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Physical Science
After Physics presents ambitious new essays about some of the deepest questions at the foundations of physics, by the physicist and philosopher David Albert. The book's title alludes to the close connections between physics and metaphysics, much in evidence throughout these essays. It also alludes to the work of imagining what it would be like for the project of physical science--considered as an investigation into the fundamental laws of nature--to be complete.
Albert argues that the difference between the past and the future--traditionally regarded as a matter for metaphysical or conceptual or linguistic or phenomenological analysis--can be understood as a mechanical phenomenon of nature. In another essay he contends that all versions of quantum mechanics that are compatible with the special theory of relativity make it impossible, even in principle, to present the entirety of what can be said about the world as a narrative sequence of "befores" and "afters." Any sensible and realistic way of solving the quantum-mechanical measurement problem, Albert claims in yet another essay, is ultimately going to force us to think of particles and fields, and even the very space of the standard scientific conception of the world, as approximate and emergent. Novel discussions of the problem of deriving principled limits on what can be known, measured, or communicated from our fundamental physical theories, along with a sweeping critique of the main attempts at making sense of probabilities in many-worlds interpretations of quantum mechanics, round out the collection.
The world is on fire and time for avoiding impending disaster is rapidly running out. This catastrophe has deeply entrenched foundations: a belief in human exceptionalism and human mastery over the Earth. Accelerating technological changes ranging from genetic engineering, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology to biobots, neuroprosthetics, and artificial intelligence are creating new worlds in which human beings will either be radically transformed or become extinct.
After the Human is an ambitious and audacious grand synthesis that weaves together philosophy, theology, quantum mechanics, relativity theory, information theory, ecology, plant and animal cognition, and artificial intelligence to forge a new philosophical vision for the future. Mark C. Taylor calls for replacing human exceptionalism with a theory of radical relationalism, an account of the world in which everything is interrelated and codependent. People, in this telling, are not isolated individuals separated from each other and set apart from the complex world they are destined to dominate but integral parts of a vital web, where differences enrich each other and nourish the greater whole. Ranging from the grounded worlds of dirt and soil to the most abstract realms of quantum ecology, After the Human reveals the alternative intelligences and transformative possibilities that provide hope for life beyond our perilous moment.
A century ago, discoveries in physics came together with engineering to produce an array of astonishing new technologies that radically reshaped the world: radios, televisions, aircraft, computers, and a host of still-evolving digital tools. Today, a new technological convergence--of biology and engineering--promises to create the tools necessary to tackle the threats we now face, including climate change, drought, famine, and disease
World-renowned neuroscientist and academic leader Susan Hockfield describes the most exciting new developments and the scientists and engineers who helped to create them. Virus-built batteries. Cancer-detecting nanoparticles. Computer-engineered crops. Together, they highlight the promise of the technology revolution of the twenty-first century to overcome some of the greatest humanitarian, medical, and environmental challenges of our time.
This classic work in the philosophy of physical science is an incisive and readable account of the scientific method. Pierre Duhem was one of the great figures in French science, a devoted teacher, and a distinguished scholar of the history and philosophy of science. This book represents his most mature thought on a wide range of topics.
Philip Ball, K. C. Cole, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Dan Falk, Courtney Humphries, Ferris Jabr, Katia Moskvitch, George Musser, Michael Nielsen, Jennifer Ouellette, John Pavlus, Emily Singer, Andreas von Bubnoff, Frank Wilczek, Natalie Wolchover, Carl Zimmer
As a young science fiction fan, physicist James Kakalios marveled at the future predicted in the pulp magazines, comics, and films of the '50s and '60s. By 2010, he was sure we'd have flying cars and jetpacks. But what we ended up with-laptop computers, MRI machines, Blu-ray players, and dozens of other real-life marvels-are even more fantastic. In The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics, he explains why the development of quantum mechanics enabled our amazing present day.
