Mission Invisible
A Novel About the Science of Light
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Mission Invisible
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Narrated by:
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Ralph Lister
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By:
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Ulf Leonhardt
About this listen
Invisibility has fascinated people since time immemorial, but only a decade ago did invisibility become a serious subject of scientific investigation. This lively novel, authored by an expert in the field, takes the listener on a journey to fascinating places and - en passant - on an intellectual adventure involving some of the most fascinating subjects of optics.
While enjoying the fun and action of a travel story, the listener will gain an accurate notion of the real science of invisibility, of the light and shade of the business of science, as well as glimpses into different cultures. From the beginning, you will gradually become immersed in a different world, the world of the science of light. The book includes an appendix providing interested listeners with deeper insights into the fundamental physics of space-time, gravity, and light.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,442
A scientific experiment begins, and as the button is pressed, the unexpected occurs: everyone in the world goes to sleep for a few moments while everyone's consciousness is catapulted more than twenty years into the future. At the end of those moments, when the world reawakens, all human life is transformed by foreknowledge.
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5 out of 5 stars
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How would you digest the fruits of knowledge??
- By Phelix_da_Kat on 07-23-08
By: Robert J. Sawyer
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Monday Starts on Saturday
- By: Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky, Andrew Bromfield - translator, and others
- Narrated by: Ramiz Monsef
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 187
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 162
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Story4 out of 5 stars 162
Sasha, a young computer programmer from Leningrad, is driving north to meet some friends for a nature vacation. He picks up a couple of hitchhikers who persuade him to take a job at the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy. The adventures Sasha has in the largely dysfunctional institute involve all sorts of magical beings - a wish-granting fish, a tree mermaid, a cat who can remember only the beginnings of stories, a dream-interpreting sofa, and many more.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Maybe I should have read this one.
- By M. Gage on 08-08-18
By: Arkady Strugatsky, and others
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Childhood's End
- By: Arthur C. Clarke
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer, Robert J. Sawyer - introduction
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 9,763
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8,144
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 8,196
The Overlords appeared suddenly over every city - intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior to humankind. Benevolent, they made few demands: unify earth, eliminate poverty, and end war. With little rebellion, humankind agreed, and a golden age began.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Food for Thought
- By Kindle Customer on 11-17-08
By: Arthur C. Clarke
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Sanshiro
- Penguin Classics
- By: Natsume Soseki, Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin
- Narrated by: Andrew Koji
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
One of Soseki's most beloved works of fiction, the novel depicts the 23-year-old Sanshiro leaving the sleepy countryside for the first time in his life to experience the constantly moving 'real world' of Tokyo, its women and university. In the subtle tension between our appreciation of Soseki's lively humour and our awareness of Sanshiro's doomed innocence, the novel comes to life. Sanshiro is also penetrating social and cultural commentary.
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3 out of 5 stars
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This story had no point.
- By icelandicponies on 12-30-21
By: Natsume Soseki, and others
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Dr. No
- A Novel
- By: Percival Everett
- Narrated by: Amir Abdullah
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 128
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 113
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Story4 out of 5 stars 113
The protagonist of Percival Everett's puckish new novel is a brilliant professor of mathematics who goes by Wala Kitu. (Wala, he explains, means "nothing" in Tagalog, and Kitu is Swahili for "nothing.") He is an expert on nothing. That is to say, he is an expert, and his area of study is nothing, and he does nothing about it.
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4 out of 5 stars
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(Ian Fleming + Vonnegut) +/- J-P Sartre = 0
- By Darwin8u on 10-30-24
By: Percival Everett
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His Master's Voice
- By: Stanislaw Lem
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 181
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 148
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Story4 out of 5 stars 148
A witty and inventive satire of "men of science" and their thinking, as a team of scientists races to decode a mysterious message from space. "I had the feeling that I was standing at the cradle of a new mythology. A last will and testament...we as the posthumous heirs of Them...."
