Download or read book An Infinite History written by Emma Rothschild and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative history of deep social and economic changes in France, told through the story of a single extended family across five generations Marie Aymard was an illiterate widow who lived in the provincial town of Angoulême in southwestern France, a place where seemingly nothing ever happened. Yet, in 1764, she made her fleeting mark on the historical record through two documents: a power of attorney in connection with the property of her late husband, a carpenter on the island of Grenada, and a prenuptial contract for her daughter, signed by eighty-three people in Angoulême. Who was Marie Aymard? Who were all these people? And why were they together on a dark afternoon in December 1764? Beginning with these questions, An Infinite History offers a panoramic look at an extended family over five generations. Through ninety-eight connected stories about inquisitive, sociable individuals, ending with Marie Aymard’s great-great granddaughter in 1906, Emma Rothschild unfurls an innovative modern history of social and family networks, emigration, immobility, the French Revolution, and the transformation of nineteenth-century economic life. Rothschild spins a vast narrative resembling a period novel, one that looks at a large, obscure family, of whom almost no private letters survive, whose members traveled to Syria, Mexico, and Tahiti, and whose destinies were profoundly unequal, from a seamstress living in poverty in Paris to her third cousin, the cardinal of Algiers. Rothschild not only draws on discoveries in local archives but also uses new technologies, including the visualization of social networks, large-scale searches, and groundbreaking methods of genealogical research. An Infinite History demonstrates how the ordinary lives of one family over three centuries can constitute a remarkable record of deep social and economic changes.
Download or read book An Infinite History written by Emma Rothschild and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative history of deep social and economic changes in France, told through the story of a single extended family across five generations Marie Aymard was an illiterate widow who lived in the provincial town of Angoulême in southwestern France, a place where seemingly nothing ever happened. Yet, in 1764, she made her fleeting mark on the historical record through two documents: a power of attorney in connection with the property of her late husband, a carpenter on the island of Grenada, and a prenuptial contract for her daughter, signed by eighty-three people in Angoulême. Who was Marie Aymard? Who were all these people? And why were they together on a dark afternoon in December 1764? Beginning with these questions, An Infinite History offers a panoramic look at an extended family over five generations. Through ninety-eight connected stories about inquisitive, sociable individuals, ending with Marie Aymard’s great-great granddaughter in 1906, Emma Rothschild unfurls an innovative modern history of social and family networks, emigration, immobility, the French Revolution, and the transformation of nineteenth-century economic life. Rothschild spins a vast narrative resembling a period novel, one that looks at a large, obscure family, of whom almost no private letters survive, whose members traveled to Syria, Mexico, and Tahiti, and whose destinies were profoundly unequal, from a seamstress living in poverty in Paris to her third cousin, the cardinal of Algiers. Rothschild not only draws on discoveries in local archives but also uses new technologies, including the visualization of social networks, large-scale searches, and groundbreaking methods of genealogical research. An Infinite History demonstrates how the ordinary lives of one family over three centuries can constitute a remarkable record of deep social and economic changes.
Download or read book An Infinite History written by Emma Rothschild and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A history of the deep social and economic changes of France, told through the story of a single extended family, from the mid-eighteenth through the early twentieth century"--
Download or read book Naming Infinity written by Loren Graham and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-31 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1913, Russian imperial marines stormed an Orthodox monastery at Mt. Athos, Greece, to haul off monks engaged in a dangerously heretical practice known as Name Worshipping. Exiled to remote Russian outposts, the monks and their mystical movement went underground. Ultimately, they came across Russian intellectuals who embraced Name Worshipping—and who would achieve one of the biggest mathematical breakthroughs of the twentieth century, going beyond recent French achievements. Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor take us on an exciting mathematical mystery tour as they unravel a bizarre tale of political struggles, psychological crises, sexual complexities, and ethical dilemmas. At the core of this book is the contest between French and Russian mathematicians who sought new answers to one of the oldest puzzles in math: the nature of infinity. The French school chased rationalist solutions. The Russian mathematicians, notably Dmitri Egorov and Nikolai Luzin—who founded the famous Moscow School of Mathematics—were inspired by mystical insights attained during Name Worshipping. Their religious practice appears to have opened to them visions into the infinite—and led to the founding of descriptive set theory. The men and women of the leading French and Russian mathematical schools are central characters in this absorbing tale that could not be told until now. Naming Infinity is a poignant human interest story that raises provocative questions about science and religion, intuition and creativity.
