Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199912580
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (999 download)

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Book Synopsis Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry by : Jeffrey Kovac

Download or read book Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry written by Jeffrey Kovac and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann's contributions to chemistry are well known. Less well known, however, is that over a career that spans nearly fifty years, Hoffmann has thought and written extensively about a wide variety of other topics, such as chemistry's relationship to philosophy, literature, and the arts, including the nature of chemical reasoning, the role of symbolism and writing in science, and the relationship between art and craft and science. In Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry, Jeffrey Kovac and Michael Weisberg bring together twenty-eight of Hoffmann's most important essays. Gathered here are Hoffmann's most philosophically significant and interesting essays and lectures, many of which are not widely accessible. In essays such as "Why Buy That Theory," "Nearly Circular Reasoning," "How Should Chemists Think," "The Metaphor, Unchained," "Art in Science," and "Molecular Beauty," we find the mature reflections of one of America's leading scientists. Organized under the general headings of Chemical Reasoning and Explanation, Writing and Communicating, Art and Science, Education, and Ethics, these stimulating essays provide invaluable insight into the teaching and practice of science.

Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199755906
Total Pages : 415 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry by : Roald Hoffmann

Download or read book Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry written by Roald Hoffmann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-23 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Roald Hoffmann's contributions to chemistry are well known; this Nobel laureate has published more than 500 articles and two books. As an "applied theoretical chemist," he has made significant contributions to our understanding of chemical bonding and reactivity, and taught two generations of chemists how to use molecular orbitals for real chemistry. Less well known, however, are Hoffmann's important and insightful contributions to the areas of scholarship surrounding chemistry. Over a career that spans nearly fifty years, Roald Hoffmann has thought and written copiously about the broader context of chemistry and its relationship to the arts and poetry. This book contains Hoffmann's essays and is organized around several major themes: chemical reasoning and explanation, writing and communicating in science, ethics, art and science, and chemical education. A few are unpublished lectures that are valuable additions to the volume. The editors have the full cooperation of Roald Hoffmann in this project. Most of the published work will be reprinted verbatim, but a few of the essays will be revised to eliminate redundancy. The unpublished lectures will also be edited since they were originally intended to be delivered orally at specific occasions. The editors will provide an introduction to the book, and some introductory material for each section. In introducing the material, they will highlight the intrinsic importance and interest of the ideas, as well as the places where Hoffmann's thought makes novel contributions to cognate areas"--

Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199921075
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (999 download)

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Book Synopsis Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry by : Jeffrey Kovac

Download or read book Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry written by Jeffrey Kovac and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-16 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann's contributions to chemistry are well known. Less well known, however, is that over a career that spans nearly fifty years, Hoffmann has thought and written extensively about a wide variety of other topics, such as chemistry's relationship to philosophy, literature, and the arts, including the nature of chemical reasoning, the role of symbolism and writing in science, and the relationship between art and craft and science. In Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry, Jeffrey Kovac and Michael Weisberg bring together twenty-eight of Hoffmann's most important essays. Gathered here are Hoffmann's most philosophically significant and interesting essays and lectures, many of which are not widely accessible. In essays such as "Why Buy That Theory," "Nearly Circular Reasoning," "How Should Chemists Think," "The Metaphor, Unchained," "Art in Science," and "Molecular Beauty," we find the mature reflections of one of America's leading scientists. Organized under the general headings of Chemical Reasoning and Explanation, Writing and Communicating, Art and Science, Education, and Ethics, these stimulating essays provide invaluable insight into the teaching and practice of science.

