Dear Professor Dyson: Twenty Years Of Correspondence Between Freeman Dyson And Undergraduate Students On Science, Technology, Society And Life

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Publisher : World Scientific
ISBN 13 : 9814675873
Total Pages : 435 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (146 download)

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Book Synopsis Dear Professor Dyson: Twenty Years Of Correspondence Between Freeman Dyson And Undergraduate Students On Science, Technology, Society And Life by : Dwight E Neuenschwander

Download or read book Dear Professor Dyson: Twenty Years Of Correspondence Between Freeman Dyson And Undergraduate Students On Science, Technology, Society And Life written by Dwight E Neuenschwander and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freeman Dyson has designed nuclear reactors and bomb-powered spacecraft; he has studied the origins of life and the possibilities for the long-term future; he showed quantum mechanics to be consistent with electrodynamics and started cosmological eschatology; he has won international recognition for his work in science and for his work in reconciling science to religion; he has advised generals and congressional committees. An STS (Science, Technology, Society) curriculum or discussion group that engages topics such as nuclear policies, genetic technologies, environmental sustainability, the role of religion in a scientific society, and a hard look towards the future, would count itself privileged to include Professor Dyson as a class participant and mentor. In this book, STS topics are not discussed as objectified abstractions, but through personal stories.The reader is invited to observe Dyson's influence on a generation of young people as they wrestle with issues of science, technology, society, life in general and our place in the universe. The book is filled with personal anecdotes, student questions and responses, honest doubts and passions.

Dear Professor Dyson

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Publisher : World Scientific
ISBN 13 : 9814675865
Total Pages : 435 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (146 download)

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Book Synopsis Dear Professor Dyson by : Freeman J. Dyson

Download or read book Dear Professor Dyson written by Freeman J. Dyson and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2016 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Freeman Dyson has designed nuclear reactors and bomb-powered spacecraft; he has studied the origins of life and the possibilities for the long-term future; he showed quantum mechanics to be consistent with electrodynamics and started cosmological eschatology; he has won international recognition for his work in science and for his work in reconciling science to religion; he has advised generals and congressional committees. An STS (Science, Technology, Society) curriculum or discussion group that engages topics such as nuclear policies, genetic technologies, environmental sustainability, the role of religion in a scientific society, and a hard look towards the future, would count itself privileged to include Professor Dyson as a class participant and mentor. In this book, STS topics are not discussed as objectified abstractions, but through personal stories. The reader is invited to observe Dyson's influence on a generation of young people as they wrestle with issues of science, technology, society, life in general and our place in the universe. The book is filled with personal anecdotes, student questions and responses, honest doubts and passions"--

"Yours Ever, Freeman": The Wisdom Of Freeman Dyson

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Author :
Publisher : World Scientific
ISBN 13 : 9811271879
Total Pages : 343 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (112 download)

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Book Synopsis "Yours Ever, Freeman": The Wisdom Of Freeman Dyson by : Dwight E Neuenschwander

Download or read book "Yours Ever, Freeman": The Wisdom Of Freeman Dyson written by Dwight E Neuenschwander and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2023-06-05 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freeman Dyson's life experiences made him a wise, kindly grandfather figure to two generations of students enrolled in an undergraduate university course 'Science, Technology, & Society.' Near the end of each semester, the class sent him written questions, on reading Professor Dyson's memoir Disturbing the Universe. The letter exchanges occurred regularly from April 1993 through December 2019.'Yours Ever, Freeman' is devoted to this correspondence between Professor Dyson and the students. His responses went beyond answering questions, as he enlarged the scope of the questions by sharing stories from his experiences. While others have written of Professor Dyson's accomplishments and awards; the class came to know him through his discussions about life, science, and society. Topics ranged from the existential to headlines of the day, from national policies to personal values. Over three thousand students have been blessed to count Freeman Dyson as a mentor and consider him as a friend.'Yours Ever, Freeman' supplements Dear Professor Dyson published earlier. While the 2016 book included in-depth reviews of the STS course contents from which the correspondence emerged, besides including the 2016-2019 correspondence, the present book maintains a tight focus on the correspondence itself, annotated as necessary for context. The book's title comes from the way Professor Dyson signed his letters.

