Download or read book From Micro To Macro Adventures Of A Wandering Physicist written by Vlatko Vedral and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a popular science book exploring the limits of scientific explanation. In particular, it debates if all sciences will ultimately be reducible to physics. The journey starts with physics itself, where there is a gap between the micro (quantum) and the macro (classical) and moves into chemistry, biology and the social sciences. Written by a practising scientist, this volume offers a personal perspective on various topics and incorporates the latest research.
Download or read book Machine Created Culture written by Andrew Reinhard and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2024-07-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archaeology can be weird and fun, especially the digital kind. Readers of archaeology, media studies, and game studies are introduced to the wild-and-wooly side of digital archaeology: artifacts, sites, and landscapes contained within—and supporting—interactive digital built environments. Follow your guide, the reluctant digital archaeologist Charlie, to disappear into the weeds of post-landscapes, non-place cultural spaces, persistent digital spaces, software citizenship, machine-created culture, digital drift, technofossils, quantum archaeology, archaeological time, singularities, complexity and retrocausality, noise, and more. These bite-sized chapters offer new ways of interpreting humanity’s blossoming digitalia, an archaeology done at the source of creation, use, and abandonment of our electronic selves.
Download or read book A Way Through the Global Techno Scientific Culture written by Sheldon Richmond and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Computers are supposed to be smart, yet they frustrate both ordinary users and computer technologists. Why are people frustrated by smart machines? Computers don’t fit people. People think in terms of comparisons, stories, and analogies, and seek feedback, whereas computers are based on a fundamental design that does not fit with analogical and feedback thinking. They impose a binary, an all-or-nothing, approach to everything. Moreover, the social world and institutions that have developed around computer technology hide and reinforce the lack of alignment between computers and people. This book suggests a solution: we do not have to accept the way things are now and work around the bad social and technical design of computers. Rather, it proposes a diverse, distributed, critical discussion of how to design and build both computer technology and its social institutions.
Download or read book The Wonders of Physics written by Lev Grigor?evich Aslamazov and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2004 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book in your hands develops the best traditions of the Russian scientific popular literature. Written in a clear and captivating manner by working theoretical physicists, who are, at the same time, dedicated popularizers of scientific knowledge, it brings to the reader the latest achievements in quantum solid-state physics, but along the way it also shows how the laws of physics reveal themselves even in seemingly trivial episodes concerning the natural phenomena around us. And most importantly, it shows that we live in the world, where scientists are capable of ?proving harmony with algebra?. ? A A Abrikosov, 2003 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics
Download or read book Giant Molecules written by A. I?U. Grosberg and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2011 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ?? Giant molecules are important in our everyday life. But, as pointed out by the authors, they are also associated with a culture. What Bach did with the harpsichord, Kuhn and Flory did with polymers. We owe a lot of thanks to those who now make this music accessible ??Pierre-Gilles de GennesNobel Prize laureate in Physics(Foreword for the 1st Edition, March 1996)This book describes the basic facts, concepts and ideas of polymer physics in simple, yet scientifically accurate, terms. In both scientific and historic contexts, the book shows how the subject of polymers is fascinating, as it is behind most of the wonders of living cell machinery as well as most of the newly developed materials. No mathematics is used in the book beyond modest high school algebra and a bit of freshman calculus, yet very sophisticated concepts are introduced and explained, ranging from scaling and reptations to protein folding and evolution. The new edition includes an extended section on polymer preparation methods, discusses knots formed by molecular filaments, and presents new and updated materials on such contemporary topics as single molecule experiments with DNA or polymer properties of proteins and their roles in biological evolution.
