Download or read book Kelvin s Baltimore Lectures and Modern Theoretical Physics written by William Thomson Baron Kelvin and published by MIT Press (MA). This book was released on 1987 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1884 Sir William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) delivered a significant series of lectures on physics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. This book presents the twenty lectures in their original form for the first time.
Download or read book Revisiting Discovery and Justification written by Jutta Schickore and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-01-27 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The distinction between the contexts of discovery and justification has had a turbulent career in philosophy of science. This book presents a debate about the nature, development, and significance of the context distinction, about its merits and flaws. It provides readings and analyses of the original textual sources for the context distinction.
Download or read book Zero to Infinity written by Peter Rowlands and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2007 with total page 738 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rowlands offers researchers in quantum, theoretical and high energy physics immediate access to simple but powerful techniques.
Download or read book Cohesion written by J. S. Rowlinson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-06-30 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does matter stick together? Why do gases condense to liquids, and liquids to solids? This book provides a detailed historical account of how some of the leading scientists of the past three centuries have tried to answer these questions.
Download or read book Inference and Representation written by Mauricio Suarez and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Mauricio Suárez develops a conception of representation that delivers a compelling account of modeling practice. He begins by discussing the history and methodology of model building, helpfully charting the emergence of what he calls the modeling attitude, a nineteenth century and fin de siècle development. Throughout the book, prominent cases of models, both historical and contemporary, are used as benchmarks for the accounts of representation considered throughout the book. After arguing against reductive naturalist theories of scientific representation, Suárez sets out his own account: a case for pluralism regarding the means of representation and minimalism regarding its constituents. He shows that scientists employ a plurality of different modeling relations in their representational practice - which also help them to assess the accuracy of their representations - while demonstrating that there is nothing metaphysically deep about the constituent relation that encompasses all these diverse means. The book also probes the broad implications of Suárez's inferential conception outside scientific modeling itself, covering analogies with debates about artistic representation over the past several decades, as well as the consequences for epistemology of adopting an inferential conception of representation. His inferential conception is neutral between realism and instrumentalism, and he illustrates this by looking at, and briefly taking issue with, the epistemology of some of the most widely discussed philosophers in the literature"--
Download or read book Scientific Understanding written by Henk W. de Regt and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2014-08-09 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To most scientists, and to those interested in the sciences, understanding is the ultimate aim of scientific endeavor. In spite of this, understanding, and how it is achieved, has received little attention in recent philosophy of science. Scientific Understanding seeks to reverse this trend by providing original and in-depth accounts of the concept of understanding and its essential role in the scientific process. To this end, the chapters in this volume explore and develop three key topics: understanding and explanation, understanding and models, and understanding in scientific practice. Earlier philosophers, such as Carl Hempel, dismissed understanding as subjective and pragmatic. They believed that the essence of science was to be found in scientific theories and explanations. In Scientific Understanding, the contributors maintain that we must also consider the relation between explanations and the scientists who construct and use them. They focus on understanding as the cognitive state that is a goal of explanation and on the understanding of theories and models as a means to this end. The chapters in this book highlight the multifaceted nature of the process of scientific research. The contributors examine current uses of theory, models, simulations, and experiments to evaluate the degree to which these elements contribute to understanding. Their analyses pay due attention to the roles of intelligibility, tacit knowledge, and feelings of understanding. Furthermore, they investigate how understanding is obtained within diverse scientific disciplines and examine how the acquisition of understanding depends on specific contexts, the objects of study, and the stated aims of research.
Download or read book Ways of Thinking Ways of Seeing written by Chris Bissell and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-02-03 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fascinating book examines some of the characteristics of technological/engineering models that are likely to be unfamiliar to those who are interested primarily in the history and philosophy of science and mathematics, and which differentiate technological models from scientific and mathematical ones. Themes that are highlighted include: • the role of language: the models developed for engineering design have resulted in new ways of talking about technological systems • communities of practice: related to the previous point, particular engineering communities have particular ways of sharing and developing knowledge • graphical (re)presentation: engineers have developed many ways of reducing quite complex mathematical models to more simple representations • reification: highly abstract mathematical models are turned into ‘objects’ that can be manipulated almost like components of a physical system • machines: not only the currently ubiquitous digital computer, but also older analogue devices – slide rules, physical models, wind tunnels and other small-scale simulators, as well as mechanical, electrical and electronic analogue computers • mathematics and modelling as a bridging tool between disciplines This book studies primarily modelling in technological practice. It is worth noting that models of the type considered in the book are not always highly valued in formal engineering education at university level, which often takes an “applied science” approach close to that of the natural sciences (something that can result in disaffection on the part of students). Yet in an informal context, such as laboratories, industrial placements, and so on, a very different situation obtains. A number of chapters considers such epistemological aspects, as well as the status of different types of models within the engineering education community. The book will be of interest to practising engineers and technologists; sociologists of science and technology; and historians and philosophers of science and mathematics. It will also be written in a way that will be accessible to non-specialists.