In his trademark style, Kakalios uses pop culture examples- everything from the graphic novel Watchmen to schlock horror movies of the '50s-to elucidate some of the most complex science there is. And he brings to life the groundbreaking scientists whose discoveries made our present life possible. Along the way, he dispels the misconception that quantum mechanics is unknowable by mere mortals. It's not magic; it's science!
Sex, after hunger, may be the most powerful motivating force in our lives. It drives us to seek intimate contact with others and to form relationships that may be fleeting or lifelong, blissful or troubled. Yet many mysteries surround sex and sexuality: Why don't we reproduce by virgin birth? Why does so much of our sexual behavior have nothing to do with reproduction? Why isn't everyone heterosexual? How does the brain create sexual arousal? How do sexual kinks develop? Is porn harmful? What is the relationship between sex and love?
In Attraction, Love, Sex, the renowned scholar Simon LeVay introduces readers to a memorable cast of researchers trying to answer these questions and many more. A biologist dredges a New Zealand lake for asexual mud snails. Psychologists measure whether eating a good meal changes a man's idea of female beauty. Physiologists probe orifices with miniature toilet plungers and place lovers in brain scanners. Geneticists reconstruct the sex crimes of Genghis Khan. Neuroscientists create mice whose sexual behavior can be switched on and off. A zoologist traps and releases 260,000 voles and launches a new science of love. LeVay distills vast expertise on the biology and psychology of sex into an engaging and easy-to-understand survey with scientific acumen, a critical eye, and a sense of humor. This book reveals how scientists are unraveling the secrets of sex and, in the process, shattering many traditional ideas and prejudices.
Living is a balancing act. Ordinary activities like walking, running, or riding a bike require the brain to keep the body in balance. A dancer's poised elegance and a tightrope walker's breathtaking performance are feats of balance. Language abounds with expressions and figures of speech that invoke balance. People fret over work-life balance or try to eat a balanced diet. The concept crops up from politics--checks and balances, the balance of power, balanced budgets--to science, in which ideas of equilibrium are crucial. Why is balance so fundamental, and how do physical and metaphorical balance shed light on each other?
Paul Thagard explores the physiological workings and metaphorical resonance of balance in the brain, the body, and society. He describes the neural mechanisms that keep bodies balanced and explains why their failures can result in nausea, falls, or vertigo. Thagard connects bodily balance with leading ideas in neuroscience, including the nature of consciousness. He analyzes balance metaphors across science, medicine, economics, the arts, and philosophy, showing why some aid understanding but others are misleading or harmful. Thagard contends that balance is ultimately a matter of making sense of the world. In both literal and metaphorical senses, balance is what enables people to solve the puzzles of life by turning sensory signals or an incongruous comparison into a coherent whole. Bridging philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, Balance shows how an unheralded concept's many meanings illuminate the human condition.
How scientists through the ages have conducted thought experiments using imaginary entities-demons-to test the laws of nature and push the frontiers of what is possible
Science may be known for banishing the demons of superstition from the modern world. Yet just as the demon-haunted world was being exorcized by the enlightening power of reason, a new kind of demon mischievously materialized in the scientific imagination itself. Scientists began to employ hypothetical beings to perform certain roles in thought experiments-experiments that can only be done in the imagination-and these impish assistants helped scientists achieve major breakthroughs that pushed forward the frontiers of science and technology. Spanning four centuries of discovery-from René Descartes, whose demon could hijack sensorial reality, to James Clerk Maxwell, whose molecular-sized demon deftly broke the second law of thermodynamics, to Darwin, Einstein, Feynman, and beyond-Jimena Canales tells a shadow history of science and the demons that bedevil it. She reveals how the greatest scientific thinkers used demons to explore problems, test the limits of what is possible, and better understand nature. Their imaginary familiars helped unlock the secrets of entropy, heredity, relativity, quantum mechanics, and other scientific wonders-and continue to inspire breakthroughs in the realms of computer science, artificial intelligence, and economics today. The world may no longer be haunted as it once was, but the demons of the scientific imagination are alive and well, continuing to play a vital role in scientists' efforts to explore the unknown and make the impossible real.
