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3430 results in Popular science

Page 10 of 172

Wicked Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Science and Vision Development for Complex Problems
  • Coyan Tromp
  • Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    16 February 2021
    Print publication:
    01 August 2018
  • Wicked Philosophy. Philosophy of Science and Vision Development for Complex Problems provides an overview of the philosophy of the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities, and explores how insights from these three domains can be integrated to help find solutions for the complex, 'wicked' problems we are currently facing. The core of a new science-based vision is complexity thinking, offering a meta-position for navigating alternative paradigms and making informed choices of resources for projects involving complex problems. The book also brings design thinking into problem-solving and teaching, fostering construction of an integrative approach that bridges structure and action amplified by transdisciplinary engagement of stakeholders in society.

Inside the Politics of Technology
  • Agency and Normativity in the Co-Production of Technology and Society
  • Edited by Hans Harbers
  • Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    24 January 2021
    Print publication:
    02 August 2005
  • Though the old saying claims that man is the measure of all things, the authors of Inside the Politics of Technology argue that the distinction implied between autonomous humans and neutral instruments of technology is an illusion. On the contrary, the technologies humans create simultaneously shape humans themselves.

    By means of case studies of technologies as diverse as video cameras, electric cars, pregnancy tests, and genetic screenings, this volume considers the implications of this co-production of technology and society for our philosophical and political ideas. Are only humans endowed with social.

Gravity Does Not Exist
  • A Puzzle for the 21st Century
  • Vincent Icke
  • Translated by Charlotte Lemmens
  • Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    12 December 2020
    Print publication:
    26 June 2014
  • Every scientific fact was born as an opinion about the unknown - a hypothesis. Opinion gradually becomes fact as evidence piles up to support a theory. But what if there are two theories, each of which has produced a myriad of things that correspond perfectly to the phenomena but can't be combined into one? One theory replaced the mystery of gravity with a precise model of space and time. The other theory replaced the mystery of matter with a description of quantum particles. As we understand our universe, we keep each in its own domain: space and time for very large things, particles for the very small ones. However, 13.8 billion years ago, those two incompatible domains belonged to a single realm. Who in the current or future generations of physicists will crack this seemingly impossible puzzle? This, contends the author, is not just a big question, but the biggest question in physics in our century. Combining Ickes's first-hand knowledge with a robust argument and intellectual playfulness, this fascinating book succeeds in making a notoriously difficult subject accessible to all readers interested in a better grasp of our universe.

Gabelentz and the Science of Language
  • Edited by James McElvenny
  • Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    21 November 2020
    Print publication:
    14 August 2019
  • The German sinologist and general linguist Georg von der Gabelentz (1840–1893) occupies a crucial place in linguistic scholarship around the end of the nineteenth century. As professor at the University of Leipzig and then at the University of Berlin, Gabelentz was present at the main centers of linguistics of the time. He was, however, generally critical of the narrow, technical focus of mainstream historical-comparative linguistics as practiced by the Neogrammarians and instead emphasized approaches to language inspired by a line of researchers stemming from Wilhelm von Humboldt. Gabelentz’ alternative conception of linguistics led him to several pioneering insights into language that anticipated elements of the structuralist revolution of the early twentieth century. Gabelentz and the Science of Language brings together four essays that explore Gabelentz’ contributions to linguistics from a historical perspective. In addition, it makes one of his key theoretical texts, ‘Content and Form of Speech’, available to an English-speaking audience for the first time.

Zootechnologies
  • A Media History of Swarm Research
  • Sebastian Vehlken
  • Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    21 November 2020
    Print publication:
    19 November 2019
  • Swarming has become a fundamental cultural technique related to dynamic processes and an effective metaphor for the collaborative efforts of society. This book examines the media history of swarm research and its significance to current socio-technological processes. It shows that the hype about collective intelligence is based on a reciprocal computerization of biology and biologization of computer science: After decades of painstaking biological observations in the ocean, experiments in aquariums, and mathematical model-making, it was swarms-inspired computer simulation which provided biological researchers with enduring knowledge about animal collectives. At the same time, a turn to biological principles of self-organization made it possible to adapt to unclearly delineated sets of problems and clarify the operation of opaque systems - from logistics to architecture, or from crowd control to robot collectives. As zootechnologies, swarms offer performative, synthetic, and approximate solutions in cases where analytical approaches are doomed to fail.

Showcasing Science
  • A History of Teylers Museum in the Nineteenth Century
  • Martin P. M. Weiss
  • Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    21 November 2020
    Print publication:
    12 March 2019
  • Teylers Museum was founded in 1784 and soon thereafter became one of the most important centres of Dutch science. The Museum’s first director, Martinus van Marum, famously had the world’s largest electrostatic generator built and set up in Haarlem. This subsequently became the most prominent item in the Museum’s world-class, publicly accessible, and constantly growing collections. These comprised scientific instruments, mineralogical and palaeontological specimens, prints, drawings, paintings, and coins. Van Marum’s successors continued to uphold the institution’s prestige and use the collections for research purposes, while it was increasingly perceived as an art museum by the public. In the early twentieth century, the Nobel Prize laureate Hendrik Antoon Lorentz was appointed head of the scientific instrument collection and conducted experiments on the Museum’s premises. Showcasing Science: A History of Teylers Museum in the Nineteenth Century charts the history of Teylers Museum from its inception until Lorentz’ tenure. From the vantage point of the Museum’s scientific instrument collection, this book gives an analysis of the changing public role of Teylers Museum over the course of the nineteenth century.