"Well, Doc, You're In"

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Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262371391
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis "Well, Doc, You're In" by : David Kaiser

Download or read book "Well, Doc, You're In" written by David Kaiser and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life and work of Freeman Dyson—renowned scientist, visionary, and iconoclast—and his particular way of thinking about deep questions. Freeman Dyson (1923–2020)—renowned scientist, visionary, and iconoclast—helped invent modern physics. Not bound by disciplinary divisions, he went on to explore foundational topics in mathematics, astrophysics, and the origin of life. General readers were introduced to Dyson’s roving mind and heterodox approach in his 1979 book Disturbing the Universe, a poignant autobiographical reflection on life and science. “Well, Doc, You’re In” (the title quotes Richard Feynman’s remark to Dyson at a physics conference) offers a fresh examination of Dyson’s life and work, exploring his particular way of thinking about deep questions that range from the nature of matter to the ultimate fate of the universe. The chapters—written by leading scientists, historians, and science journalists, including some of Dyson’s colleagues—trace Dyson’s formative years, his budding interests and curiosities, and his wide-ranging work across the natural sciences, technology, and public policy. They describe Dyson’s innovations at the intersection of quantum theory and relativity, his novel nuclear reactor design (and his never-realized idea of a spacecraft powered by nuclear weapons), his years at the Institute for Advanced Study, and his foray into cosmology. In the coda, Dyson’s daughter Esther reflects on growing up in the Dyson household. “Well, Doc, You’re In” assesses Dyson’s successes, blind spots, and influence, assembling a portrait of a scientist’s outsized legacy. Contributors Jeremy Bernstein, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Esther Dyson, George Dyson, Ann Finkbeiner, Amanda Gefter, Ashutosh Jogalekar, David Kaiser, Caleb Scharf, William Thomas

Proceedings Of The Conference In Honour Of The 90th Birthday Of Freeman Dyson

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Publisher : World Scientific
ISBN 13 : 9814590126
Total Pages : 500 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (145 download)

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Book Synopsis Proceedings Of The Conference In Honour Of The 90th Birthday Of Freeman Dyson by : Kok Khoo Phua

Download or read book Proceedings Of The Conference In Honour Of The 90th Birthday Of Freeman Dyson written by Kok Khoo Phua and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professor Freeman Dyson, a great physicist, thinker and futurist, has been very active in scientific, literary and public policy activities throughout his career. As a tribute to him on the occasion of his 90th birthday and to celebrate his lifelong contributions in physics, mathematics, astronomy, nuclear engineering and global warming, a conference covering a wide range of topics was held in Singapore from 26 to 29 August 2013. Distinguished scientists from around the world, including Nobel Laureate Professor David Gross, joined Professor Dyson in the celebration with a festival of lectures.This memorable volume collects an interesting lecture by Professor Dyson, Is a Graviton Detectable?, contributions by speakers at the conference, as well as guest contributions by colleagues who celebrated Dyson's birthday at Rutgers University and Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.About Freeman DysonFreeman John Dyson FRS, born December 15, 1923, is an eminent English-born American physicist, mathematician, and futurist. He is famous for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, mathematics, astronomy and nuclear engineering, as well as a renowned and best-selling author. He has spent most of his life as a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, taking time off to advise the US government and write books for the public. He has won numerous notable awards including the Enrico Fermi Award, Templeton Prize, Wolf Prize, Pomeranchuk Prize, and Henri Poincaré Prize.

Everyday Utopia

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 198219023X
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (821 download)

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Book Synopsis Everyday Utopia by : Kristen R. Ghodsee

Download or read book Everyday Utopia written by Kristen R. Ghodsee and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-05-16 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “fascinating” (The Wall Street Journal), “spirited and inspiring” (Jacobin) tour through the ages in search of the thinkers and communities that have dared to reimagine how we might better live our daily lives. In the 6th century BCE, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras—a man remembered today more for his theorem about right-angled triangles than for his progressive politics—founded a commune in a seaside village in what’s now southern Italy. The men and women there shared their property, lived as equals, and dedicated themselves to the study of mathematics and the mysteries of the universe. Ever since, humans have been dreaming up better ways to organize how we live together, pool our resources, raise our children, and determine who’s part of our families. Some of these experiments burned brightly for only a brief while, but others carry on today: from the Danish cohousing communities that share chores and deepen neighborly bonds, to matriarchal Colombian ecovillages where residents grow their own food; and from Connecticut, where new laws make it easier for extra “alloparents” to help raise children not their own, to China where planned microdistricts ensure everything a busy household might need is nearby. One of those startlingly rare books that upends what you think is possible, Everyday Utopia provides a “powerful reminder that dreaming of better worlds is not just some fantastical project, but also a political one” (Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad). This “must-read” (Thomas Piketty, New York Times bestselling author of A Brief History of Equality) offers a radically hopeful vision for how to build more contented and connected societies, alongside a practical guide to what we all can do in the meantime to live the good life each and every day.

