Libros de Biografías y estudios de científicos, página 6 de 25

The forgotten garden that inspired Charles Darwin becomes the modern day setting for an exploration of memory family and the legacy of genius Darwin s childhood garden at The Mount in Shrewsbury was the site of some of the great scientist s earliest experiments It was where under the tutelage of his green fingered mother and sisters and the house s knowledgeable gardeners he first examined the reproductive life of flowers collected birds eggs and began to note down the ideas that would lead to his groundbreaking theory of evolution In The Ghost in the Garden Jude Piesse uncovers the lost histories that inspired Darwin s work and how his legacy and the legacies of those around him live on today

Husserl s Missing Technologies looks at the early twentieth century classical phenomenology of Edmund Husserl both in the light of the philosophy of science of his time and retrospectively at his philosophy from a contemporary postphenomenology Of central interest are his infrequent comments upon technologies and especially scientific instruments such as the telescope and microscope Together with his analysis of Husserl Don Ihde ventures through the recent history of technologies of science reading and writing and science praxis calling for modifications to phenomenology by converging it with pragmatism This fruitful hybridization emphasizes human technology interrelationships the role of embodiment and bodily skills and the inherent multistability of technologies In a radical argument Ihde contends that philosophies in the same way that various technologies contain an ever shortening obsolescence ought to have contingent use lives

Peter Russell argues that global communications and the internet are helping to link the minds of humanity together to form a single global brain and consciousness with remarkable potential

Flash crashes Speed dating Instant messaging From the devices we carry to the lives we lead everything is getting faster faster But where did this great acceleration come from And where will it lead In this vitally important new book Robert Colvile explains how the cult of disruption in Silicon Valley the ceaseless advance of technology and our own fundamental appetite for novelty and convenience have combined to speed up every aspect of daily life Drawing on the latest research this book traces the path of this acceleration through our working and social lives the food we buy and the music to which we listen It explains how it s transforming the media politics and the financial markets and asks whether our bodies and the natural environment can cope As we race towards the future into a world packed with new technologies new ideas and new discoveries this scintillating and engrossing book is an invaluable must read guide to the wonders and dangers that await us

Modern information technology permeates and transforms our world far more intensely than most of us realize It highlights major development lines and explains concepts such as artificial intelligenc

A comprehensive overview of developments in augmented reality virtual reality and mixed reality and how they could affect every part of our lives

The revolution is here In breakthrough after breakthrough pioneering physicists are unlocking a new quantum universe which provides a better representation of reality than our everyday experiences and common sense ever could The birth of quantum computers which like Schrodinger s famous dead and alive cat rely on entities like electrons existing in a mixture of states is starting to turn the computing world on its head In his fascinating study of this cutting edge technology first published as Computing with Quantum Cats and now featuring a new foreword John Gribbin updates his previous views on the nature of quantum reality arguing for a universe of many parallel worlds where everything is real Looking back to Alan Turing s work on the Enigma machine and the first electronic computer Gribbin explains how quantum theory developed to make quantum computers work in practice as well as in principle He takes us beyond the arena of theoretical physics to explore their practical applications from machines which learn through intuition and trial and error to unhackable laptops and smartphones And he investigates the potential for this extraordinary science to allow communication faster than light and even teleportation as we step into a world of

It may be surprising to focus on and praise imperfection but in reality perfection is a fiction Every aspect of our technologies is based on understanding and exploiting imperfections in the materials we use Imperfections are key to our use of metals glass electronics computers optical fibres and building materials Catalysis as used throughout chemical industries is dependent on imperfections as are a wide range of modern advances in biology and medicine This book provides examples in each area that are readily understandable to non scientists but also aim to offer a far deeper insight into how the technologies and disciplines advance and operate However once we change our focus from idealised perfection to reality the implications can extend far beyond the realm of the sciences The second part of the book examines the importance of our ability to recognise and adapt to imperfections in such wide ranging areas as cookery successful career development love life and the survival of humanity Using a broad range of accessible examples this book aims to give readers the tools to recognize technological imperfections and apply those lessons to improving several key aspects of our lives crucially enabling them to define a world that will survive curre

