Libros de Divulgación científica, página 37 de 157

When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? What is the nature of reality? Is the apparent grand design of our universe evidence for a benevolent creator who set things in motion? Or does science offer another explanation? In The Grand Design, the most recent scientific thinking about the mysteries of the universe is presented in language marked by both brilliance and simplicity. The Grand Design explains the latest thoughts about model-dependent realism (the idea that there is no one version of reality), and about the multiverse concept of reality in which there are many universes. There are new ideas about the top-down theory of cosmology (the idea that there is no one history of the universe, but that every possible history exists). It concludes with a riveting assessment of m-theory, and discusses whether it is the unified theory Einstein spent a lifetime searching for. This is the first major work in nearly a decade by one of the worlds greatest thinkers. A succinct, startling and lavishly illustrated guide to discoveries that are altering our understanding and threatening some of our most cherished belief systems, The Grand Design is a book that will inform - and provoke - like no other.

De nuevo, tras su inolvidable ¡Viva la ciencia!, Antonio Mingote y José Manuel Sánchez Ron, compañeros en la Real Academia Española, han unido fuerzas, esta vez para a estudiar, desde la maestría de sus dibujos y sus palabras, todo aquello que esta por encima de nuestras cabezas , el mundo que comenzo a explorar el joven y atrevido Icaro de la mitologia. Todo aquello que esta por encima de nuestras cabezas quiere decir, por supuesto, planetas, estrellas, cuasares, galaxias y otros objetos que pueblan el Universo, pero El mundo de Icaro no se limita, en absoluto, a esto: tambien, y sobre todo, se ocupa de otros ciudadanos de los cielos: de las aves (sin olvidar estudiar de donde surgieron estas en la larga cadena evolutiva de la vida terrestre) y de las maquinas inventadas por los humanos para volar como ellas: globos aerostaticos, aviones y cohetes espaciales. Con placer, los lectores tambien encontraran aqui respuestas a preguntas que todos nos hemos hecho alguna vez; preguntas del tipo ¿como es posible que vuelen pajaros o aviones?, cuestion que lleva a los autores a introducirse en otros mundos, los de pioneros como Leonardo da Vinci, los hermanos Montgolfier, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, los hermanos Wright, Robert Goddard, Wernher von Braun, Sergei Korolev, la perra Laika, Yuri Gagarin o Neil Amstrong y de teoricos como Arquimedes, Bernoulli o von Karman.

Las herramientas para incrementar la productividad industrial son un logro que ha permitido escapar a la humanidad del destino maltusiano del hambre y han dado paso a un continuo incremento de nuestro bienestar. La revolución industrial, asociada a las máquinas, ha quedado atrás. Internet, las redes sociales, la aceleración con la que cada vez intercambiamos más información, y la dependencia que tenemos de ella, nos advierten claramente de que pertenecemos a la sociedad del conocimiento, donde es necesario alcanzar incrementos de productividad semejantes a los logrados durante la revolución industrial. De no ser así, los países, y las personas, quedarán relegados a un lado de la historia. Las herramientas para tal fin, en contra de lo que pudiera pensarse, pertenecen ya al acervo cultural de la humanidad. Nos han venido dadas de la mano de los grandes científicos, creadores, exploradores, de todos aquellos que han colocado la cabeza por delante de las manos: son los trucos de la genialidad, son los trucos que nos pertenecen por herencia. En este libro queremos mostrar las técnicas que amplifican nuestras capacidades mentales igual que la palanca lo hace con las físicas. Como advertimos en la introducción, esas herramientas y procedimientos trabajan en contextos mucho más generales de lo que nos podríamos imaginar, y de ello dan fe los logros de los grandes científicos e inventores de los que aprenderemos los secretos en este libro

World-renowned scientist Francis Collins and fellow scientist Karl Giberson show how we can embrace both science and faith without compromising either. Their fascinating treatment explains how God cares for and interacts with his creation while science offers a reliable way to understand the world he made.

Alain Gold nos ayuda a comprender y desentrañar algunos de los fenómenos científicos con los que convivimos a diario. A través de sus explicaciones amenas y rigurosas podremos (por fin) comprender infinidad de sucesos que, por cotidianos, creemos ya sabidos, pero cuya esencia no siempre sabemos con exactitud. Toda una leccion que nos ayuda a entender las leyes que rigen las pequeñas cosas del mundo en que vivimos.