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excelent and entertaining
- By Jakub on 01-10-12
By: Stanislaw Lem
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The Last Stargazers
- The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers
- By: Emily Levesque
- Narrated by: Janet Metzger
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
Humans from the earliest civilizations were spellbound by the night sky - craning their necks each night, they used the stars to orient themselves in the large, strange world around them. Stargazing is a pursuit that continues to fascinate us: from Copernicus to Carl Sagan, astronomers throughout history have spent their lives trying to answer the biggest questions in the universe. Now, award-winning astronomer Emily Levesque shares the stories of modern-day stargazers.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Searching for Stuff in the Darkness
- By Warpedland on 10-11-22
By: Emily Levesque
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Expanded Universe, Vol. 2
- By: Robert A. Heinlein
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 109
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
Robert A. Heinlein has been hailed as one of the most forward-thinking science fiction writers of all time, and Expanded Universe (presented in two volumes) offers the perfect collection of his works to provide listeners with true insights into his uniquely creative mind.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I Nostradamus type warning for today
- By mort on 06-26-18
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The Coordinate
- The Coordinate, Book 1
- By: Marc Jacobs
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 581
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 543
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 541
Logan West and Emma James grew up together but are now high school seniors going in totally opposite directions after graduation. When they are assigned to work together on one last history project, they hardly expect the monotony of high school life to change. Instead, as they decode a series of unexplained clues hidden within their history project itself, Logan and Emma manage to unfold an ancient mystery that has baffled scientists and archaeologists, one with powerful implications for the present day.
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2 out of 5 stars
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a little disappointing
- By Mark D on 06-24-20
By: Marc Jacobs
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The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
- The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
- By: Richard P. Feynman
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,819
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,566
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,558
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a magnificent treasury of the best short works of Richard P. Feynman, from interviews and speeches to lectures and printed articles. A sweeping, wide-ranging collection, it presents an intimate and fascinating view of a life in science - a life like no other. From his ruminations on science in our culture to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, this book will delight anyone interested in the world of ideas.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting, but material is covered in better book.
- By Erlend on 04-06-16
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Known and Strange Things
- Essays
- By: Teju Cole
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
With this collection of more than 50 pieces on politics, photography, travel, history, and literature, Teju Cole solidifies his place as one of today's most powerful and original voices. Minute after minute, deploying prose dense with beauty and ideas, he finds fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people, and historical moments, taking in subjects from Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare, and W. G. Sebald to Instagram, Barack Obama, and Boko Haram.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Book that Teaches and Shares
- By Carolyn J. on 10-08-17
By: Teju Cole
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The Art of Travel
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 177
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 155
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Story4 out of 5 stars 155
Aside from love, few actvities seem to promise us as much happiness as going traveling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs, and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel, few people seem to talk about why we should go and how we can become more fulfilled by doing so.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Dull, suggestions for better alternatives
- By J. Natael on 08-07-13
By: Alain de Botton
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The Clockwork Universe
- Isaac Newton, The Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World
- By: Edward Dolnick
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,891
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,312
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,324
The Clockwork Universe is the story of a band of men who lived in a world of dirt and disease but pictured a universe that ran like a perfect machine. A meld of history and science, this book is a group portrait of some of the greatest minds who ever lived as they wrestled with natures most sweeping mysteries. The answers they uncovered still hold the key to how we understand the world.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Calculus Ergo Modernity
- By Nelson Alexander on 07-09-11
By: Edward Dolnick
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Biocentrism
- How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to the True Nature of the Universe
- By: Robert Lanza, Bob Berman
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,058
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 850
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 838
The whole of Western natural philosophy is undergoing a sea change, forced upon us by the experimental findings of quantum theory. At the same time, these findings have increased our doubt and uncertainty about traditional physical explanations of the universe's genesis and structure. Biocentrism completes this shift in worldview, turning the planet upside down again with the revolutionary view that life creates the universe instead of the other way around.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Copenhagen Interpretation Resurrected
- By S. Kozlowski on 12-14-09
By: Robert Lanza, and others