The Same and Not the Same

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Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780231101387
Total Pages : 202 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis The Same and Not the Same by : Roald Hoffmann

Download or read book The Same and Not the Same written by Roald Hoffmann and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study confronts some of the major ethical controversies in chemistry today, taking on such touchy subjects as the use of thalidomide, a tranquillizer once given to pregnant women and later found to cause serious birth defects

The Same and Not the Same

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Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780231101394
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis The Same and Not the Same by : Roald Hoffmann

Download or read book The Same and Not the Same written by Roald Hoffmann and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nobel laureate Roald Hoffman confronts some of the major ethical controversies in chemistry today. Expertly weaving together examples from the worlds of art, literature, and philosophy, Hoffmann illustrates his uniquely accessible dialectic about the creative activity of chemists.

The Philosophy of Chemistry

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Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1443867942
Total Pages : 780 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (438 download)

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Book Synopsis The Philosophy of Chemistry by : Jean-Pierre Llored

Download or read book The Philosophy of Chemistry written by Jean-Pierre Llored and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-09-26 with total page 780 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume connects chemistry and philosophy in order to face questions raised by chemistry in our present world. The idea is first to develop a kind of philosophy of chemistry which is deeply rooted in the exploration of chemical activities. We thus work in close contact with chemists (technicians, engineers, researchers, and teachers). Following this line of reasoning, the first part of the book encourages current chemists to describe their workaday practices while insisting on the importance of attending to methodological, metrological, philosophical, and epistemological questions related to their activities. It deals with sustainable chemistry, chemical metrology, nanochemistry, and biochemistry, among other crucial topics. In doing so, those chemists invite historians and philosophers to provide ideas for future developments. In a nutshell, this part is a call for forthcoming collaborations focused on instruments and methods, that is on ways of doing chemistry. The second part of the book illustrates the multifarious ways to study chemistry and even proposes new approaches to doing so. Each approach is interesting and incomplete but the emergent whole is richer than any of its components. Analytical work needs socio-historical expertise as well as many other approaches in order to keep on investigating chemistry to greater and greater depth. This heterogeneity provides a wide set of methodological perspectives not only about current chemical practices but also about the ways to explore them philosophically. Each approach is a resource to study chemistry and to reflect upon what doing philosophy of science can mean. In the last part of the volume, philosophers and chemists propose new concepts or reshape older ones in order to think about chemistry. The act of conceptualization itself is queried as well as the relationships between concepts and chemical activities. Prefaced by Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Roald Hoffmann, and by the President of the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry, Rom Harré, this volume is a plea for the emergence of a collective cleverness and aims to foster inventiveness.

The Artificial and the Natural

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Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262026201
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis The Artificial and the Natural by : Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent

Download or read book The Artificial and the Natural written by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays - written by specialists of different periods and various disciplines - reveal that the division between nature and art has been continually challenged and reassesed in Western thought. Nature and art, the essays suggest, are mutually constructed, defining and redifining themselves.

Beyond the Finite

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199750564
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis Beyond the Finite by : Roald Hoffmann

Download or read book Beyond the Finite written by Roald Hoffmann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout its long history, and not just as the key aesthetic category for the Romantic Movement, the sublime has created the necessary link between aesthetic and moral judgment, offering the prospect of transcending the limits of measurement, even imagination. The best of science makes genuine claims to the sublime. For in science, as in art, every day brings the entirely new, the extreme, and the unrepresentable. How does one depict negative mass, for example, or the folding of a protein that is contagious? Can one capture emergent phenomena as they emerge? Science is continually faced with describing that which is beyond. This book, through contributions from nine prominent scholars, tackles that challenge. The explorations within Beyond the Finite range from the images taken by the Hubble Telescope to David Bohm's quantum romanticism, from Kant and Burke to a "downward spiraling infinity" of the 21st century sublime, all lucid yet transcendent. Squarely positioned at the interface between science and art, this volume's chapters capture a remarkable variety of perspectives, with neuroscience, chemistry, astronomy, physics, film, painting and music discussed in relation to the sublime experience, topics surely to peak the interest of academics and students studying the sublime in various disciplines.

