Download or read book A World Beyond Physics written by Stuart A. Kauffman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did life start? Is the evolution of life describable by any physics-like laws? Stuart Kauffman's latest book offers an explanation-beyond what the laws of physics can explain-of the progression from a complex chemical environment to molecular reproduction, metabolism and to early protocells, and further evolution to what we recognize as life. Among the estimated one hundred billion solar systems in the known universe, evolving life is surely abundant. That evolution is a process of "becoming" in each case. Since Newton, we have turned to physics to assess reality. But physics alone cannot tell us where we came from, how we arrived, and why our world has evolved past the point of unicellular organisms to an extremely complex biosphere. Building on concepts from his work as a complex systems researcher at the Santa Fe Institute, Kauffman focuses in particular on the idea of cells constructing themselves and introduces concepts such as "constraint closure." Living systems are defined by the concept of "organization" which has not been focused on in enough in previous works. Cells are autopoetic systems that build themselves: they literally construct their own constraints on the release of energy into a few degrees of freedom that constitutes the very thermodynamic work by which they build their own self creating constraints. Living cells are "machines" that construct and assemble their own working parts. The emergence of such systems-the origin of life problem-was probably a spontaneous phase transition to self-reproduction in complex enough prebiotic systems. The resulting protocells were capable of Darwin's heritable variation, hence open-ended evolution by natural selection. Evolution propagates this burgeoning organization. Evolving living creatures, by existing, create new niches into which yet further new creatures can emerge. If life is abundant in the universe, this self-constructing, propagating, exploding diversity takes us beyond physics to biospheres everywhere.
Download or read book Lost Causes in and beyond Physics written by R.F. Streater and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-07-16 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book deals with a selection of research topics in theoretical physics that have (almost) been proven to be a dead-end or continue at least to be highly controversial. Nevertheless, small but dedicated research communities continue to work on these issues. In a series of essays this book describes their work and struggle as well as the chances of any breakthrough in these areas. It is written as both an entertainment and serious study.
Download or read book Quantum Reality written by Nick Herbert and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-09-21 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This clearly explained layman's introduction to quantum physics is an accessible excursion into metaphysics and the meaning of reality. Herbert exposes the quantum world and the scientific and philosophical controversy about its interpretation.
Download or read book Nonclassical Physics written by Randy Harris and published by Addison Wesley Publishing Company. This book was released on 1998 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adopting a flexible and contemporary approach, and examining the most relevant and newest topics, this physics text is enhanced by the optional self-contained sections and exercises. It also includes special progress and application sections.
Download or read book Beyond the Dynamical Universe written by Michael Silberstein and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-02 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theoretical physics and foundations of physics have not made much progress in the last few decades. Whether we are talking about unifying general relativity and quantum field theory (quantum gravity), explaining so-called dark energy and dark matter (cosmology), or the interpretation and implications of quantum mechanics and relativity, there is no consensus in sight. In addition, both enterprises are deeply puzzled about various facets of time including above all, time as experienced. The authors argue that, across the board, this impasse is the result of the "dynamical universe paradigm," the idea that reality is fundamentally made up of physical entities that evolve in time from some initial state according to dynamical laws. Thus, in the dynamical universe, the initial conditions plus the dynamical laws explain everything else going exclusively forward in time. In cosmology, for example, the initial conditions reside in the Big Bang and the dynamical law is supplied by general relativity. Accordingly, the present state of the universe is explained exclusively by its past. This book offers a completely new paradigm (called Relational Blockworld), whereby the past, present and future co-determine each other via "adynamical global constraints," such as the least action principle. Accordingly, the future is just as important for explaining the present as is the past. Most of the book is devoted to showing how Relational Blockworld resolves many of the current conundrums of both theoretical physics and foundations of physics, including the mystery of time as experienced and how that experience relates to the block universe.
Download or read book Beyond Weird written by Philip Ball and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-10-14 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” Since Niels Bohr said this many years ago, quantum mechanics has only been getting more shocking. We now realize that it’s not really telling us that “weird” things happen out of sight, on the tiniest level, in the atomic world: rather, everything is quantum. But if quantum mechanics is correct, what seems obvious and right in our everyday world is built on foundations that don’t seem obvious or right at all—or even possible. An exhilarating tour of the contemporary quantum landscape, Beyond Weird is a book about what quantum physics really means—and what it doesn’t. Science writer Philip Ball offers an up-to-date, accessible account of the quest to come to grips with the most fundamental theory of physical reality, and to explain how its counterintuitive principles underpin the world we experience. Over the past decade it has become clear that quantum physics is less a theory about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than a theory about information and knowledge—about what can be known, and how we can know it. Discoveries and experiments over the past few decades have called into question the meanings and limits of space and time, cause and effect, and, ultimately, of knowledge itself. The quantum world Ball shows us isn’t a different world. It is our world, and if anything deserves to be called “weird,” it’s us.