We live in the suburban era Well over half of all Americans and two thirds of Canadians live in suburbs Tracts of suburban bungalows ring Sydney and Melbourne Suburban apartments rise on the outskirts of Paris Prague Singapore and Beijing Nearly everyone has a strong opinion about suburbs Folks who love dense cities scorn suburbia while people who like big yards dislike bustling sidewalks and subways Social scientists argue whether contemporary suburbs are losing their luster or if a supposed back to the city trend is a mirage a debate that has been exacerbated by uncertainty over the effects of COVID 19 Suburbs A Very Short Introduction tackles two central questions What is the history behind a suburbanizing world What does the suburban trend mean for society politics and culture Two chapters describe the ways that the new technologies of streetcars trains automobiles and internet have allowed the compact cities of Britain and the United States to grow into sprawling metropolitan regions The following chapters explore the vertical suburbs of Europe and East Asia improvised or do it yourself suburbs in both North America Latin America and suburbs as places of employment The book concludes by exploring criticism and praise of suburbs in popular

fascinating Brian CoxThis is the story of citizen science Where once astronomers sat at the controls of giant telescopes in remote locations praying for clear skies now they have no need to budge from their desks as data arrives in their inbox And what they receive is overwhelming projects now being built provide more data in a few nights than in the whole of humanity s history of observing the Universe It s not just astronomy either dealing with this deluge of data is the major challenge for scientists at CERN and for biologists who use automated cameras to spy on animals in their natural habitats Artificial intelligence is one part of the solution but will it spell the end of human involvement in scientific discovery No argues Chris Lintott We humans still have unique capabilities to bring to bear our curiosity our capacity for wonder and most importantly our capacity for surprise It seems that humans and computers working together do better than computers can on their own But with so much scientific data you need a lot of scientists a crowd in fact Lintott found such a crowd in the Zooniverse the web based project that allows hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic volunteers to contribute to science In this book Lintott describes the exci

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

Se abordan en este libro los problemas relacionados con la sociología y la enseñanza de las ciencias desde una perspectiva de género (sesgos de género, invisibilidad-ocultación, impedimentos y naturalizacion de la situacion de las mujeres en la ciencia). El analisis va acompañado de numerosos ejemplos que ilustran las situaciones planteadas, como la falacia de los hemisferios cerebrales masculino y femenino o la medicina con sesgo de genero. Se trata de una reflexion completamente necesaria para entender los mecanismos que han operado y operan en la ciencia en femenino. Otra parte del libro se ha dedicado a analizar y descifrar los numerosos estereotipos que aparecen en el cine y en las series televisivas respecto al papel de mujeres en la ciencia. Seguramente no nos detenemos suficientemente a analizar el tratamiento, nada inocente, que reciben las mujeres, y que atributos se les da frente a los hombres. Finalmente, la ultima parte reconstruye el itinerario biografico de numerosas mujeres que desde la antiguedad hasta el presente se han dedicado a muchas disciplinas cientificas: botanica, astronomia, matematicas, medicina...

We live in an incredible period in history The Computer Revolution may be even more life changing than the Industrial Revolution We can do things with computers that could never be done before and computers can do things for us that could never be done before But our love of computers should not cloud our thinking about their limitations We are told that computers are smarter than humans and that data mining can identify previously unknown truths or make discoveries that will revolutionize our lives Our lives may well be changed but not necessarily for the better Computers are very good at discovering patterns but are useless in judging whether the unearthed patterns are sensible because computers do not think the way humans think We fear that super intelligent machines will decide to protect themselves by enslaving or eliminating humans But the real danger is not that computers are smarter than us but that we think computers are smarter than us and so trust computers to make important decisions for us The AI Delusion explains why we should not be intimidated into thinking that computers are infallible that data mining is knowledge discovery and that black boxes should be trusted

WINNER OF THE 800 CEO READ BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2015 In the vein of Susan Cain s QUIET and Malcolm Gladwell s DAVID AND GOLIATH HOW TO FLY A HORSE is a smart empowering book that dispels the myths around genius and creativity There is a myth about how something new comes to be that geniuses have dramatic moments of insight where great things and thoughts are born whole Symphonies are composed complete Science is accomplished with eureka shrieks Businesses are built by magic touch The myth is wrong Anyone can create Acclaimed technology pioneer Kevin Ashton takes us behind the scenes of creation to reveal the true process of discovery and how new comes to be From Archimedes to Apple from Kandinsky to the Coke can from the Wright brothers who set out to fly a horse to Woody Allen he exposes the seemingly unremarkable individuals gradual steps multiple failures and countless ordinary and often uncredited acts that led to our most astounding breakthroughs