En septiembre de 1788 los oficiales de la Armada española Alejandro Malaspina y José Bustamante y Guerra presentan al secretario de Marina, Antonio Valdés, un proyecto de viaje científico alrededor del mundo. Malaspina de origen italiano, se planteaba un viaje similar a los que habian realizado tres exploradores europeos tres años antes: James Cook (1768-1777), Antoine de Bougainville (1766-1769) y Farnçois Galaup (1785-1788).El viaje se llevo a cabo durante el reinado de Carlos IV, y dentro del el proyecto presentado al rey, los dos oficiales españoles proponian la ejecucion de diferentes trabajos hidrograficos y astronomicos. Asi mismo sugirieron recoger noticias sobre el estado de las colonias, describir la situacion social de los indigenas y recopilar datos sobre la demografia, el colerico y la situacion politica de los virreinatos.Otro de los objetivos declarados comprendia el estudio de la zoologia y la botanica de cada uno de los paises visitados. La duracion del viaje se estimo en tres años y medio.El CSIC en colaboracion con la editorial Doce calles han editado por vez primera una reproduccion de los dibujos que se llevaron a cabo en esta expedicion por los dibujantes Jose del Pozo, Juan Ravenet, Jose Cardero, Tomas Suria, Jose Guio y Fernando Bambila contratados por la expedicion para plasmar todos los descubrimientos que se realizaron en dichaexpedicion

No és cert que fem servir únicament el 10% del cervell, que en lluna plena neixin més criatures, que els estruços amaguin el cap sota terra o que l'aigua de la pica giri al revés a l'hemisferi sud. Totes aquestes afi rmacions son mites guarnits amb aparença de veritats cientifi ques. Com tots els mites, poden tenir gracia i resultar estimulants per a la imaginacio, pero sempre es important saber distingir entre mite i realitat. En aquest recull podem descobrir el que hi ha al darrere de cent d'aquests mites.

Esta es la apasionante historia de una mujer cuyos tejidos han salvado la vida a millones de personas en todo el mundoSe llamaba Henrietta Lacks. Era una campesina cuyas células, que fueron tomadas sin su conocimiento, siguen vivas a pesar de que ella lleva muerta mas de sesenta años y se han convertido en una de las herramientas mas importantes de la medicina: fueron vitales para el desarrollo de la vacuna contra la polio, desvelaron secretos sobre el cancer o los virus, ayudaron a realizar importantes avances como la fertilizacion in vitro o la clonacion y han sido compradas y vendidas por laboratorios de todo el mundo, generando grandes beneficios economicos a la industria farmaceutica. Sin embargo, su familia, que no puede permitirse pagar un seguro medico, vivio cincuenta años sin conocer la historia de Henrietta, y todavia hoy lucha por defender el legado de su madre y abuela.La periodista y escritora cientifica Rebecca Skloot realiza una apasionante labor de investigacion que nos transporta desde la pequeña y decadente ciudad natal de Henrietta, en los años cincuenta, hasta el Baltimore actual, en un viaje extraordinario que mezcla las vivencias de la actual familia Lacks con la historia de unas celulas que todavia hoy son un misterio de la biologia.

"Todo lo que necesitas saber de ciencia en pequeñas porciones fáciles de digerir Si quieres entender los avances científicos que están cambiando el mundo, éste es tu libro. Su autor, Robert Dinwiddie, ha profundizado en los problemas con los que se enfrenta la ciencia moderna y revela, de forma muy amena, qué hay en juego a la luz de los últimos descubrimientos en los campos de la energía, la materia, la medicina, el medio ambiente y el universo. Bocados de ciencia se divide en 9 capítulos muy completos. Empieza con los elementos con los que está construido el mundo que nos rodea. A continuación, echa un vistazo al universo que podemos observar, resume cómo surgió y describe nuestro planeta y su medio ambiente. Sigue con el cuerpo humano, la salud y los genes, y por último aborda cuestiones complejas y sorprendentes de la física y la cosmología, como la teoría de la relatividad, la teoría de cuerdas y la teoría cuántica. "

Un apasionante viaje por las curiosidades históricas, científicas y técnicas que han acompañado al carismático aventurero. ¿Es posible cruzar un precipicio usando un látigo de cuero? ¿Y arrancarle el

El paper, Internet, l'anestèsia, el pa, l'energia nuclear, els condons, el GPS o l'arc i les fletxes. Si actualment disposem d'un nivell de vida que els nostres avantpassats difícilment podien imagin