Download or read book Beyond Uncertainty written by David C. Cassidy and published by Bellevue Literary Press. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Exhaustively detailed yet eminently readable, this is an important book."Publishers Weekly, starred review "Cassidy does not so much exculpate Heisenberg as explain him, with a transparency that makes this biography a pleasure to read."Los Angeles Times "Well crafted and readable . . . [Cassidy] provides a nuanced and compelling account of Heisenberg's life."The Harvard Book Review In 1992, David C. Cassidy’s groundbreaking biography of Werner Heisenberg, Uncertainty, was published to resounding acclaim from scholars and critics. Michael Frayn, in the Playbill of the Broadway production of Copenhagen, referred to it as one of his main sources and “the standard work in English.” Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atom Bomb) called it “the definitive biography of a great and tragic physicist,” and the Los Angeles Times praised it as “an important book. Cassidy has sifted the record and brilliantly detailed Heisenberg’s actions.” No book that has appeared since has rivaled Uncertainty, now out of print, for its depth and rich detail of the life, times, and science of this brilliant and controversial figure of twentieth-century physics. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, long-suppressed information has emerged on Heisenberg’s role in the Nazi atomic bomb project. In Beyond Uncertainty, Cassidy interprets this and other previously unknown material within the context of his vast research and tackles the vexing questions of a scientist’s personal responsibility and guilt when serving an abhorrent military regime. David C. Cassidy is the author of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century, Einstein and Our World, and Uncertainty.
Download or read book Complementarity Beyond Physics 1928 1962 written by D. Favrholdt and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2013-10-22 with total page 665 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is divided into five parts. The title of the volume refers primarily to part I, which is by far the largest and comprises papers discussing the fundamental questions of biology and related psychological and philosophical problems. Following the reproduction of papers brought to publication by Bohr, there is a separate Appendix to Part I including some of Bohr's most interesting and substantive unpublished contributions in this area. The papers in Part I span the last thirty years of Bohr's life and display his great interest in biological problems and his unremitting efforts to show that biology cannot be reduced to physics and chemistry. Part II contains articles of a more general cultural interest. Some of these show that Bohr regarded the complementary perspective to be of value also outside the scientific sphere. Part III contains the articles Bohr wrote about the great Danish philosopher Harald Høffding. These short papers are presented in a section on their own because of the continuing discussion in the history of science about Høffding's possible influence on Bohr's work in physics and his whole scientific approach. Part IV comprises articles illuminating the history of 20th century physics. Bohr had great veneration for his predecessors and teachers, and he prepared these articles with great care. Part V contains correspondence relating to the material in Parts I through IV. As in previous volumes an inventory of relevant unpublished manuscripts held at the Niels Bohr Archive constitutes an appendix to the whole volume.
Download or read book Physics the Human Adventure written by Gerald James Holton and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of Some Trigonometric Relations -- Vector Algebra.
