Why does your weather app say “there’s a 10 percent chance of rain” instead of “it will be sunny”? In large part, this is due to the insight of award-winning physicist Tim Palmer, who pioneered the introduction of uncertainty into weather and climate prediction.
Now, he wants to apply it to how we study everything else.
In The Primacy of Doubt, Palmer gives us a revolutionary vision of mathematical uncertainty that provides new insights into a range of practical problems and some of the deepest questions in science and philosophy. He draws connections that are in equal parts unexpected
and fascinating: how ensemble forecasts can predict unpredictability, how the brain uses noise for creative thinking, how the geometry of chaos forces us to rewrite the laws of quantum mechanics, and in so doing reconciles determinism, free will, and moral responsibility.
A tour de force from a brilliant mind, The Primacy of Doubt shows that the fundamental law of the universe might just be to expect the unexpected.
FOR SOME IT LOOKS LIKE MAGIC, FOR OTHERS IT IS A PURE SCIENCE…
- Have you ever felt an interest in the work of Planck, Einstein or Bohr?
- Would you like to understand why everything is energy and what energy really is?
- Or maybe, you want to dive deep into the fascinating science of quantum physics, understand the basics and more advanced aspects?
If you answered 'Yes' to at least one of these questions, then keep reading…
For hundreds of years, scientists of quantum physics have been telling things that looked unrealistic at the time they were living in. These scientists understood that everything is energy and discovered the most unbelievable laws that you are probably already familiar with. Today these scientists are called geniuses and the knowledge they discovered at that time is recognized and well appreciated.
In this book, you will learn the core of quantum physics, everything that these wise men have discovered. The knowledge you are going to put into your head will be explained in an elementary terms and examples so you don't have to think too much about it and spend a lot of time trying to understand it.
Here is just a short brief of this book:
- Complete quantum physics guide for beginners
- Fundamental principles and laws
- The material and non-material world made simple
- 4 sciences that quantum physics apply to
- How is Q.P being used in today's world?
And much much more…
This is a fascinating topic, something unknown to most people. I think you are very interested in it, so don't wait.
Scroll up, click on 'Buy Now' and dive deep into the unknown world of Quantum Physics!
The study of geometry is at least 2500 years old, and it is within this field that the concept of mathematical proof-deductive reasoning from a set of axioms-first arose. To this day geometry remains a very active area of research in mathematics.
This Very Short Introduction covers the areas of mathematics falling under geometry, starting with topics such as Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries, and ranging to curved spaces, projective geometry in Renaissance art, and geometry of space-time inside a black hole. Starting from the basics, Maciej Dunajski proceeds from concrete examples (of mathematical objects like Platonic solids, or theorems like the Pythagorean theorem) to general principles. Throughout, he outlines the role geometry plays in the broader context of science and art.
From cells in our bodies to measuring the universe, big numbers are everywhere
We all know that numbers go on forever, that you could spend your life counting and never reach the end of the line, so there can’t be such a thing as a ‘biggest number’. Or can there?
To find out, David Darling and Agnijo Banerjee embark on an epic quest, revealing the answers to questions like: are there more grains of sand on Earth or stars in the universe? Is there enough paper on Earth to write out the digits of a googolplex? And what is a googolplex?
Then things get serious.
Enter the strange realm between the finite and the infinite, and float through a universe where the rules we cling to no longer apply. Encounter the highest number computable, infinite kinds of infinity and ask whether one infinity can be greater than another. At every turn, a cast of wild and wonderful characters threatens the status quo with their ideas, and each time the numbers get larger.
Two MIT economists show how game theory-the ultimate theory of rationality-explains irrational behavior
We like to think of ourselves as rational. This idea is the foundation for classical economic analysis of human behavior, including the awesome achievements of game theory. But as behavioral economics shows, most behavior doesn't seem rational at all-which, unfortunately, casts doubt on game theory's real-world credibility.
In Hidden Games, Moshe Hoffman and Erez Yoeli find a surprising middle ground between the hyperrationality of classical economics and the hyper-irrationality of behavioral economics. They call it hidden games. Reviving game theory, Hoffman and Yoeli use it to explain our most puzzling behavior, from the mechanics of Stockholm syndrome and internalized misogyny to why we help strangers and have a sense of fairness.
Fun and powerfully insightful, Hidden Games is an eye-opening argument for using game theory to explain all the irrational things we think, feel, and do.
Brian Clegg was always fascinated by Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation series of books, in which the future is predicted using sophisticated mathematical modelling of human psychology and behaviour. Only much later did he realise that Asimov's 'psychohistory' had a real-world equivalent: game theory. Originating in the study of probabilistic gambling games that depend on a random source - the throw of a dice or the toss of a coin - game theory soon came to be applied to human interactions: essentially, what was the best strategy to win, whatever you were doing? Its mathematical techniques have been applied, with varying degrees of wisdom, to fields such as economics, evolution, and questions such as how to win a nuclear war. Clegg delves into game theory's colourful history and significant findings, and shows what we can all learn from this oft-misunderstood field of study.