En 1788, los oficiales de la Armada española A. Malaspina y A. Valdez proponen un viaje ÓCientífico y Político alrededor del mundo", que salió de Cádiz el 30 de julio de 1789 con destino a Río de la Plata. Durante el periplo se realizaron estudios etnograficos y de costumbres en diferentes puertos, islas y lugares, desde el suroeste de America del Sur hasta America del Norte y el continente australiano, pasando por las islas Filipinas. Algunos de los principales lugares visitados fueron: Montevideo, Puerto Egmont, San Carlos de Chiloe, Callao de Lima, Guayaquil, Panama, Acapulco, Monterrey, Nutka, isla de Guam, Macao y Sidney. Tras cinco años de viaje, la gran empresa retorno a Cadiz en 1794, y, a pesar de ser recibidos con honores, una circunstancia politica dio un giro inesperado, comenzando con la detencion de Malaspina tras su enfrentamiento con el valido Manuel Godoy, y resultando en el Oaprisionamiento" de toda la documentacion de la expedicion hasta 1885, con la edicion mas completa de la informacion generada durante el viaje a manos del academico Pedro de Novo y Colson.

En esta esplendida obra, con un enfoque ameno y riguroso, el autor explora la separación histórica y la actual reconciliación entre ciencia y espiritualidad. A traves de un análisis perspicaz, revela que el siglo XXI es testigo de una creciente convergencia entre estas tradiciones aparentemente dispares. Nos invita a contemplar la nueva cosmovision que impulsa esta reconciliacion y a examinar la evidencia que hara que personas materialistas y religiosas cuestionen sus creencias. Este fascinante ensayo demuestra que la confluencia entre ciencia y espiritualidad es un proceso individual. Desvela como llevar a cabo nuestro propio viaje hacia ese encuentro, abrazando la riqueza de ambas tradiciones humanas. El autor nos invita a formar parte de la transformacion personal y global que esta dando lugar a una nueva y armonica era en la Madre Tierra, donde ciencia y espiritualidad se potencian mutuamente.

This book presents a complete explanation of consciousness and a probable history from inert matter to the formation of single-celled life, then to multicellular and intelligent life and finally describes human consciousness. In this book consciousness is defined and the living effect that corresponds to it is described. It explains consciousness and all its states and characteristics in a very complete way. This book is part of Bepe Popu's Theory of Everything which aims to explain everything from the formation of the universe to the emergence of life, intelligent life, humanity and describes a universal cyclical performance, but the most unusual thing is that the theory en Based on classical physics. According to this theory, reality is constantly changing, since new effects are constantly taking shape, generating a single future reality that is the succession of the previous reality. Probable effects are those that are likely to occur. When these effects come to fruition, they become part of the current reality that will form the future reality. The author maintains that reality is the sum of all concrete effects from probable effects. This means that any specific effect that occurs can be reproduced in the future if the conditions are met, but they will be different effects because they occur in a present different from the previous one because their own probable condition occurs. The author also maintains that concrete effects will continue to be part of future realities, because any present effect will be a cause of future effects and future effects will be causes of the following effects. Thus a continuity is maintained that gives the cumulative character of physical reality.

Existe un acuerdo general entre los especialistas de que el siglo XXI será el siglo de la Biología, así como el siglo XX ha sido el siglo de la Física. Pero, sin duda, el siglo XX no sólo fue el siglo de la Física, sino también el siglo de los genes. En esta reconstrucción histórica de la genética desde 1900, los autores analizan los descubrimientos que en el siglo XX han abierto el camino hacia los avatares del siglo XXI. Los patrones de explicación en genética se han modificado a través del tiempo, debido principalmente al desarrollo de técnicas experimentales, al uso de diferentes organismos y a los nuevos conocimientos o formulación de nuevas teorías. El avance científico ha sido gradual y continúa hasta el presente. Es necesario impulsar discusiones a fondo y difundir el conocimiento acerca de los organismos transgénicos, las terapias génicas, sus posibles riesgos, y aprender de lo que las ideologías eugenésicas han ocasionado en el pasado.