Bouquet Of Dyson, A: And Other Reflections On Science And Scientists

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Publisher : World Scientific
ISBN 13 : 9813231947
Total Pages : 186 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (132 download)

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Book Synopsis Bouquet Of Dyson, A: And Other Reflections On Science And Scientists by : Jeremy Bernstein

Download or read book Bouquet Of Dyson, A: And Other Reflections On Science And Scientists written by Jeremy Bernstein and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Freeman Dyson has had an extraordinary range of interests, serious activity and influence. This is reflected in the choice of topics in these essays … This book is informative, very entertaining and well up to the high standards attained previously by this author!'Contemporary PhysicsMy friendship with Freeman Dyson goes back over a half century. My first contact with him goes back to the late 1950s, when I was at the Institute for Advanced Study, and then evolved when I was a consultant at General Atomics in La Jolla, California. Freeman was then trying to design a space ship — the Orion — which would be propelled by atomic bombs. When I left the Institute, Freeman and I continued our correspondence and I saved his letters. They are written in an almost calligraphically elegant handwriting. It is hard to see how you could make a mistake in a mathematical computation if you wrote that clearly. The letters show his human side and his enormous range of knowledge.There are then two essays involving the physicist Fritz Houtermans who was an extraordinarily colorful character. There is a brief essay on Einstein's collaboration with a fraud. There is even an essay on the Titius-Bode law and the new exo-planets. Because of my enduring interest in nuclear weapons, the reader will find essays devoted to that. There is also a bit of fiction at the end.

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies

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Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393239357
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by : Erik Brynjolfsson

Download or read book The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies written by Erik Brynjolfsson and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-01-20 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The big stories -- The skills of the new machines : technology races ahead -- Moore's law and the second half of the chessboard -- The digitization of just about everything -- Innovation : declining or recombining? -- Artificial and human intelligence in the second machine age -- Computing bounty -- Beyond GDP -- The spread -- The biggest winners : stars and superstars -- Implications of the bounty and the spread -- Learning to race with machines : recommendations for individuals -- Policy recommendations -- Long-term recommendations -- Technology and the future (which is very different from "technology is the future").

Dark Hero of the Information Age

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780465013715
Total Pages : 476 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (137 download)

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Book Synopsis Dark Hero of the Information Age by : Flo Conway

Download or read book Dark Hero of the Information Age written by Flo Conway and published by . This book was released on 2006-08-29 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two award-winning journalists reveal the epic story of one of the 20th century's most brilliant figures--the eccentric mathematical genius Norbert Wiener, who founded the revolutionary science of cybernetics and then spent his life warning the world about its dangerous human consequences. photos.

Dirac

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521380898
Total Pages : 404 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis Dirac by : Helge Kragh

Download or read book Dirac written by Helge Kragh and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1990-03-30 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full length biography of Dirac, one of the most brilliant physicists of the twentieth century.

Disturbing The Universe

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Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 9780465016778
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (167 download)

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Book Synopsis Disturbing The Universe by : Freeman Dyson

Download or read book Disturbing The Universe written by Freeman Dyson and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 1981-04-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The autobiography of one of the world's greatest scientists Spanning the years from World War II, when he was a civilian statistician in the operations research section of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command, through his studies with Hans Bethe at Cornell University, his early friendship with Richard Feynman, and his postgraduate work with J. Robert Oppenheimer, Freeman Dyson has composed an autobiography unlike any other. Dyson evocatively conveys the thrill of a deep engagement with the world-be it as scientist, citizen, student, or parent. Detailing a unique career not limited to his groundbreaking work in physics, Dyson discusses his interest in minimizing loss of life in war, in disarmament, and even in thought experiments on the expansion of our frontiers into the galaxies.

