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We all have a few books that we especially love and appreciate. We keep coming back to them for comfort and wisdom. But every once in awhile, it’s good to branch out and try adding a few new volumes to your collection. Look no further. We brought you a list of 100 of the most extraordinary books, compiled by the BBC. Get ready, aim, read! A The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison B Bad Girls by Jacqueline Wilson The Beach by Alex Garland Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson The BFG or Big Friendly Giant by Roald Dahl Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks C Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres The Catcher in the Rye by Jerome David Salinger Catch-22 by Joseph Heller Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White D Danny the Champion of the W...

REMEMBER: WATT IS THE UNIT OF POWER By   Dave Gershgorn   Posted  Yesterday at 9:47pm The Asahi Shimbun The LFEX petawatt laser. Researchers at Osaka University  are claiming  to have fired the most powerful laser in the world. The 2-petawatt (two quadrillion watt) pulse lasted just one picosecond (a trillionth of a second). For a rough comparison, in 2013, a 50 kilowatt (50,000 watt) laser  shot down a drone two kilometers away . Osaka's mega-powerful laser is called  LFEX , or Laser for Fast Ignition Experiments, and measures more than 300 feet long. While two petawatts is a formidable amount of power, the idea of a petawatt laser isn’t new. The United States has a few of their own, notably a  one-petawatt laser  at the University of Texas at Austin. Michael Donovan, associate director for the Texas Petawatt, says that it’s important to remember when talking about lasers of this size that, while the power ...