The evolutionary biologist Rob Brooks explores the latest research on intimacy and desire to consider how new technologies and fundamental human behaviors interact He details how existing artificial intelligences can already learn and exploit human social needs and are getting better at what they do

If you want to see what that future might look like Duncan s book is a fun place to start NPR Intensely readable downright terrifying and surprisingly uplifting Vanity Fair 5 books not to miss A fascinating work of imaginative futurology USA Today One of Time magazine s 32 Books You Need to Read This Summer a riveting read One of David Baldacci and Elizabeth Acevedo s best summer reads on USA Today s Today programme A refreshing variation on the will intelligent robots bring Armageddon genre this colourful mixture of expert futurology and quirky speculation does not disappoint Kirkus Reviews What robot and AI systems are being built and imagined right now What do they say about us their creators Will they usher in a fantastic new future or destroy us What do some of our greatest thinkers from physicist Brian Greene and futurist Kevin Kelly to inventor Dean Kamen geneticist George Church and filmmaker Tiffany Shlain anticipate about our human robot future For even as robots and AI intrigue us and make us anxious about the future our fascination with robots has always been about more than the potential of the technology it s also about what robots tell us about being human From present day Facebook and Amazon bot

Enter Ormerod s vital manual Pandora Sykes A statistic packed investigation into a worldwide phenomenon It is no exaggeration to say this book is essential reading for anyone METRO Who better to help us wade through the muddy waters of the great Insta sham ELLE Why Social Media is Ruining Your Life tackles head on the pressure cooker of comparison and unreachable levels of perfection that social media has created in our modern world It uncovers how our relationship with social media has rewired our behavioural patterns destroyed our confidence and shattered our attention spans The book is a rallying cry that will provide you with the knowledge tactics and weaponry you need to find a more healthy way to consume social media and reclaim your happiness

In this lively and entertaining book Donald R Prothero explores the astonishing connections between climate and life through the ages telling the remarkable stories of the scientists who made cruc

Who benefits from smart technology Whose interests are served when we trade our personal data for convenience and connectivity Smart technology is everywhere smart umbrellas that light up when rain is in the forecast smart cars that relieve drivers of the drudgery of driving smart toothbrushes that send your dental hygiene details to the cloud Nothing is safe from smartification In Too Smart Jathan Sadowski looks at the proliferation of smart stuff in our lives and asks whether the tradeoff exchanging our personal data for convenience and connectivity is worth it Who benefits from smart technology Sadowski explains how data once the purview of researchers and policy wonks has become a form of capital Smart technology he argues is driven by the dual imperatives of digital capitalism extracting data from and expanding control over everything and everybody He looks at three domains colonized by smart technologies collection and control systems the smart self the smart home and the smart city The smart self involves more than self tracking of steps walked and calories burned it raises questions about what others do with our data and how they direct our behavior whether or not we want them to The smart home collects data about our habits that offe

Many of the revolutionary effects of science and technology are obvious enough Bertrand Russell saw in the 1950s that there are also many negative aspects of scientific innovation Insightful and controversial in equal measure Russell argues that science offers the world greater well being than it has ever known on the condition that prosperity is dispersed power is diffused by means of a single world government birth rates do not become too high and war is abolished Russell acknowledges that is a tall order but remains essentially optimistic He imagines mankind in a race between human skill as to means and human folly as to ends but believes human society will ultimately choose the path of reason This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Preface by Tim Sluckin

An extraordinarily brave and moving memoir from one of the world s most famous whistle blowers activists and trans women In 2013 Chelsea Manning was sentenced to thirty five years in military prison for the largest leak of classified documents in history The next day Chelsea declared her gender identity as a woman and began to transition In this radically candid memoir Chelsea recounts how her challenging youth led her to join the US Army She writes of the fierce pride she took in her work the risks of the military s queer underground and the wider culture of silence and unaccountability She describes fifty nine days locked in an iron cage after her fateful decision and the community of solidarity she later discovered in prison Above all we see the phenomenal courage and resilience it took to survive and become a global advocate for transparency A terrific read full of unexpected turns and details that counter many of the assumptions made about Manning GUARDIAN Brilliantly told THE TIMES Searing uplifting redemptive NEW YORK TIMES A full and expansive account of Manning s life one which is often harrowing but funny and poignant too DAZED

Why are we more nostalgic in the digital age than ever before

Advances in technology often rely on a world of photons as the basic units of light Increasingly one reads of photons as essential to enterprises in Photonics and Quantum Technology with career and investment opportunities Notions of photons have evolved from the energy packet crowds of Planck and Einstein the later field modes of Dirac the seeming conflict of wave and particle photons to the ubiquitous laser photons of today Readers who take interest in contemporary technology will benefit from learning what photons are now considered to be and how our views of photons have changed in learning about the various operational definitions that have been used for photons and their association with a variety of quantum state manipulations that include Quantum Information astronomical sources and crowds of photons the boxed fields of Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics and single photons on demand the photons of Feynman and Glauber and the photon constituents of the Standard Model of Particle Physics The narrative points to contemporary photons as causers of change to atoms as carriers of messages and as subject to controllable creation and alteration a considerable diversity of photons not just one kind Our Changing Views of Photons A Tutorial Memoir pres