Higher Superstition

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Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 1421404877
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (214 download)

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Book Synopsis Higher Superstition by : Paul R. Gross

Download or read book Higher Superstition written by Paul R. Gross and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1997-12-03 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The widely acclaimed response to the postmodernists attacks on science, with a new afterword. With the emergence of "cultural studies" and the blurring of once-clear academic boundaries, scholars are turning to subjects far outside their traditional disciplines and areas of expertise. In Higher Superstition scientists Paul Gross and Norman Levitt raise serious questions about the growing criticism of science by humanists and social scientists on the "academic left." This edition of Higher Superstition includes a new afterword by the authors.

Chemistry Education and Contributions from History and Philosophy of Science

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319262483
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (192 download)

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Book Synopsis Chemistry Education and Contributions from History and Philosophy of Science by : Mansoor Niaz

Download or read book Chemistry Education and Contributions from History and Philosophy of Science written by Mansoor Niaz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-23 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the relationship between the content of chemistry education and the history and philosophy of science (HPS) framework that underlies such education. It discusses the need to present an image that reflects how chemistry developed and progresses. It proposes that chemistry should be taught the way it is practiced by chemists: as a human enterprise, at the interface of scientific practice and HPS. Finally, it sets out to convince teachers to go beyond the traditional classroom practice and explore new teaching strategies. The importance of HPS has been recognized for the science curriculum since the middle of the 20th century. The need for teaching chemistry within a historical context is not difficult to understand as HPS is not far below the surface in any science classroom. A review of the literature shows that the traditional chemistry classroom, curricula, and textbooks while dealing with concepts such as law, theory, model, explanation, hypothesis, observation, evidence and idealization, generally ignore elements of the history and philosophy of science. This book proposes that the conceptual understanding of chemistry requires knowledge and understanding of the history and philosophy of science. “Professor Niaz’s book is most welcome, coming at a time when there is an urgently felt need to upgrade the teaching of science. The book is a huge aid for adding to the usual way - presenting science as a series of mere facts - also the necessary mandate: to show how science is done, and how science, through its history and philosophy, is part of the cultural development of humanity.” Gerald Holton, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics & Professor of History of Science, Harvard University “In this stimulating and sophisticated blend of history of chemistry, philosophy of science, and science pedagogy, Professor Mansoor Niaz has succeeded in offering a promising new approach to the teaching of fundamental ideas in chemistry. Historians and philosophers of chemistry --- and above all, chemistry teachers --- will find this book full of valuable and highly usable new ideas” Alan Rocke, Case Western Reserve University “This book artfully connects chemistry and chemistry education to the human context in which chemical science is practiced and the historical and philosophical background that illuminates that practice. Mansoor Niaz deftly weaves together historical episodes in the quest for scientific knowledge with the psychology of learning and philosophical reflections on the nature of scientific knowledge and method. The result is a compelling case for historically and philosophically informed science education. Highly recommended!” Harvey Siegel, University of Miami “Books that analyze the philosophy and history of science in Chemistry are quite rare. ‘Chemistry Education and Contributions from History and Philosophy of Science’ by Mansoor Niaz is one of the rare books on the history and philosophy of chemistry and their importance in teaching this science. The book goes through all the main concepts of chemistry, and analyzes the historical and philosophical developments as well as their reflections in textbooks. Closest to my heart is Chapter 6, which is devoted to the chemical bond, the glue that holds together all matter in our earth. The chapter emphasizes the revolutionary impact of the concept of the ‘covalent bond’ on the chemical community and the great novelty of the idea that was conceived 11 years before quantum mechanics was able to offer the mechanism of electron pairing and covalent bonding. The author goes then to describe the emergence of two rival theories that explained the nature of the chemical bond in terms of quantum mechanics; these are valence bond (VB) and molecular orbital (MO) theories. He emphasizes the importance of having rival theories and interpretations in science and its advancement. He further argues that this VB-MO rivalry is still alive and together the two conceptual frames serve as the tool kit for thinking and doing chemistry in creative manners. The author surveys chemistry textbooks in the light of the how the books preserve or not the balance between the two theories in describing various chemical phenomena. This Talmudic approach of conceptual tension is a universal characteristic of any branch of evolving wisdom. As such, Mansoor’s book would be of great utility for chemistry teachers to examine how can they become more effective teachers by recognizing the importance of conceptual tension”. Sason Shaik Saeree K. and Louis P. Fiedler Chair in Chemistry Director, The Lise Meitner-Minerva Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, ISRAEL