Download or read book Mysterious Commonplace The A Life In Science written by Charles Delisi and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2021-10-28 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed biomedical scientist Charles DeLisi tells the story of the rewards and frustrations of a life in science. The memoir spans half a century beginning in grade school when we find a somewhat shy boy deeply affected by the profoundly saddening sight of trees and woods in his beloved Bronx neighborhood being displaced by tons of steel and concrete. The reader is taken inside the mind of a complex non-conformist as he struggles with personal tragedy and ambivalence and moves from physics to history back to physics, and eventually into a career as a biomedical scientist. Among the most important parts of the memoir are his personal recollections of the years as director of the Department of Energy's Health and Environmental Research Programs when he fought the mighty battles that would move two Federal Agencies and place the Human Genome Project, including a unique ethical component, on the National Agenda. We watch an uncannily successful strategist and leader; who sees himself as an ordinary person, distinguished only by an intense passion for science, as he and his colleagues successfully engage Congressmen, his superiors at the DOE, and scientists of different backgrounds. The story closes where it began, with environmental change dominating the emotional landscape, as he and his colleagues struggle to fight the battle against a changing climate.
Download or read book The Demon in the Machine written by Paul Davies and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2019-01-31 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A gripping new drama in science ... if you want to understand how the concept of life is changing, read this' Professor Andrew Briggs, University of Oxford When Darwin set out to explain the origin of species, he made no attempt to answer the deeper question: what is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question. Life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. And yet, huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. So can life be explained by known physics and chemistry, or do we need something fundamentally new? In this penetrating and wide-ranging new analysis, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name, a domain where computing, chemistry, quantum physics and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity with the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and even to illuminate the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe. From life's murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine is a breath-taking journey across the landscape of physics, biology, logic and computing. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window on the secret of life itself.
Download or read book Decoding Reality written by Vlatko Vedral and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this engaging and mind-stretching book, Vlatko Vedral explores the nature of information and looks at quantum computing, discussing the bizarre effects that arise from the quantum world. He concludes by asking the ultimate question: where did all of the information in the Universe come from?
Download or read book Matvei Petrovich Bronstein and Soviet Theoretical Physics in the Thirties written by Gennady E. Gorelik and published by Birkhäuser. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true history of physics can only be read in the life stories of those who made its progress possible. Matvei Bronstein was one of those for whom the vast territory of theoretical physics was as familiar as his own home: he worked in cosmology, nuclear physics, gravitation, semiconductors, atmospheric physics, quantum electrodynamics, astro physics and the relativistic quantum theory. Everyone who knew him was struck by his wide knowledge, far beyond the limits of his trade. This partly explains why his life was closely intertwined with the social, historical and scientific context of his time. One might doubt that during his short life Bronstein could have made truly weighty contributions to science and have become, in a sense, a symbol ofhis time. Unlike mathematicians and poets, physicists reach the peak oftheir careers after the age of thirty. His thirty years of life, however, proved enough to secure him a place in theGreaterSovietEncyclopedia. In 1967, in describing the first generation of physicists educated after the 1917 revolution, Igor Tamm referred to Bronstein as "an exceptionally brilliant and promising" theoretician [268].