Praise for the previous edition A relaxed well written and information packed expedition discovering the history of eclipses The Sky at NightA complete guide to the most stunning of celestial sights a total eclipse of the Sun Totality The Great North American Eclipse of 2024 is the most comprehensive source of information photographs and illustrations to help readers understand and safely enjoy all aspects of solar eclipses It includes information on how best to photograph and video record an eclipse as well as abundant maps diagrams and charts as well as covering the science history mythology and folklore of eclipses This new edition focuses especially on the eclipse of April 8 2024 that passes across Mexico the United States and Canada including detailed maps precise locations and weather prospects

In an era of accelerating technology and increasing complexity how should we reimagine the emancipatory potential of feminism How should gender politics be reconfigured in a world being transformed by automation globalization and the digital revolution These questions are addressed in this bold new book by Helen Hester a founding member of the Laboria Cuboniks collective that developed the acclaimed manifesto Xenofeminism A Politics for Alienation Hester develops a three part definition of xenofeminism grounded in the ideas of technomaterialism anti naturalism and gender abolitionism She elaborates these ideas in relation to assistive reproductive technologies and interrogates the relationship between reproduction and futurity while steering clear of a problematic anti natalism Finally she examines what xenofeminist technologies might look like in practice using the history of one specific device to argue for a future oriented gender politics that can facilitate alternative models of reproduction Challenging and iconoclastic this visionary book is the essential guide to one of the most exciting intellectual trends in contemporary feminism

While the working lives of tech entrepreneurs and delivery platform workers seem far removed both are engaged in digital labor What unites their experience and allows us to speak of their work under the same umbrella Is it even possible to talk about digital labor as if it were a single form of work Digital Labor explores these questions and critically examines the economics politics and experiences of workers in these new modes of employment Using a novel definition of the term digital labor Kylie Jarrett explores unpaid user activity platform mediated gig work and formal employment within the digital media industries mapping the common features of these varied practices Applying a critical Marxian lens the book interrogates the structures of exploitation in this sector the organisation of the labor process the dynamics of alienation associated with this work and the commodification of workers lives It also documents the struggle of digital laborers to resist the iniquities and inequalities of their working environments Ultimately the book identifies what is specific about this form of labor and in doing so offers insight into the nature of work as it is being reconstituted in digital capitalism Synthesising an extensive range of studies and s

Enchanting to the point of escapism Simon Ings Spectator Hugh Aldersey Williams rescues his subject from Newton s shadow where he was been unjustly confined for over three hundred years Literary Review Filled with incident discovery and revelation Dutch Light is a vivid account of Christiaan Huygens s remarkable life and career but it is also nothing less than the story of the birth of modern science as we know it Europe s greatest scientist during the latter half of the seventeenth century Christiaan Huygens was a true polymath A towering figure in the fields of astronomy optics mechanics and mathematics many of his innovations in methodology optics and timekeeping remain in use to this day Among his many achievements he developed the theory of light travelling as a wave invented the mechanism for the pendulum clock and discovered the rings of Saturn via a telescope that he had also invented A man of fashion and culture Christiaan came from a family of multi talented individuals whose circle included not only leading figures of Dutch society but also artists and philosophers such as Rembrandt Locke and Descartes The Huygens family and their contemporaries would become key actors in the Dutch Golden Age a time of unprecedented intelle

Like Louis Theroux channelling Margaret Atwood New Statesman A tour of the lurid fringes of the tech world The Times A moreish page turner of a book Herald Imagine if it was possible to have the perfect sexual relationship without compromise eat meat without killing animals have babies without the need to bear them and choose the time of our painless death Life would be better right All over the globe people are trying to make this a reality They want to use technology to solve the thorniest problems of humanity But what if these problems are the very things that make us human Join Jenny Kleeman on an entertaining thought provoking adventure to a place where sex robots and vegan meat are no longer science fiction right here right now

Science A Four Thousand Year History rewrites science s past Instead of focussing on difficult experiments and abstract theories Patricia Fara shows how science has always belonged to the practical world of war politics and business Rather than glorifying scientists as idealized heroes she tells true stories about real people men and some women who needed to earn their living who made mistakes and who trampled down their rivals in their quest for success Fara sweeps through the centuries from ancient Babylon right up to the latest hi tech experiments in genetics and particle physics illuminating the financial interests imperial ambitions and publishing enterprises that have made science the powerful global phenomenon that it is today She also ranges internationally illustrating the importance of scientific projects based around the world from China to the Islamic empire as well as the more familiar tale of science in Europe from Copernicus to Charles Darwin and beyond Above all this four thousand year history challenges scientific supremacy arguing controversially that science is successful not because it is always right but because people have said that it is right