A guide to understanding the inner workings and outer limits of technology and why we should never assume that computers always get it right

Ray Kurzweil one of the world s leading AI researchers innovators and futurists offers a provocative exploration of the most important project in human machine civilisation reverse engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works and using that knowledge to create even more intelligent machines

A leading philosopher seeks to recover common sense as a meeting place to reconcile science and philosophy With her previous books on Alfred North Whitehead Isabelle Stengers not only secured a reputation as one of the premier philosophers of our times but also inspired a rethinking of critical theory political thought and radical philosophy across a range of disciplines Here Stengers unveils what might well be seen as her definitive reading of Whitehead Making Sense in Common will be greeted eagerly by the growing group of scholars who use Stengers s work on Whitehead as a model for how to think with conceptual precision through diverse domains of inquiry environmentalism and ecology animal studies media and technology studies the history and philosophy of science feminism and capitalism On the other hand the significance of this new book extends beyond Whitehead Instead it lies in Stengers s recovery of the idea of common sense as a meeting place a commons where opposed ideas of science and humanistic inquiry can engage one another and help to move society forward Her reconciliation of science and philosophy is especially urgent today when climate disaster looms all around us when the values of what we thought of as civilization and modernity ar

A critical examination of the figure of the neural network as it mediates neuroscientific and computational discourses and technical practices Neural Networks proposes to reconstruct situated practices social histories mediating techniques and ontological assumptions that inform the computational project of the same name If so called machine learning comprises a statistical approach to pattern extraction then neural networks can be defined as a biologically inspired model that relies on probabilistically weighted neuron like units to identify such patterns Far from signaling the ultimate convergence of human and machine intelligence however neural networks highlight the technologization of neurophysiology that characterizes virtually all strands of neuroscientific and AI research of the past century Taking this traffic as its starting point this volume explores how cognition came to be constructed as essentially computational in nature to the point of underwriting a technologized view of human biology psychology and sociability and how countermovements provide resources for thinking otherwise

A brilliantly original exploration of humanity s intimate relationship with technology from the emergence of our species to the emergence of AI and beyond

A compelling biography of Mark Weiser a pioneering innovator whose legacy looms over the tech industry s quest to connect everything and who hoped for something better When developers and critics trace the roots of today s Internet of Things our smart gadgets and smart cities they may single out the same creative source Mark Weiser 1952 99 the first chief technology officer at Xerox PARC and the so called father of ubiquitous computing But Weiser who died young at age 46 in 1999 would be heartbroken if he had lived to see the ways we use technology today As John Tinnell shows in this thought provoking narrative Weiser was an outlier in Silicon Valley A computer scientist whose first love was philosophy he relished debates about the machine s ultimate purpose Good technology Weiser argued should not mine our experiences for saleable data or demand our attention rather it should quietly boost our intuition as we move through the world Informed by deep archival research and interviews with Weiser s family and colleagues The Philosopher of Palo Alto chronicles Weiser s struggle to initiate a new era of computing Working in the shadows of the dot com boom Weiser and his collaborators made Xerox PARC headquarters the site of a grand experiment Throug

With humor easy to understand language and fun illustrations marine scientist Ellen Prager and meteorologist Dave Jones use frequently asked and zany questions about the ocean and atmosphere to combat misinformation and make science engaging and understandable for all

Why do we feel excited afraid and frustrated by algorithms The Feel of Algorithms brings relatable first person accounts of what it means to experience algorithms emotionally alongside interdisciplinary social science research to reveal how political and economic processes are felt in the everyday People s algorithm stories might fail to separate fact and misconception and circulate wishful erroneous or fearful views of digital technologies Yet rather than treating algorithmic folklore as evidence of ignorance this novel book explains why personal anecdotes are an important source of algorithmic knowledge Minna Ruckenstein argues that we get to know algorithms by feeling their actions and telling stories about them The Feel of Algorithms shows how taking everyday algorithmic emotions seriously balances the current discussion which has a tendency to draw conclusions based on celebratory or oppositional responses to imagined future effects An everyday focus zooms into experiences of pleasure fear and irritation highlighting how political aims and ethical tensions play out in visions practices and emotional responses This book shows that feelings aid in recognizing troubling practices and also calls for alternatives that are currently ignored or suppre