A Handbook of Public Speaking for Scientists and Engineers helps scientists and engineers improve their skills at speaking in public in the course of their professional activities. The book shows how best to prepare papers for presentation at a technical conference and how to put cases to committee meetings. Not only does the book deal with specific events, but it also provides the techniques of more effective speaking, whether presenting papers, answering questions, or speaking "off-the-cuff." The book is written in a highly entertaining manner and should put all complacent lecturers on...

Fourteen billion years ago a tiny speck of energy at an incredibly high temperature started to expand. Time and space were born. There was no before and no elsewhere. The Universe came into being. Small particles formed from the energy and eventually combined to produce planets, stars and galaxies. On our planet, Earth, life developed, from the same building blocks, and evolved into ever increasingly complex forms. Eventually a species developed with sufficient intellect to understand the past back to the start of everything, and with sufficient knowledge to affect the future. It is an...