on Oct. 14, 2023 and a total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. You won't want to miss them, and there's no better way to prepare than to use the free app "Totality by Big Kid Science" (expected to be downloaded and used by millions) and this new book written by the creator of that app. Totality! features a unique combination of rhyme and science that makes it suitable for a wide range of ages. The rhyme has been pedagogically constructed to serve as a mnemonic device for the underlying science explained with illustration and "Big Kid Box" sidebars. The book concludes with a glossary, suggested activities, and a one-page eclipse science summary -- features that will add particular value for parents and teachers learning along with their students or kids. Note: Printed books come with two pairs of eclipse glasses (placed in an envelope inside the front cover), and instructions on their use, that will allow readers to view the eclipse safely.

Explains the fundamental principles of relativity, describing such aspects of the theory as black holes, curvature of spacetime, and singularity, as well as its practical applications in everyday life.

How can we solve the national debt crisis? Should you or your child take on a student loan? Is it safe to talk on a cell phone while driving? Are there viable energy alternatives to fossil fuels? What could you do with a billion dollars? Could simple policy changes reduce political polarization? These questions may all seem very different, but they share two things in common. First, they are all questions with important implications for either personal success or our success as a nation. Second, they all concern topics that we can fully understand only with the aid of clear quantitative or mathematical thinking. In other words, they are topics for which we need math for life--a kind of math that looks quite different from most of the math that we learn in school, but that is just as (and often more) important. In Math for Life, award-winning author Jeffrey Bennett simply and clearly explains the key ideas of quantitative reasoning and applies them to all the above questions and many more. He also uses these questions to analyze our current education system, identifying both shortfalls in the teaching of mathematics and solutions for our educational future. No matter what your own level of mathematical ability, and no matter whether you approach the book as an educator, student, or interested adult, you are sure to find something new and thought-provoking in Math for Life.

Focusing on the vastness of the universe, this introductory astronomy book highlights recent discoveries and their implications for understanding human achievement and the physical laws governing existence. It connects themes of continuity in matter and dynamic life-sustaining systems, positioning astronomy and physics as essential foundations for a modern worldview. Engaging curiosity, it presents a comprehensive perspective that encourages readers to appreciate the interconnectedness of the cosmos and human experience.

Narrated from the perspective of humanity, this book explores our evolving understanding of the universe, starting from the ancient belief in a flat Earth. It chronicles humanity's journey of discovery regarding our planet's orbit and its cosmic context. Designed for educational, perspective-shifting, and inspirational purposes, it aims to teach children about science while encouraging them to envision their role in improving the world. It is part of a unique initiative where astronauts read it to children from the International Space Station.