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The Brain

An Illustrated History of Neuroscience (Ponderables)
Series: Ponderables
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( 45 ratings, 11 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
The Brain explores the incredible complexity of the human brain, with its 100 trillion connections, and traces the fascinating journey of neuroscience through history. It highlights the contributions of great minds like Avicenna, Thomas Willis, Charles Darwin, and Paul Broca, who sought to link brain structure with function. The book addresses fundamental questions about how the brain controls the body, processes the world around us, and generates consciousness. Featuring 100 chronological articles, biographies of key neuroscientists, clear diagrams, and a comprehensive functional brain map, it offers an accessible yet authoritative guide to the science of the brain. A unique foldout concertina presents a timeline history and nervous system guide, enriching the reader’s understanding.
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Format: Hardback
$3999
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for students, educators, and general readers intrigued by neuroscience and the workings of the brain.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

Here is the essential guide to the human brain, an authoritative reference book and timeline that examines the three pounds of matter inside our heads that does all our thinking for us. The human brain has 100 billion nerve cells connected by thousands more to every corner of the body.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

The brain's cells are wired together with 100 trillion connections. That makes each and every human brain a contender as the most complex system in the universe, a system that endows us with an intellect that far outstrips that of any other creature.

However, there is one difficult question remaining: Are we intelligent enough to understand our own brains? Follow the journey as history's greatest brains, such as Avicenna, Thomas Willis, Charles Darwin, and Paul Broca, try to figure it out by linking the structure of the brain to its functions.

How does the brain control the body, how does it make sense of our surroundings, and allow us to understand, empathise with, and love other people (and their brains)? And how does it create that most mysterious feature of the universeβ€”consciousness?

The Brain contains 100 chronological articles that tell the story of neuroscience from the dawn of history to the present day. Authoritative text, exciting imagery, and helpful diagrams accompany each of the steps along the way. Biographies of great neuroscientists and a functional map of the brain boost the contents for all readers.

A simple guide to neuroscience draws together current understanding to set out the basics of the field. The Brain also contains a 24-page removable foldout concertina neatly housed at the back of the book. This fold-out concertina includes a 12-page Timeline History of the brain and a 12-page Guide to the nervous system.

Series: Ponderables

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  • Psychology - Ponderables
    Here is the essential guide to psychology, an authoritative reference book and timeline that examines how we learned to understand ourselves. Psychology - Ponderables is a young science. While great thinkers have pondered the nature of thought itself for centuries, the idea of using scientific experiments to examine the way we think, make decisions, and behave was only arrived at...
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  • Ponderables Computer Science
    Here is the updated essential guide to computers, an authoritative reference book and timeline about the most powerful tools ever devised. Computing has been the sharp end of cutting-edge technology for a generation and it now permeates all our lives. But to many, computer science remains something of a mystery. Our story begins long before the silicon chip, when the...
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  • Biology
    Here is the essential guide to Biology, an authoritative reference book and timeline that examines how we have uncovered the secrets of lifeβ€”the most complex process in the Universe. From the workings of molecules to the way entire oceans or continents of lifeforms interact, biology seeks to understand how it is that something can be alive, how it fends off...
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    Here is the updated essential guide to engineering, an authoritative reference book and timeline about how technology has given shape to our civilisation. Engineering predates humanity; Homo habilis was knapping hand axes from fist-sized flints more than a thousand centuries before the dawn of modern humans. Admittedly, the development of technology was slow back then, but we've made up for...
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  • Ponderables Physics
    Here is the updated essential guide to physics, an authoritative reference book and timeline that examines the foundations upon which all scientific knowledge rests. Without physics, everything elseβ€”from astronomy to zoologyβ€”would be meaningless conjecture. Our journey begins with the first attempts to understand reality, Mother Natureβ€”or as the ancient Greeks called it, physis. Follow the journey through history as great...
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  • Ponderables The Elements
    Here is the updated essential guide to the Periodic Table, an authoritative reference book and timeline with at-a-glance information for every element. The Periodic Table, set out by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869, is the result of centuries of accumulated knowledge. It is a powerful yet elegant tool that opens a window onto the very stuff of natureβ€”stars, rocks, life, and...
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  • Ponderables Mathematics
    Here is the updated essential guide to mathematics, an authoritative reference book and timeline that explores the work of history's greatest mathematicians. These include the teasing genius of Pierre de Fermat, who said he knew the answers but rarely gave them up, and the helpful guidance of Fibonacci, whose 13th-century compendium for bookkeepers proved to be a valuable tool for...
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  • Philosophy
    Both art and science attempt answers to the big questionsβ€”what is truth, how to be good, and where did we come from?β€”but philosophy is the interpreter we turn to verify it all. We need it to make sense of the simplest maths and the most esoteric of poetry, and it has even created a science of information itself. We begin...
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  • Ponderables Technology
    Here is the essential guide to the history of technology, an authoritative reference book and timeline that examines how tools have built our civilisation, changed our environment, and could even alter our species. The term technology is frequently associated with modernity and the possibilities of the future. However, we have been using technologies since before the dawn of history. Even...
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  • Physics
    Here is the essential guide to physics, an authoritative reference book and timeline that examines the foundations upon which all scientific knowledge rests. Without physics, everything else - from astronomy to zoology - would be a meaningless conjecture. Our journey begins with the first attempts to understand reality, Mother Nature - or as the ancient Greeks called it, physics. Follow...
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  • The Brain
    The brain's cells are wired together with 100 trillion connections. That makes each and every human brain a contender as the most complex system in the universe, a system that endows us with an intellect that far outstrips that of any other creature. However, there is one difficult question remaining: Are we intelligent enough to understand our own brains? Follow...
    Hardback
    $3999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Ponderables - Mathematics
    Legend has it that the first magic square, where all lines and diagonals add up to the same figure, was revealed more than 2,000 years ago when a river turtle appeared to have ancient Chinese numerals inscribed on sections of its shell. Patterns are everywhere in nature, and counting, measuring, and calculating changes are as old as civilisation itself. Here...
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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

"This book is essential for middle and high school teachers as well as career advisors; it is guaranteed to pique the interest of the most reluctant science student, making neuroscience approachable and exciting for general readers." — Library Journal, Cristine Sharbrough, Chelmsford P.L., MA

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780985323080

Publisher: Shelter Harbor Press

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 03 September 2015

Country: United States

Imprint: Shelter Harbor Press

Illustration: illustrations

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 25.0mm

Width: 235.0mm

Height: 285.0mm

Weight: 1247g

Pages: 168

About the Author

Tom Jackson is a science writer based in the United Kingdom. Tom specializes in recasting science and technology into lively historical narratives. After almost 20 years of writing, Tom has uncovered a wealth of stories that help create new ways to enjoy learning about science. He studied at the University of Bristol and still lives in the city with his wife and three children.

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