Myth Physics

Did NASA really spend millions creating a pen that would write in space? Is chocolate poisonous to dogs? Does stress cause gray hair? These questions are a sample of the urban lore investigated in this audiobook, Fact or Fiction: Science Tackles 58 Popular Myths. Drawing from Scientific American’s “Fact or Fiction” and “Strange But True” columns, we’ve selected 58 of the most surprising, fascinating, useful, and just plain wacky topics confronted by our writers over the years.

Queen Elise never knew about the dark bargain her father made to secure the throne—until his death left the kingdom and her loved ones in peril. Determined to save her husband and her people, Elise embarks on a daring quest. Along the way, she encounters the brilliant wizards Bernoulli and Archimedes, who gift her magical tools rooted in the principles of fluid mechanics to help her outwit an enemy and restore peace to the kingdom.

How do you know what is real? In his new book The Reality Myth: Unlocking the Secrets of Modern Physics & the Power of Intention While Redefining Your Place in the Universe, best-selling author Ishan Rami takes the listener on a mind-bending journey through time and space to answer that question and much more.

Award-winning author and mathematician Joseph Mazur provides an engaging exploration of how the understanding of time has evolved throughout human history and offers a compelling new vision, submitting that time lives within us. Our cells, he notes, have a temporal awareness, guided by environmental cues in sync with patterns of social interaction. Listeners learn that, as a consequence of time's personal nature, a 48-hour journey on the Space Shuttle can feel shorter than a six-hour trip on the Soyuz capsule and that the Amondawa of the Amazon do not have ages.