Women Succeeding in the Sciences

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Publisher : Purdue University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781557531216
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (312 download)

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Book Synopsis Women Succeeding in the Sciences by : Jody Bart

Download or read book Women Succeeding in the Sciences written by Jody Bart and published by Purdue University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ample evidence has been provided that women historically have suffered numerous social, political, and institutional barriers to their entrance and success in the sciences. The articles in this anthology refocus the discussion and reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the issues surrounding women in the sciences. While the barriers that women have faced as researchers, subjects of research, students of science, and theorists have been well documented, this anthology breaks new ground. It presents the ways women succeed in the sciences, overcome these historical barriers, and contribute to the social practice of science and the philosophy of science in both theory and practice.

The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0743274628
Total Pages : 367 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (432 download)

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Book Synopsis The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved by : Mario Livio

Download or read book The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved written by Mario Livio and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2005-09-19 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of The Golden Ratio tells the “lively and fascinating” story of two nineteenth-century mathematicians whose work revealed the laws of symmetry (Nature). What do Bach’s compositions, Rubik’s Cube, the way we choose our mates, and the physics of subatomic particles have in common? All are governed by the laws of symmetry, which elegantly unify scientific and artistic principles. Yet the mathematical language of symmetry—known as group theory—did not emerge from the study of symmetry at all, but from an equation that couldn’t be solved. For three centuries, the quintic equation resisted efforts by mathematicians to find a solution. Working independently, two great prodigies ultimately proved that it couldn’t be solved by a simple formula. These geniuses, a Norwegian named Niels Henrik Abel and a romantic Frenchman named Évariste Galois, both died tragically young. Their incredible labor, however, produced the origins of group theory. The first extensive, popular account of the mathematics of symmetry and order, The Equation That Couldn’t Be Solved is told not through abstract formulas but in a dramatic account of the lives and work of some of the greatest mathematicians in history.

The Cybernetics Moment

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Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 1421416719
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (214 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cybernetics Moment by : Ronald R. Kline

Download or read book The Cybernetics Moment written by Ronald R. Kline and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Choice Outstanding Academic Title Cybernetics—the science of communication and control as it applies to machines and to humans—originates from efforts during World War II to build automatic antiaircraft systems. Following the war, this science extended beyond military needs to examine all systems that rely on information and feedback, from the level of the cell to that of society. In The Cybernetics Moment, Ronald R. Kline, a senior historian of technology, examines the intellectual and cultural history of cybernetics and information theory, whose language of “information,” “feedback,” and “control” transformed the idiom of the sciences, hastened the development of information technologies, and laid the conceptual foundation for what we now call the Information Age. Kline argues that, for about twenty years after 1950, the growth of cybernetics and information theory and ever-more-powerful computers produced a utopian information narrative—an enthusiasm for information science that influenced natural scientists, social scientists, engineers, humanists, policymakers, public intellectuals, and journalists, all of whom struggled to come to grips with new relationships between humans and intelligent machines. Kline traces the relationship between the invention of computers and communication systems and the rise, decline, and transformation of cybernetics by analyzing the lives and work of such notables as Norbert Wiener, Claude Shannon, Warren McCulloch, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, and Herbert Simon. Ultimately, he reveals the crucial role played by the cybernetics moment—when cybernetics and information theory were seen as universal sciences—in setting the stage for our current preoccupation with information technologies. "Nowhere in the burgeoning secondary literature on cybernetics in the last two decades is there a concise history of cybernetics, the science of communication and control that helped usher in the current information age in America. Nowhere, that is, until now . . . Readers have in The Cybernetics Moment the first authoritative history of American cybernetics."—Information & Culture "[A]n extremely interesting and stimulating history of the concepts of cybernetics . . . This is a book for everyone to read, relish, and think about."—Choice "As a whole, the book presents a comprehensive in-depth retrospective analysis of the contribution of the American scientific school to the making, formation, and development of cybernetics and information theory. An unquestionable advantage of the book is the skillful use of numerous bibliographic sources by the author that reflect the scientific, engineering, and social significance of the questions being considered, competition of ideas and developments, and also interrelations between scientists."—Cybernetics and System Analysis "Dr. Kline is perhaps uniquely situated to take on so large and complicated [a] topic as cybernetics . . . Readers unfamiliar with Wiener and his work are well advised to start with this well-written and thorough book. Those who are already familiar will still find much that is new and informative in the thorough research and reasoned interpretations."—IEEE History Center "The most comprehensive intellectual history of cybernetics in Cold War America."—Journal of American History "The book will be most valuable as historical background for the large number of disciplines that were involved in the cybernetics moment: computer science, communications engineering, information theory, and the social sciences of sociology and anthropology."—IEEE Technology and Society Magazine "Ronald Kline’s chronicle of cybernetics certainly does what an excellent history of science should do. It takes you there—to the golden age of a new, exciting field. You will almost smell that cigar."—Second-Order Cybernetics "Kline’s The Cybernetics Moment tracks the rise and fall of the cybernetics movement in more detail than any historical account to date."—Los Angeles Review of Books