Download or read book Physics Fun and Beyond written by Eduardo de Campos Valadares and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2005-08-02 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The best magic is that which involves absolutely no sleight-of-hand, only the unexpected yet natural workings of nature. Physics, Fun, and Beyond is chock full of just this kind of magic–simple yet fascinating experiments, easy to follow and colorful drawings, and fun facts. Simply wonderful!” –Roald Hoffmann, 1981 Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry Pure Fun, Pure Excitement: You’;ve Never Learned Physics Like This Before! Physics is pure excitement: nothing’;s more fun than discovering how the world works and exploring its many possibilities! With Physics, Fun, and Beyond, you’;ll grab the universe in your own two hands as you build more than 110 projects that uncover the physics beneath everyday life! Most of these projects are amazingly easy to build: all you’;ll need are your everyday household tools and cheap (sometimes even free) materials. From wind tunnels to flying saucers, you’;ll learn exactly how to safely build these experiments, why they work, and what they mean. Learn about all this, and more: Step on eggs without breaking them...and understand the principles of material strength Build the “Magic Can” that teaches you about the different kinds of energy Discover why the Earth isn’;t exactly round Learn more about gravity, with the “Astronaut in the Elevator” experiment Use pendulums to visualize radio/TV frequencies and broadcasting Feel pressure by sitting on a bed of nails Build hydraulic robots to discover how you can transmit and amplify forces Construct wings and wind tunnels that show why airplanes fly Learn about optics by making bottles invisible Recreate the sun and sky to realize why the sky is blue Demonstrate the “greenhouse effect” with a homemade solar heater Get water to climb walls–as you understand cohesion and adhesion Build “wireless phones” that capture sound and make acoustics fun Create simple motors that display the basics of electromagnetism Physics, Fun, and Beyond is for kids, teenagers, teachers, parents, homeschoolers...everyone from 10 to 100 with curiosity and a passion for discovery and new challenges! © Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved
Download or read book Covariant Physics written by Moataz Emam and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2021-02-21 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A textbook for 2nd and 3rd year undergraduate students using the fundamental principle of covariance as a basis for studying classical mechanics, electrodynamics, the special theory of relativity, and the general theory of relativity, before moving on to more advanced topics of field theory, differential forms, and modified theories of gravity.
Download or read book Beyond Measure written by J. E. Baggott and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the problems of quantum theory from the perspective of mathematical formalism. -- Back cover.
Download or read book Moonshine beyond the Monster written by Terry Gannon and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-31 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Beyond Physics written by Sir Oliver Lodge and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-14 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1930, Sir Oliver Lodge proposes a connection between physics and philosophy, or as he describes it, a key to unlock the intricate connection between mind and matter. A response to early twentieth century mathematically-led philosophy, Lodge looks at physics from a physical direction rather than from a theoretical model. This title will be of interest to students of philosophy as well physics.
Download or read book Complementarity Beyond Physics written by Arun Bala and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study Arun Bala examines the implications that Niels Bohr’s principle of complementarity holds for fields beyond physics. Bohr, one of the founding figures of modern quantum physics, argued that the principle of complementarity he proposed for understanding atomic processes has parallels in psychology, biology, and social science, as well as in Buddhist and Taoist thought. But Bohr failed to offer any explanation for why complementarity might extend beyond physics, and his claims have been widely rejected by scientists as empty speculation. Scientific scepticism has only been reinforced by the naïve enthusiasm of postmodern relativists and New Age intuitionists, who seize upon Bohr’s ideas to justify anti-realist and mystical positions. Arun Bala offers a detailed defence of Bohr’s claim that complementarity has far-reaching implications for the biological and social sciences, as well as for comparative philosophies of science, by explaining Bohr’s parallels as responses to the omnipresence of grown properties in nature.
Download or read book Physics and Beyond written by Werner Heisenberg and published by HarperCollins Publishers. This book was released on 1971 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A World Beyond Physics written by Stuart A. Kauffman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did life start? Is the evolution of life describable by any physics-like laws? Stuart Kauffman's latest book offers an explanation-beyond what the laws of physics can explain-of the progression from a complex chemical environment to molecular reproduction, metabolism and to early protocells, and further evolution to what we recognize as life. Among the estimated one hundred billion solar systems in the known universe, evolving life is surely abundant. That evolution is a process of "becoming" in each case. Since Newton, we have turned to physics to assess reality. But physics alone cannot tell us where we came from, how we arrived, and why our world has evolved past the point of unicellular organisms to an extremely complex biosphere. Building on concepts from his work as a complex systems researcher at the Santa Fe Institute, Kauffman focuses in particular on the idea of cells constructing themselves and introduces concepts such as "constraint closure." Living systems are defined by the concept of "organization" which has not been focused on in enough in previous works. Cells are autopoetic systems that build themselves: they literally construct their own constraints on the release of energy into a few degrees of freedom that constitutes the very thermodynamic work by which they build their own self creating constraints. Living cells are "machines" that construct and assemble their own working parts. The emergence of such systems-the origin of life problem-was probably a spontaneous phase transition to self-reproduction in complex enough prebiotic systems. The resulting protocells were capable of Darwin's heritable variation, hence open-ended evolution by natural selection. Evolution propagates this burgeoning organization. Evolving living creatures, by existing, create new niches into which yet further new creatures can emerge. If life is abundant in the universe, this self-constructing, propagating, exploding diversity takes us beyond physics to biospheres everywhere.