Download or read book Of Two Minds written by James Blachowicz and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The logic of correction developed here directly opposes the claim made by evolutionary epistemologists such as Popper and Campbell that there is no such thing as a "logical method for having new ideas." The author argues that beyond scientific discovery, the same logic can be found in the more intimate form of inquiry we conduct as we attempt to articulate meanings for ourselves.
Download or read book Danish Yearbook of Philosophy written by and published by Museum Tusculanum Press. This book was released on 1975 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Understanding Scientific Understanding written by Henk W. de Regt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-24 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is widely acknowledged that a central aim of science is to achieve understanding of the world around us, and that possessing such understanding is highly important in our present-day society. But what does it mean to achieve this understanding? What precisely is scientific understanding? These are philosophical questions that have not yet received satisfactory answers. While there has been an ongoing debate about the nature of scientific explanation since Carl Hempel advanced his covering-law model in 1948, the related notion of understanding has been largely neglected, because most philosophers regarded understanding as merely a subjective by-product of objective explanations. By contrast, this book puts scientific understanding center stage. It is primarily a philosophical study, but also contains detailed historical case studies of scientific practice. In contrast to most existing studies in this area, it takes into account scientists' views and analyzes their role in scientific debate and development. The aim of Understanding Scientific Understanding is to develop and defend a philosophical theory of scientific understanding that can describe and explain the historical variation of criteria for understanding actually employed by scientists. The theory does justice to the insights of such famous physicists as Werner Heisenberg and Richard Feynman, while bringing much-needed conceptual rigor to their intuitions. The scope of the proposed account of understanding is the natural sciences: while the detailed case studies derive from physics, examples from other sciences are presented to illustrate its wider validity.
Download or read book Foundations of Complex system Theories written by Sunny Y. Auyang and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzes approaches to the study of complexity in the physical, biological, and social sciences.
Download or read book Quantum Reality Relativistic Causality and Closing the Epistemic Circle written by Wayne C. Myrvold and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-01-29 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In July 2006, a major international conference was held at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Canada, to celebrate the career and work of a remarkable man of letters. Abner Shimony, who is well known for his pioneering contributions to foundations of quantum mechanics, is a physicist as well as a philosopher, and is highly respected among the intellectuals of both communities. In line with Shimony’s conviction that philosophical investigation is not to be divorced from theoretical and empirical work in the sciences, the conference brought together leading theoretical physicists, experimentalists, as well as philosophers. This book collects twenty-three original essays stemming from the conference, on topics including history and methodology of science, Bell's theorem, probability theory, the uncertainty principle, stochastic modifications of quantum mechanics, and relativity theory. It ends with a transcript of a fascinating discussion between Lee Smolin and Shimony, ranging over the entire spectrum of Shimony's wide-ranging contributions to philosophy, science, and philosophy of science.
Download or read book Technology for Modelling written by Charles Care and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-06-25 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians have different views on the core identity of analogue computing. Some portray the technology solely as a precursor to digital computing, whereas others stress that analogue applications existed well after 1940. Even within contemporary sources, there is a spectrum of understanding around what constitutes analogue computing. To understand the relationship between analogue and digital computing, and what this means for users today, the history must consider how the technology is used. Technology for Modelling investigates the technologies, the concepts, and the applications of analogue computing. The text asserts that analogue computing must be thought of as not just a computing technology, but also as a modelling technology, demonstrating how the history of analogue computing can be understood in terms of the parallel themes of calculation and modelling. The book also includes a number of detailed case studies of the technology's use and application. Topics and features: discusses the meaning of analogue computing and its significance in history, and describes the main differences between analogue and digital computing; provides a chronology of analogue computing, based upon the two major strands of calculation and modeling; examines the wider relationship between computing and modelling, and discusses how the theme of modelling fits within the history of analogue computing; describes how the history of analogue computing evolved through a number of stages of use; presents illustrative case studies on analogue modelling in academic research, oil reservoir modelling, aeronautical design, and meteorology. General readers and researchers in the field of history of computing – as well as history of science more generally – will find this book a fascinating insight into the historical use and evolution of technology. The volume provides a long-needed historical framework and context for these core computing technologies. Dr. Charles Care is a senior software engineer at BT and an Associate Fellow at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Warwick, UK.
