Spectrums: Our Mind-boggling Universe from Infinitesimal to Infinity

From the author of The Joy of Pi and The Flying Book, an engaging new guide to the amazing unseen world around us.

How can we understand the world of the atom or the size of our galaxy? How do we grasp a billionth of a second or a billion years; the freezing point of helium or the heat generated by the blast of an atomic bomb? Spectrums answers these questions and many more by exploring realms we are familiar with in our daily lives, but whose extremes boggle the mind and inspire a sense of wonder. With relish and insight, Blatner re-introduces us to six fundamental spectrums in the world around us: numbers, size, light, sound, heat, and time. Offering fascinating glimpses of hidden realities, full of comparisons, facts, and anecdotes, and illustrated by a wealth of diagrams, photographs, and sidebars, Spectrums illuminates the full range of the bizarre and beautiful world in which we live.

David Blatner is the author of 15 books, translated into 14 languages with over a half-million copies in print, including Spectrums, The Joy of Pi, Real World InDesign, and The Flying Book. As an expert on digital publishing, he has lectured in five continents over the past two decades. He and his wife and two sons live, explore, and write outside Seattle, Washington.