The Correspondence of Isaac Newton
  • Volume 7, 1718–1727
  • Isaac Newton
  • Edited by A. Rupert Hall, Laura Tilling
  • Published online:
    17 November 2020
    Print publication:
    02 February 1978
  • In this seventh and final volume the letters are divided into two quite distinct groups. The first group begins with the remaining letters of the main chronological sequence written during the closing years of Newton's life, and then proceeds to those few letters to which there is no assignable date with any certainty. The second group of letters, placed in Appendix I, contains corrections and additions to the letters printed in the earlier volumes of the Correspondence. A genealogical table is added to Appendix II to help the reader through the intricacies of Newton's family tree. Even after the creative power of his genius had deserted him, Newton retained to the very end of his long life the characteristic clarity of his thought. Few of Newton's letters in this volume may justly be described as scientific. The relative inactivity of the Mint meant that, although he apparently delegated few of his responsibilities to others, Newton's concerns there were no onerous. Thus it is not surprising that in the last nine years of his life (the period covered in this volume), and particularly from 1725 onwards, there was a decrease in Newton's output of letters; but those which he did write remain as lucid as ever.

The Correspondence of Isaac Newton
  • Volume 6, 1713–1718
  • Isaac Newton
  • Edited by A. Rupert Hall, Laura Tilling
  • Published online:
    17 November 2020
    Print publication:
    22 July 1976
  • As Newton had by now entered his eighth decade, it can be no surprise that the correspondence in this sixth volume shows a marked decline in his activity and intellectual vigour. While the number of extant letters written by him on other that Mint business is relatively small, the majority of them are devoted to his controversy with Leibniz - Newton's dominant interest during this period. The correspondence of Newton shades gradually into the correspondence of the Newtonians. Thus notably Keill, De Moivre, Chamberlayne, Brook Taylor, the Abbe Conti and Des Maizeaux interested themselves in the calculus dispute, all of them (except the first) having frequent opportunities for personal conversation with Newton.

The Correspondence of Isaac Newton
  • Volume 5, 1709–1713
  • Isaac Newton
  • Edited by A. Rupert Hall, Laura Tilling
  • Published online:
    17 November 2020
    Print publication:
    16 October 1975
  • This fifth volume presents the surviving correspondence from the period of almost four years which is, from a bibliographical point of view, the most important time in Newton's life: with Roger Cotes, Newton revised his Philosophise Naturalis Principia Mathematics and saw it through the press. Considered as a single group of letters, the Newton-Cotes correspondence is the largest and most important section of Newton's scientific correspondence that we have. Nowhere else can one witness Newton in a detailed debate about scientific argument and scientific conclusions – a debate from which he did not always emerge victorious. Nowhere else does Newton write in detail about the text of the Principia. And all scholars agree that this text which was hammered out between Cotes and Newton was the most important of all versions, printed and unprinted; this was (to all intents and purposes) the Principia of subsequent history.

The Correspondence of Isaac Newton
  • Volume 1, 1661–1675
  • Isaac Newton
  • Edited by H. W. Turnball
  • Published online:
    17 November 2020
    Print publication:
    02 January 1959
  • This first volume is particularly rich in matters of concern to the historian of science. It shows the young Newton in the plenitude of his powers; he himself wrote of the period at Woolsthorpe, which ended before any surviving letters of real consequence were written, 'for in those days I was in the prime of my age for invention, and minded Mathematics and Philosophy more than at any time since'. The main scientific topics with which these letters deal are the reflecting telescope; the early mathematical work; and the fundamental work on the decomposition of white light by the prism.

The Correspondence of Isaac Newton
  • Volume 3, 1688–1694
  • Isaac Newton
  • Edited by H. W. Turnball
  • Published online:
    17 November 2020
    Print publication:
    01 January 1966
  • This third volume covers the period from December 1688 to August 1694. In January 1688/9 Newton was elected one of the representatives of the University of Cambridge in the Convention Parliament, and much of his time was taken up in dealing with his new responsibilities, as may be gathered from his correspondence with Covel, Vice-Chancellor of the University. The letters in question, which were printed in collected form in 1848, provide a picture of the unsettled period which followed the flight of King James II to the court of Louis XIV, and the landing of William, Prince of Orange, on English soil on 5 November 1688. In 1689 there was a possibility of Newton being appointed to the Provostship of King's College, Cambridge, but the only reference in the Correspondence is to be found in Letter 377.

Page 10 of 172