Download or read book The Doomsday Calculation written by William Poundstone and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?, a fascinating look at how an equation that foretells the future is transforming everything we know about life, business, and the universe. In the 18th century, the British minister and mathematician Thomas Bayes devised a theorem that allowed him to assign probabilities to events that had never happened before. It languished in obscurity for centuries until computers came along and made it easy to crunch the numbers. Now, as the foundation of big data, Bayes' formula has become a linchpin of the digital economy. But here's where things get really interesting: Bayes' theorem can also be used to lay odds on the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence; on whether we live in a Matrix-like counterfeit of reality; on the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum theory being correct; and on the biggest question of all: how long will humanity survive? The Doomsday Calculation tells how Silicon Valley's profitable formula became a controversial pivot of contemporary thought. Drawing on interviews with thought leaders around the globe, it's the story of a group of intellectual mavericks who are challenging what we thought we knew about our place in the universe. The Doomsday Calculation is compelling reading for anyone interested in our culture and its future.

Download or read book The Doomsday Equation written by Matt Richtel and published by William Morrow Paperbacks. This book was released on 2015-02-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist and author of A Deadly Wandering comes a pulse-pounding technological thriller—as ingenious as the works of Michael Crichton and as urgent and irresistible as an episode of 24—in which one man has three days to prevent annihilation: the outbreak of World War III. Computer genius Jeremy Stillwater has designed a machine that can predict global conflicts and ultimately head them off. But he’s a stubborn guy, very sure of his own genius, and has wound up making enemies, and even seen his brilliant invention discredited. There’s nowhere for him to turn when the most remarkable thing happens: his computer beeps with warning that the outbreak of World War III is imminent, three days and counting. Alone, armed with nothing but his own ingenuity, he embarks on quest to find the mysterious and powerful nemesis determined to destroy mankind. But enemies lurk in the shadows waiting to strike. Could they have figured out how to use Jeremy, and his invention, for their own evil ends? Before he can save billions of lives, Jeremy has to figure out how to save his own. . . .

Download or read book Genius at Play written by Siobhan Roberts and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-10-29 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A multifaceted biography of a brilliant mathematician and iconoclast A mathematician unlike any other, John Horton Conway (1937–2020) possessed a rock star’s charisma, a polymath’s promiscuous curiosity, and a sly sense of humor. Conway found fame as a barefoot professor at Cambridge, where he discovered the Conway groups in mathematical symmetry and the aptly named surreal numbers. He also invented the cult classic Game of Life, a cellular automaton that demonstrates how simplicity generates complexity—and provides an analogy for mathematics and the entire universe. Moving to Princeton in 1987, Conway used ropes, dice, pennies, coat hangers, and the occasional Slinky to illustrate his winning imagination and share his nerdish delights. Genius at Play tells the story of this ambassador-at-large for the beauties and joys of mathematics, lays bare Conway’s personal and professional idiosyncrasies, and offers an intimate look into the mind of one of the twentieth century’s most endearing and original intellectuals.

Download or read book Last Girl Ghosted written by Lisa Unger and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A five-alarm fire of a situation…the surprises keep coming." —The New York Times Secrets, obsession and vengeance converge in this riveting thriller about an online dating match turned deadly cat-and-mouse game, from the New York Times bestselling author of Confessions on the 7:45 She met him through a dating app. An intriguing picture on a screen, a date at a downtown bar. What she thought might be just a quick hookup quickly became much more. She fell for him—hard. It happens sometimes, a powerful connection with a perfect stranger takes you by surprise. Could it be love? But then, just as things were getting real, he stood her up. Then he disappeared—profiles deleted, phone disconnected. She was ghosted. Maybe it was her fault. She shared too much, too fast. But isn't that always what women think—that they're the ones to blame? Soon she learns there were others. Girls who thought they were in love. Girls who later went missing. She had been looking for a connection, but now she's looking for answers. Chasing a digital trail into his dark past—and hers—she finds herself on a dangerous hunt. And she's not sure whether she's the predator—or the prey. Don't miss The New Couple in 5B, Lisa Unger's newest psychological thriller about a couple that inherits an apartment with a truly chilling past. Looking for more spine-tingling thrillers? Check out these other titles by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger: Under My Skin The Stranger Inside Confessions on the 7:45 Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six The New Couple in 5B (coming March 2024!)

Download or read book Superintelligence written by Nick Bostrom and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This profoundly ambitious and original book picks its way carefully through a vast tract of forbiddingly difficult intellectual terrain.

Download or read book AI Superpowers written by Kai-Fu Lee and published by Harper Business. This book was released on 2018 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AI Superpowers is Kai-Fu Lee's New York Times and USA Today bestseller about the American-Chinese competition over the future of artificial intelligence.