Old Wine, New Flasks

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780716728993
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (289 download)

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Book Synopsis Old Wine, New Flasks by : Roald Hoffmann

Download or read book Old Wine, New Flasks written by Roald Hoffmann and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Old Wine, New Flasks is a unique and provocative look at how science and religion - too often considered at odds with one another - are actually parallel ways of trying to make sense of the same material world, each a voice intertwining with the other to help shape true human understanding. With great humor and wit, the authors - one a Nobel laureate and the other an Israeli-American writer and student of religion - show how daily experience and seemingly innocuous questions such as "What is this mixture?" "How do I tell right from left?" and "How can one make the bitter sweet?" can lead to deeper philosophical issues concerning religion, art, and science. Old Wine, New Flasks discusses how authority is conferred and contested, what it means to be impure, whether humans have a right to dominate the environment, and the difference between the natural and the unnatural. Exploring these and other topics, the authors reveal how science and Jewish religious tradition, although different in many ways, nevertheless share the conviction that the world is a very real place, that the actions of beings matter, and that there is an underlying order to the universe.

Survival of the Beautiful

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Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1408830566
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis Survival of the Beautiful by : David Rothenberg

Download or read book Survival of the Beautiful written by David Rothenberg and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The peacock's tail makes me sick!' said Charles Darwin. That's because the theory of evolution as adaptation can't explain why nature is so beautiful. It took the concept of sexual selection for Darwin to explain that, a process that has more to do with aesthetic taste than adaptive fitness. Survival of the Beautiful is a revolutionary new examination of the interplay of beauty, art, and culture in evolution. Taking inspiration from Darwin's observation that animals have a natural aesthetic sense, philosopher and musician David Rothenberg probes why animals, humans included, have an innate appreciation for beauty - and why nature is, indeed, beautiful.

The Beauty of Chemistry

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262044412
Total Pages : 391 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis The Beauty of Chemistry by : Philip Ball

Download or read book The Beauty of Chemistry written by Philip Ball and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Images and text capture the astonishing beauty of the chemical processes that create snowflakes, bubbles, flames, and other wonders of nature. Chemistry is not just about microscopic atoms doing inscrutable things; it is the process that makes flowers and galaxies. We rely on it for bread-baking, vegetable-growing, and producing the materials of daily life. In stunning images and illuminating text, this book captures chemistry as it unfolds. Using such techniques as microphotography, time-lapse photography, and infrared thermal imaging, The Beauty of Chemistry shows us how chemistry underpins the formation of snowflakes, the science of champagne, the colors of flowers, and other wonders of nature and technology. We see the marvelous configurations of chemical gardens; the amazing transformations of evaporation, distillation, and precipitation; heat made visible; and more.

Chemical Discovery and the Logicians' Program

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Publisher : Wiley-VCH
ISBN 13 : 9783527307975
Total Pages : 207 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (79 download)

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Book Synopsis Chemical Discovery and the Logicians' Program by : Jerome A. Berson

