Overview

From the speed of light to moving mountains -- and everything in between -- Zoom explores how the universe and its objects move. If you sit as still as you can in a quiet room, you might be able to convince yourself that nothing is moving. But air currents are still wafting around you. Blood rushes through your veins. The atoms in your chair jiggle furiously. In fact, the planet you are sitting on is whizzing through space thirty-five times faster than the speed of sound. Natural motion dominates our lives and the intricate mechanics of the world around us. In Zoom, Bob Berman explores how motion shapes every aspect of the universe, literally from the ground up. With an entertaining style and a gift for distilling the wondrous, Berman spans astronomy, geology, biology, meteorology, and the history of science, uncovering how clouds stay aloft, how the Earth's rotation curves a home run's flight, and why a mosquito's familiar whine resembles a telephone's dial tone. For readers who love to get smarter without realizing it, Zoom bursts with science writing at its best.

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Reviews

This light-hearted expedition combines impeccably sound science with a caustic sense of humor...both enlightening and entertaining.... A thoroughly enjoyable and educational journey. Frank L. Cloutier, The Post and Courier

""A cheerful collection.... A vast amount of stimulating material in breezy, accessible prose that even precocious adolescents can understand.""--Publishers Weekly ""An absorbing account of how motion is everywhere around us.""--Ben Beasley-Murray, The Daily Mail ""An engagingly quirky popular treatment of the ongoing debate about the nature of space and time in the universe and our place as both observers and participants.""--Kirkus Reviews ""Berman has a knack for clearly explaining potentially difficult scientific concepts in layman-friendly terms and applying these concepts to natural phenomena with engaging anecdotes.... Zoom is an entertaining journey through a variety of scientific fields, accessible even to readers with light science knowledge.""--Tobias Mutter, Shelf Awareness ""Berman interweaves a formidable number of facts through the book that light up every page.... An entertaining read....""--Michael Banks, BBC Focus ""Entertainingly kinetic.... [Berman] transmits science geekery in vivid prose stuffed with unexpected insights and arresting observations.... Absorbing.""--Michael Benson, New York Times ""If ever there were a physics book to read at the beach, this is it.... Berman is an engaging writer, and Zoom is an entertaining read.""--Sheilla Jones, Winnipeg Free Press ""One of the best-known and most widely-read astronomers in the world, Bob can translate complex scientific concepts into terms that are easily understood by the casual stargazer, yet meaningful to the most advanced researchers.""--WAMC's Vox Pop ""This light-hearted expedition combines impeccably sound science with a caustic sense of humor...both enlightening and entertaining.... A thoroughly enjoyable and educational journey.""--Frank L. Cloutier, The Post and Courier ""Vastly entertaining.... Zoom is invaluable for everyone who once knew Newton's three laws and would like a refresher, but it is more fun than that.... Bob Berman knows how to make science accessible.""--Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe

Author Information

Bob Berman, one of America's top astronomy writers, is the author of Zapped, Zoom and The Sun's Heartbeat. He contributed the popular ""Night Watchman"" column for Discover for seventeen years and is currently a columnist for Astronomy, a host on Northeast Public Radio, and the science editor of The Old Farmer's Almanac. He lives in Willow, New York.

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