Download or read book Revisiting the Foundations of Relativistic Physics written by Ashtekar and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-06-28 with total page 653 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2) the globalization of capital has far outstripped the ability of current labor movements, organized at best on a national level, to conduct an effective defense of the interests of labor within capitalism, let alone to seriously challenge the cap italist system. To develop some form-or forms--of international organization of labor, long an ideological challenge ("Workers of the World Unite") has now become an urgent matter of survival for the labor movements of the world. Here is a challenge, on which I think broad agreement is possible: Even those who think capitalism is capable of indefinite survival must agree that it has functioned best in the past-for example, during the long period of post-World War II expansion when the power of capital has been effectively limited by the countervailing power of labor. Effective exercise of that power has always depended on overcoming the seg mentation of labor due to such factors as locality, race, gender, occupation, etc. , which stilIremain important. Above, I have singled out the two factors that today seem key to me: the split between mental and manual labor, and segmentation by nationality. Let all concerned about the current state of capitalism work to build up the countervailing power of labor, and let time show whether this results in nothing more than the better functioning of capitalism, or whether a new challenge to the system ultimately emerges.
Download or read book James Joseph Sylvester written by James Joseph Sylvester and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-10 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together for the first time 140 letters from Sylvester's correspondence in an attempt to separate the fact from the many myths surrounding his life and work --
Download or read book Emergence written by Mark A. Bedau and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008-03-21 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary classics on the the major approaches to emergence found in contemporary philosophy and science, with chapters by such prominent scholars as John Searle, Stephen Weinberg, William Wimsatt, Thomas Schelling, Jaegwon Kim, Daniel Dennett, Herbert Simon, Stephen Wolfram, Jerry Fodor, Philip Anderson, David Chalmers, and others. Emergence, largely ignored just thirty years ago, has become one of the liveliest areas of research in both philosophy and science. Fueled by advances in complexity theory, artificial life, physics, psychology, sociology, and biology and by the parallel development of new conceptual tools in philosophy, the idea of emergence offers a way to understand a wide variety of complex phenomena in ways that are intriguingly different from more traditional approaches. This reader collects for the first time in one easily accessible place classic writings on emergence from contemporary philosophy and science. The chapters, by such prominent scholars as John Searle, Stephen Weinberg, William Wimsatt, Thomas Schelling, Jaegwon Kim, Robert Laughlin, Daniel Dennett, Herbert Simon, Stephen Wolfram, Jerry Fodor, Philip Anderson, and David Chalmers, cover the major approaches to emergence. Each of the three sections ("Philosophical Perspectives," "Scientific Perspectives," and "Background and Polemics") begins with an introduction putting the chapters into context and posing key questions for further exploration. A bibliography lists more specialized material, and an associated website (http://mitpress.mit.edu/emergence) links to downloadable software and to other sites and publications about emergence. Contributors P. W. Anderson, Andrew Assad, Nils A. Baas, Mark A. Bedau, Mathieu S. Capcarrère, David Chalmers, James P. Crutchfield, Daniel C. Dennett, J. Doyne Farmer, Jerry Fodor, Carl Hempel, Paul Humphreys, Jaegwon Kim, Robert B. Laughlin, Bernd Mayer, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ernest Nagel, Martin Nillson, Paul Oppenheim, Norman H. Packard, David Pines, Steen Rasmussen, Edmund M. A. Ronald, Thomas Schelling, John Searle, Robert S. Shaw, Herbert Simon, Moshe Sipper, Stephen Weinberg, William Wimsatt, and Stephen Wolfram
Download or read book High Performance Liquid Chromatography in Phytochemical Analysis written by Monika Waksmundzka-Hajnos and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2010-11-08 with total page 998 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The powerful, efficient technique of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is essential to the standardization of plant-based drugs, identification of plant material, and creation of new herbal medicines. Filling the void in this critical area, High Performance Liquid Chromatography in Phytochemical Analysis is the first book to give a comp