Death by Dogma is a companion to THE Interview, the transcript of biologist Jeremy Griffith's ground-breaking interview that solves the human condition and saves the world - an interview described by Professor Harry Prosen, a former president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, as 'the most important interview of all time'!
In Death by Dogma, Griffith explains that the Left's dogmatic insistence that everyone behave in a cooperative and loving way makes its advocates feel good but it oppresses and stifles the freedom of expression needed to find knowledge, ultimately self-knowledge, the redeeming understanding of the human condition that actually brings about a cooperative and loving world. Dogma is not the cure, it's the poison because it blocks the search for the rehabilitating understanding of ourselves that's needed to actually save the world. George Orwell's famous prediction that 'If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face [the human mind] for ever' was about to come true - but mercifully, science has finally made it possible to explain the human condition and save us from this makes-you-feel-good-but-is-actually-horrifically-selfish-and-deluded left-wing threat of the Death by Dogma extinction of our species!
This booklet is supported by a very informative website at HumanCondition.com
A fascinating, enchanting and painfully personal look at the meaning of luck, and the way in which it has shaped our shared history and continues to inflect our day to day lives.
What does it mean to be lucky? How might we mitigate the effects of bad luck and maximise those of good? Is there actually such a thing as ‘luck’—some force that intervenes between desire and its consummation, that impedes or hastens it?
To answer these questions, David Flusfeder sets out on a search for the definition of luck. This quest will take him to Siberia, Versailles, the Old Testament desert; play roulette in Baden-Baden with Dostoevsky; visit a Cambridge fairground with Wittgenstein; meet the sixteenth-century poet Thomas Bastard, who challenged Fortune, and lost; find Nietzsche on the slopes of Vesuvius; learn about the pioneers of probability; the twentieth-century art investigators of chance and possibility; and the intensely personal story of his father’s good fortune in escaping war-time Poland. Starting at the British Library in London, and following the dictates of an online randomiser that decided the chapter order, Flusfeder follows in the footsteps of some victors of luck and those who were defeated by it, from ancient times to the modern day.
Luck asks fundamental questions about the world, ourselves, our place in it. In these questions, about our relationships to fortune, to risk, to opportunity, to chance, destiny and fate, we find ourselves deciding who we are and how we might choose to live.
In the domain of Ontology, there are many scholastic theories and discussions which are commonly regarded by non-scholastic writers as possessing nowadays, for the student of philosophy, an interest that is merely historical. This mistaken notion is probably due to the fact that few if any serious attempts have yet been made to transpose these questions from their medieval setting into the language and context of contemporary philosophy. Perhaps not a single one of these problems is really and in substance alien to present-day speculations.
The author has endeavoured, by his treatment of such characteristically “medieval” discussions as those on potentia and actus, essence and existence, individuation, the theory of distinctions, substance and accident, nature and person, logical and real relations, efficient and final causes, to show that the issues involved are in every instance as fully and keenly debated, in an altered setting and a new terminology, by recent and living philosophers of every school of thought as they were by St. Thomas and his contemporaries in the golden age of medieval scholasticism.
And, as the purposes of a text book demanded, attention has been devoted to stating the problems clearly, to showing the significance and bearings of discussions and solutions, rather than to detailed analyses of arguments. At the same time, it is hoped that the treatment is sufficiently full to be helpful even to advanced students and to all who are interested in the Metaphysics of the Schools.
Foucault fue más historiador que filósofo. Tras una investigación laboriosa, concluyó que conocimiento y poder han ido íntimamente ligados a lo largo de la historia. Ilustró esta idea central de su filosofía mediante estudios sobre la locura, la sexualidad, la disciplina y el castigo, argumentando que no existe la verdad absoluta, solo verdades diferentes acerca de la realidad en momentos particulares, verdades que satisfacen las necesidades del poder. En Foucault en 90 minutos, Paul Strathern ha entretejido, en un relato a la vez estimulante e informativo, la vida y las ideas de Michel Foucault. El libro incluye además una selección de escritos de Foucault, una breve lista de lecturas sugeridas para aquellos que deseen profundizar en su pensamiento, y una cronología que sitúa a Foucault en su época y en el marco más amplio de la filosofía.
Galileo y el sistema solar presenta una instantánea brillante de Galileo, su controvertida obra y las desfavorables condiciones históricas contra las que tuvo que trabajar. Ofrece explicaciones claras y accesibles del significado de sus enunciados y de cómo desembocaron en una explicación científica del universo para el siglo XX.
