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Also by Jennifer Ouellette:

The Calculus Diaries, September 2010
Paperback
The Physics of the Buffyverse, January 2007
Trade Size
Black Bodies and Quantum Cats, December 2005
Trade Size

Black Bodies and Quantum Cats
Jennifer Ouellette

Tales from the Annals of Physics

Penguin
December 2005
320 pages
ISBN: 0143036033
Trade Size
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Non-Fiction

Physics, once known as "natural philosophy," is the most basic science, explaining the world we live in, from the largest scale down to the very, very, very smallest, and our understanding of it has changed over many centuries. In Black Bodies and Quantum Cats, science writer Jennifer Ouellette traces key developments in the field, setting descriptions of the fundamentals of physics in their historical context as well as against a broad cultural backdrop. Newton�s laws are illustrated via the film Addams Family Values, while Back to the Future demonstrates the finer points of special relativity. Poe�s "The Purloined Letter" serves to illuminate the mysterious nature of neutrinos, and Jeanette Winterson�s novel Gut Symmetries provides an elegant metaphorical framework for string theory.

An enchanting and edifying read, Black Bodies and Quantum Cats shows that physics is not an arcane field of study but a profoundly human endeavor�and a fundamental part of our everyday world.

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