Download or read book Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google written by William Poundstone and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2012-01-04 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and thrown in a blender. The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do? If you want to work at Google, or any of America's best companies, you need to have an answer to this and other puzzling questions. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? guides readers through the surprising solutions to dozens of the most challenging interview questions. The book covers the importance of creative thinking, ways to get a leg up on the competition, what your Facebook page says about you, and much more. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? is a must-read for anyone who wants to succeed in today's job market.

Download or read book Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays written by Elwyn R. Berlekamp and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The 2030 Spike written by Colin Mason and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The clock is relentlessly ticking! Our world teeters on a knife-edge between a peaceful and prosperous future for all, and a dark winter of death and destruction that threatens to smother the light of civilization. Within 30 years, in the 2030 decade, six powerful 'drivers' will converge with unprecedented force in a statistical spike that could tear humanity apart and plunge the world into a new Dark Age. Depleted fuel supplies, massive population growth, poverty, global climate change, famine, growing water shortages and international lawlessness are on a crash course with potentially catastrophic consequences. In the face of both doomsaying and denial over the state of our world, Colin Mason cuts through the rhetoric and reams of conflicting data to muster the evidence to illustrate a broad picture of the world as it is, and our possible futures. Ultimately his message is clear; we must act decisively, collectively and immediately to alter the trajectory of humanity away from catastrophe. Offering over 100 priorities for immediate action, The 2030 Spike serves as a guidebook for humanity through the treacherous minefields and wastelands ahead to a bright, peaceful and prosperous future in which all humans have the opportunity to thrive and build a better civilization. This book is powerful and essential reading for all people concerned with the future of humanity and planet earth.

Download or read book How to Stay Smart in a Smart World written by Gerd Gigerenzer and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-08-02 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to stay in charge in a world populated by algorithms that beat us in chess, find us romantic partners, and tell us to “turn right in 500 yards.” Doomsday prophets of technology predict that robots will take over the world, leaving humans behind in the dust. Tech industry boosters think replacing people with software might make the world a better place—while tech industry critics warn darkly about surveillance capitalism. Despite their differing views of the future, they all agree: machines will soon do everything better than humans. In How to Stay Smart in a Smart World, Gerd Gigerenzer shows why that’s not true, and tells us how we can stay in charge in a world populated by algorithms. Machines powered by artificial intelligence are good at some things (playing chess), but not others (life-and-death decisions, or anything involving uncertainty). Gigerenzer explains why algorithms often fail at finding us romantic partners (love is not chess), why self-driving cars fall prey to the Russian Tank Fallacy, and how judges and police rely increasingly on nontransparent “black box” algorithms to predict whether a criminal defendant will reoffend or show up in court. He invokes Black Mirror, considers the privacy paradox (people want privacy, but give their data away), and explains that social media get us hooked by programming intermittent reinforcement in the form of the “like” button. We shouldn’t trust smart technology unconditionally, Gigerenzer tells us, but we shouldn’t fear it unthinkingly, either.

Download or read book In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman written by William J. Cook and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-09 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of one of the greatest unsolved problems in mathematics What is the shortest possible route for a traveling salesman seeking to visit each city on a list exactly once and return to his city of origin? It sounds simple enough, yet the traveling salesman problem is one of the most intensely studied puzzles in applied mathematics—and it has defied solution to this day. In this book, William Cook takes readers on a mathematical excursion, picking up the salesman's trail in the 1800s when Irish mathematician W. R. Hamilton first defined the problem, and venturing to the furthest limits of today’s state-of-the-art attempts to solve it. He also explores its many important applications, from genome sequencing and designing computer processors to arranging music and hunting for planets. In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman travels to the very threshold of our understanding about the nature of complexity, and challenges you yourself to discover the solution to this captivating mathematical problem.

Download or read book Serious Cryptography written by Jean-Philippe Aumasson and published by No Starch Press. This book was released on 2017-11-06 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This practical guide to modern encryption breaks down the fundamental mathematical concepts at the heart of cryptography without shying away from meaty discussions of how they work. You’ll learn about authenticated encryption, secure randomness, hash functions, block ciphers, and public-key techniques such as RSA and elliptic curve cryptography. You’ll also learn: - Key concepts in cryptography, such as computational security, attacker models, and forward secrecy - The strengths and limitations of the TLS protocol behind HTTPS secure websites - Quantum computation and post-quantum cryptography - About various vulnerabilities by examining numerous code examples and use cases - How to choose the best algorithm or protocol and ask vendors the right questions Each chapter includes a discussion of common implementation mistakes using real-world examples and details what could go wrong and how to avoid these pitfalls. Whether you’re a seasoned practitioner or a beginner looking to dive into the field, Serious Cryptography will provide a complete survey of modern encryption and its applications.