Download or read book Chemical Discovery and the Logicians' Program written by Jerome A. Berson and published by Wiley-VCH. This book was released on 2003-08-01 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it that turns a new observation into a true scientific discovery? And who may claim the credit? Theoreticians of science, the foremost thinkers of their times among them, have tried to answer these fundamental questions about the nature of scientific progress and discovery. With clear insight and the chemical as well as philosophical wisdom gained from over fifty years as a practising chemist, Jerome Berson puts their theories to the test. The development of chemistry into a "modern" science during the last two centuries provides him with ample cases to illustrate the way scientific progress really happens. Kekul?'s struggle to arrive at a structure for benzene, the paradigm change that was necessary to accept the reality of molecular rearrangements, and other episodes are retold here from the philosopher's as well as from the practitioner's perspective, shedding light on the way scientists think and act. Berson's account of the rather unphilosophical way in which scientific discoveries are made includes the realization that even a false hypothesis, such as Woodward's ideas about the biosynthesis of strychnine, may help rather than hinder scientific progress. Scientists of all ages, as well as many non-scientists, will find this a highly readable and unusual book.

Dazzle Gradually

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Publisher : Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1603581367
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (35 download)

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Book Synopsis Dazzle Gradually by : Lynn Margulis

Download or read book Dazzle Gradually written by Lynn Margulis and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2007-08-15 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the crossroads of philosophy and science, the sometimes-dry topics of evolution and ecology come alive in this new collection of essays--many never before anthologized. Learn how technology may be a sort of second nature, how the systemic human fungus Candida albicans can lead to cravings for carrot cake and beer, how the presence of life may be why there's water on Earth, and many other fascinating facts. The essay "Metametazoa" presents perspectives on biology in a philosophical context, demonstrating how the intellectual librarian, pornographer, and political agitator Georges Bataille was influenced by Russian mineralogist Vladimir Vernadsky and how this led to his notion of the absence of meaning in the face of the sun--which later influenced Jacques Derrida, thereby establishing a causal chain of influence from the hard sciences to topics as abstract as deconstruction and post-modernism. In "Spirochetes Awake" the bizarre connection between syphilis and genius in the life of Friedrich Nietzsche is traced. The astonishing similarities of the Acquired-Immune-Deficiency-Syndrome symptoms with those of chronic spirochete infection, it is argued, contrast sharply with the lack of evidence that "HIV is the cause of AIDS". Throughout these readings we are dazzled by the intimacy and necessity of relationships between us and our other planetmates. In our ignorance as "civilized" people we dismiss, disdain, and deny our kinship with the only productive life forms that sustain this living planet.

The Constants of the Motion

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Publisher : DOS Madres Press
ISBN 13 : 9781953252067
Total Pages : 128 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis The Constants of the Motion by : Roald Hoffmann

Download or read book The Constants of the Motion written by Roald Hoffmann and published by DOS Madres Press. This book was released on 2020-10-25 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poetry. In Roald Hoffmann's latest poetry collection, he casts his inquisitive mind and love for words and syntax on the worlds he encounters. In a winter retreat in inland Provence, he ponders the long-cultivated land around, and its little treasures. Midst that beauty, he cannot stop thinking of the wounds to his family in the Holocaust. Then, an intense interaction with the crafts community in the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina leads to a strong set of poems. A commission to write a poem for the 50th anniversary of the Watson and Crick paper might be rejected; it still yields three good poems, as does the puzzle of a Japanese mountain god who does not work at night, lest he frighten humans. Why? The collection ends in the forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, midst manzanita and redwoods, reaching for consilience. Roald loves words, and the conjunctions of sound and meaning that can be woven from them. From wherever in the world he has been (and that includes a desperate time in his childhood), he brings back a abiding feeling of quiet beauty, of science and nature at peace with each other.

The Elements: A Very Short Introduction

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192840991
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (928 download)

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Book Synopsis The Elements: A Very Short Introduction by : Philip Ball

Download or read book The Elements: A Very Short Introduction written by Philip Ball and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-04-08 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Very Short Introduction traces the history and cultural impact of the elements on humankind, and examines why people have long sought to identify the substances around them. Looking beyond the Periodic Table, the author takes the reader on an engaging and entertaining tour: from the Greek philosophers who propounded a system with four elements - earth, air, fire, and water - to the modern-day scientists who are able to create their own.