Download or read book The Infinite History of NOW written by Davide Fiscaletti and published by Nova Science Publishers. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The development of theoretical physics can be seen as a continuous improvement of the models of space and time. In particular, the beginning of the 21st century brought a new vision into quantum physics: quantum particles move in space only, time measured with clocks is merely a numerical order of particles' motion. This so called "a-temporal" view of physics offers a radically new understanding of the micro and macro universe. On the basis of the notion of time as numerical order of material change, in this book the authors introduce suggestive unitary and holistic perspectives in the interpretation and explanation of several physical phenomena of contemporary physics. It is shown that the concept of time as a mathematical quantity measuring the numerical order of material changes resolves Zeno problems on motion, hypothetical travel into past, twin paradox of special relativity and allow new perspectives to be opened in the interpretation and explanation of Einstein-Podolski-Rosen experiment and of non-local correlations between subatomic particles. Moreover, a timeless description of the gravitational interaction and the idea of a timeless three-dimensional quantum vacuum as a fundamental bridge between gravity and quantum behaviour of matter are developed. Finally, in the second part of the book, after analysing the fundamental features of some relevant unitary theories of contemporary physics (such as superstring theory and loop quantum gravity) and making some considerations about being versus becoming and atomism versus monism in modelling physical reality at a fundamental level, it is shown that the replacement of the concept of time with the numerical order of material change provides a new suggestive interpretation of the fundamental unitary field theories opening the doors to a real "timeless theory of everything". The use of a simple and fluid language makes the book accessible to a wide reading public.
Download or read book Infinite Powers written by Steven Strogatz and published by Eamon Dolan Books. This book was released on 2019 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From preeminent math personality and author of The Joy of x, a brilliant and endlessly appealing explanation of calculus - how it works and why it makes our lives immeasurably better. Without calculus, we wouldn't have cell phones, TV, GPS, or ultrasound. We wouldn't have unraveled DNA or discovered Neptune or figured out how to put 5,000 songs in your pocket. Though many of us were scared away from this essential, engrossing subject in high school and college, Steven Strogatz's brilliantly creative, down‑to‑earth history shows that calculus is not about complexity; it's about simplicity. It harnesses an unreal number--infinity--to tackle real‑world problems, breaking them down into easier ones and then reassembling the answers into solutions that feel miraculous. Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves (a phenomenon predicted by calculus). Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes "backwards" sometimes; how to make electricity with magnets; how to ensure your rocket doesn't miss the moon; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS. As Strogatz proves, calculus is truly the language of the universe. By unveiling the principles of that language, Infinite Powers makes us marvel at the world anew.
Download or read book The Infinite Conversation written by Maurice Blanchot and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this landmark volume, Blanchot sustains a dialogue with a number of thinkers whose contributions have marked turning points in the history of Western thought and have influenced virtually all the themes that inflect the contemporary literary and philosophical debate today. "Blanchot waits for us still to come, to be read and reread. . . I would say that never as much as today have I pictured him so far ahead of us." Jacques Derrida
Download or read book The Beginning of Infinity written by David Deutsch and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2011-03-31 with total page 571 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Science has never had an advocate quite like David Deutsch ... A computational physicist on a par with his touchstones Alan Turing and Richard Feynman, and a philosopher in the line of his greatest hero, Karl Popper. His arguments are so clear that to read him is to experience the thrill of the highest level of discourse available on this planet and to understand it' Peter Forbes, Independent In our search for truth, how far have we advanced? This uniquely human quest for good explanations has driven amazing improvements in everything from scientific understanding and technology to politics, moral values and human welfare. But will progress end, either in catastrophe or completion - or will it continue infinitely? In this profound and seminal book, David Deutsch explores the furthest reaches of our current understanding, taking in the Infinity Hotel, supernovae and the nature of optimism, to instill in all of us a wonder at what we have achieved - and the fact that this is only the beginning of humanity's infinite possibility. 'This is Deutsch at his most ambitious, seeking to understand the implications of our scientific explanations of the world ... I enthusiastically recommend this rich, wide-ranging and elegantly written exposition of the unique insights of one of our most original intellectuals' Michael Berry, Times Higher Education Supplement 'Bold ... profound ... provocative and persuasive' Economist 'David Deutsch may well go down in history as one of the great scientists of our age' Scotsman
Download or read book Infinite Variety written by Madhavi Menon and published by . This book was released on 2018-05-10 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Elegant, lucid and funny, this book will appeal to as many readers as there are desires.'--Shohini Ghosh 'The history of desire in India, ' writes Madhavi Menon in this splendid book, 'reveals not purity but impurity as a way of life. Not one answer, but many. Not a single history, but multiple tales cutting across laws and boundaries.' In Bhakti poetry, Radha and Krishna disregard marital fidelity, age, time and gender for erotic love. In Sufi dargahs, pirs (spiritual guides) who were married to women are buried alongside their male disciples, as lovers are. Vatsyayana, author of the world's most famous manual of sex, insists that he did not compose it 'for the sake of passion', and remained celibate through the writing of it. Long hair is widely seen as a symbol of sexuality; and yet, shaved off in a temple, it is a sacred offering. Even as the country has a draconian law to punish homosexuality, heterosexual men share the same bed without comment. Hijras are increasingly marginalized; yet gender has historically been understood as fluid rather than fixed. Menon navigates centuries, geographies, personal and public histories, schools of philosophy, literary and cinematic works, as she examines the many--and often surprising--faces of desire in the Indian subcontinent. Her study ranges from the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho to the shrine of the celibate god Ayyappan; from army barracks to public parks; from Empress Nur Jahan's paan to home-made kohl; from cross-dressing mystics to androgynous gods. It shows us the connections between grammar and sex, between hair and war, between abstinence and pleasure, between love and death. Gloriously subversive, full of extraordinary analyses and insights, this is a book you will read to be enlightened and entertained for years.