An Anthropologist on Mars

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Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0345805887
Total Pages : 465 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (458 download)

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Book Synopsis An Anthropologist on Mars by : Oliver Sacks

Download or read book An Anthropologist on Mars written by Oliver Sacks and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-11-14 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat • Fascinating portraits of neurological disorder in which men, women, and one extraordinary child emerge as brilliantly adaptive personalities, whose conditions have not so much debilitated them as ushered them into another reality. Here are seven detailed narratives of neurological patients, including a surgeon consumed by the compulsive tics of Tourette's syndrome unless he is operating; an artist who loses all sense of color in a car accident, but finds a new sensibility and creative power in black and white; and an autistic professor who cannot decipher the simplest social exchange between humans, but has built a career out of her intuitive understanding of animal behavior. Sacks combines the well honed mind of an academician with the verve of a true storyteller.

Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication

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Publisher : CreateSpace
ISBN 13 : 9781501081729
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (817 download)

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Book Synopsis Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication by : National Aeronautics Administration

Download or read book Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication written by National Aeronautics Administration and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-09-06 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addressing a field that has been dominated by astronomers, physicists, engineers, and computer scientists, the contributors to this collection raise questions that may have been overlooked by physical scientists about the ease of establishing meaningful communication with an extraterrestrial intelligence. These scholars are grappling with some of the enormous challenges that will face humanity if an information-rich signal emanating from another world is detected. By drawing on issues at the core of contemporary archaeology and anthropology, we can be much better prepared for contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, should that day ever come.

The ABC’s of Science

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Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030551695
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (35 download)

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Book Synopsis The ABC’s of Science by : Giuseppe Mussardo

Download or read book The ABC’s of Science written by Giuseppe Mussardo and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-11-05 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science, with its inherent tension between the known and the unknown, is an inexhaustible mine of great stories. Collected here are twenty-six among the most enchanting tales, one for each letter of the alphabet: the main characters are scientists of the highest caliber most of whom, however, are unknown to the general public. This book goes from A to Z. The letter A stands for Abel, the great Norwegian mathematician, here involved in an elliptic thriller about a fundamental theorem of mathematics, while the letter Z refers to Absolute Zero, the ultimate and lowest temperature limit, - 273,15 degrees Celsius, a value that is tremendously cooler than the most remote corner of the Universe: the race to reach this final outpost of coldness is not yet complete, but, similarly to the history books of polar explorations at the beginning of the 20th century, its pages record successes, failures, fierce rivalries and tragic desperations. In between the A and the Z, the other letters of the alphabet are similar to the various stages of a very fascinating journey along the paths of science, a journey in the company of a very unique set of characters as eccentric and peculiar as those in Ulysses by James Joyce: the French astronomer who lost everything, even his mind, to chase the transits of Venus; the caustic Austrian scientist who, perfectly at ease with both the laws of psychoanalysis and quantum mechanics, revealed the hidden secrets of dreams and the periodic table of chemical elements; the young Indian astrophysicist who was the first to understand how a star dies, suffering the ferocious opposition of his mentor for this discovery. Or the Hungarian physicist who struggled with his melancholy in the shadows of the desert of Los Alamos; or the French scholar who was forced to hide her femininity behind a false identity so as to publish fundamental theorems on prime numbers. And so on and so forth. Twenty-six stories, which reveal the most authentic atmosphere of science and the lives of some of its main players: each story can be read in quite a short period of time -- basically the time it takes to get on and off the train between two metro stations. Largely independent from one another, these twenty-six stories make the book a harmonious polyphony of several voices: the reader can invent his/her own very personal order for the chapters simply by ordering the sequence of letters differently. For an elementary law of Mathematics, this can give rise to an astronomically large number of possible books -- all the same, but - then again - all different. This book is therefore the ideal companion for an infinite number of real or metaphoric journeys.