Download or read book Meanwhile written by and published by Amulet Books. This book was released on 2010-03-01 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this choose-your-own adventure graphic novel, a boy stumbles on the laboratory of a mad scientist who asks him to choose between testing a mind-reading device, a time machine, and a doomsday machine.

Download or read book Anthropic Bias written by Nick Bostrom and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropic Bias explores how to reason when you suspect that your evidence is biased by "observation selection effects"--that is, evidence that has been filtered by the precondition that there be some suitably positioned observer to "have" the evidence. This conundrum--sometimes alluded to as "the anthropic principle," "self-locating belief," or "indexical information"--turns out to be a surprisingly perplexing and intellectually stimulating challenge, one abounding with important implications for many areas in science and philosophy. There are the philosophical thought experiments and paradoxes: the Doomsday Argument; Sleeping Beauty; the Presumptuous Philosopher; Adam & Eve; the Absent-Minded Driver; the Shooting Room. And there are the applications in contemporary science: cosmology ("How many universes are there?", "Why does the universe appear fine-tuned for life?"); evolutionary theory ("How improbable was the evolution of intelligent life on our planet?"); the problem of time's arrow ("Can it be given a thermodynamic explanation?"); quantum physics ("How can the many-worlds theory be tested?"); game-theory problems with imperfect recall ("How to model them?"); even traffic analysis ("Why is the 'next lane' faster?"). Anthropic Bias argues that the same principles are at work across all these domains. And it offers a synthesis: a mathematically explicit theory of observation selection effects that attempts to meet scientific needs while steering clear of philosophical paradox.

Download or read book Team Human written by Douglas Rushkoff and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-01-22 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Porchlight’s Management and Workplace Culture Book of The Year “[A] thoroughly fascinating exploration of the long interplay between power and the technologies of communication.” —Adam Frank, NPR Team Human is a manifesto—a fiery distillation of preeminent digital theorist Douglas Rushkoff’s most urgent thoughts on civilization and human nature. In one hundred lean and incisive statements, he argues that we are essentially social creatures, and that we achieve our greatest aspirations when we work together—not as individuals. Yet today society is threatened by a vast antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect. Money, once a means of exchange, is now a means of exploitation; education, conceived as way to elevate the working class, has become another assembly line; and the internet has only further divided us into increasingly atomized and radicalized groups. Team Human delivers a call to arms. If we are to resist and survive these destructive forces, we must recognize that being human is a team sport. In Rushkoff’s own words: “Being social may be the whole point.” Harnessing wide-ranging research on human evolution, biology, and psychology, Rushkoff shows that when we work together we realize greater happiness, productivity, and peace. If we can find the others who understand this fundamental truth and reassert our humanity—together—we can make the world a better place to be human.

Download or read book Spider Star written by Mike Brotherton and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2008-03-04 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an alien race, a race gone for hundreds of thousands of years. But then an archeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon: a weapon that will destroy the entire colony, and its star, if they cannot deactivate it. Evidence at the site suggests that the weapon was created for the ancient Argonauts by another race, a race of traders. And within that evidence are a map of their interstellar trading empire, and the coordinates of their main trading station. Although the information is a hundred thousand years out of date, the only hope for Argo is to send a ship and crew into the unknown, to try to negotiate for a way to shut down the weapon. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book The Day It Finally Happens written by Mike Pearl and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a VICE magazine columnist, “a deeply entertaining—if occasionally horrifying” (Joshua Piven, coauthor of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook) look at how humanity is likely to weather such happenings as nuclear war, a global internet collapse, antibiotics shortages, and even immortality. If you live on planet Earth you’re probably scared of the future. How could you not be? Some of the world’s most stable democracies are looking pretty shaky. Technology is invading personal relationships and taking over jobs. Relations among the three superpowers—the US, China, and Russia—are growing more complicated and dangerous. A person watching the news has to wonder: is it safe to go out there or not? Taking inspiration from his virally popular VICE column “How Scared Should I Be?,” Mike Pearl games out many of the “could it really happen?” scenarios we’ve all speculated about, assigning a probability rating, and taking us through how it would unfold. He explores what would likely occur in dozens of possible scenarios—among them the final failure of antibiotics, the loss of the world’s marine life, a complete ban on guns in the US, and even contact with extraterrestrial life—and reports back from the future, providing a clear picture of how the world would look, feel, and even smell in each of these instances. For fans of such bestsellers as What If? and The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook, The Day It Finally Happens is about taking future events that we don’t really understand and getting to know them in close detail. Pearl’s “well-researched speculations induce daydreams and nightmares and mark [him] as one of his generation’s most interesting writers” (Alec Ross, New York Times bestselling author).