Download or read book Infinite Loop written by Michael Shawn Malone and published by Broadway Business. This book was released on 1999 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inside story of how one of America's most beloved companies--Apple Computer--took off like a high-tech rocket--only to come crashing to Earth twenty years later. No company in modern times has been as successful at capturing the public's imagination as Apple Computer. From its humble beginnings in a suburban garage, Apple sparked the personal computer revolution, and its products and founders--Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak--quickly became part of the American myth. But something happened to Apple as it stumbled toward a premature middle age. For ten years, it lived off its past glory and its extraordinary products. Then, almost overnight, it collapsed in a two-year free fall. How did Apple lose its way? Why did the world still care so deeply about a company that had lost its leadership position? Michael S. Malone, from the unique vantage point of having grown up with the company's founders, and having covered Apple and Silicon Valley for years, sets out to tell the gripping behind-the-scenes story--a story that is even zanier than the business world thought. In essence, Malone claims, with only a couple of incredible inventions (the Apple II and Macintosh), and backed by an arrogance matched only by its corporate ineptitude, Apple managed to create a multibillion-dollar house of cards. And, like a faulty program repeating itself in an infinite loop, Apple could never learn from its mistakes. The miracle was not that Apple went into free fall, but that it held up for so long. Within the pages of Infinite Loop, we discover a bruising portrait of the megalomaniacal Steve Jobs and an incompetent John Sculley, as well as the kind of political backstabbings, stupidmistakes, and overweening egos more typical of a soap opera than a corporate history. Infinite Loop is almost as wild and unpredictable, as exhilarating and gut-wrenching, as the story of Apple itself.
Download or read book Infinite Country written by Patricia Engel and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK and INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE 2021 NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD, LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL, A 2022 DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST, AND A NATIONAL ENDOWMENT OF THE ARTS “BIG READS” SELECTION “A profound, beautiful novel.” —People * “Poignant.” —BuzzFeed * “A breathtaking story of the unimaginable prices paid for a better life.” —Esquire This “heartbreaking portrait of a family dealing with the realities of migration and separation” (Time) is “a sweeping love story and tragic drama [and] an authentic vision of what the American Dream looks like in a nationalistic country” (Elle). I often wonder if we are living the wrong life in the wrong country. Talia is being held at a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia after committing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been warranted. She urgently needs to get out and get back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she might also miss her chance to finally be reunited with her family. How this family came to occupy two different countries, two different worlds, comes into focus like twists of a kaleidoscope. We see Talia’s parents, Mauro and Elena, fall in love in a market stall as teenagers against a backdrop of civil war and social unrest. We see them leave Bogotá with their firstborn, Karina, in pursuit of safety and opportunity in the United States on a temporary visa, and we see the births of two more children, Nando and Talia, on American soil. We witness the decisions and indecisions that lead to Mauro’s deportation and the family’s splintering—the costs they’ve all been living with ever since. Award-winning, internationally acclaimed author Patricia Engel, herself a dual citizen and the daughter of Colombian immigrants, gives voice to all five family members as they navigate the particulars of their respective circumstances. Rich with Bogotá urban life, steeped in Andean myth, and tense with the daily reality of the undocumented in America, Infinite Country “is as much an all-American story as it is a global one” (Booklist, starred review).
Download or read book Infinite Series in a History of Analysis written by Hans-Heinrich Körle and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-09-25 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Higher mathematics" once pointed towards the involvement of infinity. This we label analysis. The ancient Greeks had helped it to a first high point when they mastered the infinite. The book traces the history of analysis along the risky route of serial procedures through antiquity. It took quite long for this type of mathematics to revive in our region. When and where it did, infinite series proved the driving force. Not until a good two millennia had gone by, would analysis head towards Greek rigor again. To follow all that trial, error and final accomplishment, is more than studying history: It provides touching, worthwhile access to advanced calculus. Moreover, some steps beyond convergence show infinite series to naturally fit a wider frame.