Download or read book Introductory Quantum Physics and Relativity written by Jacob Dunningham and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2018-04-09 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a revised and updated version of Introductory Quantum Physics and Relativity. Based on lectures given as part of the undergraduate degree programme at the University of Leeds, it has been extended in line with recent developments in the field. The book contains all the material required for quantum physics and relativity in the first three years of a traditional physics degree, in addition to more interesting and up-to-date extensions and applications which include quantum field theory, entanglement, and quantum information science. The second edition is unique as an undergraduate textbook as it combines quantum physics and relativity at an introductory level. It expounds the foundations of these two subjects in detail, but also illustrates how they can be combined. It discusses recent applications, but also exposes undergraduates to cutting-edge research topics, such as laser cooling, Bose-Einstein condensation, tunneling microscopes, lasers, nonlocality, and quantum teleportation. Contents: IntroductionOld Quantum TheoryQuantum MechanicsApplications of Quantum MechanicsSchrödinger Equation in Three DimensionsSpin and StatisticsAtoms, Molecules and LasersFormal Structure of Quantum MechanicsSecond Revolution: RelativityFine Structure of the Hydrogen AtomRelativistic Quantum MechanicsQuantum EntanglementSolutions Readership: Students taking undergraduate-level courses in quantum physics and relativity. Keywords: Quantum Physics;RelativityReview: Key Features: Combines Quantum Physics and Relativity. Covers the two subjects in a more coherent way than existing books. Many universities teach quantum physics and relativity together as one lecture course and so a book that covers both but also shows how they can be combined is a valuable resourceModern Choice of Topics. We will draw on topics from our own research to bring the two subjects up to date and give students a taste of cutting edge research. Examples will include such things as laser cooling, Bose condensation, tunneling microscopes, lasers, Bell's inequalities, quantum teleportationHas questions and answers -- ideal for self-study. This is pitched at typical exam level and so will be excellent for exam practice
Download or read book We Have Never Been Modern written by Bruno Latour and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the rise of science, we moderns believe, the world changed irrevocably, separating us forever from our primitive, premodern ancestors. But if we were to let go of this fond conviction, Bruno Latour asks, what would the world look like? His book, an anthropology of science, shows us how much of modernity is actually a matter of faith. What does it mean to be modern? What difference does the scientific method make? The difference, Latour explains, is in our careful distinctions between nature and society, between human and thing, distinctions that our benighted ancestors, in their world of alchemy, astrology, and phrenology, never made. But alongside this purifying practice that defines modernity, there exists another seemingly contrary one: the construction of systems that mix politics, science, technology, and nature. The ozone debate is such a hybrid, in Latour’s analysis, as are global warming, deforestation, even the idea of black holes. As these hybrids proliferate, the prospect of keeping nature and culture in their separate mental chambers becomes overwhelming—and rather than try, Latour suggests, we should rethink our distinctions, rethink the definition and constitution of modernity itself. His book offers a new explanation of science that finally recognizes the connections between nature and culture—and so, between our culture and others, past and present. Nothing short of a reworking of our mental landscape, We Have Never Been Modern blurs the boundaries among science, the humanities, and the social sciences to enhance understanding on all sides. A summation of the work of one of the most influential and provocative interpreters of science, it aims at saving what is good and valuable in modernity and replacing the rest with a broader, fairer, and finer sense of possibility.
Download or read book How I Became a Quant written by Richard R. Lindsey and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-01-11 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for How I Became a Quant "Led by two top-notch quants, Richard R. Lindsey and Barry Schachter, How I Became a Quant details the quirky world of quantitative analysis through stories told by some of today's most successful quants. For anyone who might have thought otherwise, there are engaging personalities behind all that number crunching!" --Ira Kawaller, Kawaller & Co. and the Kawaller Fund "A fun and fascinating read. This book tells the story of how academics, physicists, mathematicians, and other scientists became professional investors managing billions." --David A. Krell, President and CEO, International Securities Exchange "How I Became a Quant should be must reading for all students with a quantitative aptitude. It provides fascinating examples of the dynamic career opportunities potentially open to anyone with the skills and passion for quantitative analysis." --Roy D. Henriksson, Chief Investment Officer, Advanced Portfolio Management "Quants"--those who design and implement mathematical models for the pricing of derivatives, assessment of risk, or prediction of market movements--are the backbone of today's investment industry. As the greater volatility of current financial markets has driven investors to seek shelter from increasing uncertainty, the quant revolution has given people the opportunity to avoid unwanted financial risk by literally trading it away, or more specifically, paying someone else to take on the unwanted risk. How I Became a Quant reveals the faces behind the quant revolution, offering you?the?chance to learn firsthand what it's like to be a?quant today. In this fascinating collection of Wall Street war stories, more than two dozen quants detail their roots, roles, and contributions, explaining what they do and how they do it, as well as outlining the sometimes unexpected paths they have followed from the halls of academia to the front lines of an investment revolution.