Benjamin Franklin is well known to most of us, yet his fundamental and wide-ranging contributions to science are still not adequately understood. Until now he has usually been incorrectly regarded as a practical inventor and tinkerer rather than a scientific thinker. He was elected to membership in the elite Royal Society because his experiments and original theory of electricity had made a science of that new subject. His popular fame came from his two lightning experiments--the sentry-box experiment and the later and more famous experiment of the kite--which confirmed his theoretical speculations about the identity of electricity and provided a basis for the practical invention of the lightning rod. Franklin advanced the eighteenth-century understanding of all phenomena of electricity and provided a model for experimental science in general.
I. Bernard Cohen, an eminent historian of science and the principal elucidator of Franklin's scientific work, examines his activities in fields ranging from heat to astronomy. He provides masterful accounts of the theoretical background of Franklin's science (especially his study of Newton), the experiments he performed, and their influence throughout Europe as well as the United States. Cohen emphasizes that Franklin's political and diplomatic career cannot be understood apart from his scientific activities, which established his reputation and brought him into contact with leaders of British and European society. A supplement by Samuel J. Edgerton considers Franklin's attempts to improve the design of heating stoves, another practical application that arose from theoretical interests. This volume will be valuable to all readers wanting to learn more about Franklin and to gain a deeper appreciation of the development of science in America.
From the cubit to the kilogram, the humble inch to the speed of light, measurement is a powerful tool that humans invented to make sense of the world. In this revelatory work of science and social history, James Vincent dives into its hidden world, taking readers from ancient Egypt, where measuring the annual depth of the Nile was an essential task, to the intellectual origins of the metric system in the French Revolution, and from the surprisingly animated rivalry between metric and imperial, to our current age of the "quantified self." At every turn, Vincent is keenly attuned to the political consequences of measurement, exploring how it has also been used as a tool for oppression and control.
Beyond Measure reveals how measurement is not only deeply entwined with our experience of the world, but also how its history encompasses and shapes the human quest for knowledge.
In clear, engaging language, Gribbin takes us through the history of cosmological discoveries, focusing in particular on the seventy years since the Big Bang model of the origin of the universe. He explains how conflicting views of the age of the universe and stars converged in the 1990s because scientists (including Gribbin) were able to use data from the Hubble Space Telescope that measured distances across the universe.
Photographs do not simply speak for themselves. Their meanings are built through interpretive frameworks that shift over time. Today, photographs of receding glaciers are one of the most well recognized visualizations of human-caused climate change. These images, captured through repeat photography, have become effective with an unambiguous message: global warming is happening, and it is happening now. But this wasn't always the case. The meaning and evidentiary value of repeat glacier photography has varied over time, reflecting not only evolving scientific norms but also social, cultural, and political influences.
In Capturing Glaciers, Dani Inkpen historicizes the use of repeat glacier photographs, examining what they show, what they obscure, and how they influence public understanding of nature and climate change. Though convincing as a form of evidence, these images offer a limited and sometimes misleading representation of glaciers themselves. Furthermore, their use threatens to replicate problematic ideas baked into their history. With clear and compelling writing, Capturing Glaciers ultimately calls for a centering of climate justice and warns of the consequences of reducing the problem of global warming to one of distant wilderness.
Hayles's point is that the almost simultaneous appearance of interest in complex systems across many disciplines―physics, mathematics, biology, information theory, literature, literary theory―signals a profound paradigm and epistemological shift. She calls the new paradigm 'orderly disorder.' This is a timely, informative, and enormously thought-provoking book. -- Nancy Craig Simmons ― American Literature
N. Katherine Hayles here investigates parallels between contemporary literature and critical theory and the science of chaos. She finds in both scientific and literary discourse new interpretations of chaos, which is seen no longer as disorder but as a locus of maximum information and complexity. She examines structures and themes of disorder in The Education of Henry Adams, Doris Lessing's Golden Notebook, and works by Stanislaw Lem. Hayles shows how the writings of poststructuralist theorists including Barthes, Lyotard, Derrida, Serres, and de Man incorporate central features of chaos theory.