Download or read book Infinite City written by Rebecca Solnit and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2010-11-29 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes a place? Rebecca Solnit reinvents the traditional atlas, searching for layers of meaning & connections of experience across San Francisco.
Download or read book History of the Idea of Progress written by Robert Nisbet and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of progress from the Enlightenment to postmodernism is still very much with us. In intellectual discourse, journals, popular magazines, and radio and talk shows, the debate between those who are "progressivists" and those who are "declinists" is as spirited as it was in the late seventeenth century. In History of the Idea of Progress, Robert Nisbet traces the idea of progress from its origins in Greek, Roman, and medieval civilizations to modern times. It is a masterful frame of reference for understanding the present world. Nisbet asserts there are two fundamental building blocks necessary to Western doctrines of human advancement: the idea of growth, and the idea of necessity. He sees Christianity as a key element in both secular and spiritual evolution, for it conveys all the ingredients of the modern idea of progress: the advancement of the human race in time, a single time frame for all the peoples and epochs of the past and present, the conception of time as linear, and the envisagement of the future as having a Utopian end. In his new introduction, Nisbet shows why the idea of progress remains of critical importance to studies of social evolution and natural history. He provides a contemporary basis for many disciplines, including sociology, economics, philosophy, religion, politics, and science. History of the Idea of Progress continues to be a major resource for scholars in all these areas.
Download or read book To Infinity and Beyond written by Eli Maor and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eli Maor examines the role of infinity in mathematics and geometry and its cultural impact on the arts and sciences. He evokes the profound intellectual impact the infinite has exercised on the human mind, from the "horror infiniti" of the Greeks to the works of M.C. Escher; from the ornamental designs of the Moslems, to the sage Giordano Bruno, whose belief in an infinite universe led to his death at the hands of the Inquisition. But above all, the book describes the mathematician's fascination with infinity, a fascination mingled with puzzlement. "Maor explores the idea of infinity in mathematics and in art and argues that this is the point of contact between the two, best exemplified by the work of the Dutch artist M.C. Escher, six of whose works are shown here in beautiful color plates."--Los Angeles Times "[Eli Maor's] enthusiasm for the topic carries the reader through a rich panorama." Choice "Fascinating and enjoyable.... places the ideas of infinity in a cultural context and shows how they have been espoused and molded by mathematics."-Science.
Download or read book The Infinite written by A.W. Moore and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are all captivated and puzzled by the infinite, in its many varied guises; by the endlessness of space and time; by the thought that between any two points in space, however close, there is always another; by the fact that numbers go on forever; and by the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful God. In this acclaimed introduction to the infinite, A. W. Moore takes us on a journey back to early Greek thought about the infinite, from its inception to Aristotle. He then examines medieval and early modern conceptions of the infinite, including a brief history of the calculus, before turning to Kant and post-Kantian ideas. He also gives an account of Cantor’s remarkable discovery that some infinities are bigger than others. In the second part of the book, Moore develops his own views, drawing on technical advances in the mathematics of the infinite, including the celebrated theorems of Skolem and Gödel, and deriving inspiration from Wittgenstein. He concludes this part with a discussion of death and human finitude. For this third edition Moore has added a new part, ‘Infinity superseded’, which contains two new chapters refining his own ideas through a re-examination of the ideas of Spinoza, Hegel, and Nietzsche. This new part is heavily influenced by the work of Deleuze. Also new for the third edition are: a technical appendix on still unresolved questions about different infinite sizes; an expanded glossary; and updated references and further reading. The Infinite, Third Edition is ideal reading for anyone interested in an engaging and historically informed account of this fascinating topic, whether from a philosophical point of view, a mathematical point of view, or a religious point of view.
Download or read book Infinite Regress written by Nicholas Rescher and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Regression addresses what has come before; it is a matter of looking backward of retrospections? The motionless things of nature are generally forward-looking their problem is that of the question: Where do we go from here? It is primarily with intelligent beings that we ask: How did we get to where we now find ourselves? Regression and infinite regression in particular is thus a concept that has gained a greater prominence in the human sciences than in the sciences of nature. Argumentation to infinite regress has long been a favored instrument of philosophical dialectic. Philosophers have used it to disprove the positions they model to criticize. Infinite regresses, so they reason, are unrealizable: they cannot be completed so as to achieve some definitive result. And thereby anything that would engender an infinite regress is automatically made ineffective. Infinite Regress examines the theory of regression and includes information on the topics of vicious regress, innocuous regress, circularity regress, and propositional regress. Also discussed is the history of regression stemming from ancient times, to medieval times, to early modern history. Some of the other chapters in this book focus on world class philosophers including Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Bertrand Russell. The book will play a significant role in theoretical philosophy as well as in social philosophy and the philosophy of mind.