Download or read book Introduction to Quantum Information Science written by Vlatko Vedral and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2006-09-28 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In addition to treating quantum communication, entanglement and algorithms, this book also addresses a number of miscellaneous topics, such as Maxwell's demon, Landauer's erasure, the Bekenstein bound and Caratheodory's treatment of the Second law of thermodyanmics.
Download or read book Discipline and Punish written by Michel Foucault and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-04-18 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant work from the most influential philosopher since Sartre. In this indispensable work, a brilliant thinker suggests that such vaunted reforms as the abolition of torture and the emergence of the modern penitentiary have merely shifted the focus of punishment from the prisoner's body to his soul.
Download or read book Liquid Life written by Rachel Armstrong and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If we lived in a liquid world, the concept of a "machine" would make no sense. Liquid life is metaphor and apparatus that discusses the consequences of thinking, working, and living through liquids. It is an irreducible, paradoxical, parallel, planetary-scale material condition, unevenly distributed spatially, but temporally continuous. It is what remains when logical explanations can no longer account for the experiences that we recognize as part of "being alive."Liquid Life references a third-millennial understanding of matter that seeks to restore the agency of the liquid soul for an ecological era, which has been banished by reductionist, "brute" materialist discourses and mechanical models of life. Offering an alternative worldview of the living realm through a "new materialist" and "liquid" study of matter, Armstrong conjures forth examples of creatures that do not obey mechanistic concepts like predictability, efficiency, and rationality. With the advent of molecular science, an increasingly persuasive ontology of liquid technologies can be identified. Through the lens of lifelike dynamic droplets, the agency for these systems exists at the interfaces between different fields of matter/energy that respond to highly local effects, with no need for a central organizing system.Liquid Life seeks an alternative partnership between humanity and the natural world. It provokes a re-invention of the languages of the living realm to open up alternative spaces for exploration, including contributor Rolf Hughes' "angelology" of language, which explores the transformative invocations of prose poetry, and Simone Ferracina's graphical notations that help shape our concepts of metabolism, upcycling, and designing with fluids. A conceptual and practical toolset for thinking and designing, liquid life reunites us with the irreducible "soul substance" of living things, which will neither be simply "solved," nor go away.
Download or read book Computer Meets Theoretical Physics written by Giovanni Battimelli and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-06-17 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a vivid account of the early history of molecular simulation, a new frontier for our understanding of matter that was opened when the demands of theoretical physicists were met by the availability of the modern computers. Since their inception, electronic computers have enormously increased their performance, thus making possible the unprecedented technological revolution that characterizes our present times. This obvious technological advancement has brought with it a silent scientific revolution in the practice of theoretical physics. In particular, in the physics of matter it has opened up a direct route from the microscopic physical laws to observable phenomena. One can now study the time evolution of systems composed of millions of molecules, and simulate the behaviour of macroscopic materials and actually predict their properties. Molecular simulation has provided a new theoretical and conceptual tool that physicists could only dream of when the foundations of statistical mechanics were laid. Molecular simulation has undergone impressive development, both in the size of the scientific community involved and in the range and scope of its applications. It has become the ubiquitous workhorse for investigating the nature of complex condensed matter systems in physics, chemistry, materials and the life sciences. Yet these developments remain largely unknown outside the inner circles of practitioners, and they have so far never been described for a wider public. The main objective of this book is therefore to offer a reasonably comprehensive reconstruction of the early history of molecular simulation addressed to an audience of both scientists and interested non-scientists, describing the scientific and personal trajectories of the main protagonists and discussing the deep conceptual innovations that their work produced.
Download or read book Mr Tompkins in Paperback written by George Gamow and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-26 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since his first appearance over sixty years ago, Mr Tompkins has become known and loved by many readers as the bank clerk whose fantastic dreams lead him into a world inside the atom. This classic provides a delightful explanation of the central concepts in physics, from atomic structure to relativity.
